God Cares about Our Worship -- a warning in Deuteronomy 12
- mww
- 1 day ago
- 19 min read
Updated: 11 hours ago
The world wants to corrupt our worship.
Bible Study Ideas and Commentary for Deuteronomy 12
Moses' second speech to the people focuses on a long list of statutes related to the Ten Commandments in practice. This week's passage focuses on the first three commandments -- not letting foreign gods or their false religions infiltrate the Jews' relationship with the One True God. Moses implores them to pay careful attention to what they listen to.
Be careful to do everything I command you; do not add anything to it or take anything away from it. (12:32)
Getting Started: Things to Think About
Set Apart / Not Set Apart
We all know that Christians have been called to be "set apart" from the rest of the world. We don't always know what that means, and we're not always good at doing it. This becomes a pretty long topic if you choose to use it:
What does it mean to be set apart?
What are ways Christians have been called to be set apart?
What are the hardest ways for you personally to be set apart?
In this week's passage, Moses exhorts the Jews to be set apart from their pagan neighbors. Pay attention to the specific areas he talks about; what might those ancient examples tell us today?
Worship in the Great Outdoors
Have you ever been a part of an outdoor worship service? Or, are you the person who says that you don't need to "go to church" to worship? (because you're fishing or hunting?) Well then, what are the blessings and challenges of those practices?
I bring this up because I just read an article about it in this week's Baptist Press:
I can't put my observation any better than the pastor did:
It’s what our enemy loves to do, take something that God has created and that is intended to point us to worship of the Creator and turn it into an idol that becomes the object of worship.
That's basically a modern restatement of what Moses tells us in this week's passage.
Discussion Idea that Doubles as a Big Idea:
I Want to Worship like *THEY* Worship
Caution! This is one of those topics that could go off the rails. I have been in worship leadership for about 25 years, so I've heard it all and responded to it all. I'm pretty comfortable with this topic. But you might not be, and that's okay! This topic will almost certainly come up in our Bible study, so I doubt you can avoid it. If you're not sure how to handle this, perhaps just write down ideas and questions from your group and send them to me (or a pastor in your church) for response.
What are worship practices you have experienced in person or seen on tv that you think should be considered for your church? But with that, I would insist on two bits of data:
Why do you think that this idea would be appropriate for your church?
What biblical support can you give in defense of your suggestion?
In this week's passage, Moses warns of a certain impulse his people must avoid: "How did these nations worship their gods? I'll also do the same." The truth is that people just naturally check out what other people are doing. If it looks cool or fun or interesting, they'll consider doing it themselves. It's a normal impulse -- but it becomes a concern when people do it uncritically.
Let me add another wrinkle to this. I'm writing from a Baptist church context. We are in the Free Church Tradition, meaning that we do not have a hierarchy telling us how to worship. We believe that the freedom in Christ taught in the New Testament is real. As Christians, and as a community of Christians (a local church), we have direct access to God and direct personal responsibility to God. (In other words, we don't need anybody to tell us how to worship, but also we can't blame anybody else for what happens in our worship services.)
If you were to ask, "What pagan influences are there in our church's worship?" you'd get a lot of blank stares and probably some tired conspiracy theories. So let's set that narrow topic aside and broaden this out to all influences in church worship.
Right now, I see three primary streams of influence. I wonder if you would agree or disagree.
(1) The Megachurch Influence
This one is pretty obvious. Many churches are influenced by the larger church down the road, who are in turn influenced by the larger church in the big city, and so on. Eventually, that wraps up into the few of the largest churches in the world.
Is there anything wrong with that? Not necessarily. But are we aware of what has influenced them? Long story short, in a gathering of megachurch size, their priority necessarily becomes accessibility, broad appeal, charismatic leadership, and slick production. That means that megachurches are naturally influenced by stadium concerts and pop music. Are those influences your church is comfortable with?
(2) The Liturgical Influence
I did a master's thesis on a man named Robert Webber, one of my favorite authors in the Christian worship sphere. His goal was what he called "ancient-future worship", meaning recovering the ancient patterns of worship for a modern context. And this shows up today in certain free churches taking on older, liturgical patterns (as this article describes):
Again, is there anything wrong with that? Not necessarily. But are we aware of what has influenced them? There's some Jewish influence, and there's even some pagan influence, but mainly it's been influenced by the genius of a few key creators. And some of those creators had theological priorities that might not be the same as your church's.
(3) The Traditional Influence
This is the one I expect most of you to have thought of immediately. Most of our churches are the most heavily influenced by what we did "yesterday". This is why there is still "unique flavor" among our Baptist churches (although that's inexorably changing as we are influenced by the same megachurches).
And again, is there anything wrong with that? Of course not. Not necessarily. But are we aware of what influenced our church in the past?
My point with this discussion is this: everything we do, it is our responsibility to evaluate it against the Bible. We do not get to blame anybody else for what we do in our churches. God is not interested in "that big church does it, so we thought we should too".
I've got one more set of influences for you to consider:
(4) The Government Influence
One of my most eye-opening lessons came when I realized that many free churches are more influenced by the government's calendar than by any Christian calendar. Churches that have no idea about Pentecost or Holy Week nonetheless faithfully celebrate Thanksgiving and Memorial Day and Mother's Day.
Is there anything wrong with that? Not necessarily. But -- and let me change my question here -- are we letting those things crowd out the worship of God? For example, this Sunday is our celebration of Veteran's Day, but our goal is to weave that recognition into our primary Sunday priority, which is to worship God.
(5) The Social Causes Influence
This one becomes a bigger deal the more liberal a church slides on the spectrum. There are lots of important causes in our world, including causes that Christians should take very seriously. And some churches put those causes front-and-center in their worship services.
Is there anything wrong with that? Well, if you are emphasizing them at the expense of emphasizing the worship of God, yes. "Worship services" in those settings begin to look more like a rally than a worship service. And no, that's not following the Bible.
(6) Whatever This Is
The further a church gets from the Bible, the more likely you're going to find something like this:
Like me, you're going to think this is fake. That's why I searched for the church and then found this service on their YouTube page. I could give you the link to their official, original, unedited YouTube post from 2022, but I'm not going to. (I doubt you want it in your watch history.) But as mortifying as that video is, are you really surprised?
If you do choose to use this topic as a discussion idea, please wrap it up with an exhortation like this: "Moses implored the people not to be influenced by the world when they set their practices for God's worship. That is still true of Christians today. Are we being intentional about evaluating our practices of worship, confirming that they are being shaped primarily by God's Word?"
Where We Are in Deuteronomy
Last week, we studied chapter 6 -- the Shema -- which is the foundation of this "second speech" of Moses. Here's the outline I shared last week of the second speech:
The Importance of Obedience
Introduction (4:44-49)
The Ten Commandments (5:1-33)
The Shema (6:1-25) - LAST WEEK
Drive out the inhabitants (7:1-26)
Remember to obey (8:1-20)
Remember the failure of the golden calf (9:1-29)
Fear the Lord (10:1-22)
Obey the Lord (11:2-32)
What the Ten Commandments Look Like in Practice
I-III - proper worship (12:1-14:29) - THIS WEEK
IV - holy time (15:1-16:17)
V - respect for authority (16:18-18:22)
VI - human life (19:1-22:12)
VII - sexuality (22:13-23:14)
VIII - theft and society (23:15-24:7)
IX - justice and society (24:8-25:4)
X - covetousness (25:5-26:15)
Consequences: Blessings and Curses
Mount Ebal (27:1-26
Obedience and disobedience (28:1-68) - NEXT WEEK
Chapter 12 begins with this transitional statement:
Be careful to follow these statutes and ordinances in the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has given you to possess all the days you live on the earth:
And then we read that list of laws.
Remember that these first chapters represent the first three commandments, which Moses reminded everyone about in chapter 4:
"7 Do not have other gods besides me.
8 Do not make an idol for yourself in the shape of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. 9 Do not bow in worship to them, and do not serve them, because I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, 10 but showing faithful love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commands.
11 Do not misuse the name of the Lord your God, because the Lord will not leave anyone unpunished who misuses his name."
Keep these commandments in mind as we study this week's passage.
This Week's Big Idea: Christian Worship
We're studying some key tenets to Jewish worship this week. And you ask, "That's great, but what about Christian worship?" Well, of course there are principles in what Moses says that absolutely apply to Christians today, but your point is taken. Here's the quickest overview of Christian worship I'm comfortable offering.
When I say that there are entire libraries devoted to books about Christian worship, I mean that literally. There is no quick snippet on "what is Christian worship" worth very much. Here is one paragraph from a larger article in the Holman Bible Dictionary:
A survey of biblical elements of worship includes prayer, praise, thanksgiving, charity/giving (Acts 2:45, 1 Cor 8-9), confession (James 5:16), preaching and teaching (Acts 2, 1 Cor 14:26), the reading of Scripture (1 Tim 4:13), and discipline (1 Cor 5:1-5). Two central features of Christian worship are the ordinances of baptism (Acts 2:38) and the Lord's Supper (1 Cor 11:17-34). Since there is no order of worship prescribed in the NT, it seems best to conclude that Christian worship should draw from the several models of worship in the OT while employing the various elements of worship more clearly defined in Scripture.
If you want any primers related to this topic, here are a few of the Bible studies we have done over the years that touch on it:
The wrong kind of worshiper can never offer the right kind of worship.
Our earthly practices are still just a shadow of what is to come.
Worship is a shared, gathered experience that demands a right attitude.
I question if being bound to a human-written liturgical text is what Jesus wants.
In summary, the actions in Christian worship matter and should be evaluated by Scripture. But our attitude as Christian worshipers matters even more and should also be evaluated by Scripture.
As a church member, you should expect your leaders to take that first statement very seriously. But only you can control that second statement for yourself.
Bonus Big Idea: Financial Stewardship
In this week's passage, Moses is also going to talk at length about offerings the Jews were to bring regularly as part of their worship. It's been a year since we spent a few weeks in Sunday School focused on financial stewardship, so it seems like a good idea to give you a very brief reminder of what we covered -- the "I Was Broke, Now I'm Not" curriculum. We believe that these principles accurately reflect biblical teaching in a modern American context, making them a useful tool.
Step 1: Set Your Goals / Have a Budget
Your charitable giving (including your tithes and offerings) should be the first thing you put in your budget. You want your income and your outgo to match exactly (any shortfall needs to be taken from somewhere; any surplus needs to be put somewhere).
Step 2: Save One Month's Expenses
Step 3: Invest $100/month or More (i.e., for retirement)
Step 4: Eliminate All Non-House, Non-Business Debt
Step 5: Build Savings to Three Month's Expenses
Step 6: Invest 15% of Gross Income into Tax-Advantaged Investments
Step 7: Pay off House and Business Debt
Step 8: Invest 30% of Gross Income into Tax-Advantaged Investments
I'm not going to rehash the details of the program. Debt is bondage, so we want to eliminate debt from our lives. But we need to do so in a careful, reasoned way, else the unknown emergency put us in a different kind of bondage.
Our country's economy is based heavily on investments (stocks, bonds, funds, real estate), and those investments can help us prepare for retirement, major expenses like college, and other future dreams we might have.
If we have a dream of being financially generous with our church and other important ministries, then we need to take financial steps to enable that generosity.
In this week's passage, Moses did not give the option of the offerings the people were to bring. It was part of their gratitude for God freely giving them their land and community. Likewise, our church giving should continue to be the first thing we consider in our budget -- it's the least we can do to say "thank you" to God for the gift of life, of family, and of salvation. And God's people should desire to be extremely generous, not only with our church but with the people around us (generous with our money, yes, but also our time and our talents). That curriculum offers tangible steps to put us in a position to be able to be exceedingly more generous than we could ever imagine.
Part 1: The First Commandments in Action (Deuteronomy 12:1-7)
Be careful to follow these statutes and ordinances in the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has given you to possess all the days you live on the earth. 2 Destroy completely all the places where the nations that you are driving out worship their gods—on the high mountains, on the hills, and under every green tree. 3 Tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, burn their Asherah poles, cut down the carved images of their gods, and wipe out their names from every place. 4 Don’t worship the Lord your God this way. 5 Instead, turn to the place the Lord your God chooses from all your tribes to put his name for his dwelling and go there. 6 You are to bring there your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tenths and personal contributions, your vow offerings and freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks. 7 You will eat there in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice with your household in everything you do, because the Lord your God has blessed you.
A more wooden translation of verse 1 makes clearer that we are at a transition in Moses' speech:
These are the statues and commandments that you must be careful to obey:
And the first statute Moses gives is for the purpose of the Hebrews obeying the first three commandments --
have no other gods
have no idols (which represent other gods)
remember only the name of the true God
We have studied the Canaanite pantheon in the past, most notably in
If you want a primer on the "Asherah pole" or Canaanite worship practices ("sympathetic magic"), skim that post. But Moses is pretty clear. Everything that reeks of non-Yahweh religion has to go. Completely. Destroy it. Wipe it out.
[See how well your group has been paying attention this quarter. Ask them "Why?"]
(Aside: you might notice some parallels with what we've said about the ten plagues of Egypt: "God could get the Israelites out of Egypt, but He also wanted to get Egypt out of the Israelites.")
Instead, God is going to give His people an entirely new paradigm of worship --
not countless worship sites reflecting the pantheon of pagan gods, but one worship site for the One True God;
wiping out even the names of each false god, but putting the name of the One True God on His designated place of worship.
Note that God doesn't yet tell them where that is. Much like not telling Abraham where God was leading him, this is a test of the Hebrews' faithfulness -- will they follow God's rules even while they wait for God's "permanent dwelling"? (Yes, the location of the tabernacle will serve as this location de facto, but it's not yet the Temple in Jerusalem.)
That central place of worship will be the hub of Jewish religious activity. Because they don't have generations of "Jewishness" under their belts yet, God knows His people are vulnerable to the corrupting influences of the surrounding pagans, so He keeps them on a narrow path. One place of worship; one place of offerings.
Note that Moses is very clear about "tithes and offerings" -- for the Jews, their "tenth" was a starting point, but then they also made freewill offerings as well as everything related to the sacrificial system (for forgiveness of sin).
As Christians, we've been given forgiveness of sin "for free", so the New Testament picture of our tithes and offerings is one of even greater gratitude and generosity -- the tithe is just a starting point. If your group went through "I Was Broke Now I'm Not" last year, you might ask how everything is going. I believe that all of us would love to be more generous with our money, but we need a strategy to get there. The point here would simply be that tithes and offerings were a central element of Jewish worship. Why do you think that is, and is that different for Christians today?
Finally, take your group back through the first three commandments (which we studied a few months ago -- The Ten Commandments -- Ten Principles for Being God's People (Exodus 20:1-17) --) and ask them how those three commandments play out in a Christian setting. Based on what they mean to us, how are we to understand and apply Moses' words in our own lives?
Here are a couple of prooftexts that you'll want to consider:
John 4:21 Jesus told her, “Believe me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews. 23 But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.”
1 Cor 3:16 Don’t you yourselves know that you are God’s temple and that the Spirit of God lives in you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is holy, and that is what you are.
Recognizing that Jesus is pointing us to a deeper truth about our relationship with God in Him by the Holy Spirit, what does Deut 12:1-7 mean for us?
Part 2: Take This Seriously (Deuteronomy 12:8-11)
8 “You are not to do as we are doing here today; everyone is doing whatever seems right in his own sight. 9 Indeed, you have not yet come into the resting place and the inheritance the Lord your God is giving you. 10 When you cross the Jordan and live in the land the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and he gives you rest from all the enemies around you and you live in security, 11 then the Lord your God will choose the place to have his name dwell. Bring there everything I command you: your burnt offerings, sacrifices, offerings of the tenth, personal contributions, and all your choice offerings you vow to the Lord.
This is kind of a restatement of the previous verses, so I've been wondering how to differentiate them for the purposes of a Bible study. Here's what I've settled on -- Moses is describing a before-and-after.
Before and after what? Crossing the Jordan into the Promised Land. The people are in still in the "before" time. And Moses isn't impressed. Really -- look at what he says. The people have clearly picked up on some of the pagan practices of their neighbors (or maybe brought them along from Egypt). Why does Moses call those practices "right in his own sight?" Because by definition that's what a pagan worship practice is. Somebody made it up, and the people around them willingly chose to do it on their own because it seemed right to them.
And if the Promised Land is a symbol of salvation, what does this before-and-after represent for us today?
Ephesians 5 always comes to mind when I think about "before I became a Christian" vs. "now that I'm a Christian":
5:1 Therefore, be imitators of God, as dearly loved children, 2 and walk in love, as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God. 3 But sexual immorality and any impurity or greed should not even be heard of among you, as is proper for saints. 4 Obscene and foolish talking or crude joking are not suitable, but rather giving thanks. 5 For know and recognize this: Every sexually immoral or impure or greedy person, who is an idolater, does not have an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty arguments, for God’s wrath is coming on the disobedient because of these things. 7 Therefore, do not become their partners. 8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light— 9 for the fruit of the light consists of all goodness, righteousness, and truth— 10 testing what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Don’t participate in the fruitless works of darkness, but instead expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to mention what is done by them in secret. 13 Everything exposed by the light is made visible, 14 for what makes everything visible is light. Therefore it is said:
Get up, sleeper, and rise up from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
15 Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk—not as unwise people but as wise— 16 making the most of the time, because the days are evil. 17 So don’t be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. 18 And don’t get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living, but be filled by the Spirit: 19 speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music with your heart to the Lord, 20 giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another in the fear of Christ.
I think we think of this verse in terms of basic Christian behavior, but see how Paul connects all of this with worship. Living the sinful lifestyle of the pagans is just like joining them in their idolatry. But being filled by the Spirit results in a life of worship and community.
A whole lot like what Moses describes in Deuteronomy.
For the Jews, that before-and-after is crossing the Jordan. Once the people are in the Promised Land, the "clock is ticking" so to speak. The covenant has been given, and blessings abound for the people as they stay true to it -- as long as they are in the land.
[Note: this is another clue that things are different for Christians, who do not live in the land.]
Realize that it will be more than 400 years (!!) after Moses says these words before Solomon builds the temple in Jerusalem. The catastrophic decline of the people during the time of the judges is proof (to me, at least) that the people needed "A Place" for their worship. They were too easily seduced by the surrounding paganism.
Why did God allow that decline? Why did God let them wait so long before building the temple? Well, obviously the people weren't ready. The books of Samuel and Kings are our window into how the people became "ready".
Part 3: Pay Careful Attention (Deuteronomy 12:29-32)
29 “When the Lord your God annihilates the nations before you, which you are entering to take possession of, and you drive them out and live in their land, 30 be careful not to be ensnared by their ways after they have been destroyed before you. Do not inquire about their gods, asking, ‘How did these nations worship their gods? I’ll also do the same.’ 31 You must not do the same to the Lord your God, because they practice every detestable act, which the Lord hates, for their gods. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. 32 Be careful to do everything I command you; do not add anything to it or take anything away from it.
Obviously, I got my title for this section from Ephesians 5:15. Paul is really just piggybacking off what Moses had said centuries before.
We skip a few verses to get here -- more instructions about offerings. I hope you appreciate how central offerings were to the Jewish religion. I also hope you've caught why God did it that way, both in terms of pointing to Jesus and also the centrality of the people's relationship with God in every part of life.
(Those instructions about blood are going to be very important in the early church, too.)
This is a final restatement of everything Moses has already said. The temptation to think "everybody else is doing it" was just as real for them as it is for us. But "everybody else is doing it" didn't work on my mom, and it doesn't work on God.
Moses specifically points out the practice of child sacrifice. It was admittedly rare, but that's not Moses' point. Moses is simply making it clear that without God's guidelines/guardrails, human tendency will eventually slide into the most detestable practices. People will say, "But we would never do that," and they would be wrong. (Rejecting the "slippery slope" argument out of hand is just foolish.)
Human nature is to get as close to the edge without falling over. God says not to do that -- stay as far away from the edge as you can! And that's no different for Christians today:
1 Thess 5:12 Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to give recognition to those who labor among you and lead you in the Lord and admonish you, 13 and to regard them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. 14 And we exhort you, brothers and sisters: warn those who are idle, comfort the discouraged, help the weak, be patient with everyone. 15 See to it that no one repays evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good for one another and for all. 16 Rejoice always, 17 pray constantly, 18 give thanks in everything; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 19 Don’t stifle the Spirit. 20 Don’t despise prophecies, 21 but test all things. Hold on to what is good. 22 Stay away from every kind of evil.
Paul would call this "even the appearance of evil". Just don't go down those roads, period. Very much like how Moses tells the Jews to destroy every idol, even the very names of every false god.
This is how seriously God wants His people to take this. This is why commandments 1, 2 and 3 start as they do. How seriously does your group take the first three commandments?
And finally, note how Moses again commands the people not to add to or subtract anything from these statutes. Do you remember why that is?
What are the influences in your life that have snuck in from the world? These could be in your approach to worship, in your approach to giving, or in your secret idols. And then what can your group do to help you overcome that?
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