Beacon2Light

The European Parliament unanimously backed a resolution characterizing the Islamic State group’s targeting of religious minorities as genocide . Lawsuit vs. Gospel for Asia over Fraud Allegations Iran-backed militias lead attacks on Christians in Baghdad

Spiritual Continuity Tremper Longman III presents the Spiritiual Continuity view of the Canaanite annihilation. First, I would like to say that I love Longman’s analysis of chosen biblical background material. Whether one agrees with his view, there are rich insights to be gained here. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this section of the book. What Longman means by spiritual continuity is rather well explained. He sees a transformation from the old era of physical battle versus God’s enemies (and therefore, Israel’s) to a new one of spiritual warfare. Jesus is seen as the Divine Warrior found in the Old Testament but He has “intensified and heightened the battle.” The enemy is cast no longer as a flesh and bone one but a spiritual one. Weapons of war are transformed from physical ones to spiritual ones. While there are those who look to the Old Testament depiction of God vs. the New Testament Jesus and see incredible dissimilarity, Longman sees continuity. Violence from the hand of ...

View Number 3: Eschatological Continuity Daniel L. Gard’s position is that of Eschatological Continuity. To summarize, this view sees ancient Israel as God’s theological, political and chosen people to punish the Canaanites via genocide and occupy a land that God had granted them. God acted through Israel to perform this function. Gard goes further into the Old Testament also to argue that sometimes God acted solely in the destruction of His enemies in a type of herem. He sees that as the only justifiable genocide of history and it will only be repeated by God in the last days when he commits a final herem upon the people of the Earth. There is a lot to praise in this portion of the book though I don’t favor his view. On page 116, Gard gives a great summary of what herem (or the ban) means and how it was acted out in the biblical accounts versus the Canaanites. Rooted in what I see as his evident Reformed background, Gard is terrific on the attributes of God and thus His character ...

Eugene Merrill’s case for moderate discontinuity is my preferred interpretation. Without having read it, I came to the same conclusions as he had save the use of the term genocide. More on that in a few paragraphs. I will label this the dispensational view. It is further evidence, I believe, of how faithful dispensationalism is to the biblical text. It alone accounts for the seeming incongruity of Jesus’ ministry of salvation, mercy and grace with the judgment of the Canaanites in their wholesale annihilation by God as represented in the Old Testament. One of the things I appreciate is the depth of Merrill’s material that he explains from the Word of God. He believes, rightly I would say, that the wholesale killing of the Canaanites was the judgment of God on a specific people (the Canaanites), at a specific period (the claiming of the land of promise under Joshua), by means of a specific agent (the Israelites) for a specific purpose (to claim the land promised to them ...

On one of the google communities, I had a discussion with an atheist. One of the things that he brought up was the annihilation of the Canaanites by the Israelites. This cruel God of the Bible, as he described Him, was not one he could embrace. We had been talking about something else when he made this turn in the conversation. I remarked that I had not studied the issue much but that I was not afraid of the Bible's difficult to understand passages. As I said to him, I had a book called Show Them No Mercy: 4 Views on God and Canaanite Genocide and that I would make that the next book that I read.  As I began to read the book, I decided to summarize the four viewpoints contained therein. I will do this as a four part series of blog posts. What is important for the reader to understand is that these are my summaries and certainly the authors of the sections and views could dispute my summation and/or interpretation as could those who hold those views. This post offers you a l...

Belgian killed by euthanasia after a botched sex change operation A Belgian has been killed by medical euthanasia after pleading for death because a botched sex change operation to turn her into a man had resulted in "a monster". ‘Reformation Project’ Recruits Volunteers Nationwide to Influence Churches to Embrace Homosexuality Disturbing story that shows the passion of the other side. May we be as passionate about God's Word and the Gospel. A plain reading of the Old and New Testaments reveals God's design for marriage and sexuality.  Matthew Vines and others can deny the obvious but their impact on others depends on the hearers' willingness to believe Scripture or believe Vines. It's Not About the Nail A funny little video about the differences between men and women Great story of forgiveness and redemption “Nsengimana” means “I pray to God” in Kinyarwanda, and Alex has certainly lived up to the name. In his 25 years, God has guided his s...