We’ve talked a lot about the church lately. Part of the reason for this is that I am convinced that one of the biggest reasons followers of Jesus don’t live fully up to the glorious calling we have in Him is because we don’t fully understand what the church is and has been called to be in Christ. I want to fix that. This week and next we are talking about God’s purpose for the church and how we as a church can be a part of fulfilling it. You may not be a part of this church, but if you are part of the church, there’s something here for you to know. And if you’re not a part of any church, this is a good primer on the calling you are missing out on by your absence. Let’s look at what God’s plans have always been and how we can be a part of them.
Dwelling Place
I had the opportunity to talk to someone recently who is at the beginning of their journey into engaging with the Scriptures in pursuit of a deeper, fuller, richer, more robust relationship with Jesus. This young person has also made the choice to engage with the Scriptures from the standpoint of faith, assuming that they are true and that God will make answers available to tough questions at some point in the future. These are both really good things that are to be encouraged in every single person who starts down this path. But one of the things this individual observed to me is how crazy it seems that Israel slaughtered all of those Canaanite people at God’s command when they were moving into the Promised Land. Well, this led us into a conversation about all of the different factors we have to keep in mind when engaging with a story like this if we are going to be able to make any kind of positive sense out of it. These include things like God’s character as revealed by the rest of the Scriptures, the nature of God’s commands in the first place, how Israel and other ancient peoples received and processed commands like we find here, the nature of the culture of the ancient world, how God has always worked with and revealed Himself to us, and so on and so forth. The bigger point here, though, is one we should not miss and to which you may or may not have given much in the way of critical thought before: Understanding the ways God is revealed in the Old Testament narrative through the lens of the New Testament can be tricky.
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The Nexus 