Theological Commentary: Click Here
While there
are a multitude of directions that I could go with today’s blog post, what I
want to talk about today is the concept of forgiveness. Internally it feels a bit weird to talk about
forgiveness on a day when the reading is regarding the sheer and utter
destruction of a community. That is what
the Lord has placed upon my heart to discuss.
The Hebrew
people utterly destroy Ai. So where is
the forgiveness in this? The forgiveness
is found when we remember the content of the last chapter. In the last chapter, the people were utterly
embarrassed before Ai’s warriors. What’s
the sole difference between chapters 7 and 8?
The difference is God’s favor. In
chapter 8, the people march out to Ai with God’s protection and a plan from
God. In chapter 7, the people march out
under their own power and their own plan.
Of course,
the good news is that chapter 8 comes after chapter 7. This feels a bit obvious the way that I
stated it. What I mean to say is that
the good news is that a story of success follows a story of failure. That’s where forgiveness comes into
play. God clearly had an issue with the
Hebrew people in chapter 7. That issue
was dealt with, handled, and forgiven.
Because of the forgiveness, God comes beside the Hebrew people and
fights beside them and causes them to have a great victory!
This is the
great thing about God. God isn’t worried
about holding a grudge. God isn’t
worried about how many times He’s going to get burned by the unfaithfulness of
humanity. God isn’t worried about whether
or not He should trust a person or group of people. God forgives and then gets back to work as if
nothing happened. God truly
forgives. Once the sin has been cleared
up, God takes the Hebrew people out and gives them every bit the victory that
they experienced at Jericho.
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