Yesterday’s blog was a lesson from the circumcision chapter, Joshua 5. I concluded that faith is greater than ceremony and closed with Paul’s startling declaration:

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. (Galatians 5.6, ESV)

I love to draw lessons from these Old Testament stories.

Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. (1 Corinthians 10.11, ESV)

But we always have to be careful. I’m reminded of a fantastic novelized commentary on Philippians, A Distant Presence. (I strongly recommend this book, which unfortunately is difficult to find. It’s possible that The Messenger by the same author contains most of the original content.) One of the best chapters describes the fictitious “Simon the Legalist.” I say fictitious although someone like him was certainly in Philippi, prompting Paul to write:

Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh…Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. (Philippians 3.2…19, ESV)

The novel has Simon preaching a sermon on Joshua 5, and his application was that all the Philippian Gentile believers should be circumcised! It would be a reasonable application except that question had already been dealt with.

Before Paul went to Philippi as recorded in Acts 16, there was a meeting in Jerusalem:

Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses.” The apostles and elders met to consider this question. (Acts 15.5, 6, NIV)

And what was the result of this meeting? James wraps it up:

It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. (Acts 15.19 – 20, NIV)

“Not make it difficult.” No circumcision! Our fictitious Simon’s application of Joshua 5 would have been flat wrong. So would our reading the warfare stories coming up in Joshua and concluding that we need to violently do away with the enemies of Christianity today. Jesus was clear:

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (Matthew 5.43 – 45, ESV)

And so was Paul: people are not the enemy.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6.12, ESV)