(Just me... trying to work through some of the tough stuff.)
If I were an outsider, looking in, trying to determine who God was by the stories written in the old testament, I might see a God who is blood thirsty and vengeful! A God of favouritism and war. And I don't think I'd want to belong to a God like that! Except maybe out of fear?!!
It's not until we get to the life of Jesus, that we begin to see him through different eyes. We see a God that was trying, through the Old Testament sacrifices, to show what it would cost him for our salvation! But we didn't get that. We just thought he wanted bloody payment for our misdeeds.
It wasn't till Jesus died, that we realised that what we saw as a thirst for animal sacrifice as payment, was actually supposed to be a shocking representation of the blood he was going to pour out for us. Only the more it happened, the less shocked we became - until it became just a ritual to "satisfy his demands".
And the label worn, as the "Chosen People", who were told to wipe out whole nations as they moved into their lands, they wore with such pride! But the whole point of a "Chosen People" was for them to show the beauty of God to the world, so that redemption could come to any who would grasp it!
The harshness of genocide, was intended to rid their home of degraded cultures who offered their own children as sacrifices to their gods, so that there would be no intermingling of their worlds. Afterall, God had only just rescued his people from a land of many gods. And he needed them to learn their story about him in its purity - without the darkness learned from other nations. So they could share it in its purity and bring others in.
It was not to be an exclusive club, just for them! They were supposed to be shining the light!!! But they didn't get that either. They just assumed they alone were God's Chosen Ones. And they rested self assuredly in that "knowledge". And didn't see themselves as they were - with all the answers, but without the heart connection, or true understanding. It wasn't until Jesus came, reaching out beyond their fold, that they began to understand that this gift was for all!! And the "good news" began to spread to all nations!!
It's only through Jesus, that we see a different perspective. That the "grossness" of the Old Testament begins to make some sense! Even now, I struggle with some of what's written there! But I know that, with the knowledge of God as he's shown me in Jesus, there must be some way it correlates. God is good. God is love. God is life. And God is reaching out to save us. And somehow, within those boundaries, those old stories have to fit.
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