He will judge the nations, heaping up the dead and crushing the rulers of the whole earth. – Psalm 110:6

Today’s Scripture Reading (May 7, 2016): Psalm 110

My grandfather, Murray Baker, had a solution for the violent passages of the Bible. Well, at least a solution that applied to the class of young boys he taught in Sunday School. Murray Baker ignored the passages. If the indicated curriculum instructed that he was to teach that Sunday on a passage that included violence or war, he simply ignored the curriculum and found something else to talk about with his guys. It worked for Grandpa and his boys, but I am not sure that it was a long-term solution. (Just to be fair, I don’t think that Grandpa ever thought it was a long term solution. It simply fit in with this comfortability zone when teaching children biblical principles.)

Over and over again I have recently seemed to be confronted by the violent passages of the Bible. In a recent teaching session, the violent passages of the Qur’an were brought up. And there are violent kill passages in Islam’s Most Holy Book. But there are similar passages in our own Holy Book. The question is this – what exactly are we supposed to do with them? For the fundamentalist of both Christianity and Islam, those violent passages indicate a kind of behavior that God expects from his people. For the majority of us, well, we aren’t so sure.

 It is also these very passages that the opponents of Christianity point to as they mock the Christian idea of a “God of Love.” Would a God who loves the world that he created send a flood to destroy that very world, saving only on man and his family? It is no wonder that the 2014 film “Noah” presented us with a hero who was slightly neurotic and unhinged. Who among us could stand up to that kind of reality?

So what do we do with these passages? Specifically, what do we do with this passage which speaks of God “heaping up the dead and crushing the rulers of the whole earth”? I actually agree with Charles Spurgeon’s take on the Psalm. Spurgeon says that “this need not be understood literally, but as a poetical description of the overthrow of all rebellious powers and the defeat of all unholy principles.”  I especially like that last comment, “the defeat of all unholy principles.” It is a reminder that a God of love does not necessarily love all that we do and that our actions that are not based on his love will, at some point, have to be crushed and die. God is sovereign and the hate of man has a shelf life. One day it will grow stale and it will have to be discarded. But Spurgeon does add this comment. “Yet should kings oppose the Lord with weapons of war, the result would be their overwhelming defeat and the entire destruction of their forces.” God will respond to those who take up arms of war against him. But that response is never born out of hate, but rather out of necessity.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm 122 & 123

Personal Note: Happy Birthday to my son, Craig. I am proud of you and all that you are accomplishing in life.