Love By Seeking the Truth

  • June 14, 2023
  • /
  • Park Forum

Scripture Focus: Deuteronomy 19.15
15 One witness is not enough to convict anyone accused of any crime or offense they may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.

Reflection: Love By Seeking the Truth
By Susan P. Elliott

​​When Jesus was asked in the Gospels to rank the greatest commandment in the Old Testament, he responded that loving God and others was at the top of the list. All other commandments or laws explain how to do that. The book of Deuteronomy details how to love God and neighbor well.

Why were all these detailed instructions needed? After God rescued the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, they needed their own set of community rules to learn to govern themselves the way God intended in the promised land Moses was taking them to. 

Today’s scripture shows the wisdom of how to discern truth in a dispute. Two or three witnesses must agree when someone is accused of wrongdoing, ultimately revealing the truth of the situation and the witness’s heart for evil or good. This instruction expands on the ninth commandment not to bear false witness by giving accountability to the witnesses. God understands the nature of the human heart and wants to protect people from false accusations. When looking for truth, God’s wisdom reveals that you need more than just one side of the story.

In our context, we see the wisdom of this principle at play in our court system and in our homes, schools, and churches as we mediate disputes.  A wise person will listen to each side of the story before making a judgment. Listening to victims, whistleblowers, and the testimonies of the suffering, especially where multiple witnesses agree, shows God’s wisdom in this loving action.

Most people don’t turn to Deuteronomy for wisdom, but shouldn’t we? God gives clear instructions to his people so that justice can be served in his name. Love for God and others requires diligently pursuing the truth. Living as a citizen in the Kingdom of God requires wisdom. God shows us how to love him and others well in seeking truth.

You might remember the law about bearing false witness was broken in Jesus’ crucifixion trial. None of the witnesses could agree. (Mark 14.6) Truth can be found when we take the time to see what everyone has to say. Do we still rely on this practice today? If not, why? God knows it is both loving and wise to speak and listen to the truth. Obeying God in this way uncovers the truth and reveals the heart of those giving testimony.


Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting
In you, O Lord, have I taken refuge; let me never be put to shame; deliver me in your righteousness. — Psalm 31.1

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
Deuteronomy 19 (Listen 3:04)
2 Corinthians 12 (Listen 3:54)

Read more about Justice of God
Sometimes when we find penalties in the Bible harsh, it is because we have been fortunate enough to never suffer serious harm or experience evil firsthand.

Justice of God

Read more about Love Great or Terrible
It doesn’t matter how true your words are if they wound people…If you use truth to put people in this condition, what use is your “truth?”

Love Great or Terrible

Justice of God

  • June 14, 2021
  • /
  • John Tillman

Scripture Focus: Deuteronomy 19.16-21
16 If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse someone of a crime, 17 the two people involved in the dispute must stand in the presence of the Lord before the priests and the judges who are in office at the time. 18 The judges must make a thorough investigation, and if the witness proves to be a liar, giving false testimony against a fellow Israelite, 19 then do to the false witness as that witness intended to do to the other party. You must purge the evil from among you. 20 The rest of the people will hear of this and be afraid, and never again will such an evil thing be done among you. 21 Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. 

Reflection: Justice of God
By John Tillman

Sometimes when we find penalties in the Bible harsh, it is because we have been fortunate enough to never suffer serious harm or experience evil first hand. Shockingly light sentences today for rapes, police shootings, or deaths caused by negligence or drunk driving often lead to outcries from victims. When we have been harmed, pity is the last thing on our mind. 

Miroslav Volf writes that In order to maintain non-violence, we need a belief that God will act in vengeance on behalf of victims.

“One could object that it is not worthy of God to wield the sword. Is God not love, long-suffering and all-powerful love? A counter-question could go something like this: Is it not a bit too arrogant to presume that our contemporary sensibilities about what is compatible with God’s love are so much healthier than those of the people of God throughout the whole history of Judaism and Christianity?

In a world of violence it would not be worthy of God not to wield the sword; if God were not angry at injustice and deception and did not make the final end to violence God would not be worthy of our worship.

My thesis that the practice of nonviolence requires a belief in divine vengeance will be unpopular with many Christians, especially theologians in the West. To the person who is inclined to dismiss it, I suggest imagining that you are delivering a lecture in a war zone (which is where a paper that underlies this chapter was originally delivered). Among your listeners are people whose cities and villages have been first plundered, then burned and leveled to the ground, whose daughters and sisters have been raped, whose fathers and brothers have had their throats slit. The topic of the lecture: a Christian attitude toward violence. The thesis: we should not retaliate since God is perfect non-coercive love.

Soon you would discover that it takes the quiet of a suburban home for the birth of the thesis that human nonviolence corresponds to God’s refusal to judge. In a scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die. And as one watches it die, one will do well to reflect about many other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind. If God were not angry at injustice and deception and did not make a final end of violence, that God would not be worthy of our worship.”

*Excerpt from Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation by Miroslav Volf.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Morning Psalm— Wait Upon the Lord
Wait upon the Lord and keep his way; he will raise you up to possess the land, and when the wicked are cut off, you will see it.
I have seen the wicked in their arrogance, flourishing like a tree in full leaf.
I went by, and behold, they were not there; I searched for them, but they could not be found.
Mark those who are honest; observe the upright; for there is a future for the peaceable.
Transgressors shall be destroyed, one and all; the future of the wicked is cut off.
But the deliverance of the righteous comes from the Lord; he is their stronghold in time of trouble.
The Lord will help them and rescue them; he will rescue them from the wicked and deliver them, because they seek refuge in him. — Psalm 37.36-42

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Deuteronomy 19 (Listen – 3:04)
Psalm 106 (Listen – 4:52)

Read more about The Promise of Justice
Those who deny moral absolutes cannot show that they lack anything. Without a moral ideal, no complaint regarding justice can be made.

The Promise of Justice

Read more about Miscarrying Justice
The calls of the prophets about bloodshed echo in our halls of justice too. We cannot dismiss bloodshed or violence as a legal problem. It is also a spiritual problem.

Miscarrying Justice

Helping Fathers and the Fatherless

  • June 14, 2019
  • /
  • John Tillman

Psalm 109.9-12
May his children be fatherless
    and his wife a widow.
May his children be wandering beggars;
    may they be driven from their ruined homes.
May a creditor seize all he has;
    may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.
May no one extend kindness to him
    or take pity on his fatherless children.

Reflection: Helping Fathers and the Fatherless
By John Tillman

People of David’s time understood that fatherlessness was a known cause of suffering for children and families. If children were fatherless, they were expected to be poor, wandering beggars. God’s people are commanded to be compassionate to widows and orphans precisely because God knew and cared for their hardship. 

What David may not have foreseen, however, is that today’s fatherless children would suffer not only the disinterest of society but the disinterest of their own fathers. Most of the fatherless children in David’s day knew that it was the horrors of war or exile or accident that had taken their fathers away unwillingly. Today’s fatherless often are left fatherless by choice not by catastrophe. They aren’t orphans of war, but of willful abandonment.

According to Vincent Dicaro at the National Fatherhood Initiative, fatherhood in the United States has made some gains in recent years, but not for everyone.

“While it is true that among middle-class families, father involvement is looking very good, it is also true that America has record levels of father absence, a crisis that mainly affects lower-income families. In fact, 24 million children, 1 out of every 3, lives in a home in which their biological father does not live. That rate is closer to 2 out of 3 in the African American community. And among those children living in father-absent homes, 1/3 have no contact with their dads, and another 1/3 have contact once per month or less.

So, the picture is actually quite bleak in too many communities across the country.” 

Fathers in our communities need the church’s help and support, not our judgment. The fatherless are in our communities not to suffer for the sins of their parents, but that we might have an opportunity to demonstrate the love of God, their true Father.

May we, along with introducing our communities to God the Father, introduce them to a definition and example of fatherhood that is based on the love that God has shown us.

May we work to ensure that the benefits of fatherhood and the resources needed to be a good father are spread to all levels of our communities.

May we lovingly bless the fatherless in our communities knowing that they are not there because of the sin of themselves or their parents, but that through them we might show the glory of God.

Prayer: The Call to Prayer
Come now and see the works of God, how wonderful he is in his doings toward all people. — Psalm 66.5

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
Deuteronomy 19 (Listen – 3:04) 
Psalm 106 (Listen – 4:52) 

This Weekend’s Readings
Deuteronomy 20 (Listen – 2:55), Psalm 107 (Listen – 4:12) 
Deuteronomy 21 (Listen – 3:33), Psalm 108-109 (Listen – 4:28) 

Thank You!
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Read more about Fatherhood’s Collapse, Love’s Destruction
Our view of love is anemic because our view of fatherhood is so damaged. It is God’s fatherhood that gives the depth, intimacy, and love we desire most

Fatherhood’s Collapse, Love’s Destruction

Read more about The Father of Fathers
You are the Father all fathers should be.
Gentle. Caring. Loving. Righteous. Just.

The Father of Fathers