The Bible is Weird | Violence, Warfare, Judgment, and the Love of God

Message Body

Studying scripture is like listening to a symphony or a chorus of voices. It is only when you listen to all of the instruments or voices together that the music makes sense. This is also true whenever you study the Bible.

If you isolate a single instrument or voice from the symphony or chorus, then the music sounds really weird. Likewise, the Bible also sounds weird if you isolate a single verse or passage or even a book. It only makes sense when you take it as a whole and ask the question: “what does God want me to know about him in relationship to the world And to myself?

Therefore, before I dive into our topic, let me offer a preface for how to interpret the scriptures. Generally, there are 3 views:

1. God gave us the scriptures as the literal word of God. Every word is meant to be understood as you read it without interpretation, as if the Bible descended from the heavens and onto our phones. Let me give away the answer: this isn’t how I recommend you interpret scripture. This is how Muslims read the Koran and mormons read the Book of Mormon, but it isn’t how Christians ought to read the scriptures, nor how the authors intended for it to be read.

2. The scriptures are metaphorical fables that tell us about the character of God. None of it happened as recorded. These proponents would say that Abraham, Moses, and the prophets never even existed. The scriptures are metaphorical truth. Some Christians believe this view. It is popular amongst universalists and other progressive church denominations.

3. The scriptures are the inspired and authoritative word of God meant to be understood in the context in which it was written and applied to today’s issues. God’s Spirit shaped every word of scripture through human writers, who lived in a real time and place, that stretched over the course of roughly 1600 years. Furthermore, the books of the Old and New Testaments comprise of genres, such as history and prophecy, that each tell stories in unique ways. For example, when we read books in the history genre, such as 1 and 2 kings, we can read them with some level of accurate historical depiction, even though some details may not necessarily mean or happened in the way they appear on the surface. Our modern view of history in 2022 differs from how the ancient world documented history.

Also, when we read Genesis, written as part of the Torah or 5 books of the Law, though it may appear like history on the surface, the stories read more like a parables. Yet, every word is inspired by God. It’s complex and dynamic. We can’t merely use one blanket way of interpretation like literal or metaphorical. Rather, the scriptures invite us to wrestle with them. Like Jacob, he wrestled with God, and God appreciated that so much, he changed Jacob’s name to Israel and chose him to father 12 sons who would become the 12 tribes of Israel, comprising God’s holy and set apart people.

I pray that you come to love the scriptures so much that you study it over the course of your life to understand more about God’s love for all of creation!

There is perhaps no other topic that demands this kind of study than violence and warfare in the scriptures, specifically in the Old Testament.

Several of you wrote questions about violence in the Old Testament.

Some of you also asked why God seems so different from the Old Testament to the New Testament.

The OT is certainly different from the NT, so this is a fair question, and one that we need to wrestle with.

There are roughly 400 years between Malachi and Matthew. A mentor of mine once joked: it liked God went to anger management therapy during those 400 years. :)

In reality, God is the same God from Genesis to Revelation. In fact, he is unchanging. The author of Hebrews wrote in Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

In Christ, God entered into our world, so to speak of Christ is to speak of God.

Yet this question remains for every generation to wrestle with and now it’s our turn, but the good news about God’s faithfulness to the church is that past leaders already dealt with the question of God’s consistency in the 2nd century, in the early 100s AD.

That’s how soon Christians began asking this question. One theologian named Marcion built an entire Christian worldview on the premise that God in fact did change between the testaments, but other faithful pastors and leaders who knew the Old Testament and studied the early letters of the church that would become the New Testament said wait a minute. God didn’t change. In fact the same mercy and grace and love stayed consistent throughout the OT and became fully manifest in Jesus.

When you dig deep and read the scriptures all the way through, two insights arise:

God shows amazing grace and mercy all throughout the Old Testament.

The New Testament writers, especially the Gospel writers, reference the Old Testament constantly in their writings about Jesus as the fulfillment of the OT scriptures. Even Jesus quotes the Old Testament in reference to himself, in particular Daniel 7.

The Bible from beginning to end is remarkably consistent given the fact that more than 40 writers across 1600 years contributed to this collection of divinely inspired letters.

As a result, the church as a whole labeled Marcion a heretic for his belief. I say that because many of your questions are not new but have already Been addressed through prayer and great intentionality from strong faithful leaders in the church’s past.

I also want to mention that the Bible itself answers many of your questions, including one question about the tower of Babel in Genesis 11. One of you asked: Why didn't God like it that people were trying to build a tower to heaven? 

Great question, and the answer is in the text itself: Genesis 11:4 says, “Then they said, “Come, let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world.””

What does that sound like to you?

Pride, greed, envy - all the stuff that resulted in a lot of bad stuff in the preceding chapters - Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, the flood - all examples of sin rooting deeper and deeper into the human heart because of prideful human greed and envy.

God could have allowed the people to build the tower and get themselves into trouble, but he chose to intervene by confusing their languages, which shows God’s deep hearted mercy for his image bearers, his people. He didn’t punish them or even admonish them. He introduced new languages to the people as a way of buffering them from one another, which some scholars, including myself, believe that was a way of helping the people from destroying themselves and others.

To understand the why behind violence and war in scripture and our world, we must understand how God created us to live in the world.

Gen 2 says that God created us in his image and invites us to share in the stewardship and governance over his creation, so who are we….

We are the image bearers of God and co regents with God. As his people who place our trust in him, We share in his kingdom and are heirs of the kingdom of heaven.

Sin is a result of human pride, our desire to live like the gods or goddesses of our own lives. The result of sin is death, which is the complete opposite of stewarding and tending to creation, including our own lives. Sin is the death of God’s good creation.

God designed this world to work best when we reflect God‘s image and partner with him to steward his creation. When we go our own way and do our own thing, then the potential for violence results.

There is violence all throughout scripture Because there are sinful people all throughout scripture, so in the few minutes we have together, we need to focus our attention, and I want to look at one of most significant problems of violence and war in the OT:

God’s calling to Joshua to kill the Canaanites to take the Promised Land.

On the surface, it appears that God is condoning war and violence, but a closer examination reveals something entirely different.

To begin we need to first look at the calling of Abram, whose name God later changes to Abraham. In Genesis 15, God made a remarkable statement to Abraham and tells him that he will give him and his descendents all the land between the Nile and the Euphrates, which essentially covers the entire middle east. It’s a gigantic swath of land. Abraham’s head must have been spinning.

Yet, people already lived in the land, and the argument that 21st century people make today about someone who lived in the 21st century BCE Is:

Didn’t those people live’s matter?

Didnt those people have rights to that land?

Didn’t God create those people in his image who lived in the promised land?

Answer: Absolutely!

So, why would God give that land to Abraham and his descendents and then command Joshua to lead Israel to kill them?

The answer to this question is in Genesis 15, and once again, the answers to most of your questions about the Bible are in the Bible itself, so let me encourage you to read it and study it a little bit everyday, but don’t start with the most difficult content. Start with the Gospels. Get to know Jesus, and let him become your foundation for understanding the rest of the scriptures.

OK, back to Genesis 15.

In Genesis 15, God makes an interesting remark about the people who lived in that land at the time, a people called the Amorites. This name was used to encompass everyone who lived in the land between the Nile and the Euphrates.

God says in Genesis 15:12-16 “As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a terrifying darkness came down over him. Then the Lord said to Abram, “You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land, where they will be oppressed as slaves for 400 years. But I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and in the end they will come away with great wealth. (As for you, you will die in peace and be buried at a ripe old age.) After four generations your descendants will return here to this land, for the sins of the Amorites do not yet warrant their destruction.””

Now, what does this mean?

Here’s what we know today about the Amorites, and I want to prepare you: it’s not good. They sacrificed children, they used rape as a form of worship, and inflicted unimaginable violence and torture against their own people and enemies.

Essentially, the Amorites and subsequently the Canaanites were the embodiment of a people who had fully rebelled against God and lived opposite of his good way. Sin had fully enveloped them as a people and society.

But here’s how merciful God is: he gave the Amorites 400 years plus 4 generations to change their ways, turn from their wickedness, and adhere to the image of their creator residing in each one of them.

That’s about 500 years That God gave to the Amorites, but rather than turning away from their evil lifestyle, the Amorite peoples only continued to dive deeper into heinous sin, and eventually, God said enough.

God could no longer tolerate the willful destruction of his image bearers by his image bearers, and ultimately, his good creation. His heart was broken and he dealt with it by sending his anointed leader, Joshua, who was one of the greatest, most faithful leaders in Israel’s history.

In his book, we learn that he lived with courage and God’s word on his lips. After he crossed the Jordan, the scripture says that he “devoted” the Canaanites to God. The literal word for kill is the hebrew word ‘devoted’ which means that God used Joshua and God’s own people to return to God what belonged to God so that God could sort them out.

John the Baptist says of Jesus in Luke 3:16-18 “John answered their questions by saying, “I baptize you with water; but someone is coming soon who is greater than I am—so much greater that I’m not even worthy to be his slave and untie the straps of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. He is ready to separate the chaff from the wheat with his winnowing fork. Then he will clean up the threshing area, gathering the wheat into his barn but burning the chaff with never-ending fire.” John used many such warnings as he announced the Good News to the people.”

Make no mistake God will separate the what from the chaff, the righteous from the unrighteous, and those who do violence against Gods image and those who seek peace and steward his creation.

On the surface, these passages in the book of Joshua appear violent, and they are, but if we read them in context, then it shows what happens when a people completely devoted to sin ravage violence against others.

God says, I’ve had enough, and uses his faithful ones to do justice and restore the world to God’s peace.

The prophet Micah 6:8 “No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”

This is what it means to steward and participate in Gods creative and redemptive work in the world!

***Now, here’s what’s very important about Joshua and violence in the scriptures. These are not moral examples of how we should live in this world.

God is not calling you to do violence against others in the name of holy justice. One of the ways that the Christian witness has been harmed throughout history is when the church takes matters of vengenance and justice into its own hands.

Rather the witnes of the church is to seek Gods kingdom here and now and witness to the coming day that Isaiah, an OT prophet, once wrote in Isaiah 2:4 “The Lord will mediate between nations and will settle international disputes. They will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer fight against nation, nor train for war anymore.”

In Christ, the cross freed us from sin and violence. the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 8:1-2 “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power* of the life-giving Spirit has freed you* from the power of sin that leads to death.”

And now the church is the place where heaven and earth meet. It meets here in our midst. Where two or more are gathered in his name, he is with us. When the church promotes or condones violence of any kind, it counters the witness of Christ and his finishing work on the cross. We still live in a world with war and violence, but the church is the location in the world where creation speaks in truth and grace against violence and war to help lift the eyes of the lost broken and hurting to the cross of Jesus.

So what about the war in Ukraine? Is there such a thing as a righteous war?

Is war and violence ever justified?