April 29, 2019: Day 2 – Deuteronomy 2

As I walked by the welcome desk one of you who was following the 90 Day Challenge said to me: “Boy, there sure is a lot of killing in the Bible.”  I responded: “Good thing Jesus came along.”  There is a lot of killing in the Bible including as vs. 34 states: “we utterly destroyed men, women and children.  We left not a single survivor.”  This is incredibly thorough and a very tough read.

So when I hear that Islam is a religion of violence and that Muslims only have one purpose and that is to hurt and kill and take over, I have to pause and ask: “Have you read Deuteronomy lately?”  Our own Scripture contains passages that are really hard to read.  So how do we come to terms with this?  As I said before: “Good thing Jesus came along.”  Jesus showed us a new way of life which is counter-intuitive and counter-cultural.  We are to turn the other cheek.  We are to give our jacket to the one who is looking to rob us.  We are to return good for evil.  Not exactly the words of a politician, but very much the words of a Savior.

I found it interesting that the first few places God told Moses: “Do not attack these people, don’t take  their land.”  That is until he gets to the Amorites when he allows Moses to battle with them and take their land.  But then one of the people that Moses was going to pass by, didn’t let him pass by, so Moses had to destroy them with the Lord’s approval.  I have a feeling this is going to be a long book of the Bible to get through.