Readings for the day: Joshua 11, 12, 13, 14
It’s about this time every year in my Bible reading that I start to get weary. Worn down by all the bloodshed and violence. Worn down by all the God-sanctioned religious warfare. Worn down by the thoughts of men, women, and children dying in these cities as Israel conquers the Promised Land. I am worn down by a world I do not understand. Worn down by the brutality of it all. Worn down trying to understand how God is driving it all. I come to the end of my finite mind. I come the end of my understanding. I come to the end of my ability to reason my way through. And I just sit with the horror of it all. Overwhelmed.
I recently had dinner with some friends. One of them does a lot of work in Rwanda with the mountain gorillas. He and his family have been engaged over there for decades helping with the research. He was there during the genocide. He saw the bodies piled up in the streets. Stacks upon stacks. It was horrifying. He can never get the images out of his head. If there’s anything history has taught us, it is that man’s inhumanity to man knows no bounds. The Killing Fields in Cambodia. The purges in Maoist China and Stalinist Russia. The Holocaust. And those are just the 20th century examples! The Mongolian conquest. The Crusades. The African slave trade. British occupation of India. Rome’s brutal conquest of the Germanic tribes. For as long as human beings have walked this earth, there has been war. There has been violence. There has been suffering. In fact, some historians calculate that in the history of the human race, we’ve experienced four years of peace. FOUR! Can you imagine?
When human beings engage in such violence, they tend to pull on a common thread. God. God has ordained this war. God has sanctioned this violence. God is on our side. God commands us to fight these battles and destroy these enemies. But is this really true? I readily admit I have to struggle through the histories of the Old Testament more so than I do even Leviticus. I can make some sense of the law code but I cannot rationalize the death and destruction. So what’s a faithful, Bible-believing Christian to do?
Three things help get me through this part of the reading every single year...
- Joshua 5:13-15. At the beginning of the conquest, before the fall of Jericho, the commander of the Lord’s Armies appears to Joshua. Joshua falls on his face before him and asks him if He is for Israel or for their adversaries. It’s a great question. It’s a common question. Essentially, he’s asking the angel, “Are you for us or against us?” Are you on our side or their side? Are you team Israel or team Canaanite? I love the angel’s response. “No, I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come.” Basically, the only “side” I’m on is my own! I am no tribal deity. I am not like the other gods. I reign and rule according to my own sovereign purposes and plan.
- My finite mind. My understanding of the world is shaped by time, culture, space, nation, etc. I am not an “objective” observer of history. There is no such thing. I have built in biases and assumptions that I bring to the table when I read the Word of God that act as “filters.” These filters can be helpful or harmful depending on the text and will shape how I “receive” the Word of God in any situation.
- Humility. I need to read with humility because I do not know all the answers. Nor will I ever. My questions and fears and doubts are real and I may not find satisfaction this side of heaven. That’s okay. If there is a God who rules and reigns over the universe and if this God is good then I can ultimately trust Him. I can trust He sees things I cannot and He is orchestrating things to His own ends which ultimately are just and holy and righteous.
There is one more thing I always try to keep in mind. My own sinfulness. The evil I carry in my own heart. Like the Apostle Paul, I do things I know I should not do. I don’t do things I know I should do. Every day is full of sins of “commission” and sins of “omission” that negatively impact the lives of those I love and the lives of those I am around. The evil in the world is not just “out there” but inside of me as well. So I read with the understanding that but for the grace of God, I too deserve the ban. I too deserve the Herem. I too deserve death and destruction. And that moves my heart to praise and thanksgiving for what God has done in Jesus Christ.