Covenant & Conversation

When we tell the story of our people’s past, we renew our identity. We have a context in which we can understand who we are in the present and what we must do to hand on our identity to the future.

One reason religion has survived in the modern world despite four centuries of secularization is that it answers the three questions every reflective human being will ask at some time in his or her life: Who am I? Why am I here? How then shall I live?

The significance of the first fruits declaration is that it is not about nature but about history: a thumbnail sketch of the sequence of events from the days of the patriarchs to the exodus and then conquest of the land.