An Ambiguous Witness?

The Transjordan tribes--Reuben, Gad, half of Manasseh--return home with Joshua's commendation still ringing in their ears.  They have done what they promised in helping the other 9 1/2 tribes conquer the land west of the Jordan.  How strange, then, that the people of Israel would immediately suspect the worst of them when they built an altar on the banks of the Jordan.

It seems to me that there are two cautionary tales here.  First, the people of Israel should not have assumed the worst possible thing about their brothers.  When Gad, Reuben, and Manasseh explain, "We were afraid you'd forget that we were Israelites, too," everything is cleared up.  I wonder how often we would be better off if we didn't leap to conclusions about people and their motivations?  At least the people of Israel had the good sense to ask what the 2 1/2 tribes were thinking before they made war on them.  It seems to me that we moderns too often make war with our words and in our hearts before we fully understand other people's motivations and points of view.

The second caution here is in the behavior of the 2 1/2 tribes, who were certainly not sensitive to the way that their actions might be perceived--either by the remaining tribes or by future generations.  Paul is clear, especially in 1 Corinthians and in Romans 14, how others perceive our actions needs to shape and control our actions.  While we don't want to find ourselves held captive by the misunderstanding or the refusal to understand of other people, we also don't want to barge ahead as if their impressions were unimportant.  Christian love compels us to explain why we do what we do and to hold back when we risk creating a rift.  Additionally, although the generation that built the "witness" altar didn't intend it as a counterpart to the Tabernacle, as I read, I wondered how their children would take that.  Given Israel's historic struggles with idolatry, I'm not sure an altar that's not supposed to be used as an altar will really stand the test of time.