In my Bible classes, I often will come up with a topic that relates to what we’ve been studying, and I’ll ask the students to prepare to debate either side of a proposition related to what we’ve learned.
I thought this week’s topic would make for an interesting topic of discussion. Our students, like any group of students, really dislike group punishment. So now that we have completed most of our study of the Old Testament, I’ve got them working on debating the following proposition.
“God’s use of group punishment and group blessing in the Old Testament is inherently unfair.”
Groups in this case are families, cities, nations, tribes, even the whole world.
So, what do you say? What would be your criticism, defense, questions, examples or insight? What would you contribute to our discussion?
Jenna,
Saw your site – gosh you must be strong, and this pulls at my heart – prayers for you and yours always…
Jenna: I’m pretty much speechless. A wonderful story, and well written. Blessings on your little guy.
jeuby
“and let’s say that the age of the children spared is kept fairly young. what would you say to that? why would God command the killing of small children that could have been adopted and assimilated into the israelite community?”
I’m not there under the command of Joshua or whoever and didn’t grow up in the “system” so it’s very hard for me to say what I’d do back then. But as MS said, it would be very hard for me to kill “innocent” kids just now. Very hard. But then again, one of the points of boot camp and infantry training is to desensitize you to the acts you must do in war. But we have codes of war based on current western standards of ethics which would stop most of this and allow you to turn in anyone giving such orders. But this is now and that was then. Apples and oranges. It you want a head bender of a phrase, look up the origins of decimate.
As to assimilate into the Israelite community, why do you think this would even be feasible in less than dozens of generations. In the culture of the times, they’d be 2nd class citizens or likely worse for many many generations.
“God’s use of group punishment and group blessing in the Old Testament is inherently unfair.â€
I would argue that God is Right when he judges the people of the Earth as groups. (I think “fair” and “unfair” is an individualistic concept that we use to try to justify, explain or condemn actions we view as Right or Un-Right)
In actuality, through the course of most recorded history, the group, tribe, clan, nation, etc. is responsible for the actions of that group. The people let the leaders lead, the people can overthrow the leadership, or let it stand. Do you not think that how-many-billion Chinese people couldn’t overthrow their communist government? “We the People . . .” overthrew the King of England. So whether God judges the group or the leader, it’s Right.
Now you will say that God sets up leaders and authorities and governments, and he does, but not exclusively, without letting the times and situations of a nation work also. The people of Israel wanted a King, they got it. Why would we think it would be wrong to judge them or their King together? The people of Germany, wanted a Hitler, the time was ripe, and they got it. (My view is an unknown balance, in total control of God, between Free Will and Sovereignty. Or that God is so Sovereign that he let’s an unknown amount of Free Will happen.)
I think an interesting term used a lot lately is “Zeitgeist” I think there is a spirit of the times that people as a group feel, and are moved by. I think it explains the election of Senator Obama. I think we feel that there needs to be a change in places like the Congo and Zimbabwe, but evidently the people there don’t feel it yet, or they’d overthrow Mugabe and kill the left-over rebels from Rwanda that are causing trouble in the Congo.
There is also a harder question that this brings up, is Militant Islam really supported by the whole Muslim people? Again, if a group feels something is wrong, they should act to end it. Thomas Friedman has written a lot on this idea that the moderate Muslims speaking out will be the key to ending Islamic terrorism, Palestinian and Israeli tension, etc.
As individuals, we either go along with the times, or not, but as Christians, our highest calling is to, no matter the times, follow Jesus. While God punishes or blesses as a group, in His Sovereign, Righteous Power, He is always faithful to His own.
I don’t think that these are merely actions of some OT God. This is who we are right now. With single-mindedness we firebombed and vaporized cities killing every man, woman, child and animal in Europe and Japan during WWII. This still is U.S. policy based on our large arsenal of nukes and chemical weapons. We have our reasons and so did God.
[Gen 3:22] Then the LORD God said: “See! The man has become like one of us, knowing what is good and what is bad! ”
Maybe we are more god-like than we realize.
Also, to say that, because of original sin, we “deserve” to suffer is stretching it. To say that innocent people/children deserve (torture, rape, starvation, burns and disease) because of the sin of Adam is crazy. In a world with freewill evil must exist, and sin has inseparable consequences.
Make that:
killing every man, woman, child and animal in some cities of Europe and Japan during WWII.
Carolyn said: “Likewise, Abel obeyed God and brought a blood offering. Cain discounted the will of God and brought veggies.”
I’d like IMonk to please offer his opinion on this, because I have heard this explanation again and again of why Abel’s sacrifice was accepted by God and Cain’s was not, was because Abel’s sacrifice was a blood sacrifice and Cain’s was not. So Cain, through an offering of vegetables, was trying to come to God through his own means and was not approaching God on God’s terms. Yet does anything in the Old Testament (or the New) concretely support this theory? As in, explicitly supports it?
Frankly, when I read the story of Cain and Abel as a small child, I always believed that the two brothers had simply gone into different ‘businesses’ (one was a herder, the other a farmer), and that they were offering God the best of their two respective products as a gesture of thanksgiving. I never connected any atoning sacrifice with this story at all. I always believed that Abel’s sacrifice was accepted and Cain’s was not, because Abel came with a different attitude, not a different thing to sacrifice, and that Abel was genuinely thankful for his animals whereas Cain’s thankfulness was somehow feigned.
Apparently, R.C. Sproul supports my theory (or maybe it is the other way ’round), and I have never really heard anyone else championing it. Everyone always seems to assume that the two brothers’ sacrifices were for atonement for sins, when I always assumed they were sacrifices that showed thanksgiving to God.
I know this is something of a tangent, and for that I apologize. I just wanted to ask this question.
Hebrews 11:4 By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.
Abel is listed as an OT hero of faith. Faith is demonstrated in the early chapters of Genesis as believing God. Faith isn’t defined, but its results are demonstrated. (Enoch, Noah, Abraham.) The first definition is Gen 15:5-6.
I don’t think the makeup of the offering was the issue. Cain’s subsequent actions indicate he is not a person of faith, but a person who acts willfully against God’s explicit, revealed commands.
Yet God has mercy on him. twice.
I haven’t read through the comments, this one’s on the original post.
St. Siluan said:
I think this gets at it relatively well. God is not unjust for punishing anyone who thinks he is being punished unjustly for someone else’s sins. And anyone who thinks he is being punished justly, would choose to suffer with his people rather than separate himself off from them, as indeed God Himself did.
I like Keith’s response in bringing up the inaction of the group as grounds for summary judgement. Bruce Bradshaw has a similar approach in dealing with the Woman who was stoned for collecting firewood on the Sabbath. In a sense, the stoning of the Woman was a punishment on all of Israel for their lack of support for that woman. Allowing her (and anyone else) to slip between the cracks was a major disruption to the Shalom of Israel.
I also like Ravi Zacharias’ response to the question of God’s justice in ordering the destruction of human life. God is able to take life (and order the taking of life), because God is the one with the power to restore it again.
Israel was only ever justified in taking life on the command of God because God is the author and resurrector of all life.
I’m convinced that the people of Zimbabwe should overthrow Mugabe, but that they won’t as long as they buy his rhetoric of global conspiracy.
In one sense, their misery is upon their own heads, however this does not diminish our responsibility to minister grace and charity to them.
Forgive me if my tone is perceived to be harsh, as it is not my intention. I am trying to reconcile realism with ideology which affirms the revealed character of God as the very definition of Good.