“GOD WILL LOVE YOU AND BLESS YOU AND MULTIPLY YOU”
“Because you listen to these judgments, and keep and do them,
that the Lord your God . . . will love you and bless you and multiply you”
(Deuteronomy 7:12, 13).
DONALD LUTZ, a professor of political science at Houston University, set out to find out which European authors had influenced American political thought the most during the founding period of its democracy. To do that he reviewed 916 political writings published between 1760 and 1805. His research revealed that it cannot be said that any one European author exercised a special influence on the thought of the founding fathers.
According to his findings, twenty-two percent of the quotes belonged to authors of the Enlightenment and nine percent to classical authors; however, thirty-four percent of the quotes came from the Bible. Although Lutz admits he did not pay much attention to that fact, because his research focused on European authors, he affirms, “It is relevant, nonetheless, to note the prominence of biblical sources for American political thought, since it was highly influential in our political tradition.” The Bible was the most influential book in North American political literature in those days! One of the most surprising facts in Lutz’s article is that the book that was quoted most was Deuteronomy.
I don’t know what verses from Deuteronomy were quoted by American politicians. What I do know is that precisely as I was writing this devotional, we were studying Moses’s fifth book in Sabbath School. And Jirïí Moskala, author of the companion book, says that “Deuteronomy is the book of love,” that the Hebrew verb ’âhab, translated as «love,” is mentioned twenty-two times in the book, «six times it designates God’s love toward people (see Deuteronomy 4:37; 7:13; 10:15, 18; 23:5; 33:3). Just in this one book, in Moses’s preaching to the people, he stresses seven times that God loves humans.
Perhaps today’s politicians and citizens need to know more about the God mentioned in Deuteronomy. We would do well to read the ethical, moral, and religious guidelines we find in it and put them into practice.
If we conform our lives to His principles, the Lord promises to keep this triple promise: “The Lord your God . . . will love you and bless you and multiply you» (Deuteronomy 7:12, 13).
*Donald S. Lutz, «The Relative Influence of European Writers on Late Eighteenth-Century American Political Thought,‘ American Political Science Review, vol. 78. no. 1 (March 1984), p. 192. ** Jirí Moskala, Deuteronomy: The Book of Love (Nampa, Idaho: Pacific Press, 2021), p. 5
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Taken from: Devotional Readings for Adults 2023
“I AM WITH YOU”
From: J. VLADIMIR POLANCO
Collaborators: Lorina Maya & Avineyda Hernandez