So I'm reading through Deuteronomy and am struggling with some of the stories. Here's one:
"Then the Lord said to me, 'Look, I have begun to hand King Sihon and his land over to you. Begin now to conquer and occupy his land'... so we conquered all his towns and completely destroyed everyone- men, women, and children. Not a single person was spared. We took all the livestock as plunder for ourselves, along with anything of value from the towns we ransacked. The Lord our God helped us conquer..." (NLT italics mine).
Does this sit well with all of you? My Bible "notes" try to reason all of this through by saying, "God often goes before us in our daily battles, preparing the way and overcoming barriers. We need to follow him wholeheartedly and be alert to his leading..." and blah, blah, blah...
Are we really trying to make a comparison between my daily "battles" of stress, getting the kids to school on time, mowing the lawn, doing the laundry- and killing children?!!! Really?! Quite honestly, I'm tired of the "churchy" way we explain away the Old Testament. I'm tired of "churchy" explainations period.
God gave Israel His blessing to move into the Promised Land and told them to move across the Jordan heavily armed and ready for battle. He wanted all of the occupying people to be completely destroyed so the Israelites could live in the land without the threat of the former tenant's false gods and idolatry. Okay, that makes sense.
And I've heard it explained that God was just trying to establish Israel- to get things going- so some people had to be killed, some nations had to be wiped out, some lessons had to be taught in order to do that. He taught them some serious lessons.
I don't have any profound thoughts about this- I'm just wondering over the way things went down. The Old Testament is so full of these strange stories- stories that seem so completely contrary to what Jesus taught. But maybe that's just it. Perhaps God doesn't need an explaination. Perhaps God will do whatever God will do because He loves us and sometimes that just doesn't make sense to us. Perhaps God is Sovereign and I just need to shut up about it.
Thoughts?
until soon,
b.
here's a thought...
ReplyDeleteso many hated jews because they were "chosen by God" and seemed indestructible... at least when they obeyed. and I wonder if this hatred is a result of their killing others in the name of God?
hmmm....sounds like the crusades... how sad that so many went off to war to kill muslims in the name of Christ?...and I can see them using this passage in deuteronomy as a rational for doing this.
If Jesus is " the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Heb. 13:8) - then why would He NOT be cool with us killing in JEsus name?.....
I don't agree with this thinking, but I can see the way folks could use this....
but I don't get it either. why would a father be ok with commanding his Kids to go slaughter his other kids?.... when all we hear from Jesus is to bring in the outsiders and those who dishonor my name and don't know me and are sinners and NON-Jews....
I like the second Jesus-command... but how does that fit with the first?...
why would the heart of the Father to discipline his people and teach lessons and all that have to include man-slaughter?....maybe it didn't at all and the jews mis-read his comand to "conquer".....
I don't know... I don't get it.
i am thankful Jesus saves....and changed THAT law!...
eric
Here is a really good and thorough set of thoughts about the subject. I'm going to give it more pondering...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bethinking.org/bible-jesus/advanced/old-testament-mass-killings.htm
I've always struggled with many Old Testament passages that just seemed too horrific to be God's commands--but we have to remember that Jesus not only as the sacrificial lamb, but also came to simplify God's commands when the Israelites repeatedly failed to follow them. God is so loving and wanting us to love him back, above all, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. The message I take from the Old Testament killings of entire cities is that God demands we be absolutely ruthless about removing anything that would tempt us and keep us from His loving arms. This was an extreme example we should learn from (but not imitate today :-). I don't think there is another example of God telling people to kill others after Jesus came. Praise God!
ReplyDeleteScripture says three things:
ReplyDelete1. that God always chooses mercy where mercy is possible;
2. that God knows the depth of every human heart, and the future of every human life;
3. it is God's will that "none should perish" -- speaking of a spiritual death.
Putting all that together, I believe that God will never command or even allow the death of a person who *would* humble his heart before God, before that person has a chance to. So I think that God would only command the killing of those who He know will never come to Him in this lifetime, no matter what.
The way God spoke to people in OT times was different from how it (usually) is today, because they didn't have the written Scripture that we do. And we humans are not able to know others' hearts, so we should never take this on ourselves to decide.
A second thought... The idea that children are more innocent than adults (and I'm with you on that) belies our thinking that being innocent has to do with actual sins or atrocities committed, rather than the rebellious state of our hearts.