When we read what Rahab told the spies in Joshua 2, we see that the people of the land were well aware of the great power of God and had many years to prepare and possibly flee the land that the children of Israel were coming to inhabit. So rather than being victims of genocide, perhaps those who stayed to fight were those who purposefully chose to reject what they knew about God and willingly fought against Him and His people.
Also, God knows what's in a man's heart, and He knows who is redeemable and who will never accept Him. What may appear harsh to us, is based on the good judgment of God. I think just how depraved people must have been in the time of Noah for God to find it necessary to remove everyone but Noah and his family. Again, what looks harsh to us is based on God's clear knowledge and good judgment.
Wow, great point about the canaanites having so much time to prepare! I never thought of that angle. Your second point is wonderful too! I really appreciate this kind of thoughtful feedback :)
Late to the party here…however, thought I’d join in the fun.
* I think Mary is really right in that the Canaanites had hundreds of years to repent, and 40 years to flee or make right w God.
* I find it interesting that people have seemingly no problem w the flood but don’t like the conquest of Canaan. Localized judgment was part of Gods plan to have mercy on humanity. So the flood is way worse…
* The fact that God is now partnering with humans to execute his judgments vs acting unilaterally is a sign of the “new” covenant between Yahweh and Israel. We first see this with Abraham and Lot at Sodom…this is an increase in that partnership is quite intimate. They are partners now.
* I do think Heiser is right and this strengthens the connection to the flood. the giants in the land…the Nephilim. Not hard to see the connection. Israel is the flood in this case, which is why normal rules of warfare (at the time) do not apply.
* my seminary professor in OT always said, the shape of the covenant determines the type of the warfare (he was also an exorcist, lol)
At the end of the day, the New Covenant judgments, eternal death in a lake of fire, are way more intense than just getting killed in battle, as horrible as that is. But, clearly, if a New Covenant believer, even a very well respected one started saying “God wants us to kill all the people of Alabama for their sins”, we would rightly dismiss them as insane. It’s a new and better covenant! That’s not how we roll anymore
It’s interesting to consider this from the POV of God beginning to partner with people and (pure speculation on my part over here, tbf) - I have to wonder if this is partly about how He meets us where we *are*. Humans have always been extremely tribal and (it seems to me?) it wasn’t at LEAST until Jesus’s teachings had a chance to start taking root that we began to understand that we are all - universally - human + image bearers of God.
So, is it possible that upon the early stages of His partnership with the group of humans He chose to bring about the reconciliation of ALL of humanity to Him - He worked through the ways humans were *at that time* accustomed to?
I don’t know if I even articulated that well 🥲.
Also, though, Heiser was an absolute treasure and so insanely well researched that he could say the most insane things while sounding (and being) more rational than BASICALLY everyone 😂. He was probably right 🤷🏻♀️.
This is correct. God also shows in Genesis 15:13-16 that the conquering of the land was just and timely.
Throughout the Old Testament we see nations storing up the wrath of God against themselves and then finally facing it when they have pushed too far in their sin.
1. Dr. Warren Wiersbe’s, “Be Strong”: Joshua, establishes 2 pictures for a Christian walking around in the 20th Century and beyond. The first picture is killing all sin in a Christian’s life - something the 12 tribes failed to do after crossing the dry Jordan. In Deuteronomy, God said “Utterly Destroy” (the equivalent of Sin were the Canaanites & they failed to eradicate) - Utterly Destroy- and this lasting exemplar is a challenge to all Christians today who need also to Utterly Destroy Sin in their lives. Wiersbe’s real analogy in “Be Strong” is that the ultimate “rest” God promises us is that it can be attained in this life, before we cross over & “enter” the final rest.
2. The 2nd issue is the value of a Soul; to God. The answer is generally found in Mark 8: 36
“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? “
The soul is more precious than the most precious pearl. It is more precious than the lengthy span of a mortal life, or short span of a mortal life cut short. As to genocide; it is related to the potential span of a mortal life, or groups of mortal lives. To fashion a “picture” of a mortal life I have borrowed heavily from my Plane Geometry teacher who touched his chalk to the blackboard and made a dot. Then he placed two dots to the right of the original dot. He asked, “is there room between two dots for the placement of another dot.” He answered, “yes, there is always room for another dot.”
Then he put his chalk to the far left of the room-wide blackboard and walked the width of the room drawing a continuous line. He asked, what is that?” Someone replied, it is a line. The teacher asked, “In Plane Geometry, how far does it extend to the left and to the right?” He answered himself, “To infinity.” He asked how many dots are on/in the line?” He answered himself, “An infinite number of dots.”
I submit to all Christians that Eternal life is like a never ending, infinite line, but a mortal life - not to be confused with an eternal saved Soul - is at best, a single dot, somewhere along the infinite line of eternal life.
In God’s economy, the value of an infinite eternal life with Him, is far greater than any mortal life. I am not making any of this up, it is in the promises of God
Finally, if you have read the prophecies of the torture, scourging, nailing & piercing of Jesus in Isaiah, then read the actual accounts in the Gospels, including the gaul & vinegar & crown of thorns; many Christians can make the case that there was more gruesome violence in the New Testament than all the violence found in the Old Testament. IMHO , my $0.02.
In my Bible reading plan this year I've been going through the historical books in the Old Testament side by side with the ESV Bible Atlas. In recent days I came to the same conclusion as your first point.
The imperfect process of sanctification in the life of the believer mirrors the conquest of the land and the tribes' occupation of it over the generations following the exodus and leading up to the Davidic Kingship; by contrast, Christ's kingship in the new covenant will have no end because sin will not prevail. Our walking by the Spirit, putting to death the deeds of the body, mirrors the Israelites purging the land of the nations. We are to be at work purifying ourselves, tearing down the false gods and uprooting ungodliness. The kingdom is inaugurated and we are to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord's anointed. Even our back-sliding and periods of disobedience also mirror the experience of God's people during the time of Joshua/Judges. Tolerating the presence of the nations/sin leads to going astray and to the enemy gaining an advancing foothold in the land, encroaching and hemming in.
As I've been reading with the atlas in hand, following along with place names and taking the time to map them out, the episode with Midian during the time of Gideon really stood out. Midian was located south of the Negev along the southern border of Judah. When Gideon and his 300 men went out against them, they were encamped in the Valley of Jezreel, near the border of Issachar and West Manasseh. For New Testament equivalent, think Beersheba in the south all the way up to the region of Galilee just below Nazareth, hundreds of miles. This is symptomatic of how badly Israel's conquest and occupation of the land is going, downstream of their refusal to completely uproot the Canaanites and their generational ungodliness. Those two things together have allowed Midian to invade and array themselves to war even farther.
In Judges 3, the Lord says that certain nations still exist in the land and that he has allowed this so that future generations will be tested that they might learn war, in effect that they might learn not to be lulled into a peacetime mindset. Well, how appropriate that we learn the same thing with regard to our sin. Year by year, we continually need sober-mindedness to guard against the encroaching, even the first approaches, of sin and temptation.
Thank you, but…I was presenting Warren Wiersbe’s interpretation of Joshua’s core topics of “utterly destroying” failure as well as God’s promise of “rest”…in one’s lifetime. On the 2nd presentation; my 5 year-old cousin ran between two parked cars, into traffic, and an old man driving home from his wife’s viewing hit my cousin and tossed her lifeless body 120’. The Bible and Jesus tell us that all such children have the Kingdom of God. So, the Bible - using my geometry teacher’s example of the line and the dot - suggests that the eternal life of a soul far exceeds the “dot” of a mortal life. Blessings, still pursuing “Christian Perfection.”
I caution all not to question the authority of the Lord Almighty when reading the Bible, especially if you're a proclaiming Christian seeking to win souls. Joshua was under Divine appointment on all military missions made in capturing Canaan for the Israelites. If fact, there were a couple he failed to fully complete as instructed. God has never instructed total annialation except when the bloodlines had been tampered with/diluted either by the Fallen angels themselves & their decendants or satanists learning how to do so from ancient fallen angel technology. The very fact even the animals were to be kilked should tell a discerning Christian all they need to know. This is also greatly influenced by intense sin, being societies of anti-god, usually having been influenced greatly by the roaming spirits of the dead Nephelim. God hates killing & wars but, in His Soverignty, decreed these things which sometimes, as true believers, we must accept as written just because...and leave it there.
He is Creator God, Giver & Taker of all things, Sustained of all things, and He loves His children, His elect; enough to protect & sustain us through time, to this point in time, the end. How blessed we are to have been chosen to get to witness all that we're getting to see and speak to witness, hopefully to wake someone up, that all God's children come to Him. Joshua was an honorable, Godly, good man, who did noting but obey God, although,not entirely due to him, did fail to fully annialate the enemy.
Cain was protected, I believe, because he was the 1st human born and replenishing the earth was of prime importance. I, also, believe this had something to do with the great love God had for Adam & Eve, as parents, because, after losing a grandson that I raised "as a son," losing 2 children would have been horrible. At least they knew he would live, although God did decree him to always live being a vagrant/non-productive person.
I think the Parable of the prodigal son makes clear God isn't pleased with Esau's response to his brother's return, although it's the one most of us may have chosen ( pray not). We should always pray we can forgive and, even though we can't forget, we certainly can make the choice to make them learning experiences instead of vindictive ones. We, only through the power of the Holy Spirit, hopefully come to realize that money & inheritances can be gone in a blink & are all gifts, with all things really belonging to our Saviour/Creator, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thank you for your article & be blessed in your quest of seeking the truths of God.
Wow thank you for such a long and thoughtful response. This is all very helpful feedback. I appreciate you and your heart to serve the Lord with your mind! Blessings to you :)
Great points. “God with us” has been the best answer and most comfort personally as I have wrestled the grief of losing my unsaved dad. There are too many unknowns, but the things I do know of His character throughout scripture are enough.
Also! Your captions under the artwork are my favorite. Especially the Elevation worship one in this post—can we please talk about worship songs that celebrate the destruction of our enemies? That’s problematic when you love those who are enemies of God. I mean, I laughed at your caption. But it is painful.
Love this! We must always strive to read the Bible in context and all of it - not cherry picking around. I think it SHOULD bother and shock us that the people groups were wiped out! It undoubtedly bothers God.(And also picture captions! 🤪)
Solid article, Griffin! I think you're so right that people love to allegorize away their fears regarding the OT, but just need to remember that it all comes back to Christ. Thanks for the centering this morning, friend.
Going through the old testament now, and just read that story about how women and children were killed. I indeed raised an eyebrow at God!😂 This was an insightful (and at times, humorous) read! Thank you, Griffin!
I'm very thankful to have such a thoughtful "non-scholarly theologian" show up in my feed so I could follow your writing. Having grown up near a seminary and my churches through the years always having a lot of aspiring scholars often aiming to be more "right" than faithful, i like this style a lot more.
Looking closely at core statements such as Deuteronomy 32 and Ecclesiastes 3: 11-14, we can see that God's wrath is actually a means of expressing his love, and of achieving salvation, and that this wrath results in him preserving everything in his creation.
The early church embraced this by rejecting the Greek/Gnostic idea that evil has substance or reality. Both Athanasius and Augustine define sin as a creature returning to nothing, because turning away from the source of its life: God. But both realized that God would not allow annihilation to fully occur.
I like your idea of God unfolding. He is described as the wellspring of life, always overflowing so that His creative power is uncontainable and unlimited. He is The uncontainable eternal God who says " I will be what I will be," not the past tense, self-contained, isolated "unmoved first mover" of the Greeks.
The gist of it is that God makes everything beautiful in its time, and nothing he has made will be undone.
I also think it's good to realize that the four horsemen bring beauty to the earth by curing us of our delusions. God's wrath is ultimately the one tool that works to teach everyone God's righteousness (Isa 26:9-10). This includes the saints per I Pet 4:1.
Also late here. But yeah. The Heiser hypothesis (I was actually introduced to it as an Eastern Orthodox hypothesis) is really the only thing that makes any true sense to me, standing as I do in a Wesleyan-Arminian stream. . .although, great writing. Lots to “chew on”. (And in this comment thread, I’m now also having my mind blown by this idea of the opportunity for advance preparation being just something interesting to note that I’ve never before noted!)
And.
I also think it’s interesting to note that us humans today collectively care so much about human rights, at least partially because of Jesus.
Yes, our society may have cherry picked through what he said, we certainly aren’t as concerned with avoiding divorce or greed- and yet our world has still just been profoundly shaped by Christ’s legacy.
That certainly doesn’t answer the question about the ‘why’ and ‘how could He’ of OT genocide but I find it a helpful realization to hold in mind along with the question.
When we read what Rahab told the spies in Joshua 2, we see that the people of the land were well aware of the great power of God and had many years to prepare and possibly flee the land that the children of Israel were coming to inhabit. So rather than being victims of genocide, perhaps those who stayed to fight were those who purposefully chose to reject what they knew about God and willingly fought against Him and His people.
Also, God knows what's in a man's heart, and He knows who is redeemable and who will never accept Him. What may appear harsh to us, is based on the good judgment of God. I think just how depraved people must have been in the time of Noah for God to find it necessary to remove everyone but Noah and his family. Again, what looks harsh to us is based on God's clear knowledge and good judgment.
Wow, great point about the canaanites having so much time to prepare! I never thought of that angle. Your second point is wonderful too! I really appreciate this kind of thoughtful feedback :)
Late to the party here…however, thought I’d join in the fun.
* I think Mary is really right in that the Canaanites had hundreds of years to repent, and 40 years to flee or make right w God.
* I find it interesting that people have seemingly no problem w the flood but don’t like the conquest of Canaan. Localized judgment was part of Gods plan to have mercy on humanity. So the flood is way worse…
* The fact that God is now partnering with humans to execute his judgments vs acting unilaterally is a sign of the “new” covenant between Yahweh and Israel. We first see this with Abraham and Lot at Sodom…this is an increase in that partnership is quite intimate. They are partners now.
* I do think Heiser is right and this strengthens the connection to the flood. the giants in the land…the Nephilim. Not hard to see the connection. Israel is the flood in this case, which is why normal rules of warfare (at the time) do not apply.
* my seminary professor in OT always said, the shape of the covenant determines the type of the warfare (he was also an exorcist, lol)
At the end of the day, the New Covenant judgments, eternal death in a lake of fire, are way more intense than just getting killed in battle, as horrible as that is. But, clearly, if a New Covenant believer, even a very well respected one started saying “God wants us to kill all the people of Alabama for their sins”, we would rightly dismiss them as insane. It’s a new and better covenant! That’s not how we roll anymore
I’m a fan of this comment.
It’s interesting to consider this from the POV of God beginning to partner with people and (pure speculation on my part over here, tbf) - I have to wonder if this is partly about how He meets us where we *are*. Humans have always been extremely tribal and (it seems to me?) it wasn’t at LEAST until Jesus’s teachings had a chance to start taking root that we began to understand that we are all - universally - human + image bearers of God.
So, is it possible that upon the early stages of His partnership with the group of humans He chose to bring about the reconciliation of ALL of humanity to Him - He worked through the ways humans were *at that time* accustomed to?
I don’t know if I even articulated that well 🥲.
Also, though, Heiser was an absolute treasure and so insanely well researched that he could say the most insane things while sounding (and being) more rational than BASICALLY everyone 😂. He was probably right 🤷🏻♀️.
This is correct. God also shows in Genesis 15:13-16 that the conquering of the land was just and timely.
Throughout the Old Testament we see nations storing up the wrath of God against themselves and then finally facing it when they have pushed too far in their sin.
I will bite & address two issues:
1. Dr. Warren Wiersbe’s, “Be Strong”: Joshua, establishes 2 pictures for a Christian walking around in the 20th Century and beyond. The first picture is killing all sin in a Christian’s life - something the 12 tribes failed to do after crossing the dry Jordan. In Deuteronomy, God said “Utterly Destroy” (the equivalent of Sin were the Canaanites & they failed to eradicate) - Utterly Destroy- and this lasting exemplar is a challenge to all Christians today who need also to Utterly Destroy Sin in their lives. Wiersbe’s real analogy in “Be Strong” is that the ultimate “rest” God promises us is that it can be attained in this life, before we cross over & “enter” the final rest.
2. The 2nd issue is the value of a Soul; to God. The answer is generally found in Mark 8: 36
“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? “
The soul is more precious than the most precious pearl. It is more precious than the lengthy span of a mortal life, or short span of a mortal life cut short. As to genocide; it is related to the potential span of a mortal life, or groups of mortal lives. To fashion a “picture” of a mortal life I have borrowed heavily from my Plane Geometry teacher who touched his chalk to the blackboard and made a dot. Then he placed two dots to the right of the original dot. He asked, “is there room between two dots for the placement of another dot.” He answered, “yes, there is always room for another dot.”
Then he put his chalk to the far left of the room-wide blackboard and walked the width of the room drawing a continuous line. He asked, what is that?” Someone replied, it is a line. The teacher asked, “In Plane Geometry, how far does it extend to the left and to the right?” He answered himself, “To infinity.” He asked how many dots are on/in the line?” He answered himself, “An infinite number of dots.”
I submit to all Christians that Eternal life is like a never ending, infinite line, but a mortal life - not to be confused with an eternal saved Soul - is at best, a single dot, somewhere along the infinite line of eternal life.
In God’s economy, the value of an infinite eternal life with Him, is far greater than any mortal life. I am not making any of this up, it is in the promises of God
Finally, if you have read the prophecies of the torture, scourging, nailing & piercing of Jesus in Isaiah, then read the actual accounts in the Gospels, including the gaul & vinegar & crown of thorns; many Christians can make the case that there was more gruesome violence in the New Testament than all the violence found in the Old Testament. IMHO , my $0.02.
In my Bible reading plan this year I've been going through the historical books in the Old Testament side by side with the ESV Bible Atlas. In recent days I came to the same conclusion as your first point.
The imperfect process of sanctification in the life of the believer mirrors the conquest of the land and the tribes' occupation of it over the generations following the exodus and leading up to the Davidic Kingship; by contrast, Christ's kingship in the new covenant will have no end because sin will not prevail. Our walking by the Spirit, putting to death the deeds of the body, mirrors the Israelites purging the land of the nations. We are to be at work purifying ourselves, tearing down the false gods and uprooting ungodliness. The kingdom is inaugurated and we are to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord's anointed. Even our back-sliding and periods of disobedience also mirror the experience of God's people during the time of Joshua/Judges. Tolerating the presence of the nations/sin leads to going astray and to the enemy gaining an advancing foothold in the land, encroaching and hemming in.
As I've been reading with the atlas in hand, following along with place names and taking the time to map them out, the episode with Midian during the time of Gideon really stood out. Midian was located south of the Negev along the southern border of Judah. When Gideon and his 300 men went out against them, they were encamped in the Valley of Jezreel, near the border of Issachar and West Manasseh. For New Testament equivalent, think Beersheba in the south all the way up to the region of Galilee just below Nazareth, hundreds of miles. This is symptomatic of how badly Israel's conquest and occupation of the land is going, downstream of their refusal to completely uproot the Canaanites and their generational ungodliness. Those two things together have allowed Midian to invade and array themselves to war even farther.
In Judges 3, the Lord says that certain nations still exist in the land and that he has allowed this so that future generations will be tested that they might learn war, in effect that they might learn not to be lulled into a peacetime mindset. Well, how appropriate that we learn the same thing with regard to our sin. Year by year, we continually need sober-mindedness to guard against the encroaching, even the first approaches, of sin and temptation.
Thank you, but…I was presenting Warren Wiersbe’s interpretation of Joshua’s core topics of “utterly destroying” failure as well as God’s promise of “rest”…in one’s lifetime. On the 2nd presentation; my 5 year-old cousin ran between two parked cars, into traffic, and an old man driving home from his wife’s viewing hit my cousin and tossed her lifeless body 120’. The Bible and Jesus tell us that all such children have the Kingdom of God. So, the Bible - using my geometry teacher’s example of the line and the dot - suggests that the eternal life of a soul far exceeds the “dot” of a mortal life. Blessings, still pursuing “Christian Perfection.”
Griffin, my goodness, brother. You can write!
That is so kind of you to say!! Your encouragement means so much AJ!!
I caution all not to question the authority of the Lord Almighty when reading the Bible, especially if you're a proclaiming Christian seeking to win souls. Joshua was under Divine appointment on all military missions made in capturing Canaan for the Israelites. If fact, there were a couple he failed to fully complete as instructed. God has never instructed total annialation except when the bloodlines had been tampered with/diluted either by the Fallen angels themselves & their decendants or satanists learning how to do so from ancient fallen angel technology. The very fact even the animals were to be kilked should tell a discerning Christian all they need to know. This is also greatly influenced by intense sin, being societies of anti-god, usually having been influenced greatly by the roaming spirits of the dead Nephelim. God hates killing & wars but, in His Soverignty, decreed these things which sometimes, as true believers, we must accept as written just because...and leave it there.
He is Creator God, Giver & Taker of all things, Sustained of all things, and He loves His children, His elect; enough to protect & sustain us through time, to this point in time, the end. How blessed we are to have been chosen to get to witness all that we're getting to see and speak to witness, hopefully to wake someone up, that all God's children come to Him. Joshua was an honorable, Godly, good man, who did noting but obey God, although,not entirely due to him, did fail to fully annialate the enemy.
Cain was protected, I believe, because he was the 1st human born and replenishing the earth was of prime importance. I, also, believe this had something to do with the great love God had for Adam & Eve, as parents, because, after losing a grandson that I raised "as a son," losing 2 children would have been horrible. At least they knew he would live, although God did decree him to always live being a vagrant/non-productive person.
I think the Parable of the prodigal son makes clear God isn't pleased with Esau's response to his brother's return, although it's the one most of us may have chosen ( pray not). We should always pray we can forgive and, even though we can't forget, we certainly can make the choice to make them learning experiences instead of vindictive ones. We, only through the power of the Holy Spirit, hopefully come to realize that money & inheritances can be gone in a blink & are all gifts, with all things really belonging to our Saviour/Creator, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thank you for your article & be blessed in your quest of seeking the truths of God.
Wow thank you for such a long and thoughtful response. This is all very helpful feedback. I appreciate you and your heart to serve the Lord with your mind! Blessings to you :)
I appreciate your writing, questions, levity, vision, and chosen accessible style of digesting dense theological thickets. Keep writing.
thanks so much man I really appreciate that!!
Great points. “God with us” has been the best answer and most comfort personally as I have wrestled the grief of losing my unsaved dad. There are too many unknowns, but the things I do know of His character throughout scripture are enough.
Also! Your captions under the artwork are my favorite. Especially the Elevation worship one in this post—can we please talk about worship songs that celebrate the destruction of our enemies? That’s problematic when you love those who are enemies of God. I mean, I laughed at your caption. But it is painful.
So happy you liked it!! And that’s a great point about the elevation thing - maybe we need to talk about that more??
Love this! We must always strive to read the Bible in context and all of it - not cherry picking around. I think it SHOULD bother and shock us that the people groups were wiped out! It undoubtedly bothers God.(And also picture captions! 🤪)
Hahaha I’m glad you liked it :)
Solid article, Griffin! I think you're so right that people love to allegorize away their fears regarding the OT, but just need to remember that it all comes back to Christ. Thanks for the centering this morning, friend.
So happy you liked it!! Thank you for the kind words :)
That title. What a banger. 😂
Going through the old testament now, and just read that story about how women and children were killed. I indeed raised an eyebrow at God!😂 This was an insightful (and at times, humorous) read! Thank you, Griffin!
Thanks so much Katie!!!
Great title. 😂
I'm very thankful to have such a thoughtful "non-scholarly theologian" show up in my feed so I could follow your writing. Having grown up near a seminary and my churches through the years always having a lot of aspiring scholars often aiming to be more "right" than faithful, i like this style a lot more.
Thanks man that was so kind of you to say !!
Looking closely at core statements such as Deuteronomy 32 and Ecclesiastes 3: 11-14, we can see that God's wrath is actually a means of expressing his love, and of achieving salvation, and that this wrath results in him preserving everything in his creation.
The early church embraced this by rejecting the Greek/Gnostic idea that evil has substance or reality. Both Athanasius and Augustine define sin as a creature returning to nothing, because turning away from the source of its life: God. But both realized that God would not allow annihilation to fully occur.
I like your idea of God unfolding. He is described as the wellspring of life, always overflowing so that His creative power is uncontainable and unlimited. He is The uncontainable eternal God who says " I will be what I will be," not the past tense, self-contained, isolated "unmoved first mover" of the Greeks.
The gist of it is that God makes everything beautiful in its time, and nothing he has made will be undone.
I also think it's good to realize that the four horsemen bring beauty to the earth by curing us of our delusions. God's wrath is ultimately the one tool that works to teach everyone God's righteousness (Isa 26:9-10). This includes the saints per I Pet 4:1.
You’re such a good writer and thinker. Nice job. I need a nap but my only comment for now is God is sovereign, and I trust Him fully.
So good.
Thanks !!
Also late here. But yeah. The Heiser hypothesis (I was actually introduced to it as an Eastern Orthodox hypothesis) is really the only thing that makes any true sense to me, standing as I do in a Wesleyan-Arminian stream. . .although, great writing. Lots to “chew on”. (And in this comment thread, I’m now also having my mind blown by this idea of the opportunity for advance preparation being just something interesting to note that I’ve never before noted!)
And.
I also think it’s interesting to note that us humans today collectively care so much about human rights, at least partially because of Jesus.
Yes, our society may have cherry picked through what he said, we certainly aren’t as concerned with avoiding divorce or greed- and yet our world has still just been profoundly shaped by Christ’s legacy.
That certainly doesn’t answer the question about the ‘why’ and ‘how could He’ of OT genocide but I find it a helpful realization to hold in mind along with the question.