Tough Questions From A Six-Year-Old
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"Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming" (2 Peter 3:11-12).My six-year-old son asked some difficult questions the other night. We were sitting in the living room after supper reading the Bible together. After our reading, our discussion turned one way and then another. Eventually we were discussing good and evil. Reading the Bible and simply existing in this world reveal this battle plainly, even to kids. There is good and there is evil, and it's seen almost everywhere. My son, however, was puzzled by something: why did God destroy the evil people in the Old Testament Bible stories? Are we supposed to kill the evil people today? If David could kill his enemies with the sword, can we today? He was confused.
These were good questions that have puzzled many. I will try to flesh out an answer to this in this article.
First of all, we must always use the Bible to interpret the Bible. We must be extremely wary if someone begins an answer to a theological question saying, "I feel... I think..." The problem is people do too much thinking and not enough reading of what God himself has said about his own actions. God can speak for himself - and he does it much better than we ever could!
That being said, the Bible is clear that Israel wasn't perfect. As God's chosen people, they were chosen specifically for the task of bringing the Messiah into the world, that the whole world might be blessed through him (Gen 12:3). So, it wasn't as if Israel was inherently good and all other nations were inherently evil. In fact, God tells Habakkuk that he would raise up the Babylonians as the "good guys" to bring judgment on Israel for her waywardness. Only God is good, and he will use whom he pleases to bring about his goodness, justice, and mercy.
Secondly, it is important to note that God doesn't change: "God is not man... that he should change his mind" (Num 23:19). God does not suddenly change between Malachi and Matthew. God is the same throughout all time, although humans gain a greater revelation of who he is as we progress from Genesis to Revelation. The Old Testament God wasn't bent on murder, and the New Testament God always nice. There is one, unchanging God. This is a Christian teaching that we must submit to, and one that is clear upon careful reading of our Bibles. For example, Ninevah repented and was spared destruction in the Old Testament, and Annias and Saphira were killed because they lied to the Holy Spirit in the New Testament.
Lastly, it is important to read the Old Testament with this crucial knowledge: Jesus is the fulfillment and final interpretation of the Old Testament (e.g., Heb 1:1, Luke 24:27). This means that the Law of Moses was more than a list of rules for Israel to obey; it was pointing to the perfect righteousness that could only come through faith in Christ. This means that David's defeat of Goliath was not to show Christians what we are to do to our enemies, but that Christ is our greater David who defeats the giants of sin, suffering, and death on our behalf! His power alone is the power that saves.
While the Old Testament is fulfilled in Jesus, the actions of God in the Old Testament serve another purpose as well: they teach us about his holiness, his judgment, his justice, his stipulations of obedience, and much more. The Old Testament stories highlight all of God's qualities in ways that otherwise would have been foreign to us. We wouldn't understand who he is other than by his actions in the Old Testament.
All that being said, Jesus himself told us that we are to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us (Luke 6:27-28). Therefore, we are not to return evil for evil, for if we were to kill our enemies, we would be guilty of evil. (God does give governments permission to punish evil without governments themselves being held guilty.) Instead, we are to entrust ourselves to the Lord's justice. Think for a moment: if Christians killed their enemies, we would be no different from the Hindus or the Muslims who kill the infidel. No, God will judge the world; it is our call to live holy and godly lives, forgiving others as God in Christ has forgiven us.
First of all, we must always use the Bible to interpret the Bible. We must be extremely wary if someone begins an answer to a theological question saying, "I feel... I think..." The problem is people do too much thinking and not enough reading of what God himself has said about his own actions. God can speak for himself - and he does it much better than we ever could!
That being said, the Bible is clear that Israel wasn't perfect. As God's chosen people, they were chosen specifically for the task of bringing the Messiah into the world, that the whole world might be blessed through him (Gen 12:3). So, it wasn't as if Israel was inherently good and all other nations were inherently evil. In fact, God tells Habakkuk that he would raise up the Babylonians as the "good guys" to bring judgment on Israel for her waywardness. Only God is good, and he will use whom he pleases to bring about his goodness, justice, and mercy.
Secondly, it is important to note that God doesn't change: "God is not man... that he should change his mind" (Num 23:19). God does not suddenly change between Malachi and Matthew. God is the same throughout all time, although humans gain a greater revelation of who he is as we progress from Genesis to Revelation. The Old Testament God wasn't bent on murder, and the New Testament God always nice. There is one, unchanging God. This is a Christian teaching that we must submit to, and one that is clear upon careful reading of our Bibles. For example, Ninevah repented and was spared destruction in the Old Testament, and Annias and Saphira were killed because they lied to the Holy Spirit in the New Testament.
Lastly, it is important to read the Old Testament with this crucial knowledge: Jesus is the fulfillment and final interpretation of the Old Testament (e.g., Heb 1:1, Luke 24:27). This means that the Law of Moses was more than a list of rules for Israel to obey; it was pointing to the perfect righteousness that could only come through faith in Christ. This means that David's defeat of Goliath was not to show Christians what we are to do to our enemies, but that Christ is our greater David who defeats the giants of sin, suffering, and death on our behalf! His power alone is the power that saves.
While the Old Testament is fulfilled in Jesus, the actions of God in the Old Testament serve another purpose as well: they teach us about his holiness, his judgment, his justice, his stipulations of obedience, and much more. The Old Testament stories highlight all of God's qualities in ways that otherwise would have been foreign to us. We wouldn't understand who he is other than by his actions in the Old Testament.
All that being said, Jesus himself told us that we are to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us (Luke 6:27-28). Therefore, we are not to return evil for evil, for if we were to kill our enemies, we would be guilty of evil. (God does give governments permission to punish evil without governments themselves being held guilty.) Instead, we are to entrust ourselves to the Lord's justice. Think for a moment: if Christians killed their enemies, we would be no different from the Hindus or the Muslims who kill the infidel. No, God will judge the world; it is our call to live holy and godly lives, forgiving others as God in Christ has forgiven us.
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