The command in 1 Samuel 15:3 to destroy the Amalekites, including children, is deeply troubling and challenges our understanding of God’s justice and love as described in 1 John 4:16. How can such passages fit into the broader biblical narrative of mercy, grace, and redemption? Let’s discuss how these accounts shape our perception of God’s character. #BibleQuestions#GodsJustice#DifficultScriptures#1Samuel15#FaithAndUnderstanding
The passage in 1 Samuel 15:3, where God commands the destruction of the Amalekites, including children and infants, is one of the most challenging in the Bible. This directive raises deeply unsettling questions about God’s character, justice, and love. How do we reconcile this with the statement that “God is love” in 1 John 4:16?
How do we understand passages like 1 Samuel 15 in light of the broader biblical narrative? Can these events provide insight into God’s justice and mercy? How do they challenge our perception of Him?
Who is it that has determined when All living things lives will end, that is die!
Is it not God.
What would you say to several hundred to thousands of children being left without parents, no resources, trumatised by seeing their parents killed, being left to starve or die of exposure?
Could something else have been done? Well with 20:20 hindsight yes something could, but it wasn’t.
Ultimately they experienced the fate every non christian, of what ever age, is going to experience. Death, judgement and hell.
@Fritz_Admin, in Genesis 15:16, God says to Abram, when he establishes the covenant with him, including the promise of the land, that the sinfulness of the occupiers of the land had not reached its fullness. The Canaanites had 400 years to repent of their very evil practices, because according to Leviticus 25:23, he owns the land; we don’t. People forfeit their land with their evil practices:
Lev_25:23 “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me.
Gen 15:13 Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years.
Gen 15:14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.
Gen 15:15 As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age.
Gen 15:16 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
Instead of repenting of sacrificing their children to their gods, for example, they walled themselves up against attacks from Israel. Thus, they forfeited their lives and those of their families. Besides, any influence from them would be Israel’s downfall, as eventually happened, sadly, when they didn’t completely complete their mission as God’s agents of his justice.
Another way to ask this question might be - “Did God order that this group of innocent children would come to heaven immediately instead of living a difficult painful life as part of a wicked pagan society in this very treacherous world that tries hard to kill everybody, and then probably go to hell?”
Who is it that has determined when All living things lives will end, that is die!
Is it not God.
What would you say to several hundred to thousands of children being left without parents, no resources, trumatised by seeing their parents killed, being left to starve or die of exposure?”
That is the best argument for legalizing abortion that I have ever seen.
Except that’s not what it is. This is an argument that acknowledges God’s sovereignty over all human lives. Your argument for legalizing abortion denies God’s sovereignty, by breaking the “thou shall not murder” commandment.
Thats like arguing its okay to abuse a kid if God says to. Which is what abusive Godly parents do- they say God told them to do it. They say that is what Scripture says to do..
No, it’s not like that at all, because God doesn’t tell parents to abuse their children. No “if” about it.
Have you noticed that God kills everyone, by appointment? Is that “abusive” as well?
The argument is that God is sovereign over all things, including the earthly lives of every single human person. I promise, when you get to heaven, your complaint to God won’t be “why did you take me so early?” The opposite is much more likely.
If you are referring to the fact that everyone dies…and see that as God killing people, then why tell a human to kill anyone?
But the fact is, abusers do point to Scripture and the Pastor. This has happened. Children have died because their parents went too far.
If God is telling a man to kill a village, and that makes it right to do… why would it be wrong to abuse chilsren if God said to? God did ask Abraham to kill Isaac?
Whatever God told you to do, you would do it, wouldn’t you? Without question?
To answer your first question, I think that in this case, the sins of that nation (which included every extremity of evil) made it worthy to be utterly wiped out. The Jews were prone to degradation by adopting the customs, practices, and ideologies of their surrounding neighbors. They needed to learn the fear of God, and the consequences of deserting their God.
All kinds of people do all kinds of sins and blame God for that. They are wrong for doing that.
Your speculations make me wonder if we’re talking about the same God. They seem like idle speculations to me.
Well I don’t mean to be rude. I’m trying to understand where you’re coming from. I get “trusting God but not trusting people.” I right there with you. But my not trusting people doesnt diminish my trust for God.
Like I said, using the armies of Israel to execute His will is an object lesson for the nation of Israel. they were prone to forgetting who their God is who delivered them from Egyptian bondage. And it was an object lesson that struck fear into the hearts of the other surrounding nations.
And again, lot’s of people have wrong beliefs about God. It’s a non sequitur, and therefore illogical and unreasonable to try to tie that to God’s actual commandments.
But is that your line of reason or is that what God said in Scripture
My point- anyone can receive a messenger from God who says to go do anything. That messenger could be an angel of light that visits in the night.
What wouldn’t God tell you to do?
Most people believe its perfectly acceptable to punish your children when they misbehave. But when cult leaders take a church children become targets in the Name of God.
It’s what God says in scripture. It doesn’t sound like your “messenger” comes from God.
You are saying that some people take God’s name in vain, and do sinful things. That doesn’t result in an appropriate indictment of God’s word, or God Himself.
Again, how do you tell if a messenger is from God? If they argue that to spare the rod is to spoil the child, which is Scripture. And then they say to you, “Parent, your child has sinned and brings punishment upon us from God. You must bare the rod until they confess of their sins.
And that child is beaten to death.
Was that God’s Will?
Similar things to this happen in Churches that proclaim God’s Name, twisting the Scriptures you trust. Don’t you think its worth knowing the line you wont cross now before you fall into the grip of a wolf in sheep’s clotting?
Proverbs 13:24
Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is dilligent to discipline him.
