Today's Scripture Reading (April 13, 2025): Joshua 22
I wish every argument in the church started with a statement of our shared belief in God. When I first came over to a Baptist church, I met with a Baptist from the denomination for lunch at a local Boston Pizza, and the first thing he did was start to question what I believed. Immediately, the conversation turned to the difference between Arminian and Calvinistic beliefs. To him, for me to say that I was a Wesleyan-Arminian was the same as admitting that I wasn't really a Christian. Yet, the dividing line between the two belief systems is relatively small, and it centers around the idea of predestination and whether you have been predestined since birth to heaven or hell by the choice of God. What I didn't tell my new friend was that I am a little uncomfortable with both belief systems because I think both limit human free will.
Let me put a point on this. I believe that when you got up this morning, you chose what to do next. No one forced you to do something; you decided whether to get up or stay in bed for another fifteen minutes. And you probably made the choice on some relatively flimsy reasoning. Nevertheless, you made the choice.
It was the cry of the Reformation; we want to worship God, but we feel that the church has walked away from him. We believe that God is calling us back. Let us choose to worship God the way we believe God is telling us to worship. The Roman Catholic Church decided to disagree. They argued if Protestants walked away from the Roman Church, there would no longer be a catholic, which means universal, church. The fear was essentially correct; we were losing the idea of a universal church. The Roman Catholics decided that they couldn't afford to take that chance.
A similar argument existed between the tribes of Canaan and those who chose to live on the east side of the River Jordan. There was a desire to remain one and a fear that the river would divide them. For the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestants, the division caused a war between the two sides. The reality is that neither side was willing to realize that we were trying to serve the same God. Accusations began to fly back and forth, and a conflict began that in some areas has never stopped. However, some have recognized wisdom and have recognized the one great truth: Catholics and Protestants are trying to worship the same God.
This idea of the oneness of God is brought forward in Joshua 22:22, although we tend to miss it in the English translation. The NIV says, "The Mighty One, God, the Lord! The Mighty One, God, the Lord!" Admittedly, I like this better than the King James Translation of the verse, which tries to turn it into a bit of a phrase; "The LORD God of gods, the LORD God of gods." But the actual Hebrew of the verse is this: "Yahweh El Elohim. Yahweh El Elohim." What is significant about the phrasing is that they are all words that have been applied to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is almost like the Transjordanian tribes were saying, "We serve one God, no matter what you might call him." A better translation for our generation, although admittedly politically explosive, might be Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah, or even Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, all of which are words that have been applied to the God of Israel within the Christian Church. The word Allah has become troublesome in the contemporary church because of its perceived connection with Islam, even though it is just the Aramaic word for God.
The message should be clear. We serve one God, who is "Yahweh El Elohim." Do not be afraid just because our beliefs might differ in the small things that we are serving a different God. We serve the same God who has breathed life into us and has endowed our lives with purpose.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Joshua 23
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