My wife just hosted over 40 women for a baby shower and her gift of hospitality amazes me. She knows how to make things beautiful. She knows how to make people feel welcome. Her gift of hospitality works to bless people when they enter into our home.
God has the ultimate gift of hospitality. He knows how to make things beautiful—just look around at a green forest, a snow-capped mountain, or sunset sky. The Creator of all also knows how to make people feel welcome by the love He offers when we enter into His Presence.
The Torah portion for this week is Ki Tavo, which in Hebrew means “When You Enter In.” While last week the parashah was about “going out” to fight in battle, this week it is about “entering in” to a promised inheritance.
Entering into a promised inheritance requires following the guidelines set out by the One Who made the promise through covenant. God is the Covenant Maker. He is also the Covenant Keeper. God consistently calls His people—Israel and all those “grafted in” by faith—to follow Him.
Follow ADONAI your God
I want to focus this article on the opening 11 verses of the parashah and the relational phrase “ADONAI your God.” This phrase shows up nine times in these opening 11 verses. In the text below, I put all the phrases “ADONAI YOUR GOD” in capital letters to help you see them. Following the Biblical text, I will draw out four implications about worship that struck me when I noticed something interesting. The person who says “ADONAI your God” in verse 3 is different than the one speaking in all the other instances. Remember that.
Read this isolated verse and get the scene in your mind. As an ancient Israelite and after entering the Promised Land, you take your firstfruits offering to the Priest as an act of obedience and worship.
You are to go to the kohen [priest] in charge in those days and say to him, “I declare today to ADONAI YOUR GOD, that I have entered into the land ADONAI swore to our fathers to give us.” (Deuteronomy 26:3)
If you put yourself in the text, this relational phrase in verse 3 would be spoken BY you. All the other eight instances of “ADONAI your God” are spoken TO you by Moses. Moses was God’s prophet raised up to lead and liberate the children of the covenant and he is speaking just outside the Promised Land. Here’s the full text:
(26:1) Now when you enter the land that ADONAI YOUR GOD [ADONAI Elohecha,יהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ] is giving you as an inheritance, and you possess it and dwell in it, (2) you are to take some of the first of all the produce of the soil, which you gather from your land that ADONAI YOUR GOD is giving you, put it in a basket and go to the place ADONAI YOUR GOD chooses to make His Name dwell. (3) You are to go to the kohen [priest] in charge in those days and say to him, “I declare today to ADONAI YOUR GOD, that I have entered into the land ADONAI swore to our fathers to give us.” (4) The kohen [priest] is to take the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of ADONAI YOUR GOD.
(5) Then you are to respond before ADONAI YOUR GOD, “My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down to Egypt and lived there as an outsider, few in number. But there he became a great nation—mighty and numerous. (6) The Egyptians treated us badly, afflicted us, and imposed hard labor on us. (7) Then we cried out to ADONAI, God of our fathers, and ADONAI listened to our voice and saw our affliction, our toil and our oppression. (8) Then ADONAI brought us out from Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror, and with signs and wonders. (9) He brought us to this place and gave us this land—a land flowing with milk and honey. (10) So now, look! I have brought the first of the fruits of the soil that YOU HAVE GIVEN ME, ADONAI.” Then you are to set it down before ADONAI YOUR GOD and worship before ADONAI YOUR GOD.
(11) You will rejoice in all the good that ADONAI YOUR GOD has given to you and to your house—you, the Levite, and the outsider in your midst. (Deuteronomy 26:3-11, TLV)
Did you notice the Offeror is the one who is to speak these words “ADONAI your God” in verse 3? The Offeror is the one speaking these relational words to the priest. Thus, it’s the God of Israel’s Priest, not “my God” or the God of the Offeror. Not yet. Cultivating this identification with Israel’s God is the point of the entire script! Helping the child of the covenant enter more deeply into right relationship with their Creator and Redeemer—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob/Israel is what I believe is a main purpose of this whole transaction of scripted firstfruits offering.
In all the other instances in this passage, it is Moses—the Prophet and Leader—who is giving these life-giving instructions about worship to the future Offeror. Go back above and read it yourself and confirm for yourself. (Please always check what I say against God’s word and if they ever differ, toss out my words!) Climatically, the final verse makes clear that God’s desired result of this three-way relational dynamic between the Offeror, the Priest, and God is overflowing joy among the people of God. Overflowing Joy.
I like to define “Joy” in terms of mutually savoring the goodness of God—RD4KB style and as a sweet fruit of holy relational intimacy—with God and others! Furthermore, holy intimacy with God is another way to define what true worship is really all about. True worship thus involves getting to know God better—relational intimacy—not just getting to know more about God informationally.
But let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and KNOWS ME, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I DELIGHT, declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 9:24)
…the JOY of ADONAI is your strength. (Nehemiah 8:10)
The Posture of Worship: GIVING (vv. 1-4)
In the text above, Moses is speaking to God’s covenant community on the edge of the Promised Land and giving instructions about future offerings of firstfruits. God wanted each individual Israelite to adopt a posture of worship through giving God the first and best portion of their provisions. He wanted His people to adopt a posture of worship through sacrificial giving.
We also can adopt a posture of worship through sacrificial giving by recognizing that God owns everything. Additionally, we are His ambassadors here on earth. As His image-bearing representatives, our choices reflect our priorities. I want to prioritize my relationship with God in everything I do. This includes giving God the first and best portions of my provisions. Doing so strengthens my posture of worship and deepens my intimacy with God.
The Grounds of Worship: HISTORY (vv. 5-9)
Almost 500 years are summarized in the next section. In these verses, Moses essentially gives a script to the future Israelites to recite as they come and bring their firstfruit offerings. The script walks through this history of God’s relationship with His covenant people and helps the Offeror step into this relational continuity with God from Patriarch to Promised Land.
This 500 year rehearsal of history moves through four stages of redemptive history and relational dynamics between God and people. This history begins with helping the Offeror personally identify with the origins of God’s relationship with the patriarchs (there are debates about whether the “wandering Aramean” whom the Offeror must call “my father” is Abraham or Jacob). The second stage moves to the painful, but preparatory, season of suffering in slavery under the strong hand of a cruel tyrant. The third stage of redemptive history moves to personally identifying with God’s merciful deliverance from Egyptian bondage and the final stage is reciting and remembering God’s gracious giving of land and all its provision.
You may say in your heart,
“My power and the might of my hand has made me this wealth.”
Rather you are to remember ADONAI YOUR GOD, for it is He who gives you power to make wealth, in order to establish His covenant that He swore to your fathers—as it is this day. (Deuteronomy 8:17-18)
The Intimacy of Worship: RELATIONAL DEPTH (v. 10)
The next verse contains the final portion of script for the future Israelite to recite during the firstfruits offering—a relational transaction intended to promote intimacy between the Offeror and God.
So now, look! I have brought the first of the fruits of the soil that YOU HAVE GIVEN ME, ADONAI. (Deuteronomy 26:10a)
After cooperating with the Priest to sacrificially give God the first and best of his provisions and then recite a history designed to bring the Jews—and later the Gentiles—back into intimate relationship with God, the Offeror now concludes the speech by bringing historical realities into perspective with personal relevance. “I have brought…You have given me” and I now affirm and call You by Name—ADONAI.
Relational depth between Offeror and God, mediated by the Priest. This is true intimacy!
This is a picture of rightly ordered community designed to restore all things and bring Kingdom breadth. This is true community!
This is deep stuff. Pause to soak it in. God is not only present in history. He is present now—and is seeking relational depth with all those with ears to hear and hearts that are humble.
You will seek ME and find ME, when you seek ME with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:13)
In the middle of the prescribed speech, the Offeror says a small phrase in verse 7 that has dramatic implications. In the middle of the speech to the Priest, spoken in the Presence of God, the Offer describes ADONAI—the God Who sees our suffering and hears our cries—as the “God of our fathers.” Our fathers. Yours and mine. In declaring a shared relationship with the God of the Priest, the Offeror now moves deeper into the intimacy with God that is the Offeror’s true inheritance. (Spoiler alert…God is our true inheritance too!)
The Result of Worship: JOY (v. 11)
The last verse in this section describes God’s goal for rightly ordering His people into community united around obeying His commands.
(11) You will REJOICE in all the good that ADONAI your God has given to you and to your house—you, the Levite, and the outsider in your midst. (Deuteronomy 26:11)
The Hebrew makes it clear in this verse that the three categories of people listed at the end of this verse are clarifying communal bonds. When God provides for you, He also wants you to provide for those over whom He’s given you relational responsibility. Those in “your house” are those to whom you have a responsibility for mutual care and concern. God makes clear that “household” is more than those who live within the four walls of your house. The are the people in your community.
The Levites and the Outsider.
The Levites included all the children of Levi, from whom the Priests came through the smaller family line of Aaron, Moses’ brother. The result of this scripted firstfruits offering is joy. This choreographed worshipful transaction was for joy. Joy in the heart and the household. Joy in the community. Overflowing joy. Thus, this week’s portion focusing us on what it means to “enter in” to God’s inheritance begins with a relational transaction intended to promote intimacy between Offeror and God designed to culminate in overflowing joy in God’s rightly ordered community.
Chose sacrificial giving because you can’t outgive God. Remember your history because by doing so you get better prepared for your destiny. Pursue Relational depth—and God will bring the Kingdom breadth of heavenly expressions here on earth. Finally, “rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4)
Blessings to you and your household this week as you contend for joy and enter more deeply into your inheritance!
Readings for the Week:
Torah: DEUTERONOMY 26:1–29:9 [8 TANACH]
Prophets: ISAIAH 60:1–22
Apostolic Writings: LUKE 21:1–4
Click HERE for the online Parashah commentary. (If you prefer a printed copy, please email me at thomas@faithforall.org)
Shalom,
Thomas