Chapter 13
"If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, 'Let us go after other gods,' which you have not known, 'and let us serve them,' you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
Deuteronomy 13:1-3 ESV
So this says that no matter how compelling the prophecy, miracles, signs, or wonders performed by a prophet, we are to KNOW beyond a doubt that if they try to persuade us to worship anyone or anything besides the God of the Bible, they are false prophets. This is everyone's personal responsibility to know and distinguish a false prophet in this way. This is almost like an early warning against the beast and the false prophet that will come in Revelation and lead away many with his miracles and signs. We aren't to worship him - the Antichrist, because when he does these things, he will tell us to worship him and him only.
Note also that God says He is going to allow things like this - miracle workers - in order to test us, our faith, our knowledge of what God requires. If we truly love God, we will not follow these false prophets no matter how impressive their miracles.
Possible FB post 2021
2024 - Another test. Never believe a miracle without testing the message behind it. 1 "If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, 2 and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, 'Let us go after other gods,' which you have not known, 'and let us serve them,' 3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. [Deu 13:1-3 ESV]
Possible FB post
The next passage, vvs 6-11, say that anyone who entices others away from God towards other gods is to be stoned without prejudice. If our own son or mother tries to persuade us toward idol worship, we are to be the first to "kill" that person. We are to cast the first stone at our own family if they try to push any other god on us:
9 But you shall kill him. Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. 10 You shall stone him to death with stones, because he sought to draw you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. [Deu 13:9-10 ESV]
This is very strong stuff. I am not advocating stoning. Stoning was the penalty prescribed by the Mosaic Law, which is no longer in effect. But the principle has surely not changed. We would want to shun, to put out, anyone - stranger, acquaintance, friend or family - who tries to entice us toward a false god. Mostly, we wouldn't have a problem with a false prophet trying to get us to worship crocodiles. Or worship some comet that is coming by. Some are lured away by these but most are not. But what about a Jehovah's witness? Or a Mormon, or a Muslim? All three of these claim to be telling us about the God of Abraham. How do we know who to shun and who to counter? Who to shut the door on, and who to invite in for a discussion or a debate?
2023 - Vss 6-11 end with this: "And all Israel shall hear and fear and never again do any such wickedness of as this among you". This is 13:11. So the principle is that if the crime is to be discouraged forever, if it is never to happen again, then it's punishment must be swift and terrible. The way this crime is punished has to strike fear into the hearts of the innocent - but temptable. The punishment must be so out of proportion - in our eyes - to the crime that the crime is just NEVER worth it. A father had to throw the first stone in the stoning of his own son if his son did this. Or a man had to throw the first stone at his very closest friend. We ought not to say this is unjust and unfair, we ought to ask whether this would eliminate that crime from the country. We've all heard that in Arab countries they cut off the hand of a convicted thief. We have also heard that if you leave your cell phone on a park bench it will be there when you go back to get it. There is no doubt that this sort of "teaching justice" really works. And what are we doing? We're letting people break any law they care to break, and punishing anyone who tries to stop the lawbreakers. Where do we expect this is going to lead?
Possible FB post 2023...but probably not.
Ahhh...this gets more clear in the next few verses. Here is a phrase that I think applies:
13 that certain worthless fellows have gone out among you and have drawn away the inhabitants of their city, saying, 'Let us go and serve other gods,' which you have not known, [Deu 13:13 ESV]
Other gods which you have not known seems key. In the experience of Israel, there was only the God of Abraham. For us, only the God of Abraham is the true God. It is our understanding of this God, the practice of worshiping our God, that some religions attempt to skew. So the question would be, do Muslims worship the same God as Christians, or do they see Him so differently that in fact, they are proselytizing us to a completely false god? This is the question that has to be answered.
2021 - As it goes on from vs 13, the command is that this city where the worthless fellows are is to be attacked, everyone and all the cattle killed, all the spoil gathered into the town square and burnt as an offering to God. A heap of ashes will be all that's left, and this town is to remain a heap of ashes and never be rebuilt. Worshiping other gods was about as serious as things could get. And those who did such things were to be excised from the land of Israel - NOT tolerated, accepted, embraced. Turning a blind eye to the worship of other gods was punishable by death.
2025 - Note that as bad as it was for a person to turn to unknown gods, it was also bad when a whole town turned to them. That whole town was to be put to the sword BY THE REST OF THE NATION! They were not to tolerate such a thing in their midst. It was the responsibility of the rest of the nation to wipe out this kind of rebellion against God. Why was this to be done? That's vs 17: 17 None of the devoted things shall stick to your hand, that the LORD may turn from the fierceness of his anger and show you mercy and have compassion on you and multiply you, as he swore to your fathers, [Deu 13:17 ESV]. The whole nation is responsible for what any part of the nation does - for what each individual in the nation does. This was surely a different kind of dispensation. If the whole nation allowed that false prophet to seduce people away, or if a man allowed his own relatives to seduce him away, or a group of men organized themselves and implemented a plan to seduce a whole city away from God - in ANY and ALL of these cases, it was the responsibility of the NATION to correct the problem. If these rules still applied, we would be putting Muslims in this country to the sword. We would not tolerate their worship of a false god to continue. We wouldn't deport them, we'd burn their town to the ground.
But I do not believe that is what the NT teaches. Jesus never says do that. His teaching was that we deal with our own sin, our own deviations, and we love God, and we preach the gospel, and we thank God when we are allowed to suffer on His behalf. How can anyone say this is the same as it always was? Salvation has always been by faith, but what God expected of Israel was very different than what he expects of us, and that is not only about the ceremonial and dietary laws!
2026 - I don't think the NT teaches that we kill those who turn against Yahweh. I think it is different. What we can still learn from this chapter is that even though we don't pick up rocks and start throwing them, we ought to despise and reject anyone who does this sort of thing. I think we're talking here about Islam and Mormonism and even JH's. They seek to turn believers from the true gospel to a false and misleading gospel. In the case of Islam to an anti-gospel. We ought not have any room in our hearts for such, we do not owe them compassion. Our witnessing to such ought to be about turning from what is false to the true gospel they can read for themselves in the Bible. We ought not debate them, council them, befriend them. These are false, and they are misleading intentionally. Just like the men in this city who turn the whole city away. Their whole presence on the planet was to be wiped out as an example in the OT. Surely in the NT we aren't told to be nice to them. Remember how Jesus spoke to the Pharisees for turning the people away, even though they still called it Judaism.
And in that town they were to destroy, there were kids, even babies. There were handicapped. And there were surely a few who did not follow yet could not leave. Those were to be killed too. Physical evil for the greater good? Or fall out from the punishment of those who deliberately and with free will chose the low road?