The life and times of Holy War
I have completed my major paper for the class Genesis - Joshua and I am relieved! It was quite a hard paper to write, mostly because I didn't have much time to do my research on it because I was sick off and on throughout the week that I had time to do research. So a lot of my looking was done primarily in commentaries and after the first five, they all said the exact same thing. I noticed something that sort of annoyed me--most of the commentaries only looked at topics in relation to who they were written to(which varied of course depending upon the commentator's beliefs about when biblical texts were written). One even said that Deut. 20:16-18 was not the Word of God for us modern Christians. Granted, I suppose he is making the point in reference to the physical application of the command given here. I agree with that, it is not something that is physically used today, not because it is an offensive command, however, but because of the finished work of Christ. Not one of them spoke of why this was part of scripture(save Matthew Henry, but his commentary is quite old and I expect that from older commentaries), they (all the modern/recent) commentaries simply focused on historical specifics about the text. This is needed, I needed to read that stuff, but the simple assumption I gleamed from all of them felt like what the one flat out said: This isn't the word of God today.
Maybe I'm a little too annoyed about this, but hey, these are good commentaries that I know a lot of people probably use now and again. I know that one is sold at Cokesbury specifically for pastors(anyone can buy it of course, but its sale focus is on professionals within the Church). I know people are thinking beings, but we are also easily lulled into not thinking about things. THis is especially true with anything that deals with the last four books of the Pentateuch. We typically find them boring and dry because they are mostly law that is hard to grasp from a modern perspective, but it is still a part of the written word that God has given to us to use and apply. I'm glad my proffesor gave us one book in particular, The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses, because it is a good explanation of how all of the law pointed at Christ and some good reasoning behind why these specifics were given and then some good examination behind the laws and what they mean to us today.
Well, that is my rant. I'm done with my paper and am excited at the insight I was given into what holy war means for us as modern Christians. I won't bore you with it right now, but if you want ask me about it and I'll be happy to rant about it for a while!
Maybe I'm a little too annoyed about this, but hey, these are good commentaries that I know a lot of people probably use now and again. I know that one is sold at Cokesbury specifically for pastors(anyone can buy it of course, but its sale focus is on professionals within the Church). I know people are thinking beings, but we are also easily lulled into not thinking about things. THis is especially true with anything that deals with the last four books of the Pentateuch. We typically find them boring and dry because they are mostly law that is hard to grasp from a modern perspective, but it is still a part of the written word that God has given to us to use and apply. I'm glad my proffesor gave us one book in particular, The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses, because it is a good explanation of how all of the law pointed at Christ and some good reasoning behind why these specifics were given and then some good examination behind the laws and what they mean to us today.
Well, that is my rant. I'm done with my paper and am excited at the insight I was given into what holy war means for us as modern Christians. I won't bore you with it right now, but if you want ask me about it and I'll be happy to rant about it for a while!