Violence in the Bible.


Question from Terry on 1/31/2008:  
Father, In the story about the Isrealites taking posession of the promised land's, I've read where God helps fight for them by dropping rocks on the enemy. Now I'm not saying anything bad about the Lord but, I don't understand how God could do such a thing. He made those being crushed as surely as he made the chosen people. These people being crushed were fathers and brothers and sons to someone. Are we all so expendable? I know the Lord is infallible and is incapable of making mistakes...I just don't understand?Thanks, Terry
Answer by Richard Geraghty on 2/9/2008: 
Dear Terry,

We have to remember the God who loves all his creatures is also the God who put Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden for this sin. This sin brought physical death to the human race. But Christ, who suffered death, brought the possibility of eternal life to the human race. Thus the important thing is not physical death, which all will suffer, but spiritual death. Now God is the Lord of History in which men often kill each other. In the bible he sided with the Jews as his chosen people. While it is not right for men to kill others for no just reason, God is not bound by this law. He is above the law because he is the creator. We have to remember that when our sense of justice seems to conflict with God's way of running the world.

Dr. Geraghty

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