Warfare Insights from Joshua and Judges

As Pastor Kaj Martin led our discussion, BC2AD participants shared the following insights from Joshua and Judges.

1. The enemy uses people.
2. There is no victory without obedience.
3. In biblical times, God dealt swiftly with disobedience.
4. God has a strategy for the battle and is willing to give us specific instructions.
5. God will help us pick the right battles.
   
6. God's guidance is sometimes counterintuitive.
7. God is with us in the battle.
8. Making any agreement with the enemy will bring lasting consequences.
9. There is power in unity.
   

Theodicies from Georgia and Bob

Back to the philosophical Problem of Evil:

If God is all good, and God is almighty, why is there evil in the world?

We learned that an attempt to answer this problem and exonerate God (in view of the fact that evil is present) is called a theodicy.

After class, Georgia suggested that the answer to the Problem of Evil might have something to do with God’s creating us in His own image, and giving us the power of choice. Bob speculated about the answer perhaps having something to do with God having turned over the dominion of the earth to us. Excellent preliminary thoughts!

Keep the theodicies coming!

Ultimate Humility

Wendy Palmer shared an important insight on humility. She said something like this:

Humility involves knowing who you really are before God.

If we have relationship with God through His Son, and understand God’s love for us, along with His plans and purposes for us, that should help us step away from self-absorption and self-protection and really begin to put others first. That’s what Moses did when he prayed for Miriam’s healing, even after Miriam had affronted her little brother (Num. 12).

Marina Ochman e-mailed about Philippians 2.5-8. This passage describes the ultimate demonstration of humility, that of Jesus, and calls us to become conformed to it:

...being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death -- even death on a cross! (NIV)

What Is Fallennes & How Is It Passed Down?

We tentatively concluded that the fallenness problem is a deficiency rather than a substantive thing. Sin is not something we pass down from generation to generation. Rather it is a healthy, living spirit that we are unable to pass down. Because we are born without a healthy, living spirit, our flesh takes over and our every inclination is selfish and sinful. Even as Paul emphasized, we were “dead” in our sins (Eph. 2.5; Col 2.13). When we understand our fallenness as a deficiency, it helps us appreciate the necessity of the new birth (John 3.3), not only for people today, but for everyone since the time of Adam. To have relationship with God and enter His kingdom, our spirits (the part of us that that enables us to respond to God) must be regenerated, made alive again, by the intervention of God’s Spirit.

Jesus Christ did not have the sin problem because His Father did not have our deficiency. His Father was able to “beget” Him with a fully living and healthy spirit. That vibrantly healthy spirit was able to keep Christ’s soul and body perfectly subject to God’s will.