Intentions Matter More than Law and Culture

Here’s a little poem since I haven’t posted one in awhile. Comments to follow.

Replicas of Devoted Things
based on Joshua 22

Manasseh didn’t mean to offend
when they stopped on high
places to stack stones.
Each man must have searched
for flat rocks like slate.
They sang, too, I’m sure,
chants with harps and drums,
danced with arms flung wide.
If what they did on high
places would reach God
and make Him smile
this pagan style of stone-
stacking worship was but style
changed by intent.
Israel still saw style only
and marched to war against surfaces
never guessing they couldn’t guess
Manasseh’s heart, never marching
without first assuming
the heart of their opponent
deserved to be cut out.

As I said in the subtitle-note-thingy, this poem is inspired by Joshua 22. (Go read the whole chapter, but don’t miss the punchline.)

Now, I don’t normally preach here, but this poem depends on an allusion to a pretty obscure story. So here’s the story of Joshua 22 as I understand it:

The tribe of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh have helped the Israelites conquer Canaan, even though they have agreed to take land across the river Jordan. Now that the land is won, they are returning back across Jordan to the land they had already settled. When they reach the Jordan river, they decide to create an altar there so that their children would remember the connection their tribes share with the tribes across the river. They worship the same God. They are the same people.

But there’s a big problem. God’s altar is part of his tabernacle. Baal worshippers build many altars to their Gods at all of the high places. God only has one holy altar. To build another altar is to reject the devoted things (vs. 20), the holy things God set aside for Israel to use when they worshipped him.

Building another altar embraces the style of the religions the Israelites just fought against. This is a big, big mistake.

The other tribes think Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh are creating their own altar. They go to war against them, literally. They are ready to kill them in righteous indignation for “acting unfaithfully regarding the devoted things.”

In other words, the altar was built with good intentions, but it violated the prescribed law. It added to the devoted things. It acted unfaithfully toward that which God had set apart, that which God had deemed holy.

Thank goodness, the other tribes of Israel send some priests to talk to Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh before they destroyed them. (Though the entire assembly of Israel was already gathered to go to war!)

Thank goodness, also that Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh had a chance to explain their motives.

And most important of all, thank goodness, their motives are actually more important than whether or not they act unfaithfully regarding the devoted things.

This is an obscure little story, I know, but it is one I cling to.

God cares more about our motives than he cares about whether we act unfaithfully regarding the devoted things.