Christopher Wright’s article is outstanding and if want to make sense of the Bible, you would be well served to read, learn, mark, and inwardly digest what Wright has to say here.

Wright’s article is part of a series from Christianity Today that addresses the question, “What is the relationship between the seemingly legalistic and wrathful God of the Old Testament, and the seemingly loving and gracious God of the New?”

To imagine that “living biblically” means trying to keep as many ancient rules as possible just because they are in the Bible misses the point of the law in the first place. Old Testament law was not just about rules but also about relationship with God, founded on God’s grace and redemption, and motivated by the mission of living as the people of God in the world, so that the world should come to know the living God.

The point is that on one hand, all of these kinds of laws were intended for Israel’s society and not directly for us. They are culturally specific and limited. Yet at the same time, as Paul says, all of the laws were “written for our instruction” and are “useful” for us. So we should not find ourselves asking, “Which of these laws do I have to obey, and which can I ignore?” Rather, we should ask, “What can I learn from all of these laws about how God wants me to live and how he wants his people and society at large to live?” Not, “What rules do I have to keep?” but rather, “What kind of relationship do I need to cultivate with God and live out among others?”

Read and reflect on it all.

Cary’s article is part of a series from Christianity Today that addresses the question, “What is the relationship between the seemingly legalistic and wrathful God of the Old Testament, and the seemingly loving and gracious God of the New?”

In fact, with respect to the command to exterminate the Canaanites, our position is less like Israel’s and more like that of Rahab, the Canaanite prostitute in Jericho who befriends the Israelite spies. She has not taken part in Israel’s exodus, but she has heard of it and believes it. She knows the name of the Lord, the God who has given the land to Israel, and she confesses that he is God of heaven and earth (Josh. 2:9–11). She is a believer, and eventually will be included in Hebrews 11’s great litany of heroes who lived by faith. But she is not an Israelite. She is a Canaanite who hopes to live, not die.

As a believer, Rahab can have hope, because the threat she faces is not so much moral as religious. It is not as if the Israelites were so much more righteous than every other nation (Deut. 9:4–6). Israel is holy not because of their own righteousness but because the Lord loves them and chose them as his people. And the holiness of the Lord is a kind of jealousy that claims Israel as his own, not allowing other nations to lead them into worshiping false gods (7:5–8). That is the holiness that leads toherem, the extermination of Rahab’s people for their idolatry.

My proposal is that to read this story properly, as Gentiles, is to put ourselves in Rahab’s place. Our origin lies not with the people who hear the command to kill, but with those who are to be killed. We belong with those who should be devoted to destruction because we offend against the holiness of God. And yet what has actually happened is that, like Rahab, we have received mercy through faith in the God of Israel.

See what you think.

Buchanan’s article is part of a series from Christianity Today that addresses the question, “What is the relationship between the seemingly legalistic and wrathful God of the Old Testament, and the seemingly loving and gracious God of the New?”

“Thanks for coming,” he said, surprising me. I asked him if I’d helped him answer the question, Why do you trust the Bible?

“No.”

 

“Well,” I said, “do you trust the Bible?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Hosea 13:16,” he said.

“Remind me,” I said.

With icy precision he quoted: “The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open.”

Now it was my turn to be dumbfounded.

[B]oth Testaments narrate a kind of historical determinism. The brutality that Hosea describes is sickening, but hardly confined to some remote, barbaric past ruled by bloodthirsty chieftains at the behest of their cruel tribal deities. No, such brutality is happening somewhere in the world right now, often at the hands of those who are well educated and, in certain contexts, charming and sophisticated. But as then, so now: they commit such acts because, at root, “they have rebelled against their God.” And as then, so now: it’s often the women and children, the innocents, who suffer the consequences. In some ways, Hosea 13:16 simply announces a terrible historical reality: evil happens when men reject God, and often the wrong people suffer for it.

The problem here, though, is that Hosea 13:16 implicitly, and other texts explicitly, impute the agency of such acts to God. He’s the author and perfecter of the atrocity. He is the one pulling the levers, pushing the buttons—or watching it all happen with approval, like Saul holding the cloaks of the assassins.

Is that you, Jesus? we ask. Which takes us to the heart of the matter.

Check it out and see what you think.