Why Is the Bible So Violent?
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:04.000 | Why is the Bible so violent?
00:00:08.000 | It is very violent. So violent, it's gotten the attention of a listener
00:00:12.000 | named Scott who writes us this, "Hello Pastor John, I walk my dog early
00:00:16.000 | each morning while I listen to various audio books and to this podcast.
00:00:20.000 | This year I set for myself the goal of listening to the Bible from start
00:00:24.000 | to finish. I'm on Judges at the moment and came across a passage that
00:00:28.000 | I had not read before, Judges 19. I
00:00:32.000 | was shocked." Why are passages like this in the Bible,
00:00:36.000 | passages that are so violent, and what can they teach
00:00:40.000 | us? I have young teens and I would never let them read or watch
00:00:44.000 | media that describe this level of violence, and yet
00:00:48.000 | here it is in God's holy Scripture.
00:00:52.000 | Maybe I should make matters worse before I offer any answer.
00:00:56.000 | If you were shocked, Scott, by Judges
00:01:00.000 | 19, that is a concubine killed
00:01:04.000 | by sexual molestation and then cut into 12 pieces
00:01:08.000 | and sent throughout the tribes to muster revenge, you probably
00:01:12.000 | are a newcomer to the Bible, maybe a newcomer to the faith.
00:01:16.000 | I am very glad that you are
00:01:20.000 | reading or listening to the whole Bible. I would
00:01:24.000 | encourage everybody who can read to read
00:01:28.000 | all of the Bible over and over again because
00:01:32.000 | the Apostle Paul wrote, "All Scripture
00:01:36.000 | is breathed out by God and is profitable."
00:01:40.000 | That's what he said. All of it is profitable
00:01:44.000 | and God-inspired. That includes the most violent parts
00:01:48.000 | and I would not withhold any of it from teenagers.
00:01:52.000 | And I say that while totally agreeing with you
00:01:56.000 | that most worldly presentations of violence
00:02:00.000 | are not profitable and should be avoided.
00:02:04.000 | But God's presentation of these things
00:02:08.000 | in writing, in the inspired Scripture
00:02:12.000 | is no mistake. He presents the world
00:02:16.000 | in divine context-laden interpretive
00:02:20.000 | words, not lurid videos of blood and gore that
00:02:24.000 | preempt and replace the God-intended
00:02:28.000 | movement from reading written words to having
00:02:32.000 | word-built images in the mind. Verbal descriptions
00:02:36.000 | with divine explanations are
00:02:40.000 | not the same as worldly depictions for entertainment
00:02:44.000 | or education with no ultimate divine meaning. We live
00:02:48.000 | in a very soft, easily
00:02:52.000 | offended, emotionally fragile culture
00:02:56.000 | that unfits us to
00:03:00.000 | grasp what most of history has been like and most of the world
00:03:04.000 | is still like. I think God gave us the Bible
00:03:08.000 | the way it is, with all the horrors,
00:03:12.000 | partly because he knew the day would come
00:03:16.000 | when we would be so spoiled, so
00:03:20.000 | cocooned, so overprotected, so
00:03:24.000 | coddled, that we would not have the emotional
00:03:28.000 | and mental capacities to grasp utterly crucial
00:03:32.000 | realities in the Bible and in the world. In other words,
00:03:36.000 | I think that saturating ourselves in the whole
00:03:40.000 | Bible year after year shapes our minds
00:03:44.000 | and our emotions and our expectations
00:03:48.000 | so that we have the mental and emotional
00:03:52.000 | wherewithal to come to terms with central Biblical realities
00:03:56.000 | which otherwise we would reject as simply outrageous.
00:04:00.000 | There are truths about God and about his
00:04:04.000 | ways in this world and there are
00:04:08.000 | truths about sin and judgment that
00:04:12.000 | unless we have been made resilient in the face
00:04:16.000 | of horrors, we will not be able to grasp. We won't be able
00:04:20.000 | to grasp them with any sense of proportion and
00:04:24.000 | truth. So all of that, Scott, just to say that I hope you
00:04:28.000 | will press on in immersing yourself in the
00:04:32.000 | whole Bible year after year. Those horrors are
00:04:36.000 | there for a reason. So, let me
00:04:40.000 | cut to the chase and give three answers to the question
00:04:44.000 | why is there so much violence in the Bible? Let's start with the
00:04:48.000 | context of the book of Judges. Four times in the book of
00:04:52.000 | Judges we read this sentence, "In those days there was no
00:04:56.000 | king in Israel." And in two of those instances
00:05:00.000 | that sentence is followed by, "Everyone did what was right
00:05:04.000 | in his own eyes." One of those sentences stands
00:05:08.000 | at the very gateway of the chapter Scott is asking about,
00:05:12.000 | Judges 19, verse 1. As if to tell us
00:05:16.000 | up front what this violence signifies. It signifies
00:05:20.000 | what happens to a society
00:05:24.000 | when the river of evil flowing from the human
00:05:28.000 | heart runs wild without a damn of civil
00:05:32.000 | authority to keep it from spilling out over the whole earth and corrupting with
00:05:36.000 | violent effects. That's the point. There was no king.
00:05:40.000 | Everybody did what was right in his own eyes. This is what happens when human beings run
00:05:44.000 | rampant without any restraints. That's the most
00:05:48.000 | immediate contextual explanation for the violence in the book of Judges.
00:05:52.000 | The book of Judges is written to demonstrate what
00:05:56.000 | happens when human beings in all our sinful rebellion
00:06:00.000 | against God have no restraints. This is a
00:06:04.000 | very valuable lesson for us to learn from the Bible.
00:06:08.000 | Lest we have some naive romantic
00:06:12.000 | notions about the essential goodness of the human
00:06:16.000 | heart, and lest we think it would be a
00:06:20.000 | very good idea to dispense with civil authority.
00:06:24.000 | But that's not an answer to the most ultimate question
00:06:28.000 | of why there is so much violence in the Bible.
00:06:32.000 | The reason there is such an abundance of violence
00:06:36.000 | in the Bible is because there is so much violence in the world.
00:06:40.000 | And so we must ask the ultimate question, why is that?
00:06:44.000 | The Bible is documenting what is. It's not
00:06:48.000 | creating what is. It's just telling us what is the reality.
00:06:52.000 | And the biblical answer is that when sin entered the world,
00:06:56.000 | described in Genesis 3, that is when
00:07:00.000 | God opposing, God rejecting, God disparaging,
00:07:04.000 | God demeaning, treason against God
00:07:08.000 | entered the world, God responded not simply
00:07:12.000 | by judging man's emotions and thinking and willing
00:07:16.000 | and relationships, but also he responded
00:07:20.000 | by subjecting the human body
00:07:24.000 | and the entire material and physical creation to his judgment.
00:07:28.000 | And we see that in Genesis 3, and we hear it explicitly
00:07:32.000 | in Romans 8 20. The creation was subjected
00:07:36.000 | to futility. The creation was subjected to futility,
00:07:40.000 | to corruption, not willingly, but because of him who subjected
00:07:44.000 | God in hope. Now, why did God do that?
00:07:48.000 | Why did he ordain that the effect of moral
00:07:52.000 | evil would be displayed in the horrors
00:07:56.000 | of physical evil, earthquakes, floods, famines,
00:08:00.000 | pandemics, wars, and every manner of
00:08:04.000 | horrible mistreatment of man on man? Oh my.
00:08:08.000 | He did it because he knew that
00:08:12.000 | people who are dead in their trespasses and sins
00:08:16.000 | would never comprehend the moral
00:08:20.000 | outrage of treason against God unless they
00:08:24.000 | saw it reflected in the physical outrage of
00:08:28.000 | violence against man. Nobody loses sleep
00:08:32.000 | over their treason against God, but let
00:08:36.000 | their physical body be touched with cancer
00:08:40.000 | or their house be touched with rioting, and then their emotions
00:08:44.000 | really rise up with moral indignation.
00:08:48.000 | Violence and suffering exist in this
00:08:52.000 | world as a divine witness to
00:08:56.000 | the meaning and the seriousness and the outrage
00:09:00.000 | of sin against God. There's
00:09:04.000 | one more answer to why there is
00:09:08.000 | so much violence in the world and in the
00:09:12.000 | Bible. Revelation 13 8 says that
00:09:16.000 | there was a book in God's presence before the
00:09:20.000 | foundation of the world, and the name of the book is
00:09:24.000 | the book of life
00:09:28.000 | of the lamb who was slaughtered.
00:09:32.000 | Revelation 13 8. All thoughtful Christians
00:09:36.000 | know that at the center of our faith and at the foundation
00:09:40.000 | of our salvation is one of the
00:09:44.000 | grossest, most violent, and gory events
00:09:48.000 | in the history of the world, namely the crucifixion of the
00:09:52.000 | Son of God. There is no salvation without
00:09:56.000 | this violence. And what Revelation
00:10:00.000 | 13 8 shows is that this was God's plan
00:10:04.000 | before the foundation of the world.
00:10:08.000 | And not only was it God's plan before the foundation of the world,
00:10:12.000 | Revelation also tells us that we will
00:10:16.000 | sing about this violence forever. Revelation
00:10:20.000 | 5 9. And they sang a new song saying
00:10:24.000 | worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals
00:10:28.000 | for you were slaughtered. That is the right word.
00:10:32.000 | Sphagidamai. Slaughtered. Slain is a
00:10:36.000 | lessening of the feel. You were slaughtered and
00:10:40.000 | by your blood spilled shed gore.
00:10:44.000 | You ransomed people for God from every tribe
00:10:48.000 | and language and people and nation. Now, we might plan
00:10:52.000 | a different kind of world and a different kind of
00:10:56.000 | salvation from eternity to eternity if we were God.
00:11:00.000 | But that isn't our choice. God planned to
00:11:04.000 | save us through violence. The gruesome
00:11:08.000 | death of his infinitely precious Son.
00:11:12.000 | And he said that this is how we know his
00:11:16.000 | love. God shows us his love in that while we were yet sinners
00:11:20.000 | Christ died and we know how he died. Christ
00:11:24.000 | died for us. There is no softening the death
00:11:28.000 | of Christ as though it were a little gold symbol hung around our
00:11:32.000 | pretty necks. So those are my
00:11:36.000 | three answers. One, the violence of
00:11:40.000 | judges exists to show what happens when the river of human evil
00:11:44.000 | is not damned up by civic authority. Two, the
00:11:48.000 | futility and corruption of creation exists to
00:11:52.000 | give us some idea of the horror of sin against God.
00:11:56.000 | And three, the most egregiously violent
00:12:00.000 | act in history exists to save us
00:12:04.000 | and to show us the love of God. Amen. The most
00:12:08.000 | spectacular sin of all. Thank you Pastor John and thank you for
00:12:12.000 | the question Scott. That was Pastor John joining us today remotely
00:12:16.000 | over Skype. Thanks for listening. If you want new episodes of this podcast
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00:12:24.000 | or by subscribing to DG's YouTube channel. And to find other episodes
00:12:28.000 | in our archive or to submit a question to us of your own, do that online at
00:12:32.000 | DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. Well next time we talk
00:12:36.000 | about enjoying God and glorifying God. Are those
00:12:40.000 | different things? Are they the same thing? Is enjoying
00:12:44.000 | God kind of a private thing and glorifying God a public thing?
00:12:48.000 | It's a really good question. Next on the docket for Pastor John, I am Tony Reinke
00:12:52.000 | and we will see you on Monday. Thanks for listening.
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