Nate reads from an open Bible while Steph reacts in shock — illustrating the episode's debate over God's command to destroy the Amalekites.

Is God Evil for Commanding the Amalekites’ Destruction? & Do We Keep His Law?

A caller reads 1 Samuel 15 out loud on a live TikTok Q&A, and the question lands the way it always does: was God evil for commanding the Amalekites’ destruction? On this episode of the Ask A Christian Podcast, Nate takes the question head-on, walking through the Amalekites’ destruction as recorded in Scripture, the four centuries of context behind it, and why the story does not end where most critics stop reading. The same open mic also revisits a question from earlier in the stream — do Christians actually have to keep the Ten Commandments — before the conversation turns to the harder one.

The Amalekites’ Destruction: The Biblical Bottom Line

Nate’s answer starts in Exodus 17, where the Amalekites ambush Israel during the exodus from Egypt, and Deuteronomy 25:17-19, where God promises to settle the score. By the time Samuel delivers the command in 1 Samuel 15:3, four hundred years have passed. Nate argues the Amalekites’ destruction was not an arbitrary act but a just response to sustained, generational atrocity — and that Saul’s disobedience, sparing some of the Amalekites, is exactly what allowed their descendants to resurface as enemies of Israel for millennia afterward. Earlier in the show, the same principle of trusting the whole counsel of Scripture comes up around the Ten Commandments and Romans 3:31’s “we uphold the law.” For the doctrinal framework behind both conversations, see our statement of faith, and browse more episodes like this one in Theology Unpacked.

Darth Dawkins Shows Up in the Chat

Midway through the Amalekites’ destruction discussion, a commenter accuses Nate of “literally making stuff up” — and apologist Darth Dawkins materializes in the chat to disagree, on the record, with a theory involving sexually transmitted diseases and genetic defects among the Amalekites. Nate calls it “entirely plausible.” Whether or not you buy the specifics, it is the kind of chaotic, unscripted turn that only happens on a live Q&A, and it ends with a stranger paying Nate one of the higher compliments of the episode: “the first person I’ve heard to give a good response like that.”