If you’ve read up on your church history, you might have encountered the name Marcion. Marcion caused a huge controversy when he said that the God of the Old Testament was not the same God presented in Christ in the New Testament. For obvious reasons, that did not go well. Many in the church today would deny that they believed this line of thinking, but buy into it practically. That is not a totally insane idea. The Old Testament presents us with some very challenging passages that seemingly have little resemblance to Jesus. One of the biggest problem passages comes in Deuteronomy 20:16-18. God is going over the rules of warfare with Moses, and He tells Moses that all the neighboring cities (men, women, and children) are to all be destroyed. That doesn’t really sound like Jesus when He tells his followers to turn the other cheek and pray for your enemies. This is more or less a mandate to destroy your enemies. The Old Testament is full of tricky passages like this that will have you locked down in more chains than Nick Jonas. These few passages will often scare us away from reading the Old Testament, but that would be detrimental to our theology. John 3:16 really doesn’t mean much without the Old Testament to back it up. To help you wade through the chaotic waters of the Old Testament, here are three things to remember as you read things that make absolutely no sense to you.
God’s Character
One of the fascinatingly frustrating things about the Bible is that orthodox Christianity teaches that the God revealed in the Old Testament in the same God revealed in Jesus, who is the true image of the invisible God. As we look at Jesus’ teachings and example in the New Testament and then look back at some of Yahweh’s rather violent commands, a very helpful question to ask is: “How is God’s character consistent in both of these instances?” In our example from Deuteronomy, God reveals His love for His people through His jealous demand that Israel is to have no other gods. He wants Israel to enter into His shalom, His peace. This can’t be done if Israel’s heart is wandering after false gods. Jesus loves his followers and is jealous for them too. He says that He is the way and the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through Him. God’s character will never change, but the way He deals with people will. So the next time you’re confused about an Old Testament text, ask yourself about God’s unchanging character!
Biblical Culture
When you step into the world of the Bible, you’re entering into the Ancient Near East. Fire falls down from heaven a lot. Locusts plague villages and destroy years worth of food. And you thought having to wait so long for Friends to show up on Netflix was bad. It was a completely different time with a different set of standards, social norms, and expectations. You can’t expect tribal people to act like sophisticated aristocrats. Biblical characters are going to act like ancient people, because that is exactly what they are. They spoke and thought in ancient ways. And God dealt with them in ancient ways. Remember from the previous section how God does not change, but the way He works in relation to people does? There you go. You cannot demand that God speak to people from an ANE culture in 21st century ways. That is not how God works. The next question to ask yourself as you read the Old Testament is: “What is the cultural situation in the text I’m reading?” In our example from Deuteronomy, an important principle to understand would be “herem.” It was the idea that all the spoils of war were consecrated to God in an act of worship. This was not the way God alone handled things. It was the way war worked in the Ancient Near East. Make sure you account for the culture in the Old Testament (and the New).
Jesus
As all good Christians know, Jesus is always the answer. Making your way through the Old Testament, you will begin to see just how literally true this is. Jesus is the answer. The third question to ask yourself is: “How does Jesus fit into what is happening in the text?” If we’re trusting the testimony set forth in the New Testament, then we believe that Jesus was the plan from before the foundations of the earth. God does what He does, as bizarre as it may seem, because there is a plan. As we read these complicated stories, we can begin to see the necessity of Jesus’ death and resurrection. From our example in Deuteronomy 20, God commands that the pagan enemies of Israel be destroyed. Looking forward in the grand narrative, we can see that God does not like destruction, but desires all to be saved. To end the destruction, He allows His son to take on flesh and dwell among us, so that He can go to the cross, pay the debt of our sin, and rise victorious over that sin and death. Just like the pagans in Deuteronomy 20, we are hopeless and stand condemned under the law, yet we have an advocate in Jesus who extends to us His grace so that we may become children of God.
The Old Testament can be more difficult to understand than Iggy Azalea. I’ve got 99 problems and the Torah is one. These three questions aren’t going to magically solve all the complications, but they may help you see things in a new light.
Cognitive Panorama 