It is easy to judge God guilty of some untoward motives when we read Scripture without the context of understanding the nature of God as good. As we read through the Bible without studying it as a work of antiquity, not outdated, but there is a skill needed to understand the types of literature found in it. The history, to whom it was written, the idioms of the time, and so on. Even more importantly, grabbing hold of the character of God is essential. If that is not done and done well, we will read stories and estimate that God's character is harsh and that he dealt brutally with people without understanding why some of the outcomes were what they were.
I found some devotional insights in the book of Numbers, not a book people find themselves in for devotional insights. It's commonly a book of the Bible that most avoid, or they peruse to say they've read the Bible. Let's not get stuck there. In Numbers 15, God gives Moses stipulations about sacrifices and unintentional sins that the community may commit. Then he describes a willful sin that threatened the community, and the person was to be cut off from Israel. We read these rules and consequences and think God is overreacting. I believe this is why so many think there is a difference between the Old Testament God and the New Testament Jesus.
As the Sovereign of the Universe, God has a right to set rules, have expectations that they would be followed, and, if not, define consequences. God's purpose since the fall of mankind at the hands of Adam and Eve has been mankind's redemption; read Genesis 3 for more clarity.
After Numbers 15 lays out the commands above, a man is stoned for working on the Sabbath. Wait! "I thought He said, 'cut off? Where did stoning come from?" The law had been given already, yet this man chose not to obey. Again, many of us read the Bible, decide God doesn't mean what is said in it, and go about life in abject disobedience. This is where we find ourselves walking in our understanding, which leads to so much heartache or hardheartedness. Proverbs 3:5-6 is a familiar passage. It says, "trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and he will make straight your paths."
When we become judges of God's character, we make ourselves a form of god. The lesser, temporal, finite judging the greater, everlasting, and infinite. I understand some stories are difficult to grasp because we are separated by millennium from those who walked in the times of the Bible history we are reading. The character of God is still the same. Those are the lessons that should be sobering to us.
Guess what? In our own understanding, God realizes not only that we may struggle, but those living in the times of this history had difficulty. After the man was stoned, by God's direction, he gave special instructions to help them move past their understanding to hold to His commands and unmovable character. Numbers 15:39, "...remember all the commandments of the LORD, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes which you are inclined to whore after. 40, So you shall remember and do all my commandments and be holy to your God."
As they lived with these consequences, whether they were cut off from Israel or stoned, they had much more to understand about God in those moments. When they didn't understand, God said to them simply, "do all my commandments and be holy to your God." That is where we land, Sisters and Brothers. We will not always see things clearly or have that moment where we get why God does or allows the things he does. No matter what our understanding tells us, he is good and should be obeyed. He is The Sovereign of the Universe.
Job had questions, and his understanding was not great. His friend's understanding was abysmal, but that story ends with them gaining more insight into God's character, not clarity as to why God does and commands what He commands. We know why He allowed what He allowed with Job. YOu can read the first two chapters and gain more insight into God's trust in those who choose to walk as His holy people.
Sandwiched between unintentional and presumptuous sins, the death of a man who worked on the Sabbath in chapter 15 and in chapter 16, the rebellion against Moses and Aaron or God and the destruction of that man's family, then a plague on the people of Israel are the words, "remember all the commandments of the LORD, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes..." I don't find that to be accidental. So much is being set up by God for a holy people to live as a light to the world around them. God set up quick consequences so they would understand how he would expect a set-apart people for Him to live.
That is not far from God's expectation for His holy people to live today. We may not see these quick consequences in the lives of those who claim themselves followers of Jesus, but God doesn't expect less from us. He demands our loyalty, obedience, and a surrendered life. We may not always understand the "why's" of God's actions, and He doesn't owe us that. He has given us 66 books bound together in the Bible. It brings clarity to the character of God. We are warned like they; we cannot depend on our understanding. When we trust in that over God, it offers faulty insight, and it becomes easy to be disillusioned with God and walk away, or as Paul says to Timothy, "stray from The Faith."
Why would God go from telling Moses to cut someone off from the Community when they sin presumptuously to having a man stoned for picking some sticks on the Sabbath?
Why would God open the earth to swallow a man and those with him for questioning the leadership of Moses?
Why would God bring a plague on the entire community after?
There is so much in these stories from Numbers 15-16 that make our heads spin. Without understanding that God is a JUST God, we might read these as vicious overreactions on His part. In Genesis 18, Abraham is interceding for Sodom and Gomorrah. God planned to destroy these wicked nations. Read what Abraham knows about God's character: "Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”
While we don't always understand why God may act in a particular way, we can know His character determines those actions with justice and righteousness. Reading the Bible and studying must always be done in conjunction. Reading the Bible will find us in difficult passages where our sympathies cause us to judge God as less than good. God acted righteously with Job and in the stories of Numbers 15&16. In our understanding and with our eyes, we may be inclined to act less than honorably toward God.
Begin or begin your journey again through the Bible, find places where you can outline God's goodness, grace, mercy, and faithfulness. You will see those right away. When you get to stories where his judgment is swift and sure, you don't always need to understand why; just be sure to trust that He is still acting good, graciously, merciful, and faithful. It is not he who needs to change; He can be trusted. Your understanding? Not so much.
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