Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents
Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 2 – The Kingdom Revealed – Chapter 11 – The Kingdom Enters
General Issues with Violence
[Bible references: Isaiah 10:5-12; 40:1-2; 48:8-11; 55:8; Jeremiah 25:12-14; 30:24; Zechariah 1:14-15]
In many ways, our modern-day sanitized culture puts a distance between us and some of the everyday realities of violence. Some examples: Buying packaged meat from the butcher, without seeing the slaughter of the animals, People dying in the hospital and sent to the morgue instead of allowing us the honor hosting the dead at home.
For those of us who have more privileged lives where we don’t directly experience violence done to us or loved ones, many have problems with a judgmental God. But those who are oppressed and do directly experience violence done to them or their loved one’s desire God’s judgment and His righteousness.
God’s acts of violence are not part of his nature but are a reaction to acts of human violence. The purpose of God’s violence is to restore justice in his creation.
When God’s assigned His image-bearers the responsibility of stewardship over His creation, that assignment did not end with our rebellion. To that end, Yahweh’s preferred method of working in the world is through His image-bearers. Even when Yahweh wishes to use violence to restore justice, He often uses human agents. Those agents however often exceed the charge given them, creating much of the abusive violence we see in the Old Testament. However, when that happens, God disciplines those same agents.
Even with all these explanations we should expect that, in the end, God’s violence is a mystery we cannot fathom. We cannot grasp why God allows violence to persist on earth.
Reflect
Is it possible for God’s justice to not use violence against those who unrepentantly use violence against God’s other image-bearers?
Observe
Read Isaiah 55:8; Jeremiah 25:12-14; 30:24. Is there a warning for all of us here?
Dancing In The Kingdom 