Cited in sermons
Peter Craigie
57 sermons · All people cited
The Misc. Laws and Laws of Sexual Immorality
Deuteronomy 22 presents a body of Mosaic legislation covering miscellaneous civil duties and laws governing sexual morality, each rooted in the moral law summarized in the Ten Commandments. The first half of the chapter (verses 1–12) addresses property rights, gender distinction, ecological stewardship, safety precautions, and ceremonial mixtures — all concrete applications of the love command and the Decalogue to life in covenant community. The second half (verses 13–30) addresses premarital unchastity, adultery, and the critical distinction between the rape of a betrothed woman and the seduction of a consenting single woman, a distinction obscured by some English translations but essential to a fair reading of the text. Throughout, the threefold division of the law — moral, ceremonial, and judicial — provides the lens for identifying what carries permanent moral weight, what was fulfilled in Christ, and what expired with the Israelite commonwealth while leaving principles of general equity for civil application.
Laws Concerning Homicide and Witnesses
Deuteronomy 19 applies three commandments of the Decalogue to the concrete conditions of civil life in Old Covenant Israel: the sixth commandment through legislation on cities of refuge distinguishing accidental homicide from murder, the eighth commandment through the prohibition on moving property landmarks, and the ninth commandment through the law of witnesses and its penalties for perjury. The sermon examines the distinction between manslaughter and premeditated murder, the role of the avenger of blood, the lex talionis as a limiting and proportional principle, and the blood-guiltiness that falls on a nation that fails to execute justice. The overarching application is that these laws reveal the sanctity of human life, the justice of God in civil society, and the sinfulness that made such detailed legislation necessary — all of which drives the hearer to the new covenant, in which Christ alone kept what Israel could not.
The Regulation of Priests and Prophets
Deuteronomy 18 governs the two offices through which God communicated with Old Covenant Israel: the Levitical priesthood and the prophetic ministry. The chapter moves from the material provision owed to priests and Levites, through a comprehensive prohibition of pagan divination, to the promise of a succession of prophets culminating in one greater than Moses — the Lord Jesus Christ, identified explicitly in Matthew 17 and Acts 3. The sermon draws out the typological and redemptive-historical unity of the chapter, showing that what Israel sought illegitimately through witchcraft and necromancy, God supplied legitimately through his Word-bearing offices, and that the old covenant's pattern of 'do this and live' finds its fulfillment in Christ who kept the covenant perfectly on behalf of his people.
The Maintenance of Justice
Deuteronomy 16:18–17:7 establishes the framework for civil justice in Old Covenant Israel: the appointment of impartial judges, the prohibition of idolatrous practices that precede full apostasy, and a carefully guarded procedure for prosecuting capital offenses. The passage demonstrates that God's theocratic ordering of Israel required both judicial righteousness and cultic holiness, since Yahweh was simultaneously God and King. Israel's repeated failure to maintain this standard drives the expectation forward to Christ, the true Israel, who alone executes judgment with perfect righteousness. The enduring principles of due process, equal application of law, and capital punishment remain binding norms for civil government in every age, grounded not in Mosaic theocracy alone but in the Noahic covenant and the New Testament's own teaching on the sword.
Deuteronomy 16:1-17 - The Annual Feasts of Israel
Deuteronomy 16:1–17 presents three annual feasts — Passover and Unleavened Bread, Weeks, and Tabernacles — as divinely ordained memorials calibrated to keep Old Covenant Israel's allegiance fixed on Yahweh. Each feast commemorates a distinct aspect of God's redemptive work: deliverance from Egypt, provision at harvest, and sustenance through wilderness wandering. The Passover's substitutionary logic — where efficacy rested in God's provision rather than the offerer's moral worthiness — typologically prefigures Christ as the Lamb whose blood alone secures the sinner's safety. The sermon draws out the connection between the central sanctuary requirement of Deuteronomy 12 and the New Covenant church as the God-ordained means by which worship is preserved from corruption and believers are hedged against apostasy.
Laws Concerning Debt, Slaves, and Firstborn
Deuteronomy 15 sets out three bodies of legislation governing Old Covenant Israel: the sabbatical release of debts, the release and provision for indentured servants, and the sanctification of the firstborn. The sermon traces how each law flows from a divinely ordered reciprocity — God prospers his covenant people so that prosperity rolls downward to the poor and the victim — while insisting that outward compliance must be driven by an internal disposition of genuine covenantal loyalty. The firstborn legislation is read as pointing forward to the unblemished firstborn Son of God, whose sacrifice fulfils what the animal offerings could only foreshadow.
Deuteronomy 14:1-29 - Laws of Death, Diet, and Tithing
Deuteronomy 14 regulates mourning rites, dietary practices, and tithing for Old Covenant Israel — not as arbitrary impositions but as expressions of a holy people set apart by God from the nations around them. The chapter's controlling logic is covenantal identity: because Israel bore the status of God's firstborn son, every dimension of daily life, from the menu to the method of mourning, was to reflect that consecration. The dietary laws, now abrogated under the New Covenant as ceremonial law fulfilled in Christ, nevertheless carry a permanent New Covenant counterpart: the people of God are still to be distinguished from the world in holiness, presenting their bodies as living sacrifices. The tithing section closes the chapter with a call to generous, joyful giving that cares for the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow — a call that carries into the New Covenant era as well.
The Solicitation to Apostasy
Deuteronomy 13 confronts Israel with three escalating scenarios of solicitation to apostasy: the false prophet, the intimate family member or friend, and the corrupt city given over to idolatry. In each case the text demands not tolerance but purging, because defection from the living and true God constitutes treason against the theocratic covenant order. The chapter's severity is inseparable from its mercy: faithful execution of justice removes the cause of divine wrath and secures the covenant blessings sworn to the fathers. The passage presses the hearer to examine whether fidelity to God holds firm against both miraculous signs that lead astray and the subtler pull of intimate relationships.
The Promise of Blessing or Curse
Deuteronomy 11 sets before Israel a stark covenantal choice: blessing conditioned upon obedience to the Lord, or curse consequent upon idolatry and rebellion. Working through the chapter's three sections — the works of God rehearsed in history, the requirement of covenant fidelity, and the promise of blessing or curse — the sermon traces how Israel's failure to meet the covenant's demands is precisely the ground upon which Christ, as the true Israel and last Adam, fulfills all righteousness and absorbs the covenant curse on behalf of his people. The exhortation closes by connecting Deuteronomy 27:26 to Galatians 3, showing that the Mosaic covenant of works for Israel becomes the ground of Christ's redemptive obedience and that justification has always been by faith alone in the one who kept what Israel could not.
Life in the Wilderness and Canaan
Deuteronomy 8 sets the wilderness generation of Israel before the land of Canaan with a threefold movement: a reminder of God's providential humbling in the wilderness (vv. 1–5), a promise of abundant blessing in the land (vv. 6–10), and a solemn warning against the pride and forgetfulness that prosperity tends to generate (vv. 11–20). The wilderness was not divine cruelty but divine chastening — designed to produce dependence on God rather than self-sufficiency — a pattern the New Testament applies both to the believer's ongoing trials and to the person of Christ, who as the true Israel recapitulates the exodus, wilderness, and restoration that old covenant Israel failed to embody faithfully. The sermon closes by calling hearers to combat forgetfulness of God through regular remembrance of his word, his covenant, and his redemptive acts, recognising that the danger is never prosperity itself but the pride that severs gratitude from grace.
The Tenth Commandment
The Tenth Commandment's prohibition against coveting addresses not the external act but the internal disposition of the heart, making it the capstone over all the other commandments. Covetousness — the inordinate desire for anything belonging to one's neighbor — is at root an act of discontentedness with God's sovereign allotment and a form of idolatry, placing the creature above the Creator. The sermon works through the threefold use of the moral law: its civil function, its pedagogical role in driving sinners to the cross, and its normative function in calling the redeemed to diligent watchfulness over heart and soul.
The Seventh Commandment, Part 1
The seventh commandment — 'You shall not commit adultery' (Deuteronomy 5:18) — presupposes and protects the divinely ordained institution of marriage, which Scripture grounds in three purposes: the mutual help of husband and wife, the increase of mankind through procreation, and the prevention of uncleanness. This study examines the basis of the commandment in the creation ordinance of Genesis 2, the law of God in the Decalogue and apostolic teaching, and the sanctions attached to its violation in Leviticus and Proverbs. The prohibition extends beyond adultery to fornication, incest, rape, and related sexual sins, with particular attention given to the difficult case legislation of Deuteronomy 22 and the critical difference between seduction and rape in that text.
The 5th Commandment
The fifth commandment — 'Honor your father and your mother' (Deuteronomy 5:16) — demands far more than a recipe for happy families; it is a covenantal obligation rooted in God's own authority and binding on every generation. This study examines the command under three heads: its explanation (the Hebrew word for 'honor' connoting weightiness and reverence), its scope (extending beyond the family to all superior-inferior relationships in church, workplace, and commonwealth), and its sanction (from the rod of correction in Proverbs to the capital sentence of Deuteronomy 21). The promise appended to the command — long life and general wellbeing — is understood as a principle of divine providence, not an absolute guarantee, and the study closes with the duty of superiors to govern those beneath them in a godly and nurturing way.
The Necessity of Faithful Obedience, Part 2
Moses concludes the historical prologue of Deuteronomy with a programmatic warning to the second generation of Israel: idolatry will bring exile, but repentance will meet a merciful God. The sermon expounds Deuteronomy 4:25–49, tracing the consequences of covenant-breaking, the grounds of covenant mercy, and the incomparability of Israel's God as the only legitimate basis for obedience. The practical application presses the necessity of self-government, the danger of forgetfulness, and the trans-covenantal obligation of parents to pass covenant instruction to their children.
The Necessity of Faithful Obedience
Deuteronomy 4 closes Moses' historical prologue with an urgent exhortation to the second generation of Israel on the necessity of faithful covenant obedience before crossing the Jordan. The chapter's three movements — the necessity of obedience (vv. 1–8), the dangers of idolatry (vv. 9–31), and the incomparability of Israel's God (vv. 32–40) — are treated as an impassioned speech by a man who lived the history he recounts. Scripture's sufficiency is defended against every form of addition or subtraction, and the regulative principle of worship is grounded in God's self-revelation at Sinai as a consuming fire who receives no image.
Wilderness Wanderings
Deuteronomy 2–3 records Moses rehearsing the wilderness wanderings for the second generation of Israel, poised on the plains of Moab before the conquest of Canaan. God's multinational sovereignty is on display as He assigns territorial boundaries to Edom, Moab, and Ammon, then delivers Sihon and Og into Israel's hands — demonstrating that the God of Israel governs all nations, not merely His covenant people. The historical review functions both as a warning against repeating the unbelief of the first generation and as an encouragement to trust the same God who preserved Israel through forty years of wilderness trudging. New Covenant believers are called to the same posture: to dwell on the record of God's faithfulness in redemptive history so as to remain steadfast through present trials.
Deuteronomy 1
Deuteronomy 1 opens Moses' first address to the second generation of Israel on the plains of Moab, a historical review designed to prepare the people for the conquest of the promised land. Moses rehearses four episodes: God's command to advance from Horeb, the appointment of judges, the rebellion at Kadesh Barnea rooted in unbelief, and the punishment that fell on the first generation. The central diagnostic is verse 32 — 'you did not believe the Lord your God' — which exposes unbelief as the taproot of Israel's grumbling, refusal, and covenant faithlessness. The sermon calls the New Covenant congregation to dwell on this history so as to be steadfast in the future, trusting the same God whose promises are yes and amen in Christ.
The Law Concerning Offerings and Vows
Numbers 28–30 presents the divinely regulated calendar of offerings and the law governing vows in Old Covenant Israel, both of which underscore that Israel was not merely a migrating people but a covenant community ordered by the worship of God. The offerings — daily, Sabbath, monthly, and the seven yearly feasts — served to remind Israel of their redemptive history, promote joy and community, resist idolatry, and ensure rest in God's presence, all of which find their fulfillment in Christ. The law of vows in chapter 30 teaches the sanctity of truth, the binding nature of solemn commitments made before God, and the complementarian order in which a woman's vow was subject to the authority of her father or husband. Together these chapters call the New Covenant believer to faithful, regulated worship, truthful speech, and lives of sanctification that flow from justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
The Feasts of the Lord
Leviticus 23 sets before Israel a calendar of holy convocations — the weekly Sabbath, the spring feasts of Passover, Unleavened Bread, and Weeks, and the fall feasts of Trumpets, Atonement, and Tabernacles — all commanded by God as the covenant head of his people. These feasts served to remind Israel of their redemptive history, promote joy and community, encourage charity, deter idolatry, and provide rest. As ceremonial law, they were typological ordinances pointing forward to Christ, and their perpetuity was covenantally conditioned: with the inauguration of the New Covenant, Christ abrogated them. The weekly Sabbath, however, rests on moral law grounded in creation and redemption and remains binding on the New Covenant people of God, who are called to observe the Lord's Day — not the Old Covenant feasts — as the appointed time for corporate worship.
The Sabbaths and Annual Feasts
Exodus 23:10–19 legislates two kinds of Sabbath and three annual feasts within the Book of the Covenant, each designed to order Israel's life around the worship of Yahweh alone. The seven-year land Sabbath provided for the poor and beasts through a system of crop rotation, while the seventh-day Sabbath — whose moral principle is perpetual and now observed on the first day of the week in the new covenant — extended its restorative benefit to every member of the community, including servants and resident aliens. The three annual feasts (Unleavened Bread, Harvest/Weeks, Ingathering) were not merely ceremonial obligations but instruments for rehearsing redemptive history, promoting communal joy and reciprocity, and guarding the covenant people from idolatry. As judicial and ceremonial laws, these specific institutions have expired with Old Covenant Israel, yet their general equity and the moral principle of Sabbath rest continue to bind the new covenant community.
Laws Concerning Marriage and Capital Offences
Exodus 22:16–20 presents two distinct legal categories: the seduction of an unbetrothed virgin and three capital offenses — sorcery, bestiality, and idolatry. The sermon works through each law in its ancient Israelite context, drawing on Deuteronomy 18, 22, 27, and 13 to amplify and clarify the Exodus text, and defends the coherence of the bride-price legislation against the charge that it sanctions rape. All three capital offenses are shown to be covenant-destroying acts that strike at both the religious and civil foundations of Israel's polity, carrying the theological weight of treason against the Lord of the Covenant. The general equity of these laws presses the church today toward a high view of marriage, a total rejection of the occult, and recognition that first-table faithfulness to God is the indispensable ground of second-table obligations to one's neighbor.
The Tenth Commandment
The tenth commandment's prohibition of covetousness exposes the spirituality of God's law: external compliance is insufficient, for the law reaches the desires and affections of the heart. Covetousness is defined as inordinate desire for what belongs to a neighbor — whether his wife, his goods, or anything that is his — and its connection to the first commandment reveals that misplaced desire is a form of idolatry. The sermon traces covetousness through envy and discontentment, showing how inward sin often becomes the prelude to overt transgression. The positive counterpart calls believers to contentment grounded in God's sovereign ownership, his covenant promise of provision, the surpassing weight of eternal glory, and the cultivation of a genuinely charitable spirit toward others.
The 7th Commandment, Part 1
The Seventh Commandment — 'You shall not commit adultery' (Exodus 20:14) — prohibits not only the specific act of adultery but subsumes all sexual sins under its scope, while positively requiring chastity and the promotion of righteous sexual ethics. This exposition establishes the basis of the commandment in the creational purpose of marriage (Genesis 2), the function of God's law as a revelation of his character, and the severe sanctions — capital punishment in Israel, present social consequences, and the final judgment of God — attached to its violation. The sermon then works through the prohibited acts: adultery, fornication, incest, rape (with careful exegesis of the contested cases in Deuteronomy 22), homosexuality, bestiality, unlawful divorce (tracing the lawful grounds of porneia and desertion through Deuteronomy 24, Matthew 19, and 1 Corinthians 7), and immodesty. Throughout, the law's severity is balanced by the gospel: 'such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus.'
The 5th Commandment
Exodus 20:12, the fifth commandment to honor father and mother, stands as the first commandment of the second table of the law and governs the entire structure of human authority relations — in the family, the church, the workplace, and the civil commonwealth. The command's scope extends beyond parent-child dynamics to all lawful superior-inferior relationships, a point the Westminster Larger Catechism makes explicit. The sermon traces the commandment's explanation, scope, and sanctions through the Old Testament case laws, the prophets, and the New Testament vice lists, before treating the covenant promise of longevity as a general principle of divine providence rather than an unconditional guarantee. The application presses parents to discipline their children by word and rod, warns of the social consequences of failing to do so, and qualifies submission to authority where superiors command sin.
Nations Rage, God Mocks
Psalm 2 confronts the rage of earthly rulers against God and His anointed with a sober theological question: why do the nations engage in so futile an endeavor? The sermon expounds the psalm under three headings — the rebellion of earthly kings, the reign of the heavenly king, and the recognition of the true king — tracing the Davidic covenant through its fulfillment in the resurrection and exaltation of Christ. The Covenant of Redemption grounds the certainty of Christ's present reign at the right hand of the Father, and that certainty is the sole comfort available to God's people as nations continue to rage and the history of the church runs red with the blood of martyrs. Hearers are called either to kiss the Son in filial fear and find blessing, or to perish in the way of the ungodly.
The Tenth Commandment
The Tenth Commandment's prohibition against covetousness exposes the internal nature of God's law in a way no other commandment does: it is a sin but not a crime, reaching the desires and affections rather than merely outward conduct. Covetousness is shown to be inextricably linked to idolatry (Ephesians 5:5; Colossians 3:5), rooted in discontentment with God's providential allotment, and often the seed from which violations of every other commandment spring. Positively, the commandment calls believers to acknowledge God's sovereign ownership of all things, rest in his promise of temporal provision (Hebrews 13:5), cultivate contentment (1 Timothy 6:6), and displace covetousness with a charitable, generous spirit. The sermon also treats the three classical uses of the law — civil, pedagogical, and normative — showing that the Tenth Commandment functions as a searching pedagogue that drove the Apostle Paul and the rich young ruler alike to confront their need for Christ.
The Fifth Commandment
The fifth commandment — 'Honor your father and your mother' — reaches far beyond childhood obedience in the home; it establishes the foundational posture of submission to divinely-ordained authority in family, church, civil society, and workplace. This exposition of Deuteronomy 5:16 traces the command through the Mosaic law, the prophets, and into the New Testament, where Paul applies it unchanged to Gentile believers in Ephesus, demonstrating the trans-covenantal abiding force of the Decalogue. The sermon examines the severity of the sanctions attached to its violation — including the theocratic death penalty and Israel's exile — as evidence that God regards the fifth commandment not as a domestic nicety but as load-bearing structure for any ordered society. Parents are called to enforce the command through discipline and instruction, and all hearers are reminded that the only remedy for its violation is the gospel of Christ, who was born under the law to redeem lawbreakers.
The Need for Due Process
Proverbs 18:17 establishes that the first to state a case seems right until cross-examination occurs — a principle with profound implications for personal conduct, church life, and civil justice. This sermon expounds that verse alongside Deuteronomy 19:15–21 and Deuteronomy 25:1–3 to demonstrate that due process — including cross-examination, the two-or-three-witness rule, proportionate punishment, and the preservation of human dignity — is grounded in the law of God, not in modern legal convention. The Old Testament judicial laws are shown to protect the accused, deter false witness, and honor image-bearers even in their guilt. The sermon closes with a Christological application: Psalm 15 describes the perfectly law-keeping Mediator, and union with him by grace through faith is the only ground on which any person stands before God.
Genesis 9:1-17
The Noahic covenant establishes not only capital punishment but a comprehensive framework for criminal justice that the civil magistrate is bound to apply. Drawing from Genesis 9, Ecclesiastes 8, and the Mosaic civil law, this sermon traces three lesser forms of punishment — restitution, indentured servitude, and corporal punishment — demonstrating that each is governed by due process, proportionality, and a concern for the dignity of the offender as an image-bearer of God. The modern prison system is evaluated against these biblical categories and found to undermine restitution, rehabilitation, and human dignity alike. Hearers are called to think carefully about what Scripture actually teaches concerning crime and punishment rather than dismissing it as barbaric.
The Majestic Name
Psalm 8 frames the majestic name of God as the beginning and end of all true praise, confronting the reader with the infinite distance between Creator and creature while simultaneously revealing the astonishing condescension of God in both creation and redemption. The sermon works through three movements: God's majestic name proclaimed in creation and defended through weakness (vv. 1–2), God's mindfulness of an infinitesimal humanity (vv. 3–5), and God's appointment of man to vice-regential dominion (vv. 6–9). Each movement is shown to find its ultimate fulfilment in the Lord Jesus Christ — the one who, as the last Adam, was made a little lower than the angels to purchase new creation for his people. The sermon closes with a call to study the attributes of God as the antidote to idolatry, and with a direct appeal to unbelievers to look to Christ, in whom Psalm 8 is fully realised.