How Great is Your God?

One of the common refrains in ancient times is determining how great your god is by the prosperity of its theocracy (ruling by god). It was the cause of many fights between Israelites and Philistines, Moabites, Amalekites, etc. It was a reason for wars, conflicts, revolutions in that a god favored the leader to restore order, justice, peace, influence and power to a people. And success in that endeavor meant you were right that this god was on your side. Conversely, failure meant the other gods were mightier.

Even a cursory review of history puts the God of Abraham, Israel and Jacob in poor light. If the Israelites had any territory, it was small...though important in terms of eastern Mediterranean trade routes. But never on the scale of the Greeks, Macedonians, Babylonians, Egyptians...and later the Romans.

The Romans had 400 years of building an empire before Christ appeared. The Israelites had 400 years of silence. The Romans had internal conflicts; the Israelites’ territory was overrun by one nation and another, almost constantly except for the brief reigns of David and Solomon. They were the Poland of ancient times, sandwiched between two massive imperial powers for centuries.

Why then would you say the God of Abraham was powerful? Sure His people were perhaps a million, a million-and-a-half strong at the time of crossing Jordan into the Promised Land, the promised territory, and their unusual victories struck fear in some of those inhabiting that territory. But within a few hundred years, the nation’s influence had died until David, and then it was gone again in a few generations. Many of the people were sent into exile to those more powerful nations.

N.T. Wright argues that Christ’s appearance is the climax of the history of God’s people. It is how God’s people would have global influence through the sharing of the Good News: that God’s favor is not shown in prosperity but in justice, love. Christ’s Good News was put to the test daily as He walked, as some say, at the Godspeed of 3 miles an hour. Matt Canlis learned while living in a small towns in Scotland that villagers know everything about you, the good, the bad and the ugly. They know such things about your parents, your siblings, your sweetheart, your kids. There’s no hiding, no lying. If you start spouting off that you believe the Kingdom of God is coming, your reputation is put to the test. If you start saying, “I and the Father are one” you’d better run to the caves if you can’t back it up.

Why would anyone listen when Roman soldiers and conscripts are standing nearby or on the next block or patrolling less than a 10 minute stroll away? How can you maintain belief that your god is Jehovah-Jireh, the God who provides, El Shaddai, the God who provides bounty and/or victory, when you yourself have no power nor influence and subject to the capriciousness of the ruling militia and the ruling classes? Centuries later, when leaders of Rome adopted this Christianity in the 4th century, it put a stamp on the fact that Rome was already losing ground for the last 200 years, and perhaps was desperate.

And yet, belief in this God has prevailed.

The subject question is not asked with regard to the persistence of faith, but on what do we claim God’s favor. Are we in God’s favor when circumstances are going well for us? It seems America in the last 200 years is more like Rome than Israel. Pax Americana for the last 70 years mimics the height of Pax Romana (peace of Rome), a goal supposedly given to Rome by the gods to restore justice and peace to the world...by conquering it. So is the god of America, the God of Israel (the underdog) or the god of Rome (the superpower)? You want it to be the latter. But what’s the evidence in God’s story?