My title today is misleading. I don’t have the full answer to the relevancy of Deuteronomy for today’s world. However, if you believe that scripture is the word of God, Deuteronomy is relevant. Christ commands that we disciple the nations in Matthew 28. The natural follow-up question is, “How?” The Bible has its own answer to this question. The Bible tells us the story of one nation that God discipled through Moses and through the prophets. That nation was Israel and Deuteronomy gives us the details of what God taught her.
Unfortunately, this realization doesn’t automatically give one the ability to apply the law recorded in Deuteronomy to modern communities. Many mistakes are made and many mistakes have been made. When we recognize the applicability of Deuteronomy to modernity it is wise to read widely in the past, in order to understand the history of Christian reflection on economics and political philosophy. We must also take stock of Christian theology. God the Son took on flesh and died on the cross between the time of Moses and our own time. That changed everything.
I want to take this opportunity to point out some assumptions we must be critical of in applying Deuteronomy to our modern context.
1. Don’t forget about Christ: It is easy to get excited about the equity and the wisdom that is evident in the law of Moses. But, Christ changed everything. In particular, Christ changed the nature of our relationship to God, to one another and even to land in general.
2. Don’t forget about the church: Moses is speaking to the church of God, which God organized as a nation at that time. The church is the new nation of God. We must apply Deuteronomy to the church before we apply to a nation.
3. Don’t forget about context: The people of God lived at a certain time in history. There were different expectations in terms of how a nation functioned at that time. God started to disciple his people within a cultural context. Jesus teaches us in Matthew 19 that Moses created some laws to allow for the hardness of their hearts. Jesus cites laws concerning divorce and notes that God’s desire is for the holiness of marriage. However, because of the hardness of the people’s hearts, God, through Moses, gives an exception at that time. The applicability of Deuteronomic laws remains true. The principle here might be that we need to be patient with the hard-hearted on certain issues today, but the permissiveness in Deuteronomy is not an automatic excuse for permissiveness in the church today.
4. Don’t forget about basic economics: Teachings about the poor, or anything else, in Deuteronomy are not necessarily about your favorite public policy. Neither should one cherry-pick in defending church polity. Understand Deuteronomy’s message as a whole before applying it to particular issues.
5. Don’t forget about political science. We have learned a great deal over the past two hundred years about how the exercise of political freedom is beneficial for all involved. Deuteronomy has the desire for freedom at its heart, freedom from slavery, freedom to do good without coercion.
6. Deuteronomy is not a civil code: The fact is, a lot of Deuteronomy is sermonic, not what we would expect in a civil code of law. It is not a list of laws that the Israelites were to enforce in their society through coercion. The Israelites are called to enforce many of these laws, but not all of them. Details of proper punishment are given to the Israelite people. However, many laws do not detail a punishment for infractions other than the fact that God will come in judgment on his people. These laws function as teaching more than as a civil code. If Deuteronomy is not a civil code (even though it contains elements of a civil code), then it is better to describe Deuteronomy as teaching.