East of the Jordan in the territory of Moab, Moses began to expound this law, saying … Deuteronomy 1:5

Today's Scripture Reading (January 2, 2022): Deuteronomy 1

In the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "All Our Yesterdays" (the episode was the second last episode of the series and aired on March 14, 1969), Captain Kirk, Doctor McCoy, and Mr. Spock are all trapped in the history of a dying planet. Escaping to "yesterday" was the only solution the inhabitants of the planet could imagine once they realized that their sun was about to go nova. With the help of a librarian named Mr. Atoz, the people chose the portion of history that intrigued them the most. And then the inhabitants of the planet had escaped to that era of past. And, of course, Kirk and his colleagues got accidentally trapped in the past in the process.

Part of the plot of the story was that Mr. Atoz prepared the people for the period they had chosen. Once prepared, the time travelers were put through the "atavachron," which shifted them from the doomed present into the planet's yesterday. But once prepared and put through the atavachron, they could never come back to the present, even if they wanted to. A journey through the atavachron for a second time would kill them.

It is at this point that a huge shift in the plot occurs. While Kirk, Spock, and McCoy traveled through the atavachron, they had done so on an impulse. Mr. Atoz had never prepared them. And because they had not prepared, they could not stay in the era to which they traveled. They had to find a way back to the dangerous present.

As Israel pauses on the east side of the Jordan River, not far from the Canaanite city of Jericho, Moses gathers the nation and begins to explain the law. Some of the laws had likely not been kept in the wilderness, and so Moses needed to make sure that the people understood what was expected of them. The Promised Land was just ahead of them, and the people needed to be prepared for what would come next.

Moses knew, like Mr. Atoz, that if the people were properly prepared, they would spend long years in the health and wealth of the land that lay ahead. Unprepared, Moses knew that the land would eat them up and spit them out. Their fate would rest on what the people understood and whether they were willing to follow what it was that God had desired. Moses would not be with them as they entered the land, and so he intended to use this time on the east side of the Jordan to make sure that Israel was given every chance of succeeding. It was a time of preparation that began by explaining what he believed that God expected of his people to the best of his ability.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 2