Lectionary for July 13, 2025
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
Deuteronomy 30:9-14; Psalm 25:1-10;
Colossians 1:1-14; Luke 10:25-3

One of my favorite Bible teachers led a class on biblical justice for a mixed mainline and evangelical group. She fielded all the predictable questions about work righteousness and, if salvation is by faith alone, how can there be requirements of actions? At one point, after more than 30 minutes of questions that were clearly aimed at preventing her from getting to her material, she simply threw up her hands and said, “Look, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says don’t lust. None of you think he was kidding. He also says don’t murder or hurt people. You take that seriously. So, when the law says don’t put a stumbling block in front of a blind person (Leviticus 19:14), we should take that seriously too. It’s not that hard!”

I will always remember that. So, to be clear, we are not talking about behavioral perfection that can save someone from sin and death. Instead, this week’s lectionary readings talk about faithfully responding to God’s love and grace.

As Jesus was going along a lawyer asked a test question meant to identify his priorities. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus turned the question back to him and asked what the law said. The man quoted Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18—love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself. Good! Jesus agreed, telling the man that he was correct and if he did this, he would live.

Then what? Did the man and Jesus both laugh at how ridiculous it would be for people to actually try to love God and neighbor? No, that’s not it at all! Jesus, his disciples, the man asking the question and the early readers of Luke’s Gospel all took for granted that Jesus wanted them to actually try to love God and neighbor. The only question is not “How can I possibly love neighbors?” but instead “Who is my neighbor to love?” Jesus said the one who was religiously and culturally different is the neighbor who needs love the most—a lesson humans continue to need repeated, it seems.


We are not talking about behavioral perfection that can save someone from sin and death. Instead, this week’s lectionary readings talk about faithfully responding to God’s love and grace.


In the Deuteronomy text, the classic admonition arises—lo b’shamiyim hi, “it is not in heaven” (30:12). Explicitly stated in the text, the law before the Israelites was not too difficult for them. Don’t worship idols. Don’t rob, murder or rape. Do take care of widows, orphans, the poor and foreigners. If you find yourself in a position of authority, don’t take bribes or pervert justice. It really isn’t that hard, according to Deuteronomy.

As promised in Jeremiah 31:33 and in Ezekiel 36:26, God says here in Deuteronomy 30:14 that the law will be in their hearts and in their mouths. New Testament writers will seize upon this image from Deuteronomy to remind their readers that God has planned to write the law on hearts since long before the incarnation (2 Corinthians 3:3 and Hebrews 8:10).

And speaking of New Testament writers, in this letter to the Colossian church, the author argues for righteous living as a response to God’s grace. The writer certainly does not have in mind that the gentiles in Colossae should follow the 613 commandments in the Torah or even the Ten Commandments. That would be foolish! Instead of following commandments meant for Jews, the author merely instructs the Colossians to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, “bearing fruit in every good work” (1:10). Again, it’s not about earning salvation, but about doing the best we can, as enabled and indwelt by the Spirit.

In my teenage years, I worshiped in church contexts in which youth were constantly told that humans were worms and filthy little maggots that couldn’t possibly do anything right, and so we shouldn’t even try. Instead, we should just be grateful to God for our salvation and tell everyone we could the “good news” that they were also worms that God hated unless and until they put their faith in Jesus. I now think that theological anthropology is way off.

God loves us and is gracious to us. God expects great things out of us, as a response to God’s grace. The law is not too hard for us, and it’s not in heaven that we should give up trying to faithfully perform the works of righteousness that God has called us to do before the creation of the world (Ephesians 2:10). Instead, we are called bear fruit in every good work.

Cory Driver
Cory Driver is the director of L.I.F.E. (Leading the Integration of Faith and Entrepreneurship) at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. His book God, Gender and Family Trauma: How Rereading Genesis can be a Revelation was released in March 2025 by Fortress Press.

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