God Said What?! Making Sense of Conquest & Holy War
In the early chapters of Deuteronomy, we encounter some startling instructions from God to the nation of Israel: he wants them to fight, kill, and destroy several groups of people, and then take those people’s land.
Part of what’s startling isn’t just that God tells them to do it, but how forcefully and persistently he tells them to do it. To many modern people, this reads as God-sanctioned genocide. But is it? Or is there more to the story? And what, if anything, can these narratives teach us about how we live and relate to our enemies today?
This series takes five weeks to explore the themes of conquest, holy war, and violence in the books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, and Judges.
Resources
Below you’ll find helpful/inspirational resources to use throughout the series:
The Skeletons in God’s Closet book by Joshua Butler (especially chapters on Old Testament violence)
Show Them No Mercy book edited by Stanley Gundry
The Destruction of the Canaanites book by Charlie Trimm
The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest book by John Walton & J. Harvey Walton
Teachings
Below you’ll find each teaching from this series, beginning with the most recent.