Genesis 34:18–24
The Bible4Jesus.com Podcast
About this episode
We live in an age that is desperate for peace, unity, and tolerance. The world is always willing to make a deal with the church. It is always willing to roll out the welcome mat and invite us to the negotiating table. The world does not mind our religion, you see. It does not mind our rites, our rituals, or our vocabulary. It is perfectly happy to adopt our practices, so long as it can strip them of their meaning and use them for its own ends. This is the story of Shechem, a story of lust, greed, and the catastrophic profaning of a holy sign. It is a story of a pagan city that thought it could absorb the people of God through a carnal, commercial transaction. They wanted the blessings of association with God's people, they wanted their property and their women, but they did not want their God.