Your Heart Messing with How You Read Scripture

There’s a thought provoking post by Morgan Guyton (Mercy not Sacrifice) discussing this issue. While I have some problems with the interpretations proposed when considered from an historical point of view, as Christian application of scripture, I think this is a good thing.

We should not forget, however, that the scriptures came to violent people in violent times. What does that say about how we should interact with them? I recall recently disturbing a group of people by noting that in some cases when the Spirit of God came upon a person, that person killed a bunch of other people (Samson, Judges 15:14-17).

We don’t want the violence to guide our lives, which is a good thing, but what happened, happened. Even if the story of Samson is fictitious, or perhaps somewhat embellished, there was a time when the people of God thought that was encouraging stuff. And for those fighting the Philistines, I doubt the lesson was, “Let’s have sympathy for the Philistines. That’s a lesson we (should) learn later.

Though we haven’t.