Accountability, a Reflection on Deuteronomy 18:17-20

In Deuteronomy, we read that their ancestors had been worried that they would not know what to do when they lost Moses.  Those people whose lives had been in Egypt, who had been slaves in the powerful Egypt, then had escaped into a wilderness where they had wandered for forty years as they traveled toward the land promised to them. Led by the Lord through the words of Moses.

They are now leaving exile in another powerful kingdom to return to that land their ancestors had known and lost. Of course, they are concerned. They need to know what the Lord wants them to do. Things need to be better this time. They need to be better this time.

And, here we are, not necessarily getting ready for a geographic displacement, but needing to be assured that we are able to hear what it is that God intends for us to do. We have allowed many voices to direct us, and those directions have not always been the ones we should have followed.

Following the wrong advice has led us into wrong places.

We hear sermons from preachers in church. We don't even have to go to church to hear them. They are  being interviewed on television (at least for us in the U.S. during the election season). How can we be assure that the advice we get does come from God? How do we know that we can trust a prophet to speak for God, to direct us in the way that God wants for us and not in the way that the speaker would think helpful to himself.

Here's the advice that Allen & Williamson give in Preaching the Old Testament:

A prophet is similar to an ombudsperson whose work is to measure how well a community lives out its values, and to points at which the community embodies its deepest understanding of the divine purposes. Of course, the community needs to have conversation about such matters. Thinking together often brings to the surface questions and perspectives that do not come to individuals reflecting alone.

Questions that arise for me as I think about this passage:
     How do the values of our community and our congregation reflect our understanding of what God wants? That is, what would somebody who doesn't know anything about God learn from looking at what we do?
    Whom do we trust? Who should trust us?
    With whom do we discuss God's wishes and our response to them?

Lectio Divina: Psalm 111:7-8 The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy. They are established forever and ever, to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness.