"When ye were but few, even a few, and strangers in it.
And when they went from nation to nation, and from one kingdom to another people;
He suffered no man to do them wrong: yea, he reproved kings for their sakes,
Saying, Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm."
1 Chronicles 16:19-22
In reading this today I remembered a comment I saw recently online that said that if the Bible were true that God was a racist. I obviously believe that is false, but the Old Testament is somewhat easy to misinterpret in that direction. I think part of it is that we take things out of context, and have a very skewed version of that time in history, but I think part of it is also what it talks about in these verses... the Lord protects his people. The father analogy is hard to fit in here, but if we step back a little bit and use a ruler analogy, which Christ often did, it is easier to see what God is doing. He makes covenant with his people and gives them laws to follow and on their side they accept him as God, agreeing to follow him. Protection for obedience is a pretty easy transaction to follow in human history, although of course God asks obedience not because he wants to be in charge (I mean, he already is, of everything), but because he is trying to teach us to choose things that will benefit us rather than things that will destroy us.
Does God take sides and destroy people? Yes. Sometimes it is necessary. A ruler would need to enforce the laws, try to make the streets safe for his people, etc. God does some amazing miracles in the war chapters in the Book of Mormon for instance, and we know that he swallowed up a lot of Egyptians that were chasing the followers of Moses. Does he do it for racist reasons? No. That is clear because when his people start disobeying him, they lose, and they also get destroyed. As he commands his servant in Jacob 5, "ye shall clear away the bad according as the good shall grow" (Jacob 5:68). We are all God's children and he wants all of us to be part of his "chosen" people and to make covenant with him to follow him. It's about having a world where it is possible to send his children and for them to be able to grow and be able to go through that same learning process, and he protects that. But it isn't about where we were born or the color of our skin. It's just about giving us a chance to grow and not letting the evil eradicate the good.
Today, let's praise God for his protection, but also work to be worthy of that protection by striving to live the gospel and make the world a better place.
No comments:
Post a Comment