Slices of Deuteronomy: CFM with SAM

 Welcome! pull up your deut and lets get slicing!

The evolution narrative vs the dispensation narrative

Bottom line up front: The chapters and verses you are about to read emphasize that that which is taught to us today is that which was taught to the Israelites in the dispensation of Moses; it's the same gospel. The same first commandment, the same prophecies of Christ, the same heed to prophets and the commandments of God and anyone looking with the spirit could be told these things.

Some days it seems like academics are hard-welded to studying the scriptures as though the central figure, God, doesn't actually exist. Like studying McDonalds but ignoring burgers. You might explore why people keep coming to this place, develop theories on what motivates them, what comforts, they may be trying to obtain, or what past traditions led to them to think of McDonalds as a daily Mecca. the people who actually go to McDonald's would probably give these people a good shake (pun not intended) and tell them 'Its the burger, you num-nuts, we go because we want a burger!"

Part of the reason that academism has a hard time seeing God in the scriptures is because their methods are severely limited to only what they can observe from their limited vantage points, and of that, they feel like they are on shaky ground if they move away from anything strictly material. So its no wonder that they wander around like a blind person at mid-day, and can't figure out where the metaphorical gospel burger fits in the picture.

On a more charitable note, they have a point; God Himself told us that he was too much to take in for simple mortals - we can't understand it all. We have to build our understanding piece by piece through the methods that we know. So as we personally and culturally comprehend the nature of God better, we leave a glowing trail of evidence of change and evolution toward worshipping in different ways and highlighting different doctrines. the Academists home in on this like a blood hound and build their theories off this cultural exhaust we leave in our wake.

This leads me to the main discussion point I would like to highlight. We (members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and many other christians to a more limited extent) see the narrative of the world as a series of dispensations with God at the center, opening light and knowledge from heaven according to the openness of the people and the righteous seeking of certain noble and great ones who can help bring this knowledge to a culture, and subsequently sealing up these things and closing the heavens as the people's hearts are hardened. for us, it is the same story and same gospel over and over again, just to different people. One God, one Faith one Baptism for all generations.

The Academicians put man at the center, and a kind of clueless, sign-seeking type of man at that. They observe how certain traditions built up over time, and certain knowledge was codified sometimes by practicality and superiority, other times by fiat and force, and how a "God" narrative and subsequent religious tradition developed over time to what we have today.

As I mentioned before, however flawed the academicians approach, they do have a point based on certain observed phenomena. I believe that while we have lost many plain and precious things yet to be rediscovered, we have also evolved our understanding of God over time and can articulate some things that past dispensations would find very revealing, not simply similar to their own light and knowledge. So we could dig into how the Academics are right and wrong and how we are right and wrong for a long time. What I would like to bring your attention to are the teachings in these chapters highlighted that were the same teachings before in past dispensations, the same teachings in the dispensation of the fullness of grace at the meridian of time, and our current dispensation of the fullness of times.
Bottom line: its the same gospel. The same first commandment, the same prophecies of Christ, the same heed to prophets and the commandments of God and anyone looking with the spirit could be told these things.

Some more zingers

There are some hard words about prophets in these chapters. Prophets need to walk up to their covenants as we need to walk up to ours. Luckily, we don't have the power or the authority to condemn them if there is a problem, that's all up to God. We just need to follow them, and heed the scripture and the spirit in our actions so that we can come closer to God.

The first great commandment in in Deut 6:5
Deut 30:19 a particularly apropos commandment to choose life, with all its implications
Duet 29:29 - posted below

29 The ^asecret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are ^brevealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.

The seven years

God set up a time of renewal every seven years where debts were forgiven, slaves freed, etc. every 49th year, there was an entire jubilee year which renewed a set of seven year cycles.
Applied to society today, that would require a complete financial restructuring of our economy, but, while the implications are probably to massive to know without actually trying it, I believe it would be one of the solutions society is so desperately searching for to eliminate debt bondage and allow lower classes a chance at both having credit, and also at not being bound to predatory or simply bad lending practices their entire lives. We likely live in a debt-structured world that is very much the way of Babylon. Some of these simple things we learn in Deut may be our way to Zion.