Wiping out an entire nation? Dividing the spoil and then giving an offering to the Church? Sounds more like a mafia movie than something we read in the Bible. What can we possibly learn from a passage like this?

Well, remember, back in the Old Testament days, citizenship and religion were a lot more closely connected than they are now. In a very real sense, your culture dictated your cult, what god you worshipped. But the death and resurrection of Christ destroyed all such connections. Now, He makes no distinction between Jew or Gentile, and he’s not concerned with gender or class distinctions either (Galatians 3:28). All kinds of people are welcome to come to Him.

But just because we aren’t called to fight other people in order to advance God’s Kingdom doesn’t mean our struggles are over. Now, we are called to fight against sin wherever we find it, both in ourselves and in our society, in our families and especially within the Church. And believe it or not, today’s passage can help us learn how we should carry on such conflict.

In the first place, we should fight not just to better ourselves, but to bless our neighbors as well. After all, we notice in verses 27 and 28 that the spoil of battle went not just to the warriors, but was shared with all the congregation. Just so, when we wage war on our besetting sins, when we struggle to master our lusts and our tempers, when we seek to subjugate our selfish desires, it is our families and friends who will benefit just as much as we do.

But at the same time, we must never imagine that we can win any such battles on our own. Since we are only branches growing out of the true vine that is Christ, it is only His Holy Spirit Who can give us the strength to defeat the remnants of sin we find within ourselves (John 15:4-5). Just so, God’s Old Testament warriors were careful to give God a portion of everything they had won in battle, as an expression of their dependence on Him (verses 28-29).

But they didn’t give in a grudging, half-hearted way. Instead, because their leaders were so happy that none of their warriors had died in battle, they gave an extra offering to the Lord (verses 48-50). Yes, after God had specified what His rightful portion would be, they insisted on giving Him even more, part of what they could have claimed to be rightfully theirs.

Just so, whenever we manage to master any of the besetting sins that afflict our world and our lives, we must be careful to give God all our thanks and praise for His mercy and grace. For remember, only Christ has the power to give us any such victory.

Numbers 31:25-50 (NASB)

25 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
26 “You and Eleazar the priest and the heads of the fathers’ households of the congregation, take a count of the booty that was captured, both of man and of animal;
27 and divide the booty between the warriors who went out to battle and all the congregation.
28 “And levy a tax for the LORD from the men of war who went out to battle, one in five hundred of the persons and of the cattle and of the donkeys and of the sheep;
29 take it from their half and give it to Eleazar the priest, as an offering to the LORD.
30 “And from the sons of Israel’s half, you shall take one drawn out of every fifty of the persons, of the cattle, of the donkeys and of the sheep, from all the animals, and give them to the Levites who keep charge of the tabernacle of the LORD.”
31 And Moses and Eleazar the priest did just as the LORD had commanded Moses.
32 Now the booty that remained from the spoil which the men of war had plundered was 675,000 sheep,
33 and 72,000 cattle,
34 and 61,000 donkeys,
35 and of human beings, of the women who had not known man intimately, all the persons were 32,000.
36 And the half, the portion of those who went out to war, was as follows: the number of sheep was 337,500,
37 and the LORD’s levy of the sheep was 675,
38 and the cattle were 36,000, from which the LORD’s levy was 72.
39 And the donkeys were 30,500, from which the LORD’s levy was 61.
40 And the human beings were 16,000, from whom the LORD’s levy was 32 persons.
41 And Moses gave the levy which was the LORD’s offering to Eleazar the priest, just as the LORD had commanded Moses.
42 As for the sons of Israel’s half, which Moses separated from the men who had gone to war–
43 now the congregation’s half was 337,500 sheep,
44 and 36,000 cattle,
45 and 30,500 donkeys,
46 and the human beings were 16,000–
47 and from the sons of Israel’s half, Moses took one drawn out of every fifty, both of man and of animals, and gave them to the Levites, who kept charge of the tabernacle of the LORD, just as the LORD had commanded Moses.
48 Then the officers who were over the thousands of the army, the captains of thousands and the captains of hundreds, approached Moses;
49 and they said to Moses, “Your servants have taken a census of men of war who are in our charge, and no man of us is missing.
50 “So we have brought as an offering to the LORD what each man found, articles of gold, armlets and bracelets, signet rings, earrings and necklaces, to make atonement for ourselves before the LORD.”