“Anatomy of Strife” – FBC Morning Light (3/20/2024)

Well, a good Wednesday morning to you. Today we are finishing the book of.

Avoiding Gossip and Jumping to Conclusions in Joshua 22

Joshua, chapters 22 to 24, and also reading a little bit in the book of Judges. What I want to focus on is this incident in chapter 22, because it's really helpful and insightful in being able to detonate the potential explosion of division and strife.

Let's see how this happens. So Joshua says to the two-and-a-half tribes that have set up their inheritance on the east side of the Jordan River, Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, that, hey, you've done your duty, you helped us defeat the Canaanites, all the other tribes have received their inheritance, so now you're free to go, go back to your side of the Jordan River and occupy your inheritance.

And so he sends them on their way, all right? And then comes this action in verse 10 that causes the problem. It says, when they came to the region of the Jordan, which is in the land of Canaan, the children of Reuben, children of Gad, and half-tribe Manasseh, built an altar there by the Jordan, a great impressive altar.

All right, so we're gonna look at the basic anatomy of division and strife. The action, here's the first step, the action or its fruit is observed. There's this altar that is built, okay? And let me point out that that altar is built on the west side of the Jordan River, not on the east side where these two-and-a-half tribes are going to live, but on the west side, all right?

So that action is observed, and that action is observed by a non-participant, somebody who's not building the altar, who doesn't know why it's being built, they just see that it is being built. That's step two.

Step three, the action is reported, it's talked about, it's gossiped about, if you will. And how do we know that? Because verse 11 says, Now the children of Israel heard someone say, Behold, the children of Reuben, children of Gad, half-tribe Manasseh, have built an altar on the frontier of the land of Canaan in the region of the Jordan.

And then they point this out on the children of Israel's side, that is, on the west side of the Jordan. Okay, so the action is taken, it's observed, then it's observed by a non-participant, the action is then, thirdly, talked about, it's gossiped about, it's reported, and it's done so without a full understanding of the action itself.

There's no understanding of the motive, why it's being built, or anything of that nature. It's just the action is reported, talked about, gossiped. Here's the fourth step. That action, as it is talked about, having been observed, the motives behind that action, the intentions behind that action, are interpreted and assumed.

We see this at the beginning of verse 12 where it says, the children of Israel heard, and then, based on what they hear, and what they assume to be true, and the motives that they interpret to be a part of that action, those come out in verse 16, when they finally confront the two-and-a-half tribes, in verse 16, and they say this, Thus says the whole congregation of the Lord, What treachery is this that you have committed against the God of Israel, to turn away this day from following the Lord, in that you have built for yourselves an altar, that you might rebel this day against the Lord?

And so the motives are assumed. This is treacherous, because you have built this altar to be in rebellion against the Lord, to worship in a false way, and so forth. The motives are impugned, and the intentions are interpreted, and that leads to a response.

And the response in verse 12 was that the whole congregation of Israel gathered together at Shiloh to go to war against them. They're gonna go to war! Now here's the thing. Their motives, the judged motives, were wrong.

What was in the interpretation of this action was completely wrong, as a delegation is sent to the two-and-a-half tribes to confront them over this terrible evil, this treachery that they've committed.

They finally hear from the two-and-a-half tribes, and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's not what this is all about at all! What this is all about, they say, is we built this thing simply to be a testimony that we're all brothers, that we all worship the same God.

After all, this altar is on the west side of the Jordan. Let's think about this logically. If they were building an altar to worship where they were going to worship, and had this as their worship place, would they have built it on the other side of the Jordan, where they would have to cross the Jordan River every time they wanted to go worship?

That doesn't even make any sense. So here's the thing. When the delegation was sent with this accusation of treachery and rebellion against the Lord, and then they heard what the real motives were, they go, oh, okay, well, great, praise the Lord, and everything finally settles down.

But here's the point. If those who had initially observed the action had done a little bit of investigation, asked a few questions, all of this conflict could have been completely avoided. They could have gone to the other leaders of the other tribes and said, hey, just so you know, the two-and-a-half tribes built an altar down at the southern part of the country, on the west side of the Jordan River, so that it would be a testimony between us that we're all brothers, and everything would have been fine.

Would all have been fine. So let that be a lesson to us, to be careful about, in the first place, be careful about gossip. Avoid it. And be careful about jumping to conclusions, rushing to judgment, impugning the motives and the intentions of somebody's actions, when we haven't really talked to them about it.

We don't really know for sure what they are. We just make assumptions. That's devastating to relationships. Let's be warned about that. Father, thank you for this warning. I pray that you would deliver us from the strife that comes from that kind of conflict, that kind of gossiping and jumping to conclusions.

Help us in this, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. All right, well listen, have a good rest of your Wednesday. May the Lord bless you in it. Good day.