How does Deuteronomy 6:8 connect with Jesus' teachings in the New Testament? Deuteronomy 6:8 in Its Original Setting “Tie them as reminders on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.” • Moses directs Israel to keep God’s words literally close—on the hand (all deeds) and the forehead (all thoughts). • The verse sits inside the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9), the daily confession of undivided love for the one true God. Jesus Reaffirms the Shema • Matthew 22:37-38: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ … This is the first and greatest commandment.” • Mark 12:29-30 adds the opening line: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” • By rooting His greatest-commandment teaching in Deuteronomy, Jesus endorses both the authority and the literal truth of the passage. From Leather Straps to Living Hearts • Matthew 23:5: “They broaden their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels.” – Jesus does not condemn phylacteries themselves (the physical application of Deuteronomy 6:8) but the prideful show behind them. • Matthew 5:17: “I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.” – Fulfillment includes writing the same law, not on scrolls alone, but inside believers. • Hebrews 8:10 (quoting Jeremiah 31:33): “I will put My laws in their minds and inscribe them on their hearts.” – The intent of Deuteronomy 6:8—constant, embodied awareness—reaches its ultimate expression in the New Covenant. Hands and Foreheads: Thought and Action United • Hand = every deed (James 1:22, “Be doers of the word”). • Forehead = every thought (Romans 12:2, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind”). • Jesus fuses both realms: – John 14:15, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” – Matthew 7:24, “Everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them…” A Mark of Ownership in Revelation • Revelation 14:1: servants bear the Lamb’s and the Father’s name “on their foreheads.” • Revelation 13:16-17 contrasts the beast’s mark “on their right hand or on their forehead.” • The imagery draws directly from the Deuteronomy pattern: whoever dominates the mind and the deeds owns the person. Christ seals His people; the world counters with a counterfeit seal. Living the Connection Today • Let Scripture saturate the mind—regular reading, memorizing, meditating. • Let it guide the hand—choices, work, relationships, service. • Display truth publicly, yet humbly, avoiding the Pharisees’ empty show. • Trust the Spirit to internalize what leather straps once externalized, so that love for God governs every thought and every action, just as Deuteronomy 6:8 envisioned and Jesus perfected. |
    |