Did Jesus ask us to hold worship services? Did he ask us to build church buildings? Did he want us to have pews? Did Jesus teach us to gather here on Sundays for singing and sermons?
In the book Jim & Casper Go To Church, Jim is an evangelical Christian and Casper is Matt Casper, an atheist. Together they visit 15-20 churches of all shapes and sizes across the US. At nearly every worship service, Casper, the atheist asks Jim the Christian, “Did Jesus really ask you to do this?”
The answer is no. Jesus never asked us to hold worship services, in buildings, with pews, in which we would sit and sing songs and listen to sermons. I am not suggesting that all those things are wrong. I’m just saying, “Let’s be honest. Jesus never said that we should do any of it.”
While I am not suggesting that worship services, in buildings, with songs and sermons are wrong, I am suggesting that they can very easily deceive us. Worship services can deceive us? Sermons can deceive us? I preach sermons almost every week, and I have been doing so for years. This blog is nearly entirely my sermons broken up into five parts each week. Am I involved in this deception? Maybe! How so? We find out this week in the next story in our study of 1st Samuel.
Turn with me to 1st Samuel chapter 15. Over the past few weeks we learned that Saul’s reign as king started off pretty well, but then he made some missteps. Get ready for more missteps.
In verses 1 through 3, the prophet Samuel comes to King Saul with a message from the Lord. Saul is to lead the Israelite army in an attack against the Amalekites and totally destroy them. Why the Amalekites? And what does “totally destroy” mean?
The Amalekites, we learn in verse 2 had ambushed the nation of Israel when Israel was on its Exodus journey out of slavery in Egypt hundreds of years earlier. There are two times the Amalekites attacked Israel, one in Exodus 17, and one in Numbers 14.
Then in Deuteronomy 25, just as Israel is about to cross the Jordan and enter the Promised Land, God says to the people, “Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt. When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and attacked all who were lagging behind; they had no fear of God. When the Lord your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land he is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you shall blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!”
In the book of Judges, there are numerous times when the Israel and the Amalekites clash, but the result is never conclusive. Now in 1st Samuel chapter 15 God calls his people to fulfill the promise he made in Deuteronomy. Destroy the Amalekites.
Destroy? Actually, the word is “totally destroy.” This is the very controversial Hebrew term, “haram,” which, when used in warfare in the OT, means to devote to God by total destruction.
This reminds me of college soccer. One of the teams we played had a spectator who brought out one of those long cone megaphones that cheerleaders use, and he declared haram over us, literally. He stood on the sideline and yelled into the megaphone all game long, “Totally destroy them, annihilate them, decimate them!” He rarely stopped to catch his breathe. It was a pretty awesome display of rooting for your team. I would love to see that in local high school sports. Could you image a row of students or parents with megaphones declaring haram over the opposing team for the whole game? The problem, in the case of the guy declaring haram over my college soccer team, was that my team was far better than his, and the opposite happened. We destroyed them.
What would happen when Israel declared haram over the Amalekites? God’s power would help Israel totally destroy the enemy. But why would God want that? Lots of speculation has gone into answering this question. How could a God of love tell his people to commit what amounts to genocide? There are numerous ways to answer that question.
The first way some people explain haram is that the Amalekites were such evil people that this was God’s just judgment against them. In other words, God was being loving in wiping them off the face of the earth. I believe that God is just in his judgement, but I don’t believe genocide is in line with that. Consider the evil of the Nazis during World War 2. The Allies were right in eradicating them through battle, but that does not mean the Allies committed genocide. Allied forces did not kill all Nazis soldiers, and they did not kill all Nazi men, women, children and animals. Instead, the Allies utilized a justice system to truthfully and fairly respond to war crimes. So why wouldn’t God implement a justice approach?
Another way some people explain haram is by pointing out that the people of Israel were slaves for 450 years. As such they had a deeply ingrained slave mentality and thus were susceptible to being enslaved again by powerful people groups. So to preserve the freedom of his people, God commands them to entirely wipe out the enemy. Again, I believe God’s loves his people, but why would that necessitate genocide?
The third way people explain haram is to say that we will not understand everything in Scriptures, and God’s ways are higher than our ways. So we just need to trust in him. Maybe, but that is deeply unsatisfying. How could something as evil as genocide be something we say “I trust you God”?
Fourth, some scholars explain haram is to suggest that the author of Samuel was actually writing historical fiction to make the Israelites look more powerful than they really were. Those scholars believe that the author of Samuel was writing centuries later during Israel’s exile in Babylon, to Jews who were doubting God’s promise to rescue them. The scholars believe the haram passages are meant to inspire the exiles to trust in God. In my view, this may be the best option because, if correct, it means that God never commanded haram.
I will let you wrestle with what you would like to believe about the haram passages in the Bible like this one.
What happens in the story? Does Saul lead the army to commit haram against the Amalekites? We’ll find out in the next post.
Photo by adrianna geo on Unsplash
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