Lying Prophet
Deuteronomy 12:31-13:8
Synopsis Deuteronomy 12:31-13:8 2/16/2018
Moses forbid the children of Israel from worshipping God in the way the Canaanites had worshipped their gods. He did this because the Canaanites offered abominations to their gods. In particular, they were renown for offering their own children as altar sacrifices.
Moses also warned the people about lying prophets. He taught that even if someone successfully predicted future outcomes, but then also encouraged people to worship false gods, that person should be rejected from the community.
Lying Prophet
The Law of Moses generally accepts a person as a prophet if they have demonstrated the ability to anticipate future outcomes. Predictive power is power. But a person with this ability, who is not devoted to God is to be rejected. We have the tendency to see the prophetic as mystical – someone with extraordinary power to anticipate or even alter future events.
But here we are living in the modern age. We have this modern scientific capacity to anticipate remarkable outcomes. We have science and science is powerful at predicting the outcomes of all sorts of events. But the science that explains how things happen is curiously and deliberately silent on why things happen. This omission has crushed the faith of many.
It’s About Value
It’s about value. Maybe more to the point – it’s about what I value.
I have spent a big part of my life working to make a name, make money, or have power. I have been more or less successful. Even so, I have found an emptiness in every one of these pursuits.
I always come back to the same question: to what end? All of this means little if I have no sense of why I’m here in the first place.
The power of successful prediction is awesome. But this power, in the absence of a love for God is more dangerous than ignorance of either prediction, or God.
He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was distressed that he had said to him a third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” [Jesus] said to him, “Feed my sheep.” John 21:57-58
