Moses Explains Your Life

The ancient book of Deuteronomy exhibits the truth and importance of the modern idea of a “Biblical worldview.” This is the composite image formed by the stories and symbols of Scripture and by which we are faithful to God with our whole heart and body and see the world as God reveals it in the Bible.

Beginning in the first chapter, God through the voice of Moses explains (Deut 1:5) how we should view the world through God’s instruction (Torah).

The main thing we see is that life is a journey (Deut 1:7), even when we are seeking to be settled. The story of our life is that of a pilgrimage.

Also key is that our identity is as a child of God, and member of His family (Deut 1:8). The family is a symbol that defines our identity.

Third, our desires, thoughts, and actions are sustained by God like a father. “You have seen how the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son . . .” (Deuteronomy 1:31). The child and the father are symbols of our relationship to heaven.

This Biblical worldview, therefore, sees life as heaven’s parental provision for a family pilgrimage. This has at least three consequences for how we act on our worldview.

First, Moses and other Biblical prophets teach attention to the path we are traveling, especially the memory of where we have been with God. We remember our past story because it is directive and corrective to where we are going. Isreal’s family needed to remember God’s grace but also their past fear and faithlessness and learn from this history.

Second, believers in God should seek be connected by deep familiarity and loyalty as a family. This familial love is important both because it is how God sees us – e.g., He refers us to our fathers and children in the faith – and this family relationship is the only one that will provide the sacrificial love and persistence in good works that God requires.

Third, the Deuteronomic vision of God is a Biblical worldview that brings into focus the zealous, fatherly love of God for each of us and our broader family. Because God carries us, grows us, and teaches us as a loving Father, we should have the confidence and loyalty not to fear the giants of this world or the walls it throws up in front of us, but to courageously fight as a family all along the journey of our lives to the Promised Land – because God fights for us as would a father.

The fate of the Exodus generation in Deuteronomy 1 displays how disastrous it is to neglect what Moses taught about our lives. Furthermore, the NT writers witness to how important it is that we maintain the Biblical worldview displayed in Deuteronomy, e.g., ““Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did” (1 Corinthians 10:6).