No, that title is not a typo.  Well, it is actually—a typo on purpose.  That is what happens when you try to type “One Key Off” with your hands exactly one key off from the correct starting position.  Even when you make the right moves with the correct hands you get something that makes no sense, that isn’t even pronounceable.
            How many times do we do that with the Bible?  We start studying in the middle of things, with the most difficult things, with things that do not even apply to our lives.  What do we get?  A big mess. 
            If one fundamental fact is wrong, you create a long line of false doctrine.  Calvinism, anyone?
            If one step in logic is left out, you find yourself believing something so ridiculous, you may eventually lose your faith altogether when you come to your senses, or worse, actually come to believe it so emphatically that you take others down the drain with you.  How else do some of these strange cults get their start?
            If you get bogged down in things far removed from what you really need to get through life, how will you ever grow?
            Isn’t it odd that simply being one key away can make such a huge difference?  Be careful where you put your time studying the scriptures.  Match one passage with another.  Anytime your interpretation of something does not jive with another scripture, my guess is that you are at least one key off, maybe more. 
            Start with the simple, start with what you need to believe to be in Christ.  Then move to what you need to live your life every day.  Worry about Revelation and Zechariah a little further down the road.  Find someone you can trust to help you.  Elders come to mind, and good Bible class teachers.  But whatever you do, be careful where you put your faith.  One step away from the truth is not a good place to be.
 
Hold the pattern of sound words which you heard from me, in faith and love which is in Jesus Christ.  2 Tim 1;13.   
 
Dene Ward

I have been doing a lot of outside reading for some classes I am teaching, and find myself reading blurbs on the backs of these books at odd times, usually when my mind needs a rest from all the scholarly stuff my old and feeble brain is trying to make sense of.  I saw this one a few weeks ago and it stopped me in my tracks.
            “In Story as Torah Gordon Wenham showed how biblical narrative texts little used by ethicists, can inform Christian moral teaching.”  John Barton, University of Oxford.
            In other words, the man has written a book in which he uses the Bible “stories,” as we are prone to call them, to teach us right and wrong.  First, I do understand that the word “inform” has a special meaning in scholarly circles, but it still seems plain to me that the critic is saying that using the Bible this way is highly unusual, in fact, a groundbreaking idea. 
            I sit here wondering why they are reading their Bibles at all if they have not figured this out before.  We do this every Sunday in Bible classes.  I did it every day when my children were growing up.  I do it now when my grandsons come for a visit.  We talk about the Bible narratives and how they teach us we should be behaving in our lives.  We talk about Noah and how “everyone is doing it,” proves that “it” is probably wrong.  We talk about Daniel and how important prayer is, and how God takes care of the faithful.  We talk about Elijah and the One True God.  We talk about Judas and betrayal, about Peter and impetuosity—and then forgiveness.  We talk about Jonah and God’s love for everyone and our responsibility to share that love.  My children grew up knowing what the Bible is for.  What in the world did these people think they should do with it?
            And we can laugh at them and think ourselves so much better than they, but are we?  We know the Bible is to be used to “inform” our lives, but does it?  Does the sermon go in one ear and out the other?  Do the Bible classes become exercises in finding yet another way to bring up my pet hobby, or to show everyone how much I know instead of finding something I need to improve on?  Do I give the right answers and then go out and live the wrong ones?
            Before we laugh at men who have become a little too smart for their own good, let’s check our own behavior.  We may know better, but are we doing it?
 
Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come, 1Cor 10:6-11.
 
Dene Ward
 

Retirement is a wonderful thing.  No more rushing around every morning, swallowing a quick breakfast whole, throwing on an outfit, and rushing out the door after a quick peck on your wife’s cheek.  At least that’s the way it was for Keith for several decades. 
            Now it’s a leisurely breakfast in your pajamas with a second cup of coffee, and then a third out on the carport, watching the birds swoop down in front of us to the bird feeder, hummingbirds battling over their feeder like tiny pilots in fighter planes, and Chloe sitting next to us, her tail swishing sparkly grains of sand over the concrete. 
           We have a little ritual with her—three or four doggie treats that Keith sails out toward the flower bed one at a time with her tearing after them, sniffing around in the grass until she finds the morsel, then rolling in the dew wet grass in doggy euphoria before returning to her post at our feet, or even under our chairs—the better to garner a belly rub.
            He always throws the treats in the same direction, slightly south of east, and makes the same whistle like a missile falling to the earth, and she has become habituated to the whole routine.  We did not realize how much until one morning he threw it north of east instead of south.  Even though she watched him do it, she still ran southeast and sniffed the ground in ever widening circles, becoming more and more frustrated when she could not find the treat.  Finally he had to get up and walk in the direction he threw it and call her over.  Eventually her nose found it, but you would have thought we had punished her as she dragged herself back without her customary cheerfulness, her tail sagging almost between her legs.  She was not happy again until he had thrown the next treat in the right direction—translation:  the one she expected.
            Have you ever shown a friend a scripture that teaches something obvious, only to have him say, “I can’t see that?”  Have you ever had her read something out loud only to answer your unspoken comment with, “But I don’t believe it that way?”  Almost unbelievable, isn’t it?  Don’t think for a minute that you are immune to the same failing.  What you can see, what you do believe, depends a whole lot on what you are looking for. 
            The worst thing you can do in your Bible study is go searching for something to back up what you already think.  In fact, I often tell brand new classes, “The biggest hindrance to learning is what you think you already know.”  I have had students who were intelligent and sincere look at something everyone else could see but not see it, and nearly every time it is because of some preconceived notion they grew up with or heard somewhere a long time ago and have not been able to let go.  Even something as plain as the nose on their faces.
            What you already know will also raise a stop sign in your learning path.  As soon as you find what you thought was there, you will stop looking, when just a little more study and uninhibited consideration would have shown you something brand new.  The same thing happens when you rely on old notes.  You will never see anything new until you rid yourself of old ideas.  You will never find a deeper understanding if you think you have already dredged as far as you can go.
            Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind,” John 9:39.  He was not talking to unbelievers.  He was not talking to pagans.  He was talking to people who thought they knew God’s word inside out, who could quote whole books, who kept the law in the minutest detail, proud of how exact they were—even beyond exact—and the fact that they were children of Abraham.  Guess who that translates to today? 
            When was the last time you learned anything new?  Thought any new thoughts?  Discovered any new connections in the scriptures?  When was the last time you changed your mind about something?  Can you see it if it’s thrown in a direction you never thought of before, or are you as blind as those people who were sure they knew what their Messiah would look like and how he would act?  When he came out of left field, they were lost.  How about you?
 
…and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself…? Rom 2:19-21.
 
Dene Ward
 

You can find some strange things in the footnotes.  Sometimes they illuminate the text you are reading, but sometimes they cause even more confusion.  Sometimes they answer the questions in your mind, and other times they cause even more.  Sometimes they sound like utter gibberish—sometimes they are in another language and might as well be gibberish.  And sometimes they are downright funny, as was the case this past Sunday morning.
 
You have heard that it was said to our ancestors, Do not murder, and whoever murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Fool! ’ will be subject to the Sanhedrin. But whoever says, ‘You moron! ’ will be subject to hellfire.  (Matt 5:21-22)
 
            Perhaps it is because I was reading this out of my newest Bible, a Holman Christian Standard I purchased because it has the largest "large print" I have ever seen, that I paid more attention than usual to those verses.  I mean, that last line really gets your attention.  Then I noticed the footnote on the word "fool" and laughed out loud.
 
             "Literally Raca, an Arab term of abuse similar to 'airhead.' "
 
            Airhead?  Do you mean the ancients talked like that too?  Of course they did.  People have not changed for centuries.  But reading that footnote also hit home.  When I was driving, one of the more common terms I tended to use about other drivers was, "Idiot."  What other term better fits people who swerve in and out of traffic at high speed, tailgate at those same speeds, text while driving, suddenly slow down ten miles an hour whenever they answer their phones as if that will instantly make them safe drivers despite the distraction, sit at a stop sign while you approach on the main road at the posted speed of 55 and then pull out when you are a car length away?  Idiots, all of them.
            And then, reading that new version and knowing what that footnote said, made me wonder why the Lord connected calling people "airhead," or something similar, with murder.  I have pondered this for a few days now and maybe I have it.  When you consider someone to be that kind of person, whether you use the word airhead, moron, idiot, or "things like these" (cf Gal 5:21), you really mean they are not worth caring about, not worth your consideration, not worth "the air they breathe or the space they take up," as some would say.  And that is exactly the mentality you must have to commit murder.  De-humanizing in any manner someone made in the image of God, someone whom Christ also died for, would make it a whole lot easier to simply eradicate them.  I may not realize that is what I am doing when I call people these names, but it is, and that is exactly why I should never have done it in the first place.
            Even if they don't drive, or talk, or act, or live--or vote--like I want them to.
 
A fool’s displeasure is known at once, but whoever ignores an insult is sensible.  (Prov 12:16).
 
Dene Ward

I am constantly shocked by the way people, including Christians, treat the Bible.  We act like God wrote it in some way other than normal communication.  I have actually heard these things come out of the mouths of believers:  “Jesus never used figurative language.”  “You won’t find irony in the Bible.”  “Sarcasm is neither present nor allowed in the scriptures.”  And because of that you will hear some of the weirdest interpretations of scripture imaginable.
            We knew a man once who said that since Jesus said you should not “let your right hand know what your left hand doeth,” that you should reach into your pocket before the plate is passed and take out whatever you find without looking at it.  I wonder how he got whatever was in his pocket in there that morning without knowing what it was, or did he make sure nothing over $10 was lying on top of his dresser?           
            But you will also find those who deny there is any literary aspect to the scriptures at all.  Try studying the psalms in detail and see if you think that’s so.  The psalms are poetry.  Like all poets, those inspired poets used poetic elements to make them catch our fancy, speak to us more keenly than prose would, and make us think deeper thoughts than we might have otherwise.  You have fed them with the bread of tears and given them tears to drink in full measure.  Doesn’t that say more to you than, “These people are really upset”?
            One place this is obvious are the fifteen Psalms of Ascents.  Psalms 120-134 are presumed to have been sung while the Jews traveled up the hill to Jerusalem to worship on the various feast days.  The word for “ascents” is the same Hebrew word translated “steps” in Ezek 40:26 and 31, as in the steps of a staircase.  One psalm in particular uses words to show these steps.
            Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD! O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy! If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared. I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.  Psalm 130.
            Imagine each of the following words, taken in order from the psalm above, sitting on the steps of a staircase from bottom to top:  depths, pleas, iniquities, wait, hope, steadfast love, plentiful redemption.  Now add this to the mix:  the word for “depths” is used several times in the scripture for the deepest places on earth, including the very bottom of the ocean.  And that implies a man’s complete inability to get himself “out of the depths.”  All through this psalm we see the literary devices of the poet, gradually pulling us out of the mire we are stuck in and up the staircase to the place of full—and even more than necessary, “plentiful”—redemption.  God didn’t barely save us, He pulled us up on top of the mountains.  Read through that psalm again now.  Can you see it?  Can feel it? 
            God is the one who made us able to appreciate art of all kinds, including literary art.  He gave us the emotions that a good artist of any type can evoke.  It’s one of the things that makes you different from your dog!  God wrote the Bible.  He made you and made you able to communicate.  He speaks to us the way He knows is best for our understanding.  Who am I to say otherwise?
 
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person discerns all things…1Cor 2:14-15.
 
Dene Ward

I live where the animals meditate quite often.  When we first moved here, the bobcats screamed in the woods every night.  Even after all these years of people moving closer and closer in on us, the mourning doves still cry and moan every day, morning and evening.  I hear one out there now even as I type.
            “Meditate?” you ask. 
            Exactly.
            For thus the LORD said to me, As a lion or a young lion roars over his prey… Isa 31:4.
            Like a swallow or a crane I chirp; I mourn like a dove…Isa 38:14.
            “Roars” and “mourn” are the same Hebrew word translated “meditate” in the KJV, including this one:  But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.  Ps 1:2.
            I grew up in a time when “transcendental meditation” was popular.  Most of those who participated sat in the lotus position and hummed the syllable in the above title.  I have no idea what was in their minds at the time, but it seems a far cry from the passages above.  Yet, from what I have seen, we don’t really understand what meditation is any better than they did.
            A Bible class teacher once told us he had decided to meditate more.  He did this by memorizing a passage every week and then reciting it at various times during the day.  As he continued talking, it seemed he expected that repetition to magically change his attitudes and his heart.  As an educator, I understand that repetition is the key to learning, but simple repetition itself is as useless to your heart as repeating Hail Marys.  The New Testament calls such things “vain repetition.”  Maybe it’s time to see what the Bible says about meditating instead of what the world does.
            I looked up every occurrence of the Hebrew word found in the three passages above.  I found 24.  In the King James Version, the word is translated “meditate” 6 times, which is the most frequent translation.  But here is a really interesting case.  While in Psalm 1:2, the word speaks of the action of a righteous man, in Psalm 2:1, the action is of the wicked and is translated “plot” in the ESV (“imagine” in the KJV).  The word clearly involves some mental activity.  In Psalm 38:12 the wicked are imagining “treachery all day long.”  In fact, in the ESV that is translated “meditating” treachery.
            Seven times the word is translated “speak” or “talk” or “utter” so it does involve sound, but not that mindless hum or rote repetition so many think.  If you check out the passages, the wicked “speak” (meditate) deceit or perverseness or falsehood.  The righteous “speak” (meditate) wisdom and truth, and “talk of” (meditate) God’s praise and righteousness.  Try doing any of those things without some serious thought.
            So where does the “sound” involved in this word come from?  Sheer effort and emotion.  The young lion roaring over his prey in the Isaiah 31 passage has reached a moment of intense effort in his hunt for food.  Although the dove is not really mourning, the passage is a metaphor for God mourning over his lost people, trying to save them.  Imagine reaching out to grab someone who is about to take a serious fall, or step in front of an oncoming vehicle.  Would you do it quietly?
            No, meditating on God’s word is not a time of quiet, mindless repetition.  It is a time of intense mental effort.  “Ponder how to answer” the ESV translates it in Prov 15:28.  Run it over and over in your mind for the various possibilities, for the possible results of actions or the ideas to which those thought processes might lead.  Meditate today on meditation, for clues in the texts themselves or, as we have done, in how the word is used in other places.  Memorizing is wonderful.  Reading the word of God is a necessity for one of his children, but if all you do is speak the words either aloud or in your mind, you have done no better than a pagan on his yoga mat.
 
Be diligent in these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy progress may be manifest unto all.  1Tim 4:15
 
Dene Ward
 

As glad as I am that we no longer seem afraid to talk about the Holy Spirit in our lives these days, I am hearing other things that disturb me, disparaging comments about the Word:  “I know it can’t be just the word of God doing this” paraphrases some of the statements I am hearing.  Praise God that his Holy Spirit works in our lives, but do not treat any less respectfully one of his biggest feats:  translating the mind of God into words so that we mortals can comprehend what He has done for us and what He wants from us, 1 Cor 2:6-12.
            Paul calls the gospel the power of God unto salvation, Rom 1:16, and an angel told Cornelius to send for Peter who would tell him words whereby you shall be saved, Acts 11:14.  Peter tells us himself that God’s word contains all things pertaining to life and godliness, 2 Pet 1:3, and the Hebrew writer tells us the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart, 4:11.  What can God not accomplish with a Word like this?
            God told Jeremiah, Is not my word like fire…and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces, 23:29.  Have you ever seen the devastation that fire can cause?  Can you imagine anything more effective at changing the face of a wall than continually pounding it with a hammer?
            In Isaiah we learn how God’s word acts on both the good and evil.  For those who seek knowledge and understanding, it is precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little, 28:9,10.  And to those of strange lips, the word of Jehovah be unto them precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little, that they may go and fall backward and be broken and snared and taken, vv 11-13.  In other words, it acts the same way on all of us, but the results depend upon the heart who hears it. 
            And so it is.  After Peter preached on the day of Pentecost, they were pricked in their hearts, Acts 2:37, and those who received the word were baptized, v 41.  After Stephen preached the crowd was cut to the heart, Acts 7:54, and they stoned him to death, v 58.  The same knowledge of God’s word that saves some brings death to others, 2 Cor 2:14-17.  But either way, it is the Word that causes the result.
            God said the world would call it foolishness to try to save through preaching, 1 Cor 1:21.  Aren’t we guilty of the same thing when we devalue the power of God’s word?  Jesus was constantly quoting scripture, and in doing so He strengthened himself, defeated Satan, and saved the lost.  We should be following in His footsteps, treating God’s word with all the deference and respect it deserves, because it is truly the power of God. 
 
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says Jehovah.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.  For as the rain comes down and the snow from heaven, and returns not. but waters the earth, and makes it bring forth and bud, and gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth:  it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.  Isa 55:8-11

Dene Ward

My little boys used to bring me bouquets all the time.  Sometimes it was Queen Anne’s lace.  Sometimes it was a bright blue spiderwort.  Sometimes it was a rain lily or a stem of pink clover.  Sometimes it was just a dandelion bloom.  All of these are wildflowers, what any suburban lawn grower would call “weeds.”  Yet I put them all in vases of various sizes because they were all precious to me.  My little fellows had no idea the difference between domesticated flowers and wildflowers.  All they knew was “flowers,” and out here in the country we are surrounded by them.
            But even they would never have gathered a bunch of them, ripped off the blooms and handed me a fistful of stems.  The problem with religion today, including some of my own brothers and sisters, is they value the stems and not the flowers. 
            A few months ago someone told me how listening to a certain teacher had made his day so much better.  I anxiously awaited the lesson he had heard, but he never once said a word about the content.  All I heard was the teacher’s name, at least three times, and how that person had made his day better.  What he had done was throw away the flower and put the empty stem in a vase of water to admire.
            I understand having favorite speakers and teachers.  Nothing makes me happier than to hear someone compliment my husband and my sons.  But none of them teach for the glory.  They teach to help people. If all people remember is their names, then they haven’t been much help, have they? 
            If I can’t tell you what a person taught me, did I learn anything, or was I just entertained for a few brief moments?  One of my favorite teachers isn’t much of an entertainer, but I always go away with a new way of looking at things, even things I have been looking at for decades now.  He makes me think, and he makes me see the possibilities.  He makes me want to go look at it again myself, and I often do.  He makes me examine my life in ways I never have and want to change for the better.  Can your favorite speaker do those things, or does he just make you laugh and feel good?
            There is absolutely nothing wrong with going to someone for help with your Bible study.  God did ordain the role of teachers in spiritual things (Eph 4:11).  He meant for us to have brothers and sisters we could go to with questions and problems.  Paul told Timothy to pass on what he knew to “faithful men.”  He told the older to train the younger.  But God also holds us individually accountable for what we do with what we hear.  “Work out your own salvation,” Paul told the Philippians, well after Jesus had already said, “If the blind lead the blind, they shall both fall into the ditch.”  It is up to each of us to be careful to whom we listen and to examine what they say against the Word (Acts 17:11).
            A good teacher doesn’t care if he receives praise or not—that is not his purpose.  All he does is hold up the Word of God and present it to you.  “What is the straw to the wheat?” God asks in Jer 23:28.  That word “straw” has several meanings according to Strong’s, and one of them is the wheat stalk, or stem.  Which is more important, God is saying, the stem or the wheat it holds up?
            I knew a man once who nearly tore a church up because he insisted on “his turn” to teach when not only was he a lousy teacher, he didn’t even know the Word of God accurately enough to teach it.  Clearly, it was all about the glory of teaching to him, and clearly he needed the admonition in Rom 12:3:  For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
            I know the temptation.  So did Paul.  I refrain from [boasting], so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited, 2 Cor 12:6,7.  It shouldn’t matter to me what people say about my speaking or writing.  What should matter is how many I reach, how many are helped and encouraged and how many souls are saved.  And that is what should matter to those who listen and read too. 
            And do you know why this is so important?  If you value the who above the what, then someday, sooner or later, you will be deceived into believing a lie.  Even good teachers make mistakes, and you might be deceived by an honest error too.  That is why James tells us in 3:1 that teachers will receive the “greater condemnation.”  Teaching is a responsibility, and anyone who craves the glory is manifestly unable to handle that burden.
            Most of the preachers and teachers I know will tell you the same things I am now.  If you want to make me happy, then use what I give you, remember it and grow.  Share it with others who might need it.  Even if you forget where you got it, just pass the good news along.  That is what really matters.  Give them a bouquet of flowers, not a handful of stems.
 
For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself, Gal 6:3.
 
Dene Ward
           

As I was proofreading my latest book, I realized that I had used the same phrase at least four times, the one about kissing the tops of my children's and grandchildren's heads over and over whenever they sat in my lap.  When I read through something, I look for what I call "speed bumps" in my writing—things that make me stop for a second and say, "Huh?"  Sometimes it's a non sequitur, sometimes it's a dangling modifier, sometimes it's a pronoun with no antecedent, or several other things, including a word repeated in close proximity to itself.  My first inclination was to go back and delete a few of those repeated phrases.  Then I realized that those references were all in separate essays.  They only made speed bumps because I was reading them back to back to back.  As it was, they made for thematic unity.  I love my children and grandchildren more than life itself, and now everyone knows it!
            The Holy Spirit did the same thing when He inspired men to write the Bible.  I first really noticed it when I was studying the Psalms.  I had found lists of the various types of psalms and what each contained.  In the process of looking for those elements in each psalm, I was encountering repeated words and phrases, or their synonyms.  In Psalm 13 David asks the question, "How long?" four times in 6 verses making it obvious that he was in distress and this was a Psalm of Lament.  In Psalm 51, he speaks of sin and its synonyms 12 times and asks for forgiveness using nine variations of that word.  Yes, this is one of the psalms he wrote after his sin with Bathsheba and Uriah.  There is no question what the psalm is about whether you know that fact or not.
            We are studying Deuteronomy together during our exiled worship services.  We study separately all week, and then on Sunday morning after breakfast we sit down together to sing, pray, and take the Lord's Supper as "the Lord's church on the Ward property."  Then we spend a good hour or more sharing what we have discovered in our personal study.  While it isn't something Keith usually does, because of my Psalms study, I have found things to count, and they have made me aware of some things about Deuteronomy I never knew before.  It is a great book!
            Let me share just one little thing I have discovered in all my counting.  I heard it said all my life that the New Covenant is heart religion while the Old is nothing but following the rules.  I discovered long ago that this was not the truth.  Let me just lay this on you quickly this morning.  If you have your own concordance, either a hard copy or online, you can look for yourself.  The book of Deuteronomy says "Be careful to do" all the commands of the Law 21 times, not counting about half a dozen synonyms.  But it also uses the word "heart," as in "obey with all your heart," "turn to the Lord with all your heart," and of course, the one that became known as part of the Shema, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart," 25 times!  That doesn't count the references to having an evil or stubborn heart, the opposite of the heart God wanted, which proves in itself that God has always wanted heart religion.
            So if you have that incorrect notion of the Law, start studying on your own today, not just Deuteronomy, but the whole Old Testament, and you will see the error quickly.  And use this little tip whenever you study—when God uses the same word again and again, you might just be looking at a theme you need to pay attention to.  It might be something you have missed for years.
 
And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul,  (Deut 10:12).
 
Dene Ward
 

I never heard the word as a child.  And I was born and raised in Florida.
            Summer is hot here, as it was then, nearly six decades ago as I played outside every day.  We lived on a cul-de-sac, the same one as two of my first cousins.  It would probably be classified as upper lower class these days, a blue collar neighborhood of tiny tract houses—far too tiny for four girls to romp around inside.  We ran, jumped rope, swung, swam, biked up and down what we thought was a real hill, and played games we made up with rules that changed at our whim.  We knew it was hot, but we seldom thought about it.  The heat rolled in waves across the street, and even the few breezes blew hot.  We played until the sweat showed in white rivulets down our otherwise grimy faces and dripped off our chins and ear lobes.  We just kept on playing because that's all there was to do—that we could afford anyway.  We only had three TV channels and cartoons didn't start until 4:00. 
          Every hour or so we would all tromp into the kitchen where we were playing, either theirs or ours.  Each of our mothers kept a half gallon jug of plain tap water in the fridge.  No Gatorade, no Kool-Aid, no fruit juice, lemonade, or sodas.  Even sweet tea was considered a luxury afforded only for meals.  When we came in for the cold jug of water we drank most of it, then refilled it, and stuck it back in the fridge for the next break, which might or might not be on any schedule.  We didn't want to ruin a game by stopping in the middle of it.  Between us we probably drank a couple gallons of water every morning, and again every afternoon.  And that's with no potty breaks—we simply sweated it all away.
            No one told us to do it.  No one taught us about staying hydrated to stay healthy.  We were thirsty so we all came in and drank to our hearts' content, and promptly felt better and were able to play even more, which was the whole point, right?
            Funny how the Lord can't get us to stay hydrated.  We don't want to take a break in our busy lives to drink that living water, and we don't even realize we're thirsty for it--not until life hands us a nasty surprise and we have no strength to handle it.  We think that fancy spring water is just as good; that the fruit flavored variety will be a lot easier to stomach, so we waste our thirst on fluff that won't do the job.  Then we collapse on the floor of our trials and don't even have the energy to look for God's real thing.
            If we had only taken the time, we would have had what we needed, what sits in the fridge waiting whenever we want it—if only we realized that we did want it, like a certain woman long ago who understood its value immediately.  Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”  (John 4:13-15).
            Like children playing in the hot summer sun of Florida, this woman did not have to be told what she needed.  What is getting in our way, what keeps us from seeing what we need so desperately?  Stay hydrated—with the water that truly makes a difference.
 
With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. And you will say in that day: “Give thanks to the LORD, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples, proclaim that his name is exalted."  (Isa 12:3-4).
 
Dene Ward