Clinging to the Threshold
Note: For the protection of those closest to me, and to foster unity in the church I love, I have chosen to remove the contents of this post.
Note: For the protection of those closest to me, and to foster unity in the church I love, I have chosen to remove the contents of this post.
Addition to the indifference and lack of care for this concubine… There is another important message of judgement from this story – God authorized the civil war – and God was using the war to judge Isreal. Unconsecrated people were trying to bring justice through war and God told them to war – but in war they died… and did not bring about the justice they were trying to stand for but rather they themselves were being judged. They kept asking God should we go up and fight against the tribe of Bengimen? And God kept telling them go and they came away defeated…. Why the defeat when they had God’s authorization to fight against Bengimen and the clear wrong they had allowed? Their own hearts were not right with God and God could not allow them to give justice to Bengimen untill their own sins were confessed and forsaken – then God allowed them to have victory in war against injustice.
Powerful point, Randall! It’s difficult to understand why God allows so much suffering, and yet we understand as well that no side is without fault. Perhaps God allows war as a natural consequence of the sin on both sides.
You also wonder if there aren’t parallels to this story even in the American Civil War? (Ellen G. White, one of the early founders of the Seventh-day Adventist church, made some very similar statements about it.)