Description: The 2021 enditnow NAD Summit on Abuse is livestreaming from the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s North American Division headquarters in Columbia, Maryland, and is a mix of live presentations and prerecorded sessions. The summit will stream in English on November 14, and in Spanish on November 15. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvUy5bKoN54
Segni di vita
Meditazione a cura dei Giovani e Compagnon della chiesa di Firenze Testo: Ebrei 2:19-22 Registrato presso la comunità di Firenze il 13 novembre 2021 Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHs9p75js5U
White Coat Ceremony Dedicates Inaugural Class at School of Medicine in Rwanda
Our hostess added wine to a recipe—and I don’t use alcohol
15 November 2021 | Dear Aunt Sevvy, Recently we went to the house of some Adventist friends from church for dinner. As I was with her in the kitchen, I saw her open a cupboard. She was standing so her body partially blocked it, but I saw her take out a bottle, and pour some […] Source: https://atoday.org/74484-2/
Tuesday: Life and Good, Death and Evil, Blessings and Curses
Toward the end of the book of Deuteronomy, after a long discourse on what will happen to the people if they disobey the Lord and violate the covenant promises, Deuteronomy 30 begins with a promise that even if they fell into disobedience and were punished with exile, God would nevertheless restore them to the land.
That is, if they repented and turned from their evil ways.
Read Deuteronomy 30:15-20. What are the options presented to ancient Israel here, and how do these options reflect what we have seen all through the Bible?
Image © Dave OConnell at Goodsalt.com
The Lord is very clear: He, Yahweh, has set before them one of two options, basically what He did with Adam and Eve in Eden. In fact, the Hebrew words for “good” (tov) and “evil” (ra‘) in Deuteronomy 30:15 are the same Hebrew words used in Genesis for the tree of the knowledge of “good” (tov) and “evil” (ra‘). Here, as in all through the Bible, there is no middle ground, no neutral place to be. They will either serve the Lord and have life, or they will choose death. It’s the same for us, as well.
Life, goodness, blessing, in contrast to what? Death, evil, and curses. In the end, though, one justly could argue that God really offers them only the good, only life, and only blessings. But if they turn away from Him, these bad things will be the natural result, because they no longer have His special protection.
However we understand it, the people are presented with these options. It’s very clear, too, the reality of their free will, their free choices. These verses, along with so much of the Bible, Old and New Testament, make no sense apart from the sacred gift of free will, free choice.
In a real sense, the Lord said to them: Therefore, with the free will that I have given you — choose life, choose blessing, choose goodness, not death, evil, and curses.
It seems so obvious what the correct choice would be, doesn’t it not? And yet, we know what happened. The great controversy was as real then as it is now, and we should learn from Israel’s example what can happen if we don’t give ourselves wholly to the Lord and choose life and all that this choice entails.
| Read Deuteronomy 30:20. Notice here the link between love and obedience. What must Israel do in order to be faithful to the Lord? How do the same principles apply to us today? |
Amen!
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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/tuesday-life-and-good-death-and-evil-blessings-and-curses/
