God’s Commission to Kill the Midianites (Part 4)

  1. Could God not have achieved the destruction of the Canaanites/Midianites through natural calamities?

Ø  Torrey doesn’t answer the question directly. He claims that God allowed the Israelites to destroy the Canaanites/Midianites, so that they could learn a lesson about sin and rejection of God. By carrying out the holocaust, God’s holiness and hatred for sin were imprinted on the minds and hearts of the Israelites. In other words, they saw the consequences of utterly rejecting God and embracing evil.

My View
Did God have to use this particular method of teaching the Israelites a lesson? “Definitely no, but He did”, would be the obvious reply. I see a problem with this type of lesson: God seems to get the desired result by instilling fear in the Israelites. And if fear forms the basis of our relationship with God then we end up in a master-slave relationship. There is little or no love there. Fear is a powerful weapon to control another person and if God was using fear to manipulate the Israelites then they ought to have done everything He said but history shows that was not the case. Perhaps the lesson was not powerful enough to effect a lasting change on the Israelites behaviour. Other Old Testament books tell us how God patiently and persistently called back the Israelites every time they deserted Him.


The response of Torrey is reminiscent of the old theology which looked upon God as an exacting master or policeman. God is a respector of Human Freedom. He would never manipulate anyone to do His will. This is the Good News brought to us by Jesus. If God wanted, He could have destroyed sin once and for all, but by doing so He would also take away the human capacity to choose. We would all be mere puppets doing what God said, with no mind or freedom of our own.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Great Grand Masti 2 (2016) (Movie Review)

Image
Dir: Indra Kumar Starring: Vivek Oberoi, Riteish Deshmukh, Aftab Shivdasani, Urvashi Rautela Dur: 2 hrs 10 mins Genre: Comedy Rating: 1/10 Comment: The jokes, gestures and costumes are sexually suggestive. An absolute waste of time. “What an opening line”, you might think. But to say otherwise would be an absolute lie. This film is in fact, a great grand waste of time. It’s horrible whichever way you look at it. The story is weak and thrives on cheap thrills and sorry jokes. The actresses are no doubt eye-catching but the rest is all a blur. The comedy is in fact tragedy and the film attempts to play on the basest desires of man. It’s unbelievable that actors like Riteish and Vivek would do such a film. I am not a big fan of bollywood but I still feel bad when I see bollywood making films like these. All of a sudden, I see that sex is being propagated through Indian cinema. The views of sex are changing and filmmakers and actors are not hesitating to take on unconvent
Read more

The Challenge of Mercy

Image
Pope Francis has declared this as the year of mercy, and up until now plenty of reflections have been preached and published on mercy. Perhaps each of us too have made our own reflection on the theme of mercy. Since the inauguration of the year, my mind has often reverted to this theme. Every night when I make an examination of conscience, I evaluate myself: my thoughts, words and deeds vis-à-vis mercy. I realize that I am not merciful most of the time and that I resort to do what benefits me over the merciful thing. Pope Francis realized that the Church needed to revisit the theme of mercy; to reflect upon it and put it into practice. Mercy is at the heart of the Gospel. Jesus is the personified revelator of the Father’s mercy. Through his words and deeds he suffused the scent of mercy. His teachings on mercy are appreciated and continue to inspire people even today. The Church itself was founded on mercy: Christ became the expiation for our sins (1 Jn 4:10; Heb 2:17). He for
Read more

Andadhun (2018) [Movie Review]

Image
Dir: Sriram Raghavan Starring: Ayushmann Khurrana, Radhika Apte and Tabu Dur: 2 hrs 18 mins Genre: Black Comedy Crime Thriller Rating: 3/10 I watched this film on good recommendations. It was hailed as one of the best films of 2018. The mystery surrounding the film went well with the mystery that was actually the film itself. I learnt a hard lesson after watching this film and that is not to go by what other’s say about a film. Given Bollywood’s film making standards, I should not have been surprised. Yet, I found myself pleasantly surprised at the end product. Andadhun tells a complex tale of blindness in a world that is not blind even though it appears so. Confused? Well then, watching the film is not going to make it any better. This film is a classical example of postmodern film-making. It is replete with ample plot twists that don’t allow you to settle into its tricky narrative. Just when you think you have it all figured out, a new twist emerges and challe
Read more