Tuesday: Where did we get that idea?

From Deuteronomy 13-15:

1. God was serious about following Him. If you led the people in following other Gods - death to you. It is too bad that the Israelites did not follow this command. Otherwise there would be no straying from God in the land of Israel.

2. I did not realize that God commanded the Israelites to destroy the towns of those Israelite cities which turned away from God to worship other gods. Not only this, but he also said that they should not try to rebuild the town later.

3. Where did we get that idea? - It is interesting to find that our credit system works similar to the Israelite system in that after seven years your poor credit record is erased. I wonder where we got the idea of seven years?

4. God said that if the Israelites would fully obey Him, there should not be any poor among them (Deuteronomy 15:4-5). I believe that in any nation this is the case. If people work hard and follow God's word closely, God will bless them. Many of the poor that I see today are poor due to the wrong life choices: smoking and drinking excessively, getting into drugs, gambling, and some for just being lazy. I would like to think that they would not be in these situations for nearly as long (or for their whole lives) if they would choose to cling to God and His word. (This is my opinion, but I think that you could argue that the bible holds this up.) However, if one chooses to be poor because they are more interested in other, more valuable things, such as following God like missionaries would - this is different. And there are also a group of fatherless and widows who will be poor because of unfortunate cirumstances. Although I think that possibly one could even argue that some of these cases were because the parents or husband was sinning greatly so God took them. (This is not always the case, but in some cases...)

5. Later God says that there will always be poor among the Israelites. Upon a closer look, I think actually God is saying that although He will bless the Israelites, that some foreigners may live among them who will not be blessed in such a manner as the Israelites are.

6. Why would people ever want to shave the front of their heads for the dead? Sounds weird to me.

7. God commanded that every third year that the people should take their tithes and store them in their towns for the Levites, the widows and the fatherless so that they would have something to eat.