Is the Bible Immoral? (Part 1)

Is the Bible guilty of the very things our culture condemns—slavery, genocide, and the mistreatment of women?

In this episode, host Jon Delger, the Executive Pastor of the Peace Family of Churches, and Logan Bailey, the Family Pastor at Peace Church, slow down and walk through some of Scripture’s most difficult passages, examining what’s actually happening in the text, what the ancient world was really like, and how God works within broken cultures without endorsing their sins.

We examine the laws and stories that trouble modern readers—challenging common objections and asking what these passages reveal about God’s character and justice. In the end, these difficult moments may highlight the Bible’s moral clarity more than they undermine it.

Episode Transcript

(00:08):
Welcome to That's a Good Question, a podcast where we
answer questions about the Christian faith in plain
language. If you or someone you know has
questions, please submit them toPeace Church dot CC slash
questions. Is the Bible immoral?
Big question, important question.

(00:30):
I feel like a question that we're hearing more and more
recently. This isn't this isn't something
that I would say 1015 years ago was a popular question that I
would try to answer, but I wouldsay more recently people are
just asking that question, not just not just is the Bible true,
but is it actually good? Yeah, I, I feel like I'm a
little bit along the ride here just because there's so many

(00:51):
topics to consider and I know that you'll guide us in in a
good way through these questionsas you ask them.
But I, I think of before my lifetime, I, I know, and a
little bit when I was a child too, but like, it used to be
that, oh, you're a Christian. Oh, you think you're better than
me. But now it's, oh, you're a

(01:12):
Christian, you bigot. And that's just, that's the kind
of waters we swim in right now. And I think it actually did take
root mostly in the Christopher Hitchens era, Richard Dawkins
kind of new atheism. But now new atheism is kind of
dead as a movement, but it really impacted the cultural
moment that we're we find ourselves in just the the roots

(01:32):
of it and and kind of what it sprouted.
Is this like nihilism and kind of not just I'm an atheist but
I'm anti theist and I don't needyour religion or Christianity
pointedly. Yeah.
And I think there's a there's a growing concern for what people
would call justice. Now, we can talk about whether

(01:53):
or not popularly people really have a right conception of
justice, but I'd say, yeah, people increasingly, they want
justice. They want fairness.
They want what's what's right. I forget who I was talking to
recently, but I do think that isa truth thing to say is that our
culture right now does kind of understand a a need for justice.

(02:14):
And so we're actually in at Peace church.
We're doing a sermon series around this time on Naem, which
is talks about God being wrathful.
And I think it's actually easiermore than ever in my lifetime to
give that message because there is such a cry for justice and
there's. So then we get into the
differences of what justice means and what what sin even is

(02:37):
and what we should be angry about and what it means to right
wrongs. But there is a sense I get that
people actually kind of do understand justice now more than
ever because we see so much evilso readily.
Yes, and it is a little bit warped, of course, right?
You know, we need God's Word to refine our understanding of what
real justice is. So people have somewhat of a

(02:57):
warped sense of justice that doesn't necessarily align with
God's Word, and especially a sense of justice that wants to
say to somebody else you're in the wrong, but doesn't want to
look in the mirror and and see the ways that we're not doing
what's right and good. And that kind of connects with
what we just said about how we live in a world where instead of
it's, oh, you think you're better than me because you're a
Christian now it's, oh, you're aChristian, you bigot, because I

(03:18):
actually don't need your religion to have a sense of
justice. I have my own moral framework
without you. And the great irony, we don't
need to get into this too much, but the great irony is, is that
this is like a modern Western situation where we all take for
granted how much the judeo-christian worldview has
influenced all of our world views, even those that don't
identify as Christian. Sure.

(03:39):
Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
So we're going to talk about, we're going to answer a number
of questions that have come in about different topics related
to that bigger question, is the Bible immoral?
So lots of different topics we can talk about.
We're going to hone in especially on questions about
slavery. Does the Bible condone slavery?
Does the Bible condone the abuseor mistreatment of women?

(04:02):
Does the Bible command genocide?Thinking about Joshua and some
of those passages. And if we have time, we'll even
talk about the bigger picture question.
If God is good, then why do evilthings still exist or still
happen today? So we'll just kind of make our
way through those different topics, some big stuff, huge
questions, ones that either you're asking yourself, I would

(04:23):
imagine, or you've got friends that you will interact with and
share the faith with, faith with, and they will ask these
questions. I know I've been asked each of
these questions many times so. And I've asked them like these
are actually some of these are reasonable questions to get to
give. Oh, I think, yeah.
And, and I'll we'll share some passages in the Bible that
actually, I think, show us, hey,these are legitimate questions.
We should be asking these. All right, so let's talk about

(04:44):
the first and why I would say it's probably the most popular
that people will bring up this question of slavery.
So we think right away of the terrible institution of the
1800s, right? What's called the antebellum S,
the pre Civil War S, the transittransatlantic slave trade where
people were literally, you know,captured, stolen from Africa,

(05:05):
brought to different countries and then sold.
They became property. They were abused, you know, they
were not treated as human beings.
Shadow slavery. Shadow slavery.
This is my property less than human.
Right, right. Horrible, terrible thing.
So when we hear the word slavery, we think of that right
away. And then we read passages like

(05:26):
let me, I'll give, I'll give twopassages here.
I would say these passages, they, they rightly raise
questions for us. OK, so here it is.
Here's Exodus 21 verse 20 and 21.
Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be
punished if the slave dies as a direct result, but they are not
to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two,

(05:47):
since the slave is their property.
Now, that's the NIV translation.It's important to to recognize
that you'll see different readings and different
translations trying to understand some of the things
that we're going to talk about and how to understand some of
the words in the passage. But that's the NIV translation.
You hear that and you think of, you know, antebellum South and
you think, man, that's just sounds horrible.
Ephesians 65. So, you know, it's not just Old

(06:08):
Testament. There's a New Testament passage.
Slaves obey your earthly masterswith respect and fear and with
sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.
OK, so an Old Testament passage and a New Testament passage that
seemed to they definitely don't condemn slavery.
And at worst, it condones it. Yeah.
And in our current American thinking of American history, we

(06:32):
we assume, oh, it must have be, it must be condoning what we
know of in our American history of, of what that what occurred
there. Yeah.
So the question is, what in the world do we do with these
verses? How can we understand them?
Does the Bible condone slavery? Right.
So we just talked about how as Americans, right, we think
immediately of when you. Hear the word slavery?

(06:54):
Yep. Yeah.
So that's the first word to define is slavery.
Totally. Yep, slave.
So we want to define this word slavery, and it's an English
word that isn't in the original manuscripts of the Greek and
Hebrew manuscripts. And so we're in one sense, right
off the bat, we're dealing with this language barrier of we want
to define this term, but we don't even necessarily, we're

(07:17):
not familiar with the original word used in any of these
passages because we're English speakers and we read the English
translation. And so we're trying to define
this term that isn't even the original word used in these
contexts. And we're super unfamiliar with
slavery at all because we live in America.
And if we don't know our global world history, we we aren't

(07:38):
going to be familiar with different types of slavery in
different parts of the world. And so all while we're trying to
not belittle the evil of American transatlantic slavery,
and I think it's worth pointing out right off the bat, if you're
not a Christian listening to this, then you're welcome.

(08:00):
But as, as Christians listening,I think we, we need to recognize
the point because it's a kind ofour point to recognize.
But it's the, it's the, it's a Christian movement that brought
about the end of slavery in the West.
And so obviously there's going to be different interpretations.
There's so many different interpretations of what the

(08:21):
Bible says throughout human history and even obviously
today, But it's we that's a goodthing to recognize is that it's
it's it's a Christian worldview with a total authority, you
know, authority of the Bible bringing.
But in that the weight of that bear on how we conduct human

(08:43):
society that brought about the end of slavery in the West.
And slavery isn't over in the world.
And so we're dealing with, I'm dealing with ignorance of what
slavery is like all around the world.
But I I'm not ignorant to the fact that there is still slavery
around the world, right? So, yeah, so before, yeah.
So we've got to think about the ancient Near Eastern context of
the Bible, right? Think about the Hebrew, the

(09:04):
Greek. So the Hebrew word for slave
ebed, and in the New Testament, the Greek word doulos.
All right, so just thinking about these in the original
context, not just in our, not just how we think of them in the
in modern day, but in the original context, you know,
these were words that had a widerange of meaning, including
different kinds of indentured servitude.
So back in the ancient world, you know, they didn't have the

(09:26):
same, you know, structures that we have for credit and debt and
things like that. And.
So employers and employees. Yeah, so I mean you.
Yeah. So, so it can include things
like employees, it can include things like people who, you
know, they got into debt and so they had, you know, they
couldn't just go to a, they couldn't declare bankruptcy.
You know, there's no, you know, Chapter 7, Chapter 11, there's
no, none of that. You know, you couldn't just go

(09:47):
and and borrow money from the bank to pay, you know, this debt
down. So can I be your Butler for
seven years and then? Exactly right.
So so instead you'd agree to a contract with a with a wealthy
person, say hey, I owe you a bunch of money.
I will sell the only thing I have, which is myself and my
labor. I'll agree to, you know, X
number of years of indentured servitude to you and then at the
end my debt will be paid off. So those are the kind of

(10:10):
arrangements that you have. There's possibilities of of that
in the world and and world history.
That's the kind of stuff that could have happened.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the word slave was just used
for all of them. Right.
So I mean, so really, I mean, you think on the one hand, of
course, that's not ideal. On the other hand, it was a
method of survival for a lot of people.

(10:30):
You know what? What was the alternative?
It sounds insane to us with all of our social safety Nets that
we have, but it was a social safety net.
Sure. It's like this is there's
wealthy people that are willing to let me labor for them and
feed me and house me and I don'tget paid.
Or maybe I get paid a little bit, but like that's and I'll
serve this term and then be freeof my debt.

(10:51):
Yeah, the alternative is you, you know, you starve or you're
killed because of your debt. You know, I mean, the the
alternatives were not pretty. So is it ideal?
No, but did it serve a real purpose in the ancient world?
Yes. So that's why I think, you know,
so it's important for us to understand the actual terms
we're talking about. We're not talking about, you
know, antebellum 1800s, pre Civil War slavery.

(11:11):
We're talking about ancient world slavery.
So, so understand the differencethere in context.
And then also we got to think about some of the biblical laws
about slavery, I think paint a really helpful picture for us
about what the Lord was doing, right?
So the Lord in through Scriptureis speaking into our broken
world, right? So think about it this way.
You know, God could have ended all slavery and all evil with a

(11:35):
snap of his fingers. But what that means is the
destruction of all evil people. He kind of almost did it with
Noah's flood. Well, exactly.
I mean, that's that's the right.So I think that's, that's one of
the amazing things about what weget in Genesis 6 through 9 is
this picture of, you know, todaywe think, well, why, why doesn't
God just rid the world of evil? Well.

(11:55):
He promised he did that once again.
Yeah, Yeah. He, you know what that means, is
he kills all the evil people, which is everybody.
And so basically God did that once.
He killed everybody except for Noah and his family.
Which is grace to Noah and his family.
Which was grace, You know, they,they obviously weren't perfect,
but they came out on the other side.
And even the conclusion of the story is, you know what?
Actually turns out. Even they were sinful.

(12:17):
So the only way to really rid the world of all evil is to
destroy all of humanity. So it's actually God's patience
let's humanity survive and instead of destroying us, he
decides to work within a broken world to work out a story of
redemption. So that's the that's the actual
storyline of the Bible. But here's but here's some some
steps I think that that we see in the Old Testament laws of God
restraining abuse, trying to trying to create a a better

(12:38):
world, even though it's broken. So here I'll just, I'll just
give some passages and some lawsthat they put on just to your
point. Of any time God is willing to
use broken instruments like human beings, it's going to be
messy yeah. Like even to the point of
ancient Israelites, you have a society here are some laws to
obey and abide by if someone murders, you need to kill them.

(13:01):
It's like, wait, so I need to then do the thing that they did
to someone else like. And so now I need to be this
arbiter of your Justice, Lord. But I'm I have sinful hands too
and so like that messy and even like the conquest of Canaan a
much less loss of life than the flood.
And yet because he's using the broken instruments of human

(13:22):
beings it's going to be messy. And and I think it's right for
us to wrestle with that because we have a sense of morality
built into us. But it the I'm glad we brought
up Noah's flood because it is I guess God's flood, but it's it
Noah's ark, which is also God's ark It it it brings up a point
of like that is God enacting justice and the conquest of

(13:45):
Canaan is God enacting justice and then we deal with his laws.
It's also God enacting justice and more just laws in place.
But the ones where he uses waterversus he uses broken human
beings, that's by consequence going to be more messy.
Yeah. Yeah, I think I I right away
when you were saying that, I thought of divorce too, right?
I mean, like God gives laws in the, you know, in the situation

(14:09):
of divorce, here are some things.
And, you know, we could say, well, divorce should never
happen. Well, that's true.
But God and his grace is speaking into a broken world
where bad things do happen and he's trying to restrain even
worse evil. All right, so, so here's some
here's some passages where God set some limits for slavery to
try to make it a better situation.
So here's Exodus 21/2. He puts time limits on slavery

(14:33):
that a Hebrew slave would be freed after six years.
OK, so it couldn't be lifelong, which is where we get to the
situation of like treating humanbeing like like property.
Instead, it's like a contract that has a has an end date.
And Exodus 21 versus 26 and 27 talks about that if a servant is
injured, they actually go free. So if if a slave master injuries

(14:53):
their servant and you know, theyabuse them, then they, they get
set free. So there's protections for them.
There's protection for runaways.And Deuteronomy 2315 and 16, if
a runaway slave is is found or captured, they're not to be
returned, but to be given refugeinstead.
Exodus 2116, there's a there's apenalty there.

(15:13):
It's actually the death penalty if you kidnap somebody in order
to make them a slave. OK, So that's the very
foundation of the transatlantic slave trade, right?
That that happening. The death penalty is what you
get in ancient Israel for doing that.
OK. So far from endorsing, you know,
brutal oppression of human beings, the Bible is is trying
to speak into a broken world andset restraints on evil in a non

(15:39):
ideal situation. I think that's what we've got.
I think there's. A sense in which, and we already
established it was a Christian biblical world view that brought
about the end of slavery in the West as we knew it.
Well, totally. I mean, we got to highlight.
That a little bit, yeah. So I mean, like, you know, the
the abolitionists were were driven by Christian principles.
Most of them are professing Bible believing Christians.

(16:01):
You know, I think William Wilberforce, right.
I think that you think of the the civil rights movement, even
you know, Martin Luther King Junior, these guys are driven by
by the Bible. These are, you know, biblical
morality is what drove these guys to end slavery and then in
a world. That that was unheard of.
Yeah. It's an institution that we
think how could that ever existed for the majority of

(16:23):
human history and even throughout most of the world
today, like there's parts of theworld where slavery flourishing.
It's we think how could that ever existed?
It wasn't even conceivable that it wouldn't exist, Right.
And even today, like in America,there's sex slave.
There's a sex slave industry. Yeah.
So like, we we get on this moralhigh horse when we look back,

(16:45):
but like, abortion is rampant and like, there's such
confusion, moral confusion in our world today.
It's hard to even talk with people that disagree on it
because we feel so strong. Everyone feels so strongly about
it. But it's either murder or it's
not. And if it is, Oh my gosh, the
half of America, maybe even more, are fine with it.

(17:05):
And so we get on this moral highhorse.
And you can disagree with the if, if you're not a Christian
listening to this, or even if you are and you have
disagreements on that, we're we're disagreeing about
something. But the reality is, is if
abortion is murder, then yeah, we're so morally confused and
bankrupt on that. And so it's not a surprise that
human beings have been morally bankrupt on other issues

(17:27):
throughout history as well. And so we just got to, we can't
have that like, snobbery about us when we look back in the
past, Sure. But even today, look around the
world, there's slavery in lots of places around the world.
And I, I'm ignorant, I guess, onall the details of that.
But it was the Christian influence on the West that
brought about an end of a slave trade.

(17:49):
And I think that's notable. Yeah.
So the Bible. Didn't create it.
The Bible didn't even condone it.
The Bible speaks into a broken situation and tries to bring
redemption and it. Was Christian biblical thought,
judeo-christian worldview that brought about its end or at
least like the end of a slave trade and then that eventually

(18:09):
led to the end in abolition. So all I have to say, I feel
like when people engage in this conversation and they go to the
Bible, they bring up a lot of these verses you brought up.
But Philemon I feel like is usually left out.
And we're dealing with Paul writing to was it Onissimus?

(18:31):
I was the slave that he was talking about.
Philemon was the slave owner. Onissimus ran away and Paul
encountered him. He became a Christian and now
he's writing back to Philemon saying, Hey, I'm sending him
back to you and I want you to receive him as a brother, as in,
Hey, guess what? He's no longer your slave.
And it's like they're they're I like all the things you said.

(18:51):
I think you wrapped a bow on it really nicely about like, does
it condone it? No, it actually restricts it.
And then it was the the biblicalworld that brought about its
end. At least it's unjust forms
because again, you brought up that servant even can fall
within those categories. But we have in the New
Testament, a pretty tangible example of a, the a Christian

(19:13):
apostle saying, Hey, we're goingto stop this and we're going to
bring about brotherhood, which goes back to the image of God
that were made in. And so it's a complicated issue
because of all that slavery can mean and imply in the different
ways that it's been used as a word and institution throughout
human history and even globally.But I think we have enough in

(19:34):
the Bible to to to show foundationally we believe in the
equality and value of all human beings.
I don't know of a world view that gets us anything better
than that as far as far as a comprehensive, coherent,
consistent world view of human rights rooted in the image of
God that were made in. And then you have restrictions
on injustice and then an outright tangible example in the

(19:57):
New Testament of saying, let this man be free.
He's your brother. And Paul's dancing around that
line of like, it's not like it'sa legal reason.
So he's not saying like you legally need to do this.
He's saying based on our Christian principles.
Do this. So yeah.
Amen. All that to say, Amen.

(20:20):
All right, so another huge topicthat people will bring up is
this topic of genocide. So we've got some tough passages
in the Bible. And when we hear the word
genocide, you know, we think of the Holocaust, 6,000,000, Jews
murdered. We think of other genocides,

(20:40):
places like Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur, right, those even just,
you know, in recent decades, some of these horrible things.
And so then we read passages again, passages that really
should raise some questions for us.
Here's Deuteronomy chapter 20. This is verse 16 and 17.
But in the cities of. These peoples that the Lord your

(21:02):
God has given you for an inheritance, you shall save
alive nothing that breathes, butyou shall devote them to
complete destruction. Sounds pretty harsh.
Joshua 621 Then they devoted allin the city to destruction, both
men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep and donkeys with the
edge of the sword. All right, so those are.

(21:23):
Some tough passages, right? We think about, yeah, yeah.
We think about some stuff even that we've seen in, you know, in
our lifetime. And then we think back, we read
these passages of Scripture and we say, what in the world is
going on here? Did God command a genocide?
And so to unpack that number of things, I think we have to talk
through like the slavery conversation.

(21:46):
We've talked about our terms, you know, what are we actually
talking about? Was this So, you know, so Geno
side, you know, killing a peoplegroup or another way, you know,
another way it's been said, Richard Dawkins, you know, has
called God, the God of the Biblexenophobic, you know, meaning
that God murdered people based on their ethnicity, their people
group. So is it that is that what's

(22:07):
going on? You know, is God saying that
there's one race that is better than the others and I'm going to
I'm going to slaughter people ofa different ethnicity?
Is that what's going on? I think that's the first
question we have to answer. And the answer very clearly in
Scripture is no, that this is not about their ethnicity.
The Bible's really clear that this is actually a question of,
of sin and wickedness being punished.

(22:30):
Read passages like Genesis 15 where God talks about that.
He's, he's waiting, he waited for 400 years before bringing
judgement on the people. You know, he's waiting for the
sin of the Amorites to be complete.
Think about other passages like Deuteronomy 12/31, Leviticus
1824 and 25. It talks about the violence, the

(22:51):
child sacrifice, some of the terrible wickedness that these
cultures had. And so Scripture is really clear
that that God is not that the killing is not a result of the
nation, that they're part of theethnic group they're part of,
that this is judgement for sin. Now, you mentioned earlier
actually, that what makes this difficult is that God is using

(23:12):
broken, sinful human beings to do it, you know, because the
nation of Israel is not perfect.So that that becomes a struggle
in our minds. But the first thing we have to
be clear about, again, is it's not, this is not a ethnic
cleansing. That we hear about.
In modern genocide, yeah right. This is this has this is
judgement for sin. Well, I I like that you.
Brought up even the word genocide and kind of explained

(23:33):
what's from and like the the word you said was the G Geno
Geno. And we'd like.
That has to do that shares some roots with like Gentile and
ethnicity and nations, right that all kind of similar root
words there from the Greek and and things.
So just the history of that wordeven being pointed at those that

(23:54):
wanted to be genocidal against Jews with the history of the
Holocaust. It's it's so interesting that
then we're talking about was Godgenocidal and using the Jews in
the Old Testament. But I think it's clear,
especially given like our concept of race and ethnicity

(24:15):
are relatively modern compared to they weren't like looking at
their skin color and deciding what what culture they were a
part of as much as they were just thinking, who's your king?
What nation are you a part of, nation state are you part of?
And who's what God do you serve?And then what that automatically
follows with like what laws do you have?

(24:38):
And there's certain cultures back there that literally they
would do some wicked things and sacrifice children and babies.
And again, then we think of modern day things that come to
mind, like the Israel and Hamas war and abortion and evils that

(24:58):
we have to come face to face with in today's world.
And So what does the Bible say? And is God commanding genocide?
And again, I think the answer isno based on what genocide means.
He's he's using broken tools. Yeah.
The other thing we have to recognize is that actually this
isn't, you know, the, the story of Joshua and the Canaanites is

(25:19):
not the first story of mass killing in the Bible.
We already talked about the flood.
OK, the flood, you know, if you want to talk about the wiping
out of a huge number of human beings, the flood is, is the
biggest 1 recorded in the Bible.OK, There's other ones recorded
in Scripture. I think of, for example, in

(25:41):
Egypt, right, the killing of every first born of the
Egyptians. I think of Sodom and Gomorrah,
Genesis 19, you know, when fire rains out of the sky on them.
OK, so we have many recordings in the Bible of God bringing
judgement against wickedness, I'd say.
Is God a genocidal maniac? No.

(26:02):
Is he dangerous? Yes.
Is he powerful? Yes.
Should, Right? Should we recognize his
capability of of as, as Jesus puts it, send your body and soul
to hell? Yes.
Yeah. He's able to bring that
destruction, right? Yeah.
That's where I was going to go next.
I. Didn't say it.
Actually. You know a lot of people want to

(26:24):
say that the Old Testament is where God is super wrathful when
you get that New Testament. It.
Actually gets worse because whatare we deal?
If there's something, something with our modern sensibilities
that we think, why can't we justsing kumbaya and be OK?
But like you, there is no getting away from some degree of
violence and and power. If what you want is justice,

(26:49):
because you need to be able to bring the justice.
And so if someone is violent towards you, there's a sense in
which what justice means in response is power back or
violence back. Like how do you fight?
Oh, and it's the church has dealt with these questions, but
just war theory and holy war theory and all these things,

(27:12):
self-defense, pacifism. And there's like a whole gambit
like these conversations have happened before.
We're not new and thinking of them, even though our modern
sensibilities might make us think that we're better than
people before us. But like it's one, it's good
that we ask these questions and wrestle with them.
And we have been like humans have been.
The Bible helps us deal with these questions.

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There's a difference between what I'm called to do as a
Christian versus what the government has a God-given
responsibility to do to protect its people.
Yeah. So when we.
Look at the Scripture. You know, the the problem gets
worse when we get to the New Testament.
You know, you and I were saying we're talking about, you know,
think about what Jesus says about hell.
I think of passages like Matthew812, Mark 943 to 40.

(27:53):
I just wrote down a lot of theseso that I could share them so
that people could not just listen to what we're saying, but
be able to go back to Scripture later if they want to.
You know, I mean, Jesus describes hell as a place of
unquenchable fire, weeping, gnashing of teeth.
All right. You know, Jesus talks about hell
more than any other character inthe Bible.
So it's, you know, it's not justa Old Testament thing where God,

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you know, has judgement and wrath against sin.
It's also a New Testament thing.And also, I would say, you know,
to the question of why does God use a broken instrument, Israel.
Well, God also actually promisesthe same judgement on Israel if
they be like the other nations and live in sin, which they then
do. Yeah, which they then do.

(28:34):
So the passage for, you know, Leviticus 18/24/28 is where God
says to them, hey, if you becomelike the Canaanites, you will be
vomited out of the land. Yeah.
So he's saying, you know you, I used you and the sword to come
in and to bring judgement on theland.
And I've given you the promised land.
But if you act like the people who were there before, which is
to act sinfully, wickedly betrayme, the God of the universe,

(28:56):
then I'm going to do the same thing to you.
I'm going to spit you out of theland also.
Yeah, I, I. Heard recently someone saying
like, we're actually very arrogant to think that there can
be a separation of could could we mentioned that back then they
weren't really thinking in termsof race, that that wasn't a
concept. They were thinking of nation

(29:16):
state. What God do you serve?
What laws do you have? Who's your king, that sort of
thing. And that's always intertwined.
Those things are always intertwined.
And today we almost think, well,the, there's the, the state and
then the church and they're entirely separate.
Don't let them commingle at all.And yet it's, it almost goes
back to you can't serve 2 masters and you, you need to

(29:37):
pick one like, which one is yourGod?
Which, which one? What building is your God found
in the church or the state, the,you know, Congress.
And So what you, what you have is a sense of arrogance on our
part in society that we actuallythink that you can separate
those two things versus or, and,and a bare minimum.
The point would be then we need to recognize that no one's

(29:59):
thought like that. There's always been a, a, a, a
marrying together of the king, the government, the church, the
religion, in the moral code. Those things all go hand in
hand. And there actually is a way for
those individuals like you read the story of Ruth, there are
there are examples and ways for people to come under the

(30:21):
lordship of God and, and yeah. And so, right.
Well, that's the other thing. Yeah, Is that God was also
merciful. He didn't have to be, but he was
extremely merciful. There were people throughout
like Rahab, old and new. Yeah.
Who? Who repented?
Who submitted the lordship of ofthe God of the Bible?
And so God did show mercy. Government is a God.

(30:42):
Given institution just like the church is and both need to fall
into the Lordship of Christ to be or at least bare minimum
fulfill their God-given role andthat of the government is to
protect and bring about justice for its citizens.
And what we're dealing with is in Congress of Canaan of people

(31:05):
groups that had because of the God they served and the
government they had not protecting its citizens not
enacting just laws to the point where again you can read about
their sinfulness. But what we're dealing with is
responding to sin first and foremost, right?
The practical. Application I think for all of

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us is that every human being besides Jesus is sinful, is
imperfect, and is deserving of God's wrath.
And the answer the Bible gives, I think a passage is like first
John 19, right? If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all
unrighteousness. So the answer is that we need to
come before the Lord, we need torepent, we need to profess Jesus

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as our Lord and Savior and receive the gift of grace that
he gives us because Jesus paid the penalty for our sin on the
cross. And that's the good news of the
gospel. So we covered some tough
questions about the Bible here and it's morality.
We've got more to go. We're especially going to talk
about what does the Bible say about women?
We're going to talk about the big picture problem of evil.

(32:09):
And then we'll get into a few rapid fire questions from people
related to these topics. Let's do it.
So we'll see you next time, nextepisode.