Deuteronomy 2:34
King James Version (KJV)
34 And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain:
1 Samuel 15:3
King James Version (KJV)
3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
Worded this way by God in order to test the reader's heart on whether or not they would actually believe that He would make such a command, just because they read it, and also for appreciative artistic purpose.
Where did God command rape?
Probably, this "rape" is an assumption to the "taking of virgins" from a "destroyed city"
Again, worded this way for appreciative artistic purposes and to test every reader's heart on whether they think God would command such things, and to test their perception of Him.
God, if you believe He is good and righteous, will never ask you to literally kill, kidnap, or rape another human being, and He is not wicked to somehow "justify" it by indicating that the people are wicked and deserved it, but that He somehow escapes the definition of evil "just because He's the boss"
There is a very important condition of the heart that must be tested.
The only way to clear His name is to concede that these words are poetic for purpose of conveying intensity, or to claim that they are fabricated in His name. And if they are fabricated, throw them out, along with their discussion.
It's not what most want to hear, because they do not want to admit that God intentionally conceals things in His word (though He clearly states that He does)
They do not want to admit it because they cannot see the hidden things.
They cannot see the hidden things because they do not clear His name and manifest love.
It has little to do with having "accepted Jesus" in the way that religion teaches us to accept Him.
It is a filter, and there's no need to feel "left out" for not understanding it. All you have to do is keep the law because it's the right thing to do in your heart, instead of keeping it out of a fear of punishment.
And if you keep the law for the right reasons, you don't even need to understand scripture, unless God calls you to.
A hard thing to swallow,
God keeps secrets.
And in some of those secrets, commands the knower
not to tell. Because it robs the other person of the experience of having something revealed to them personally by Him.
That's why there's even a concept of "concealment" and "revelation"
If you knew all the answers up front, you would follow them blindly out of ignorance.
If you have them taught based on the condition of your heart, you can actually
know that God is revealing things to you, and why.
These war stories are artistic depictions of how a people who were chosen based on the condition of their heart, made spiritual war against sin, and the violence is used to explain the intensity of the war.
It is a war of teaching brotherly love. You "kill" the old man and he is born again as a new person who doesn't want to cause heartbreak to others.
If there is no concession of the rampant use of metaphor in scripture, then you must find yourself worshiping two gods. One that loves, and one that is a dastardly murderous abomination, yet trying to combine them.
There really was a flood. (
Noah wasn't told to kill everyone)
Abraham really raised the knife. (Because he
already knew that God could not break His previous promise of seed from Isaac by allowing his death.)
Israelites did
not really commit literal genocide. They committed spiritual genocide against sin.
Artistic interpretation based on the condition of the heart will immediately eliminate almost all of the "contradictions" in scripture and God's character.
If you cling to the dream of seeing people that wronged you or offend your idea of God, punished beyond corrective necessity, then you have a change of heart coming with an ironic re-visitation of that sin.
You don't need to understand it all, but you do need to know how it works, if you want to claim like John did that in God, there is no darkness
at all. And that means
two things. No wickedness in Him, and if you are in Him, nothing concealed.