Texts:
I am wrestling with the Deuteronomy text for today. How can a text be so beautiful and so terrifying and awful at the same time? How do we reconcile a God that says this:
"6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession. 7 It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you—for you were the fewest of all peoples."
with this:
1 When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are about to enter and occupy, and he clears away many nations before you—the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations mightier and more numerous than you— 2 and when the Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy.3 Do not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, 4 for that would turn away your children from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. 5 But this is how you must deal with them: break down their altars, smash their pillars, hew down their sacred poles, and burn their idols with fire.
We could avoid it. We could take the verses of the Bible we like and apply them to ourselves and take the verses of the Bible that involve wrath and destruction and apply them to those around us; countless Christians have done so. We could decide that the words are out of date and archaic and no longer apply. We could tell ourselves this is someone else's story and that we no longer participate in such systems. We can tell ourselves a lot of things about texts that make us uncomfortable.
Or we could let the text be messy. We could say, "I don't know." We could wrestle with the text. We could wrestle with God. At the end of Job (chs 38 - 41), we see Job and God engaging in a debate. God invites the debate, saying several times: "3Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me." It's on, Job. God blesses Job as a result.
Moses, who once said he could barely speak, stood on top of Mt. Horeb in front of an angry God who was ready to leave the Israelites and start over, and calls God to account (Deuteronomy 32:11-14).
Jacob wrestled with everyone around him - including God - and was blessed.
I don't know why God commanded such violence in Deuteronomy 7. I don't know why, on the other hand, God gave such a beautiful promise in verses 6-8. But I do know this: it is in wrestling with God, and it is in wrestling with these texts that make us want to tear out our hair, that we are blessed. It's messy and it's uncomfortable, but I think that's what forges our faith.
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