Several years ago, I was reading the Book of Joshua for my daily quiet time. Like a lot of Christians (from Origen to Chuck Missler), I interpreted the Conquest in light of spiritual warfare, which is the Christian's battle against demons, sin, and temptation. In Joshua, God commanded the Israelites to kill every last Canaanite--man, woman, and child. The goal of this drastic measure was to prevent the Canaanites from becoming a spiritual snare to them down the road. Similarly, we as Christians are to put to death the deeds of the flesh, or sins, that can become a snare to us (Romans 8:13).
And so I set out to kill my sins. I would look upon my sin the same way that an Israelite in the time of Joshua regarded a Canaanite: as a cancer to be removed. Whenever I had a thought of bitterness, I would say to myself, "Kill it! Kill it!" The same went for lustful thoughts.
But it didn't work for me. For one, I almost had to say "Kill it! Kill it!" every waking hour of the day, since my bitter thoughts and feelings kept coming back. And, second, I just decided to give in to my pleasurable fantasies. I couldn't fight biology, after all!
This whole struggle illustrates a difference between certain versions of Christianity and secular therapy. While many Christians would tell me that I should try to kill my sins, secular therapy would ask me why I am angry. As far as lust is concerned, it would remark that I'm only human.
Some Christians would be open to the secular therapeutic approach, while others would not. The ones who are open to it often point to David in the Book of Psalms, since there he was honest with God about what made him angry. Many of the Psalms are David's (or whoever's) vents before God. Like a person in therapy, he clearly identifies why he is mad and lets it all out. Those who are not as open to psychology would give different kinds of advice, depending on whether the person embraces an active or a passive approach to sanctification. The former would say, "Your anger is a sign of your old sinful nature, which is dead. You must put to death your anger." The latter, by contrast, would respond, "Actually, you don't have to put to death your anger. Just trust God to remove it whenever he chooses. Let go and let God!"
As I was reading and meditating upon Joshua 11 for my weekly quiet time, the complexity of the Book of Joshua struck me. Critical scholars have argued that different views on the Conquest exist in Joshua and Judges. Sometimes, the Book of Joshua acts as if the Conquest occurred in one fell swoop. At other times, it presents it as a slow, arduous process (Joshua 11:18). Joshua 11:16-17 says that Joshua conquered all of the land of Canaan, whereas Joshua 13 lists exceptions to the Conquest. Joshua 11:21 states that Joshua removed the Anakim from Hebron, but Joshua 14 presents Caleb as doing that act. Joshua 11 is about Joshua killing Jabin the king of Hazor, yet there is a Jabin in Hazor in Judges 4. Either there are different traditions about the same Jabin, or there was a Jabin II who recaptured Hazor for the Canaanites. And the last verse of Joshua 11 affirms that the land had rest from war after the Israelites had killed all the Canaanites, and, yet, the Canaanites are still giving the Israelites problems in the Book of Judges.
Some Christians have actually done something homiletical with this tension. John MacArthur argues in The Vanishing Conscience that Christians should be continually vigilant against sin. They can kill a sin, but they must make sure that it doesn't come back. And, like the Canaanites, those sins can be pretty persistent! Fighting against sin can be a continual battle. But if that is the case, can I ever have rest from my inner war?
On some level, the battle is already won. In Joshua 11:6, God promises Joshua that he will defeat the Canaanites the very next day. So, technically, I can rest assured that God will at some point grant me victory over my sins. According to Romans 6, I am already dead to sin because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross, so the victory is already mine. But I am not passive in the entire process, for I am an active participant.
The thing is that killing a sin for me may not always involve the "Kill it! Kill it!" approach. Granted, there are times when I should simply stop thinking a bitter thought. "Get thee hence, bitter thought!" can sometimes work, as can continual prayer through my inner battles. But I often feel that such exercises only remove the surface of the plant, not the root, since the same bitterness keeps coming back. And, to be honest, I don't know how to totally get rid of the root. My approach at the present time is to try to live with my bitterness, but to tame it by means of continual prayer throughout the day. The Israelites managed to subjugate the Canaanites, after all, even though they couldn't destroy all of them.