Making Sense of a Random Act of God

Scripture passage that caught my attention today: Deuteronomy 7:1-6 When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are about to enter and occupy, and he clears away many nations before you—the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations mightier and more numerous than you— 2 and when the LORD your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy. 3 Do not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, 4 for that would turn away your children from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the LORD would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. 5 But this is how you must deal with them: break down their altars, smash their pillars, hew down their sacred poles, and burn their idols with fire. 6 For you are a people holy to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession.

Observation: One really needs to read all of chapters 7, 8, & 9 of Deuteronomy to get a fuller picture. To briefly recount, God chooses this people out of love, not because they are more numerous than others or because they are righteous. But rather because others are wicked…and because the Lord had promised their ancestors that they would be saved. Moses also pointed out that the Israelites themselves had provoked the Lord to great anger and that it was only Moses’ pleadings on their behalf that spared them, partly because the Lord didn’t want the neighbors to think ill of the Almighty.

Application: The other day in a Bible Study a person expressed an interest in studying/exploring why God chose the Israelites out of all the peoples on the earth. These three chapters would make for an interesting start to that discussion. In some ways we have no answer, really, to the question. Or, more accurately, we have a potential answer, but it doesn’t necessarily seem very fair. It’s almost as if our ancestors were chosen by a divine random act of kindness. There is little rhyme or reason to it. And so while I’m grateful for these three chapters, I’m more grateful for Jesus, the one who truly opens salvation up to a much wider audience.

Prayer: Lord, this history of which many of us are a part is most interesting and befuddling. I don’t really need to understand it all, and probably never will. But I do pray that you help us to stand in your grace and to express our thanksgiving for your graciousness by embracing the world that you have entrusted into our care. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

(readings today included Deuteronomy 7-9 and Mark 15)