LEARNING FROM RELIGIOUS CONFLICT
What we should learn from the high incidence of murder and imprisonment in Biblical stories is that religious leaders are untrustworthy and bound to offend those whom they pretend to love and serve. If they were truly good, generous, kind and thoughtful kings, people would have had no reason to kill or imprison them. The way we see it, this agrees with God’s warnings that we should not trust any man. But, more than that, God is saying that if people would choose him to be their one and only God/king and obey his commandments instead of the teachings of earthly kings (e.g. rabbis, pastors, priests, etc.), they would not have to contend with the abuse that earthly kings impose on their subjects.

Clicking on the links for the good kings of the southern kingdom (Asah, Jehoshaphat, Joash, Amaziah, Jotham, Hezekiah*, Josiah*) we find another important fact about these kings: All of those kings except Hezekiah*and Josiah* failed to remove the high places where their people continued to offer sacrifices. That means that these kings did what was right in the eyes of the Lord themselves but did not take initiatives to prevent their people from worshiping idols in high places that God had often and clearly told his people to destroy. This tells us that God did not tolerate high places built by Canaanite religions or by Israel.

God’s attitude about high places makes no sense to us unless we understand that God symbolically represents religious leaders as idols and gods and high places as religious shrines and temples (e.g. churches, synagogues, business offices, conference centers, etc.) where idols and gods are worshiped. This tells us that physical places of worship as well as idols and gods are contrary to God’s commands because he said that his people should not follow the customs of other nations. He also said that they should worship him only but made no exceptions for people who worship with their mouths and sing songs about him because music and singing was part of worship in ancient religions of which God said do not do what they do.

Since having buildings for worship and music were, and are, considered to be sacred, Israel sinned by imitating these practices. Neither physical objects nor music can be holy because the physical body must do some kind of work to create buildings and music. Buildings and music are works of man’s hands. Doing something, doing anything, with the physical body is antithetical to worship in spirit and truth which requires no physical, fleshly effort or any external devices like buildings or aids like music to create a spiritual experience.

Bringing this back to the issue of kings, the take-away lessons found in scriptures about kings for us in these modern times include the following:

In God’s view, the only reason to go to a sacred place is to practice idolatry and engage in spiritual prostitution with religious leaders. It makes no difference if these leaders convene sacred assemblies, mention God’s name often, sing sacred songs, pray to him and teach out of the Bible. God hates it all. They still sin against God and use smooth talk teach others to sin. In God’s eyes, the practice of religion is the same as worshiping God with our mouths while our hearts are far from him.

When we understand the symbolism of kings and what they represent, we can see that the many detailed stories about their history inform us about the emptiness of religious practices found in all religions, including Judaism and Christianity.

The way we see it, God’s main message in stories of conflict, intrigue, war and murder in the books of 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronicles, is to teach us that following religious leaders (i.e. other gods) in high places is sin that justifies exile from God. He uses the destructive influence of religious oppression to bring people to the conclusion that religion is sin, evil and slavery. From the fact that he repeated the stories found in 1 and 2 Kings in 1 and 2 Chronicles is a clue that he wants us to get this message. We should understand if he only says it once, but if he repeats himself, we should pay special attention. Those who do pay attention and come to the right conclusion will run, not walk, to escape from religion.

Another interpretation for these stories of Biblical conflict is that there is no peace for people who put their trust in human religious leaders (i.e. idols). During seasons of conflict, God opens the eyes of some to the truth that religious followers should not trust human leaders. He contrasts himself with those human leaders by showing those who have eyes to see that he is a stable, loving God who has only their best interests at heart. But he also causes those who are stuck in their religion to harden their hearts to the point that they are willing to sacrifice their children to empty religious practices. He gives them a chance to escape by calling them out of a covenant of death based on human rules and regulations into a New Covenant in which he writes his laws on their hearts and teaches them directly by his spirit.

But deliverance from religion does not begin and end with seeing the reality of religion as sin and slavery. We must also repent for the sins of participating in religion, worship of human idols, and oppression of others whom we have enslaved to religion through our evangelism and praise for doing religious things. Then we must prove our sincerity by seeking God with all our heart, mind soul and strength. That means replacing religion with study and worship in spirit and truth.

We find these principles throughout the Bible. They might be best summarized as the process by which God delivers his people from Egypt and calls his people out of exile in Babylon (i.e. religion) to freedom. This makes no sense to us unless we always remember that these stories exist to train us in righteousness. This training will not happen, however, if we think of Israel’s experiences in Egypt and Babylon as history or prophecy of some future, global events. We must find the hear and now application of these stories to our own lives or we will miss the opportunity to mature spiritually. The following table provides an overview of how we should interpret and apply Bible stories to our lives:

For convenience we have shown this pattern in a somewhat linear form with a beginning, middle and end. In reality, the pattern is more circular than linear. Circularity means that the pattern is not easily observed for an individual or a community of people because it is a spiritual process that is different for each individual and because there is usually an element of backsliding for each one.

We can trust that God has been fulfilling his prophecy to Call his People Out of Babylon (i.e. Religion) throughout all generations, but why it should be happening in this present time to such an apparent exceptional degree is unclear. But it is no surprise that it is happening because God has always wanted to teach his people himself.

God has always been opposed to false prophets and any religious organization that usurps his position as teacher of his people. Whether it is a large religious nation like Egypt, Assyria or Babylon, or small religious entities like churches or denominations, religions with human leaders have always been God’s enemies.

The principle question in this conflict is this: Who will teach God’s people? Old/First Covenant religion always has a human mediator (e.g. pastor, rabbi, priest, teacher, imam, etc.) between man and God. In the New Covenant, there is no human mediator. God speaks and teaches his people himself through his spirit. Typically, adherents to these religions insist that their children also submit to the teaching and leadership of false prophets. God calls this making your children pass through the fire. By insisting that their children adopt the religion of their parents, parents that their children are punished for the sins of their fathers (i.e. parents).

For all these reasons and more, God takes great offense at anyone who presumes to speak/teach on his behalf to his people. Such people are, in God’s view, false prophets and enemies.

Since false prophets are unquestionably key features of religion, God considers anyone who is friendly with the religious world, and who submits themselves to the teachings of religious leaders, to be his enemy and the enemy of his people. Therefore, religions are our enemies because, in maintaining and expanding their own little kingdoms, they are opposed to God’s kingdom. In God’s view religions separate us from God by including us in their kingdoms and keeping us dependent on human teachers who function as gods who tempt us to follow and serve them. God makes his feelings about this situation very clear by calling this dependency of human teachers slavery and bondage.

With this understanding we can begin to understand why trouble and conflict of one kind or another has always existed, and will continue to exist, within and between religious communities, as evidence that God is always at work undermining the stability of all religions in preparation for advancing his kingdom. It is up to God’s people to learn how to read the signs of the times and join God in the battle to tear down religion.