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All Cultures Are Not Equivaent
Contributed by Michael Stark on Jan 4, 2025 (message contributor)
Summary: The rules for war that Moses gave to Israel revealed a vast cultural gap between Israel and the nations they were to dispossess. The nations of the west in this day are culturally superior to much of the remainder of the world because the foundations of the west are found in the Word of God.
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“When you go out to war against your enemies, and see horses and chariots and an army larger than your own, you shall not be afraid of them, for the LORD your God is with you, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. And when you draw near to the battle, the priest shall come forward and speak to the people and shall say to them, ‘Hear, O Israel, today you are drawing near for battle against your enemies: let not your heart faint. Do not fear or panic or be in dread of them, for the LORD your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory.’ Then the officers shall speak to the people, saying, ‘Is there any man who has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicate it. And is there any man who has planted a vineyard and has not enjoyed its fruit? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man enjoy its fruit. And is there any man who has betrothed a wife and has not taken her? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man take her.’ And the officers shall speak further to the people, and say, ‘Is there any man who is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go back to his house, lest he make the heart of his fellows melt like his own.’ And when the officers have finished speaking to the people, then commanders shall be appointed at the head of the people.
“When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it. And if it responds to you peaceably and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you. But if it makes no peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. And when the LORD your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword, but the women and the little ones, the livestock, and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as plunder for yourselves. And you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the LORD your God has given you. Thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not cities of the nations here. 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, 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, 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.
“When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them. You may eat from them, but you shall not cut them down. Are the trees in the field human, that they should be besieged by you? Only the trees that you know are not trees for food you may destroy and cut down, that you may build siegeworks against the city that makes war with you, until it falls.” [1]
Modern social dogma indoctrinates students in the belief that all cultures are equivalent. Social scholars advocate the position that powerful nations suppress weaker nations, and that this accounts for the disparity in economic power between nations. According to contemporary social dogma, the reason so many nations are impoverished is the result of a disparity in power. Adopting a Marxist view of history, contemporary scholars argue that the foundation for social inequities lies in the economic systems favoured by western nations. However, even a casual review of history will validate a much more plausible reason for the inequities observed.
I state at the outset of this message a truth that is immediately obvious to serious students of history: A nation that is not founded on biblical principles will not prosper! Though a nation without biblical foundations may appear to prosper for a while, ultimately, that nation is doomed to fail, the seeds of its destruction even now growing. The words penned by the Psalmist still hold true, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD” [PSALM 33:12a]. The nation that is not founded on biblical principles will inevitably reveal an unbridgeable gulf between the elite and the hoi polloi, and that gulf will ensure social and economic inequities. The lack of biblical grounding will set the tone for how that nation views others, and how that nation intends to treat others when they are captured or conquered. You must know that all cultures are not equivalent.