Deuteronomy 18:15-20

Sorry, first a geography lesson. Mount Horeb and Mount Sinai sometimes get used interchangeably. Sometimes Mount Horeb is where Moses spoke to the burning bush sometimes is Mount Sinai. Mount Sinai is almost always where the Ten Commandments came to Moses. This says "the assembly", referring to the twelve tribes that were all at the presentation of the Ten Commandments. But, wouldn't that be something to celebrate instead of never want to see again as it says here? Well, remember, it wasn't all fun and games. Hearing the voice of God can be frightening, especially when he is laying down the law.

This is supposedly Moses speaking. The whole book is a further explanation of the laws. Just before this passage is the bit about prophets I mentioned two weeks ago regarding Samuel. You can see the working out of a new sort of prophet, one who comes from "the people", but speaks for God. You listen to the man, but God will hold you accountable. And don't worry about false prophets, because God will take them out.

1 Corinthians 8:1-13

Just a basic reading of this should raise a few questions. Like, wasn't the whole "idols" thing handled by Moses a couple thousand years ago? And by, "as in fact there are many gods", does he mean that literally? The next verse sort of covers it with "for us there is one God". These kinds of questions are the kind that drive pastors nuts. Which is why I think you should ask them all the time. Paul spoke of other gods and spoke to philosophers in Greece, he had no problem living in a pluralistic world of other religions. He differentiates "weak believers" from those "who possess knowledge". All of this was up for discussion for centuries, or at least Paul is acknowledging that there are people around and possibly in the church, that think this way. It was much later that governments started raising armies and making the asking of questions a crime punishable by death.

Daniel Dennet suggested in "Breaking The Spell" that we include a curriculum of world religions in our schools. He calls it "informed consent". He is fine with all religions giving input to the curriculum as long as historical facts are also included, such as the more dangerous extensions and implementations of religion, the facts about who wrote the original works and the debates over which ones are included in which version and the cultural reasons for that. It doesn't seem like Paul would have had a problem with that, but parents today will pull their kids out of school at the slightest hint of it.

Anyway, you also might notice a pre-existing Christ, one who existed with God from the beginning, the way he is portrayed in the opening lines of the Book of John, not like Luke or Matthew who have him being born. Then there is this stuff about food. He's probably referring to the eating of meat offered to idols, since he just mentioned them above. He doesn't really care, but he's worried about those who do. Eating meat sacrificed to idols was a sin at one time and still was to these weaker believers. This is more about appearances, not a strict rule he wants them to follow. It's like being careful with your language when the children around, because they won't know the more subtle reasons of when swearing is okay.

Forgetting all this esoteric information about what people believe and how it brings you to God, the overriding message is that you should respect the people in your community. Just because you know something they don't, you don't flaunt it. If they are sensitive to something, based on a belief that you think is wrong, shaming them for that belief is not going to help them or anyone. When he says in verse 11 that these people "are destroyed", I don't think he means physically, or even if he did, the message still works with modern Christians who don't think that Christ destroys people for doing things wrong. I think he means destructive to the community. The message then is about maintaining the community, being sensitive to the many beliefs and levels of knowledge within it. Build that up with love, the knowledge will come along as needed.

Mark 1:21-28

Here we have Jesus in the beginning of his ministry, teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath. Pretty standard stuff. Unfortunately we don't know much about what he said, we only know "they were astounded." Even when we get more of his words later, we will get a lot about him being misunderstood. We'll get lots of proof of his divine nature by the miracles he performs and lots of difficult to understand parables and comments about how great his lessons were, but not much on the details of those lessons.

The commanding of "even the unclean spirits" is a statement about him having powers of the one true God, the one that commands everything. See the Genesis story at the beginning of this Epiphany season.