Archives For Wyatt Graham

May 8, 2013

The Conquest of Canaan: God’s Mercy and Justice

by Wyatt Graham

If you’ve been a Christian for any amount of time, most likely you will have struggled through how to understand Joshua’s conquest of Canaan. Even if you haven’t, I can almost guarantee that you have spoken with someone who calls God evil and vindictive for his “genocide” of whole people groups. In many ways, I can sympathize with this accusation. The Bible does appear to portray God’s judgment of Canaanites in harsh terms. Consider Deuteronomy 20:16–18:

16 But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, 17 but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded, 18 that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the Lord your God.    Continue Reading…

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April 19, 2013

Yet Another Tragedy?

by Wyatt Graham

Most Americans remember where they sat, what they were doing, and how it was that they heard about the deadliest attack ever perpetrated on American soil. Indeed, as this Canadian can testify, the shock which the United States of America felt on this day rippled out and gripped the whole world in disbelief and grief.

This terrorist attack against the United States of America made many ask, “Why would God allow this to happen?” It became a time of national soul-searching and questioning, and it is a question that when taken to God’s Word should drive you to the Gospel, to Jesus Christ himself.

Into the fray of political pundits who spouted various theories and accusations, John MacArthur characteristically stepped in and answered with the authority of God’s own Word. It was during this time that he wrote Terrorism, Jihad and Bible, because he believed that the Bible ultimately answers the question of why God could allow such evil to happen.

In light of the horrific bombing in Boston, I was reminded of the need for this book. It answers the difficult questions that arise when confronted with terrorism:

  • “Why do evil things happen in the world?”
  • “Why would someone commit these heinous acts?”
  • “Where was God in all this?”
  • “Is there hope?”

Let’s look at how Terrrorism, Jihad, and the Bible answers those questions:

Continue Reading…

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February 28, 2013

Why God Commanded Abraham to Kill Isaac

by Wyatt Graham

abraham isaacWhat’s your first thought when you read that God bids Abraham to slaughter his son Isaac in Genesis 22:2? Notwithstanding our natural abhorrence to child sacrifice, we have just read that God himself outlawed murder (Gen 9:6). We could think that God criminalizes himself by this order but wry readers know that something is amiss.

Until this point, God has only had humanity’s good in mind (cf. Genesis 1–2’s repetition of “good”) and this story is no different, for God’s command works for Abraham’s good. What we might miss is that the story has already taken us, as readers, by the hand to tell us the end from the beginning. Genesis 22:1 says, “God tested Abraham.” As insiders, we know that this is a test.   Continue Reading…

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January 16, 2013

Faith like a fisherman

by Wyatt Graham

I know that Jesus said that one must have faith like a child to enter into the kingdom, but I submit one can also have faith like a fisherman to enter into the kingdom. I see this in Luke 5:1–11, where Jesus calls his first disciples.

Luke sets up the scene by inserting a large crowd, a few fisherman, two boats, and one preacher into the narrative. Luke 5:1–3 reads, “On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret,  and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat.” These verses serve to create the context in which Luke 5:4–10 occurred. Continue Reading…

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January 2, 2013

Worshipping like Eve

by Wyatt Graham

After God created the world in Genesis 1–2 and humanity fell from grace in Genesis 3,  Scripture points us back to the only appropriate response to God —worship. In Genesis 4, we can learn how to worship God rightly by contrasting how both Eve and Cain respond to God (this post shows how Cain responded). This is because Genesis 4 ends in the worship of God (Gen 4:26), and thus the story itself controls our interpretation. It aims to teach us how to respond to God rightly, and so worship him fittingly. Because we have already seen how we can learn from Cain’s example, we now turn to Eve.

WORSHIP AND EVE’S FAITH

In Genesis 4:1 and 25, Eve coaches us to trust in the promises of God, and that faith evokes worship. These verses show two different aspects of Eve’s trust in Yahweh. Verse 1 shows a (maybe) overconfident Eve, while verse 25 evokes a properly humble picture of humanity’s mother. These two verses read:   Continue Reading…

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December 14, 2012

Worshipping like Eve and Cain (Part 1)

by Wyatt Graham

If Genesis 4 tells us anything, it is that sin disrupts our worship of God. While God created humanity to bless them (Gen 1:28) and live out God’s image (Gen 1:26–27), sin peeled away this blessing, and the curse came (Gen 3:14–19). Ironically, Adam and Eve thought that they would become like God by eating of the tree (3:5), even though they were already like God in his image (1:26–27). Tragically, because of their misconception of what it meant to be in the image of God, they were barred from God’s presence.

Sadly, as the narrative continues, we learn how the “sinfulness of sin” marred the worshipfulness of worship (Genesis 4). The stories of Eve and Cain show us how pride and hate wreak havoc in our service to God. And yet, God is faithful when we are faithless.  He can use even our failure to bring us back to repentance and worship of him. This is seen specifically in the two narratives when Eve trusts in Yahweh’s promises, and Cain repents. I know that the first question that pops in your mind is “What? Wasn’t he just a reprobate? Cain repented then? ” My answer to that question is yes, I believe he did (at that one time). Though this might be a hard sell, I believe the text leads us to this conclusion without having to spiritualize the text or simply read it as “ancient history” with no present relevance today.    Continue Reading…

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