Hear, My Son

For many modern Christians, Deuteronomy is seen as either too difficult to understand ortoo far from the concerns of our day it is ancient law, outdated and no longer able to address the complex issues of a modern society. Furthermore, Deuteronomy is law that from which we in the age of grace have been delivered, and now that we are saved by grace, we are no longer under the awful law with its strict rules and condemnation.

In Hear, My Son, Ralph Smith provides a better reading of Deuteronomy which opens up this book of law as a book of loving instruction from a Father who seeks the blessing of His wayward son. He demonstrates that the key to understanding Deuteronomy is found in the repeated references to Yahweh as Israel s Father and the abundant allusions to the promises of the Fifth Commandment.

Smith s work encourages a fresh reading of the Pentateuch that puts away stale prejudices against a perpetually angry, slave-driving Old Testament God, and awakens the reader to the reality of Yahweh's primary identity as a tender, loving and devoted Father.

Ralph Allan Smith graduated from Grace Theological Seminary in 1978 with a Master of Divinity. In 1981, after years of church-planting experience in the United States, he went to Tokyo, Japan, where he and his wife, Sylvia, have been laboring to plant and build the Mitaka Evangelical Church. He has authored The Covenantal Kingdom, Paradox and Truth, The Eternal Covenant, Trinity and Reality, and The Baptism of Jesus the Christ. He is also director of the Covenant Worldview Institute.