Richard

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”
― Deitrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

“This raises a critical question regarding the inspiration and authority of the Old Testament: If Moses and Joshua misunderstood the will and purposes of God in reference to the Conquest, then what parts of God’s self-disclosure in the Old Testament can we trust? The question is moot if we ask the same of all who feel under no obligation to abide by Old Testament laws governing Sabbath worship, ritual circumcision, animal sacrifices, eating pork, charging interest, and capital punishment for adulterers and those who pick up sticks on the Sabbath. If Biblebelieving Christians are asked how they can justify setting aside great blocks of divine commands in the Old Testament as “truth for today,” even the most avowed scriptural literalists among them respond: because we are no longer living under the old covenant but the new. Exactly!”
― C. S. Cowles, Show Them No Mercy: 4 Views on God and Canaanite Genocide

“And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
the Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Attributing the command to annihilate Canaanites to God can be partly explained by the fact that the Israelites had no concept of Satan prior to the Babylonian exile. Thus all things—life and death, sickness and health, blessing and cursing—were seen as coming directly from the hand of the Sovereign Lord (see Deut. 28; 32:39–42; Ps. 44:1–19; Isa. 13:9–16).”
― C. S. Cowles, Show Them No Mercy: 4 Views on God and Canaanite Genocide