"We're leaving in three days."
This is what Joshua told his leaders to tell all the people of Israel, as God was giving them the land He promised. It's interesting to note that God made His people fight for the land. He didn't just use magic or miracles to hand it to them. They had to take it. I'm sure some died in battle. That would be an interesting study to do: calculate how many Israelites died in the battles to claim and take over the territory.
It kind of underlines the principle that God wants us to work for things. He's not calling us to be lazy and see everthing handed to us with witchcraft or magic or even "good clean Christian miracles." Should we really expect everything we need to just appear, like manna in the morning?
I've been told that the modern day Israel experienced an 80 to 1 kill ratio in aerial combat when Egypt attacked it back in the early 70s. That is a pretty amazing statistic -- especially when you read that the Egyptian forces were equipped with high-tech fighters from the USSR. I read some information yesterday from a Christian organization that believes that the pro-Israel supporters in the church are misinformed. They've surely come into contact with fellow believers from Palestine who have told them stories of being cruelly mistreated, and thus they feel they have experienced the "other side" of the story and that the pro-Israel Christians are sadly and blindly misinformed. While I appreciate any believer emphasizing the message of peace and I have sympathy for anyone stripped of their freedom and cruelly treated, I disagree with their conclusions that war and killing is wrong. As harsh as it sounds, war is a political topic/subject. Jesus was very revolutionary in His teachings on spirituality, but He actually opposed (and frustrated) the attempts of His followers to "get political." He didn't even denounce the cruel practices of the Roman soldiers, who occupied Israel at the time. That'd be one point I'd argue with this group on: Jesus let it be known that authority was in place for a reason. He didn't instruct His followers to stop war. If there are good reasons to not go to war, that's great. Let's listen and dialog, but let's not use Jesus the Prince of Peace as an argument.
Another aspect I'd probably argue would go something like this: Israel fought for and took the land they now occupy. This kind of action is not actually very nice or "peaceful." It's the same with France, Germany, England, Mexico, and the good ole USA. If we decided to take a "no aggression; aggression is bad" approach, we would need to give all of the land in the USA back to the Native Americans. I am deeply saddened by what and how we did to those people only a little over a hundred or so years ago. But we are not going to give this land back. That's a brutal reality. If we tried to police the world and held the Bible up and said, "No more wars over land" every time a dispute arose, we'd be exhausted and we'd have to have Solomon's wisdom over who the land rightly belonged to. There are numerous disputes all over the world, where one group takes some land and then another takes it back and so on and so on.
When one party gets ousted, they are rightly upset over their defeat. When that defeated country (or remnant) vows to wipe the other country off the face of the map as long as they are alive, then it makes sharing pieces of land and keeping peace very difficult.
Some would dismiss the attention surrounding Israel and the common hatred it faces from those around it as simply the normal reaction that an aggressor would face from its neighbors. I don't quite think that this level of hatred is that simple.
Sometimes, simply sticking your head up and asking questions like this can get it taken off (in hatred) by someone who isn't interested in debate. I certainly hope that doesn't happen, nor do I wish anger to be directed at me. I'm not forcing my viewpoints on anyone. It'd be smart just to erase all this text and not post it. "Politics and religion..."
sigh.
Wow, I didn't mean for this discussion to take this direction, especially with the text from Joshua 1 as the starting point. Oh well. It's wandering thoughts from one day.
Posted by Doug Van Pelt at January 4, 2005 08:44 AMI AM HAPPY THAT YOU ARE MY SON----
Posted by: ma at January 4, 2005 01:10 PMgood thoughts doug
I'd like to go one further. I think the current age is very similair to Joshua. I think the victory is won and God is waiting for the Church to take the world. But instead we hide in our subculture fort waiting with our head between our knees for Christ to comeback. Remember Jesus said that the gates of will not prevail against the Church. Who is the aggressor there? Surely the Church is intended to storm the gates not hide in their tree fort letting a few stragglers in everytime there is a "Christian Rock Concert" or "traveling Evangelist". We should be ashamed. We are all sent out to bear witness instead we stay in and embarss. I have deeveloped this thinking over quite some time and am developing a book called The Church As An Invading Force. We should stop fighting each other and be known by our love. On that note: Peace, grace and much love to Project 86 for all the BS that well-intentioned, misguided 'believers' are giving them right now. I totally respect their integrity. As believers they are more likely to impact the world being themselves in a club then bickering with a legalistic pastor over crowd surfing in a sanctuary.