Okay so a few chapters back we saw the Israelites bond with outsiders. This is basically a betrayal of God. We don’t take this very seriously anymore. We connect ourselves with those who don’t follow God as close friends, confidantes, lovers, etc. This is a recipe for disaster. Anywhere in the Bible we see those of God marrying those not of God, something bad happens. God is trying to teach Israel a lesson here. We cannot live in close relationship to those who aren’t of God. We must find a way to love them without growing too close. Our friends, family and anyone else we allow close to us emotionally and mentally have an impact on how we behave. We must choose our romantic attachments carefully and even our friends. It is shown in research that we are most like the 5 people we spend the most time with, good or bad. So who are you spending your time with? Are there changes you need to make in order to be more like God and not like the world?
Now, the tough part, God ordered the people slaughtered. We see this a lot in the Old Testament. There is a reason though. We think we can handle being around people who are awful on our own. We ease up and tell ourselves it’s no big deal because we’ll influence them. Usually, we lose focus on God and end up letting them influence us. God didn’t want Israel to give them up to the world. The ones that caused a rebellion would have to be punished. It is not pretty and killing little boys seems harsh. However, I can tell you that we see in later stories, when you leave male survivors and their mothers, the mothers create resentment and revenge. God is avoiding this. Go watch Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride and you’ll see what I’m talking about.
Next we come to dividing the loot. I love how they are very specific about it. Many people point to this sort of thing as support of communism in the Bible. I don’t think that is quite accurate. Each person had a role, they fulfilled it and they got their share based on what their role was. Everyone had to do something. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t get anything. That sounds more like Capitalism to me than it does Communism. Yes, they all shared in the spoils but it was according to what they did and God received his portion as well. I especially love when the men come to Moses with an offering to God because they’ve realized that they didn’t lose one man. How grateful is that? They could have taken the road of pride and boasted of what great fighters they were, but they chose to be humble and thank God for protecting them. I pray that I can be more like that daily, giving God the glory for ALL of my accomplishments and survivals.
The Israelites had been wandering a long time and they still had a lot of work ahead of them. Yet they were walking through land that was perfect for them. No wonder the two tribes thought to stay there. Why not? It was lush land that God had created and cleared for them. They forgot that God had commanded them to clear all the area before taking possession. Moses saw how this would discourage the plan and he pointed it out to them, reminding them of the punishment their fathers had faced because of the same thing. They then bargained with Moses and he relented. The thing is that they didn’t realize that the important part of his story was where he touched on Joshua. We may receive blessings if we follow God and do most of what he says. Yet, the biggest blessings are reserved for those who follow God full out. What would that land have been like if they had traveled with the rest of Israel and seen the rest of it? Would they have allowed the current land they wanted the chance to replenish and be even more fertile for when they returned? They bargained with God to get what they thought they wanted and didn’t hold faith in what he promised they could have. I have done this many times in my life. I have been excited about something God is doing and I stop short of following through on it. Yes, it’s been a blessing, but then I have to wonder how much greater the blessings would have been if I had just followed God all the way instead. Now I will never know.
Today in Mark we talk about the most important thing next to our Salvation through Jesus Christ. That is what we do with it after we receive it. The Jewish leaders kept trying to trip up Jesus with their Law. Jesus ends that by condensing the law into two simple things. Loving God and loving others. If we focus on behaving in love towards God and others, we will usually automatically follow the law without even trying. The important thing is not to focus on what we’re not supposed to do. We should be focusing on what we can do to bring glory to God and show our love. The best part of this section is where one of the Jewish leaders acknowledges the truth in Jesus’ words and honors him. This illustrates that everyone that is open to Jesus’ words has the opportunity to grow closer to the Truth.
Jesus then challenged their understanding of who the Christ would be. They had a picture of who he was and where he would come from that wasn’t quite right. He was not going to be a Son of David in the military sense or a human sense. David called the Messiah Lord and had him sitting next to God. Jesus was letting them know that the Messiah was going to be more than they expected.
Then we come to another of my favorite stories. They are two illustrations of what it is to love God. Love is another term we have a skewed view of and tend to twist and demean from the way God views it. Jesus starts with a negative illustration of those that judge others and are prideful of how they follow God’s rules. This is legalism at its finest. They lift themselves above others because they dot their “I” s and cross their “t”s in public. They do things so that all may see them and think they are good people or give them praise for their faithfulness. Those are not the people to follow. He sat back and watched the people come and give their offerings. One poor widow walked up and put in a small amount. Jesus said that this was true love for God and a greater offering than the large amounts they had been watching. That widow gave everything she had and probably sacrificed to do so. It isn’t a big thing to give the things that are easy to give or that we have a lot of. It is more to give what we value most, cling to most and have very little of. Through letting those things go and giving them to God, we do much greater things for him and show our love much more.
Tomorrow’s reading is Numbers 33-36 and Mark 13.
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