SUMMARY: We’ve been so steeped in a cultural mindset of individualism that we simply cannot, or will not, embrace God’s response to community when life in that community goes sideways because of the sin of one. As believers, we need to give careful thought to how our individual behavior will affect those with whom we share life in our covenantal group—marriage, family, team, church, etc. The hard truth is that my private actions affect my public relationships.
God Speaks—I Obey // Focus: Joshua 7:11-13
Any schoolkid of previous generations knows the “unfairness” of the class being punished for the wrongdoing of one unidentified classmate whose crime has yet to be found out. “How unfair, Teacher, that we all have to miss recess because one person stole your apple!”
That is what is happening to the nation of Israel in this story from Joshua 7. They’re being punished—all of them—for one man’s sin. Of course, Israel was unique in that it was a theocracy, and we don’t live under that system today in our pluralistic democracy. So, what was applied to Israel may not be exactly applied in our nation—although I suspect there is still a divine principle at play. Yet each of us does live in a theocratic community if we belong to a family or a church. And in that sense, we need to give careful thought as to how our individual behavior might affect those who share life with us in the community of Christ.
Israel had just experienced the extreme thrill of defeating the great walled city of Jericho—an impenetrable fortress by ancient standards. But it collapsed like a house of cards before the Lord’s people. Then, just days later, in the next battle, Israel was unexpectedly stunned at the fierce resistance of the small band of fighters of a village called Ai. In a matter of hours, God’s people went from the sublime to the ridiculous. Ai was a relatively small and defenseless city of no account, yet they fought for their very existence against the Israelite army—and they punched them in the nose. Thirty-six of Israel’s fighting men were immediately killed in battle, and the rout was on. Israel was stunned and disheartened.
All because of the sin of one man—Achan!
No matter how many times we moderns read the ancient story of the Israelites, we run across stories like this, Achan’s sin, and are left shaking our heads in wonderment—and not in the positive sense of wonderment. This is not a warm, fuzzy, and inspiring story. And there are many like it with which we must contend as we journey through the Old Testament.
When we read these stories—and admittedly, we don’t have the full backstory in every case—we are struck with a bad case of the fear of the Lord. There is no denying the anxiety we feel over his fierce holiness and the swift, sweeping judgment against human violation of that holiness, for if this happened because of one sin, we don’t stand a chance before God for our many sins.
Furthermore, the story in Joshua 7 is not just a one-off; there have been plenty. To name a few, we have witnessed the death of Nadab and Abihu for offering unholy fire on the altar (Leviticus 10), the execution of a blasphemer who cursed God’s name during a fight (Leviticus 24:10-23), the gruesome killing of a man who brought a Moabite woman into his tent to have sex with her—in broad daylight (Numbers 25), and now the stoning of a young man named Achan, along with his entire family, because he kept some of the expensive plunder from the battle of Jericho for himself.
Not that we would condone any of these sins—nobody who truly follows the Lord would justify any of these deliberate violations of God’s commands. Even still, the immediacy and severity of the punishment is hard to swallow for people like us who live at a time where consequences for actions seem to be decreasingly certain. So, we read stories like this, and if we do anything with them at all, we simply toss them into the “Painful Lessons” file.
One of those painful lessons here is the corporate-ness of sin. In our culture, we worship individualism. In fact, the early heroes who built our nation are praised for their rugged individualism. A large percentage of us are proud of that and have embraced that this is the superior way to live. While we nod our heads in agreement that the whole community is important, we tend to see the parts as more important than the whole; the many are servant to the one. You likely have your own story of whining that the whole class was punished for the actions of one student. To our Western mindset, that is the height of unfairness.
Yet while we embrace the idea of unity in the community, and the blessings that derive from it, why would we not accept the opposite? Why should we be surprised when the whole community suffers because an individual violated its values? If God favors corporate unity (Psalm 133:1-3), why would he lift his favor from the community when sin invades it through an individual member? But in God’s economy, it cuts both ways—the whole is blessed when the parts are right; the whole is cursed when the parts are wrong.
I suspect you are still not convinced. I don’t like it either. But we have been so steeped in a cultural mindset of individualism that we simply cannot, or will not, embrace God’s response to community when life in the community goes sideways. Of course, Israel was unique in that it was a theocracy, and we don’t live under that system today in our pluralistic democracy. So, what was applied to Israel may not be applied to the same degree in our nation—although I suspect there is still a divine principle at play.
Yet each of us does live in a theocratic community if we belong to a family, small group, ministry team, or church. And in that sense, we need to give careful thought as to how our individual behavior might affect those who share life with us in the community. And while we don’t suffer the same degree of punishment that Achan and his family suffered, we can—and should—learn the painful lesson of Achan: My private actions affect my public relationships.
I love painful lessons—said no one ever—but thank God for them!
