Bible Study Challenge #3
There are many stories in the Bible where God appeared to someone and asked that person to perform radical and sometimes violent tasks in His name. According to the Bible, God even commanded that the people of Israel destroy all the inhabitants of the promised land which He told them to take and possess. The Israelites did enter the land, but they did not destroy every man, woman and child of the inhabitants. Their disobedience in this matter made God very angry at them and led to various afflictions.
Imagine that God (or His angel) appears to you in some way. God tells you He has chosen you and makes a great promise to you and your children and your children's children. To receive the promise He tells you that you must wipe out the family down the street and take possession of their property in His name. He also tells you not to be afraid because He will go with you and will help you complete this task. Doing so will demonstrate to all the world that He alone is God. If you believe this and do this, it will be accounted to you as righteousness and He will bless you and your descendants.
Knowing it was God who asked it, would you obey the instruction of God? Explain your answer.
If you want to participate in this Bible Study Challenge, please review the simple guidelines here before submitting your first comment.
Imagine that God (or His angel) appears to you in some way. God tells you He has chosen you and makes a great promise to you and your children and your children's children. To receive the promise He tells you that you must wipe out the family down the street and take possession of their property in His name. He also tells you not to be afraid because He will go with you and will help you complete this task. Doing so will demonstrate to all the world that He alone is God. If you believe this and do this, it will be accounted to you as righteousness and He will bless you and your descendants.
Knowing it was God who asked it, would you obey the instruction of God? Explain your answer.
If you want to participate in this Bible Study Challenge, please review the simple guidelines here before submitting your first comment.
Labels: Bible Study Challenge, faith, obedience
posted by fencekicker | 11:15 AM
7 Comments:
Fencekicker,
God would never ask anyone to do what you wrote in your question. Your question demonstrates that you do not know the God who revealed himself in Jesus Christ. Your question also demonstrates that you do not know the God of the Old Testament. The problem is that it seems that you only read passages out of its context in order to prove a point or to make the God of the Bible to be a savage God.
What you need to do is read a good book dealing with the theology of the Old Testament, one which seeks to present the message of the Bible as an integral whole. Your questions reflect that you are in search of understanding, and this is good. However, in your search for knowledge, I will never be able to convince you that the God of the Bible is a good God. The heart determines whether God is good or evil. When you gain a true understanding of who this God is, you will discover that he is not the God of the philosophers, a God of speculation, but that he is the God of revelation, a God who truly wants to redeem fallen humanity.
Your questions are not very helpful because they are not Bible study questions. These questions reflect the struggle that is going on inside of you and it does not matter what my answer is, you will reject it because you are already predisposed to reject the answer.
I recommend that you take some time to read books that deal with the issues with which you are struggling, then, become reacquainted with God and God’s work in the world. When you do so, I can guarantee that you will never ask this same question again.
Claude Mariottini
Dr. Mariottini,
I did not say that God is a savage God. I asked what you would do if you thought He asked you to do these things.
I think this is a very legitimate question to consider. The people of the Bible did things in faith that in our eyes today would seem outright evil.
For example, the Bible says that God commanded Abraham to take his son, build an alter and make a sacrifice... a sacrifice that Abraham believed would be his own son. Abraham would have done so if God had not stopped him. If you thought that God were asking you to sacrifice your son under a knife on an alter and burn his body over a fire, would you do what Abraham did?
You are right that this is a question about faith, and it is a question about knowing the voice of God. From your answer it appears that you would not do it, because you don't believe God would ask it.
This is also a question about interpretation. Abraham thought that God commanded him to sacrifice his son because that is how he interpreted God's message. He was willing to sacrifice his son because he believed it was a command from God. What else have people done because they mis-interpreted the message?
mariottitini, you sound very defensive about such a straight forward question as that. there was nothing confusing about it at all. it sounds like you've heard that asked so many times that you're the one that's convinced yourself of your own truth. fencekicker didn't say one way or the other whether or not god was good or bad, it was you that made that assumption and you're taking out frustration on everyone that wanted to hear people's honest answers to that question. i think it's a great question and it's very clear no matter what context you put it in.
personlly i would say if "god" appeared to me i would probably do whatever he said up to and including eating my laptop. unless he made himself appear not very intimidating. then maybe i'd just think about it then ignore it later.
I would never sacrifice my child.
There is not a simplistic answer as to why God asked Israel to exterminate the Canaanites. Here are some thoughts.
1) We are looking at this event with 21st century eyes. Not so long ago people thought it was a good thing to have slaves or exterminate Native Americans.
2) The Canaanites were wicked and deserved judgment. At the Second Coming the whole world will receive a judgment. The God of mercy is also the God of justice.
3) The failure of the Isrealites led to the Canaanites corrupting Israel. See the Book of Judges.
4) During the Exodus, God said he would drive them out by hornets but their continued lack of faith led to that idea being dropped.
Fencekicker:
I came back to your page because I received a note that Milan had placed a comment on your blog.
I miss our dialogue. Will you ever comeback?
My blog has moved to WordPress. Visit the new site of my blog, read my post today, then subscribe to my blog and receive all my posts as they are published. My new site is Dr. Mariottini.
Dr. Mariottini,
Thank you for asking. My life has undergone a lot of changes over the past five years. With three children and full-time employment, I don't have much spare time to devote to keeping a blog. However, I will consider your request. I was actually considering it after Milan's post, before you asked, but decided against it. I will give it some more thought.
Best Regards,
fencekicker
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