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| You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. |
| —Deuteronomy 13:4 |
Someone once described an extremely well-educated person as a person who knew more and more about less and less until they knew everything about nothing. I don’t exactly resonate with that sentiment. I happen to believe that education and skills-training has great value. In fact, I had the privilege during my time as the Director of Training for a large insurance company to lead a team that completely revamped the training program, turning it into a skills-based certification program. So, make no mistake, I hold education and skills-training in high regard.
Nevertheless, I can somewhat understand what the person who coined that description of higher level education intended to describe. I have known individuals who had so immersed themselves in knowledge about a particular subject that they could hardly function in the broader world.
A bit of a practical example of that came to mind recently when I read a post on Facebook by someone who had completed seminary training at a liberal seminary, in order to become a pastor. This person argued that many Evangelical Christians pick and choose key passages from the Old Testament that surely do not apply in our modern age. This pastor insisted that the Evangelicals like to quote these Scripture passages even though, in the opinion of the individual writing the Facebook post, they quote the passages out of the context in which the passages originally applied. This liberal seminary-trained pastor asserted that the Old Testament no longer applies to today.
As I read this Facebook post, I did a bit of a double-take at this last assertion. I did so because the entirety of Scripture—Old Testament and New Testament—provides us with what scholars call “the whole counsel of God.”
Of course, certain rules and regulations contained within the Mosaic Law no longer apply to us because—when God sent His Son, Jesus, to earth—a New Covenant was established. At the same time, as Romans 11 clearly states, God has grated us Gentile believers into the vine of His chosen people, the Jews. We remain Gentiles. But, God has chosen us, just as surely as He chose the people of Israel to be His special ones.
The point I am leading to lies in the fact that as “Christ’s-ones,” we have much to learn from, and to cling to, the truth contained in the pages of the Old Testament. A case in point is the Scripture verse at the beginning of this blog post. This verse from the Mosaic Law found in the Book of Deuteronomy—the last Book of the Torah—gives us instruction that certainly applies to our walk with God today.
Notice the elements of this verse:
- Walk after the Lord your God
- Fear Him
- Keep His commandments
- Obey His voice
- Serve Him and hold fast to Him
As we begin our walk with God each day, these five precepts certainly have great power to guide our lives. As enabled by the Holy Spirit, who dwells within us, we can move through the events of each day following a pathway that is marked by obedience: in our walk, in our reverence to God, in our obedience to His commandments, in listening for Him speaking to the depths of our innermost being, in serving Him and holding fast to Him. Most surely, those marching orders give us a wise way to live.
