Deuteronomy 20: Rules of War

The Israelites were an earthly nation with an earthly homeland. This land was possessed by nations who had become idolaters and no longer deserved to live there. To eliminate them, God chose to send His people out to war. So He gave them rules of war. That is all simple enough—so let us now compare it to the spiritual Israel of the New Testament (the church—Galatians 1:2; 6:16). We are also an army, we have “enemies,” and we have rules of war (Ephesians 6; 2 Timothy 2). Our objective is different, for our mission is to make friends out of our enemies with the sword of the Spirit (Matthew 5:9,43-48).