What do we make of the fact that God seems to command...genocide?

A long-form, interactive Bible Lab :: 05.02.2023

Last week, more than 150 people crammed into our church’s auxiliary theater for a 2-hour-long, long-form, interactive Bible Lab.

We live in a world where most information now comes to us in the form of images, and where very few people even read anything anymore. So to be a group of people who slow down, think, read and really mediate on the written word is super rare. And to do this with a religious text that is thousands of years old might be even rarer. (More rare? Rarerer? You’re gonna hear me raaaaaaaare?)

Anyway, last Tuesday, I got to lead a discussion. In the coming months, this group is going to be plowing through

• The Books of History

  • (Joshua/Judges/Ruth/Samuel/Kings/Chronicles/Ezra/Nehemiah/Esther) and

• The Wisdom Literature

  • (Job/Psalms/Proverbs/Eccelsiastes/Song of Solomon)

But, before our folks delved into these ancient historical narratives, we wanted to warn them that they contain some pretty messed up stories. Oh, and the Wisdom Literature also contains some confusing things. So this was like a primer. Like a guide telling some intrepid backpackers how to find fresh water, where the trail gets tricky, and how to not get eaten by Mountain Lions.

We tried to address four key questions that people have had after reading these large parts of Scripture.

And

And

And the biggie…(arguably the most difficult question I encounter after people read the text)…

Anyway

Here is the handout.
Here are my slides.
And here is the link to the audio file (MP3).