Deuteronomy 6:5-9
“Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”
Deuteronomy 11:18-21
“Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the Lord swore to give your ancestors, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.”
Walking through JFK airport in New York one day, I passed by a small group of bearded Orthodox Jewish men saying their evening prayers facing toward Jerusalem. Strapped to their forehead and to their arms were small black leather boxes, containing written fragments of the Torah (Genesis – Deuteronomy). Phylacteries, by Jesus’ day, had become the memory aide device of choice. Most Jewish boys in Jesus’ day followed God through the traditional schools of Pharisaical Judaism and they would have memorized at least the first five books of the Old Testament by age 12 or 13. To successfully quote this passage of Scripture signaled to his elders that he had come of age, had fulfilled his rite of passage and had entered manhood. Orthodox Jews have a very literal view of the Old Testament, and they had built a lifestyle of devices and visual aids into their clothing and dress based on their reading of Deuteronomy 6.
How did God expect His people to know His will?
List the methods above of how God commanded for His Word to be integrated into the lives of His people.
What do you see as “dangers” of rote memorization?
How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.
