Blessed to Be a Blessing
The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." Genesis 12:1-3 (NIV)
When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations--the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you-- and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. . . . . . . For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. Deuteronomy 7:1-6 (NIV)
Pastor’s Blog
Do you notice the two tasks God gives to Abraham’s descendents (the Jewish people, Israel)? The first task is to bless all peoples on earth. The second, which is not music to ears of comfortable American suburbanites like me, is to destroy evil.
Blessing: God chose a certain group of people (the Jews) through whom he would bring healing and restoration to the world. They were chosen for no other reason than that God decided to. Jews are no better and no worse than anyone else. They were chosen for a task, a task completed and being completed by the one Jew who was faithful to the task, Jesus Christ.
Destruction: But task part two included eradicating evil. This meant that occupying the promised land was a twofold charge. The gift of land for Israel, and the removal of evil from that land as a judgment against the occupiers of that land because their evil had grown to be too great to be tolerated (human sacrifice and worse)
This is important for Christians to consider. My mind immediately thinks, “Wait a minute! Did God bless the Jews with the land by means of genocide? How can God commit genocide?” My next thought is seek a way to get God off the hook for what looks to me like an horrendous action. But I don’t succeed and I’m left with the story just as it’s told. Now what?
This is where the Christian must be very careful to allow scripture, the biblical story, as it is told, to form our idea of God, not the other way around. If the latter, I create my own god. If the former, I am continually humbled into living before the God who’s ways are not my ways and whose greatness is greater than I can comprehend.
The Bible keeps me in my place.
(to post your thoughts, anonymously if you wish, simply click on “comments” below)
If we only had the Old Testament to go by it would be hard to reconcile God's way in removing evil. But filtered through the New Testament we can form a more complete picture of God. Fulfilling His Law because He is a just God yet, we also know His purpose in the New Testament to reconcile us back to Him in love.
ReplyDeleteWe constantly hear tolerance is a great virtue, but it seems that everything we are urged to tolerate is sin. The Lord God doesn't feel the need to please us with His tolerance, He requires holiness. The land the children of Israel were entering had been polluted to the point that He said the land would vomit out the the inhabiting "ites". I don't know if it was "tolerance" or willfulness or greed that led the Jews to disobey God's command to cleanse the land but they've been living with the fruit of their disobedience ever since. Scripture tells me that God is love, what hideous consequences does sin include that would cause a loving God to require such measures to purge a land of every living thing? The hugeness of the price Jesus paid for my sin is far beyond my comprehension, eternity won't be long enough to show my gratitude.
ReplyDeleteSeems to me, the blessing to the world had very little to do with any effort from the Israelites. The blessing spoken of here was Jesus, himself and part of the promise given to Abraham for his faith was the privilege of ushering in the birth of Christ. Whether they knew it or not, they have been a blessing to all people not because of their accomplishment, but because of God's plan and choice. And in Romans, we can see the story with the Israelites is not over yet.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure why it is so important to make sure I face 'the vengence of God' as clearly as I do the 'love of God'. Admittedly, it is hard to read of the consequences that the rejection of God and the acceptance of evil brought on all the people, Israelites included. But, lest we forget, God bore these actions with great patience and mercy.
Violent is what the world became as a result of the fall. The story of Cain is a good example. Following the full story, Cain didn't want to go 'out of Eden' because he would be killed and not protected. God in His mercy, even still chose to protect Cain from being murdered, even though Cain was a murderer himself.
The fact that God operated within the state that the world had become through its own choice seems logical to me, not contradictory or disillusioning.
We play a dangerous game in thinking that evil is a distant entity, if it were, we would not have been given the warnings that are throughout the Bible.
"The one who is in us is greater than he who is in the World"
Amen
Pastor Jeff, thanks for discussing this passage! It has always bothered me and seems to have touched others as well.
ReplyDelete