This passage is quite familiar to me and the images of drawings of this passage from the Picture Bible are still vivid in my head. I can still see the image of this giant mermaid idol Dagan flat on the ground, broken into pieces in front of the ark of God. I love this story because we often like to treat God like a giant fluffy teddy bear (someone like a pre-fall Lotso from Toy Story 3) that will accept us despite our brokenness (which he will), and we forget just how awesome (in the awe-some sense of the word) and powerful God is. If it's not too sacrilegious to say, God is totally BA in this passage. In this passage, I can imagine God saying to himself something like this:
"Philistines don't want to respect me and make me share a temple with this poser Dagan, whom they call "Lord of the gods"? Man, don't the Philistines know that I totally trademarked that name centuries ago? These fools don't know who they're messin with. Imma tip this little fella over and see what happens...They picked him up again?! I'll just push him a little harder this time...oops..broke his head, arms, and fishy tail by accident...Aww they don't want me here next to their pwecious little Dagan anymore and are moving me to another city. Why don't they just treat me like the powerful God that I am instead of pretending I'm just some mere symbol? I know...I'm going to make them an offer they cannot refuse: Return the ark to my people, or TUMORS AND RATS. Your move, Philistines."
God demands respect. God demands obedience. God's holiness and power should cause us to fall down and worship him, like Dagan did. Our God is not a God to mess with, as the Egyptians, Philistines, Persians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Romans, Nazis, and Islamic extremists have painfully discovered. It's kind of funny thinking about it because the Egyptians, Jordanians (Canaanites, Edomites), and Syrians (Assyrians) never learned their lesson and got their butts kicked again by God's Chosen People in the Six-day War in 1967. They never learn.
God's Justice
The thing that struck me this time around that I haven't seen before is the justice of God demonstrated in the punishment of the Israelites. Sometimes when we read the Old Testament, it really seems like God is always in favor of the Israel, because those seem to be all the stories that we remember. When we think about God and the Israelites, we like to remember all the warm, fuzzy stories like Moses and the Exodus, Joshua and Jericho, and David and Goliath but we immediately don't think about the punishments the Israelites suffer for their sin, like "the earth opened up its mouth and swallowed them, with their housholds and all Korah's men and all their possessions (Numbers 16:32)", Joshua's stoning of Achan and burning of his family for the Ai fiasco, and the death of David's firstborn for murdering a soldier and quid pro quo-ing his wife.
God does not show favoritism. Contrary to popular belief (and practice), Christianity and the Christian God is not about racism or putting one ethnicity or peoples above another. God's justice is painfully demonstrated in the passage, with an extremely severe punishment of all who disrespected His ark. God is less tolerant with the sin of the Israelites because they really should know better than to try and look inside the holy ark of God. This passage is a confirmation of the first part of Romans 2:9-10, that God's chosen people are held to a higher standard. This is God's justice.
The moral of the story is that as Christians, we should never just assume that we can treat God however we want. He has demonstrated grace beyond grace, but we serve a God that also demands fear and obedience. God is unpredictable, in both his grace and his discipline - as said in Narnia, God is not a tame lion.
It all really makes me think: DAM, GOD. YOU SCARY (in the best possible way ever).
"Philistines don't want to respect me and make me share a temple with this poser Dagan, whom they call "Lord of the gods"? Man, don't the Philistines know that I totally trademarked that name centuries ago? These fools don't know who they're messin with. Imma tip this little fella over and see what happens...They picked him up again?! I'll just push him a little harder this time...oops..broke his head, arms, and fishy tail by accident...Aww they don't want me here next to their pwecious little Dagan anymore and are moving me to another city. Why don't they just treat me like the powerful God that I am instead of pretending I'm just some mere symbol? I know...I'm going to make them an offer they cannot refuse: Return the ark to my people, or TUMORS AND RATS. Your move, Philistines."
God demands respect. God demands obedience. God's holiness and power should cause us to fall down and worship him, like Dagan did. Our God is not a God to mess with, as the Egyptians, Philistines, Persians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Romans, Nazis, and Islamic extremists have painfully discovered. It's kind of funny thinking about it because the Egyptians, Jordanians (Canaanites, Edomites), and Syrians (Assyrians) never learned their lesson and got their butts kicked again by God's Chosen People in the Six-day War in 1967. They never learn.
God's Justice
The thing that struck me this time around that I haven't seen before is the justice of God demonstrated in the punishment of the Israelites. Sometimes when we read the Old Testament, it really seems like God is always in favor of the Israel, because those seem to be all the stories that we remember. When we think about God and the Israelites, we like to remember all the warm, fuzzy stories like Moses and the Exodus, Joshua and Jericho, and David and Goliath but we immediately don't think about the punishments the Israelites suffer for their sin, like "the earth opened up its mouth and swallowed them, with their housholds and all Korah's men and all their possessions (Numbers 16:32)", Joshua's stoning of Achan and burning of his family for the Ai fiasco, and the death of David's firstborn for murdering a soldier and quid pro quo-ing his wife.
God does not show favoritism. Contrary to popular belief (and practice), Christianity and the Christian God is not about racism or putting one ethnicity or peoples above another. God's justice is painfully demonstrated in the passage, with an extremely severe punishment of all who disrespected His ark. God is less tolerant with the sin of the Israelites because they really should know better than to try and look inside the holy ark of God. This passage is a confirmation of the first part of Romans 2:9-10, that God's chosen people are held to a higher standard. This is God's justice.
The moral of the story is that as Christians, we should never just assume that we can treat God however we want. He has demonstrated grace beyond grace, but we serve a God that also demands fear and obedience. God is unpredictable, in both his grace and his discipline - as said in Narnia, God is not a tame lion.
It all really makes me think: DAM, GOD. YOU SCARY (in the best possible way ever).
The extent of my holy fear (and humility) never ceases to amaze me.......just kidding.
1 Samuel 4 - Continued Disobedience and Using God
1 Samuel 3 - Midnight Encounter with God
1 Samuel 2 - For those stumbling
1 Samuel 1 - "Because I asked the Lord for him"
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