Silence and the voice of God

It seems to me that there is a reason why movies are so violent. A reason as to why there is so much suffering, a search for justice, the presence of good and evil (even though the lines may sometimes be blurred). It's biblical.


I watched two movies this weekend; The Chronicles of Narnia and Kingdom of Heaven. Although I have seen both before, I was struck by the seeming silence of God in the face of enormous travesties. The reason why I was so struck by it is because of a challenge, and rebuke, that was laid down for me a few weeks ago at SMBC's preaching conference.

It was a fantastic week of teaching and instruction - but more than that it invigorated me anew with a passion to read God's 'older' covenant (aka promise/testament) to His people. In particular, I have been reading through the book of Judges. Having not read it in a long time, I was confronted there with accounts of murder, adultery, treachery, rebellion, indecision, rape and brutality. On the face of it, not your typical bible 'stories'. There are accounts of almost unbelievable human pain and suffering in the face of either their own, or other peoples, rebellion against God. And through it all, He seems to be silent.

Where is God when Jael betrays an alliance that her husband has, and hammers a tent-peg through a sleeping mans skull (or that Deborah seems to take such delight in recounting it)?

What does it say about God's character that He stands by and allows a woman (a concubin) to be sent by her husband to be brutally raped (by not just a few men but by a whole town!) only to have her crawl back to the doorstep where her master is staying - have him walk over her, demand that she get up and then, on finding that she's dead, to have him mutilate her further by hacking her body into twelve pieces and sending them to his 'neighbours'.

How can that be? How can I affirm that God is good when I read these things or just look out my window and see the suffering in the world that we live in?

When you read through the book of Judges, you can't help but notice the cyclical nature of the literature. Things are good, people are in harmony with God's wishes, they sin, they actively rebel and walk away from God, He sends a judge to warn them of the consequences, they keep rebelling, God judges, they repent, follow God's ways and things are good again... repeat cycle again and again over a period of about 400 years... But a little more reflective reading of the whole book shows us that the 'cycle' isn't so much about all the little patterns but about one big one.

What happens to the concubine in ch19 is, in God's providence and sovereignty, a direct result of what happened some 400 years previously when the Benjamite people failed to do what they were supposed to (cf 1:21). The concubines 12 pieces are sent to the 12 tribes of Israel so that 11 of them may unite against the Benjamite tribe - so that God's original purposes are fulfilled; namely that Jerusalem belong to Gods chosen people (the Israelites) and not their enemies. Through it all, (whether over 400 years or today) God is working.

Try as we might to wrap everything up into nice neat little packages, scripture sometimes just wont allow us to reduce God's character to something that we can understand. To be honest, there is a part of me that really doesn't like it and, like an impatient child, I want to cover my ears with my hands and scream 'NO' in frustration and lack of understanding.

But you know what? The other part of me LOVES it! I relish in the fact that the God that I serve is big enough to stand up to my questions and impatient challenges. His soverignty does not need to defend itself - the question is how easily will I kneel before it...

Thoughts?