Pastor Lloyd Ashworth

Statue topping has become popular over recent times by people passionate about wanting to right the wrongs of history. These statues are of people who were considered worthy of being immortalised in stone or bronze. So we pull down the memorials to our history and in doing so try to obliterate its memory. In our rush to defame them, we forget that we need to own our history, because it happened and it was true, despite how repulsive it might have been. This would be one of the stories in the Old Testament, which I would prefer, was omitted. But that’s the thing, God writes the truth about history, not because it is popular, nor because it is easy or pleasant to read, but because it speaks to the human condition and bears a comment on his great purpose of redemption. So we are going to try and understand this story in light of redemptive history. What was in God's mind when he wanted to include this in his book called the Bible?