SANCTUARY CITIES (16 OF 52)
Scripture: Joshua 20:1-9
This content is part of a series.
Sanctuary Cities (16 of 52)
Series: Discipleship Part Three
Christopher B. Harbin
Joshua 20:1-9
Let's protect a killer! We immediately recoil from such a concept. It is a very abhorrent notion to us until it gets personal. When the killer is someone we know, love, and respect, everything suddenly changes. Suddenly we want to know circumstances, details, motivations, contributing events, who was killed, and a host of other details that might give us some rationale for protecting the one who killed another. It is one thing to raise an issue in the abstract. It is quite another when the idea is personal. Why do we only seek better understanding when the issues we confront are personal?
Yahweh had given the people a series of laws through Moses. Much of the legal code did not readily apply to a people wandering an uncivilized land for a generation. Upon entering the Promised Land and taking over from the populations who had lived there, some of the laws came to have greater significance. One of those had to do with cities set aside as sanctuaries, cities of refuge.
The idea was simple. Mob mentality usually executed swift justice, seeking quick outcomes with little regard for an appropriate appraisal of the facts. When tempers are high, we do not think and act rationally. What we call the reptilian aspect of our brains kicks in high gear and the mammalian, more logical aspect of our brain shuts down. We react in a fight or flight response without weighing notions of consequence. We may seek revenge where no crime has been committed. We may jump to conclusions. We may respond out of fear, anger, suspicion, or prejudice without assessing what has actually transpired.
That is why our own society has established procedures we call due process. It is why we take pains to offer legal counsel to those who have been accused of crimes. It is why we have checks and balances in our criminal justice system. It does not mean that our system is perfect. Our system o ...
Series: Discipleship Part Three
Christopher B. Harbin
Joshua 20:1-9
Let's protect a killer! We immediately recoil from such a concept. It is a very abhorrent notion to us until it gets personal. When the killer is someone we know, love, and respect, everything suddenly changes. Suddenly we want to know circumstances, details, motivations, contributing events, who was killed, and a host of other details that might give us some rationale for protecting the one who killed another. It is one thing to raise an issue in the abstract. It is quite another when the idea is personal. Why do we only seek better understanding when the issues we confront are personal?
Yahweh had given the people a series of laws through Moses. Much of the legal code did not readily apply to a people wandering an uncivilized land for a generation. Upon entering the Promised Land and taking over from the populations who had lived there, some of the laws came to have greater significance. One of those had to do with cities set aside as sanctuaries, cities of refuge.
The idea was simple. Mob mentality usually executed swift justice, seeking quick outcomes with little regard for an appropriate appraisal of the facts. When tempers are high, we do not think and act rationally. What we call the reptilian aspect of our brains kicks in high gear and the mammalian, more logical aspect of our brain shuts down. We react in a fight or flight response without weighing notions of consequence. We may seek revenge where no crime has been committed. We may jump to conclusions. We may respond out of fear, anger, suspicion, or prejudice without assessing what has actually transpired.
That is why our own society has established procedures we call due process. It is why we take pains to offer legal counsel to those who have been accused of crimes. It is why we have checks and balances in our criminal justice system. It does not mean that our system is perfect. Our system o ...
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