Today we begin 1 Samuel Chapter 5.
For the Complete Jewish Bible, click HERE
For the King James Version, click HERE.
“When the Philistines took the ark of God,
they brought it into the house of Dagon,
and set it by Dagon.”
-1 Samuel 4:2
Wanna know one of the biggest challenges missionaries face when trying to spread the Gospel?
It’s overcoming the idea in the minds of their target market that God’s power is limited or restricted to certain territories or regions.
I also butted heads with this mindset here in Japan where I’m living now.
Whenever I tried to share the Word with the Japanese, invariably they’d respond by saying something like:
“The god you worship is a western god.
We Japanese have our own gods.”
I laugh at that notion…
Because the Bible and the true Messianic faith is Eastern far more than it’s “Western”.
However, the idea that a deity’s power is limited geographically is an idea that still holds to this day.
That’s why locals sometimes get outraged at missionaries.
“How dare you come to our country and tell us to abandon our gods and our traditions?!” is their common response.
We can also see this mindset at work when the Philistines captured the Ark of God.
The first thing they did was transport the Ark to the location of their chief god, the Temple of Dagon in Ashdod.
There were 5 major cities occupied by the Philistines at this time.
They were Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gat, Akron and Gaza.
I’m sure the name Gaza is familiar to most of you.
Now as I was saying, once the Philistines captured the Ark of God, in their minds a geo-political power shift had just occurred.
So they did what any Middle Eastern society would have done.
They brought the Ark and placed it before their statue of Dagon to symbolize their god’s dominance over Israel’s god.
Their intention was to utterly humiliate Israel’s god by making the Ark Dagon’s footstool.
However, there was one wee little thing the Philistines didn’t count on.
The Hebrew God they thought they had conquered ain’t just the God over Israel.
He’s the God over everyone and every nation…
Which means He ain’t restricted by territorial boundaries.
Ya feel me homies?
The Philistines had placed the Ark in front of Dagon in a position of surrender and subordination.
However, when the priests of Dagon entered the temple the next day, the roles had been reversed.
They now found the idol of Dagon lying face downwards before the Ark.
At first they thought it had fallen down by accident.
So they propped it back up again.
But the next morning not only had it toppled over again…
But it’s head and hands were broken off of its body.
And that’s the takeaway for today.
The Philistines had just been slapped in the face with a new theological understanding…
An understanding that missionaries have been struggling to communicate to the heathen for centuries…
That the God of Israel has no limitations and no equal…
He is sovereign and He reigns supreme over the gods of the goyim.
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