As I worshiped The God Who Saves with the church this Sunday, we sang a song that I adore. As a nonviolent Christian, there is one line that is a bit harder to sing boldly and it is “The horse and its rider He has hurled into the sea.” This is drawn from both the song of Moses and the song of Miriam in Exodus 15. It is a declaration of The God Who Brought Us Out of Egypt delivering his people from oppression. I love it.
I have to make sure to not let the teachings and doctrine I follow become my god. We all do. As a nonviolent Christian, this means I have to joyfully accept the truth found in scripture even if it momentarily sets strangely within me. Some may try to fight against difficult scripture, but I want to embrace it with its proper context and message, even if it is contrary to my current beliefs.
Exodus 15:3 states “
The LORD is a warrior; the LORD is his name.” LORD here means Jehovah which means I AM or the Self-Existent One. Some translations replace the term warrior with man of war or man of battle. I have trouble with those translations simply because they call I AM a man, and he isn’t. It’s not too big of a deal so I’ll continue (since I’m sure you get the message of the verse).
Reconciling the violence of I AM and his people in the Old Testament (and once in the New Testament) can be difficult. I’m not sure it’s even necessary. What
is necessary is to understand that violence. I don’t want to simply gloss over these passages and say the authors are merely attempting to convey that the God Who Saves delivered them and defeated the enemy because I’m convinced it is more complicated than that (even if it is true). Ignoring the difficult portions of scripture is not an option for any believer. So I wrestle with The God of Israel.
It has been a blessing that I am surrounded by people that remind me that living in the tension of being close to our Creator and yet not fully understanding him is good. The tension between not fully knowing or understanding His story yet still being a part of it is unavoidable and worth embracing. There are a lot of ways for me to address the difficult portions of scriptures (and not all the difficult portions deal with violence either) and the best is to give into the fact that I’m broken and am called to faithfully follow the God Who Has Hurled The Horse and Rider Into The Sea and rejoice in all he has done.
May we all come to better understand the portions of the Self-Existent One’s story that are difficult for us and find a way to be a part of it despite our ignorance.
True
Comments (9)
I appreciate your ideas here. While I know we wouldn't struggle with all same passages, it's inevitable that as humans we're going to have some that bother us. You're right to accept them all and continue to learn more about the God who wrote them through His people. Perhaps we'll find that our beliefs change as a result of them. Great post!
Great post, indeed! Not everything is as tidy as our minds want them to be. Holding two seemingly opposing views at once is a mark of maturity.
There should be a post regarding how to respond to people who use those passages to justify why Christianity is "bad," contradictory, or anything else that makes it not worth following. I've been having a hard time justifying my faith to some people who ask about certain passages you alluded to.
I agree strongly with what I understand your main point to be, that we must be certain we are always trying to learn about God from the Bible, learn who he really is, being careful not to create our own image of him while conveniently leaving out the uncomfortable parts of the Bible.
Regarding war stuff in the Old Testament, we must be careful not to read the Bible with 21st century eyes, but rather work to understand it from the perspective of those who lived in that time. I believe God works with humans within their current knowledge and understanding, in order to lead them to himself. For those people, life was much more about physical survival than what we Americans experience today, so their needs from God were different.
Also, people often seem to miss God's justice. I forget where it says this, but at one point God says that the Israelites had to stay in Egypt until the people of the land of Canaan were evil enough that they had to be punished (destroyed). Of course, for many of 21st century thinking, even that is difficult to swallow, but at least we can see that even though the Israelites got new digs, they were not allowed to do so until the previous residents deserved punishment for their evil ways (for one thing, they were sacrificing their children to gods); it was not just, "Hmm, let me find a place for my new chosen people...hey, I think I like that land, so I'll just scrap those people."
The more I read both the Old Testament and New Testament, the more I see the same God in both...in both, he is concerned about justice for the poor and oppressed; in both, he wants our hearts and not just obedience to a set of morals; in both, he expresses love; and in both, he warns that sin must be avoided.
@bananaleaf_soapbox@xanga -
Very good points.
I have a few Christian-raised friends who have been turning towards either atheism or agnosticism, and one of their major hang ups with Christianity is God initiating/condoning violence and war in the Old Testament. My response is typically the same as yours, but you have certainly expressed it in a clear, on target sort of way.
As far as the original post, the reality is that the integrity of scripture and the consistency of God’s character are not dependant on us and what we would like it to be. If we are to see God for all He is, we will see that God doesn’t only express His character in ways that highlight the particular values or traitsthat we are especially drawn to. This does not make Him any less worthy of our worship;in fact it should remind us of how worthy He actually is.
here's what i like about your post here. You are thinking, and not letting your beliefs get in the way cause you know that your beliefs should be the truth, and you're seeking the truth with an open mind. About your dilemma...there were many times where the Jews fought and killed people to take their land as God told them. However, not everyone has to be like that. God puts convictions on our hearts for a reason. I know if you think about this idea to the extreme it's bad, but i'm talking about moral relativity. What's right for you may not be right for me. There are many things that is not ok for any Christian, so I do not believe that anything goes, but! it is ok to for some Christian, who feel that it is right and are at peace with God, to kill common day enemy such as a real terrorist in Iraq or Afghanistan in order to protect themselves or others. This is just an example. You could use this idea in different situations. The point is that God called different people for different things, and that's why he put different ideas in our hearts and minds. Our purpose really defines who we are. You just have to understand that while it may not be ok for YOU to ever kill a person, that it may ok for someone else. I'll give one last example. What about a Christian police officer? If some dude just goes out and starts shooting people on the street, the police officer is going to shoot the criminal and take him down. Is that wrong? no. But, maybe for you, you might be called to start praying out in the streets and spiritually intervene to stop him and show God's glory. Ok, I'm done. :)
lmao!
Excellent observations. I've been having some fun lately with the imprecatory psalms, myself.
Regarding your parenthetical remark, I heard from a Hebrew student once that "man of X" is a Hebrew idiom not meaning "male human who does X" so much as "characterized by X." So "man of war" would be the literal translation, but "warrior" would be a more natural fit to the English idiom.
@sarahzthoughts@xanga - Have you tried a website like the Christian Think Tank? It's a bit too wordy but it's very thorough on those issues. (Start with his list of most common objections.) I may have a post or two on that subject myself; I'll check through my archives...
I heard someone say recently that in the O.T. the sin and the sinner were tied together, and the destruction of one required the destruction of the other. When Jesus died, God had destroyed all sin in a legalese way, and NOW God can effectively deal with the the sinner with greater mercy, when he repents of his sin.
So the O.T. destroyer of sin, the warrior against the enemies of God, and the N.T. God of mercy and grace are one, showing both:
God's wish to give mercy and forgiveness to ALL humans.
God's holiness requiring ALL sin be punished (sin is punished by death).
The only place that both of those things equalize and balance is at the foot of the cross of Jesus.
We will ALL die in our sins if we don't accept Jesus Christ's Godhood, human birth, humanly perfect life, and death in our place for our sins, and thereby his *doubled* right to be our God because he saved us.
We will ALL be saved from such destruction if we DO accept these things. Jesus' resurrection was the first proof of this, and the Holy Spirit dwelling within us after salvation is the first PERSONAL proof of our individual salvation.
It's very simple - sinners die because of their choice to sin.
Saved people are saved by God's choice to save combined with our choice to allow God to save us.
God wars against sin, and if we won't give up our own sin, then he wars against us, because sin causes pain and death. If we harbor such an enemy, then we are carriers of a plague worse than H1N1, AIDS, Black plague, Tuberculosis, Rabies, Ruebella, and Pox combined, and must be dealt with as such.
Choose this day whom you will serve,
as for me and my house, I will serve the Lord.
and in God's own words:
I set before you life and death, good and evil,
choose life.