Ex-JW with a lot of Questions

[Nihilistic Journey]

I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness until I left after high school. I left because I fell in love with a non Witness and because I decided I wanted to go to college. Even though I left the organization it didn't leave me. I spent the last 20 years afraid of Armageddon and other doctrine. My wife spent this time going to church alone because I couldn't join her.

Fast forward to today and I have mostly been able to shed the garbage that I have been indoctrinated with. I have found a UM congregation that I enjoy going to and respect the pastor. However I have a lot of questions that I am hoping you can help me with. The first question is as follows:

What is the nature of God and can I know him through the bible? I mean how can I worship a God that demanded men, women, children, and animals be slaughter as his people move into the promised land. How can I worship a God that killed tens of thousands of his own people because David implemented a census. How can I reconcile this God with the God portrayed in the Gospels.

 

[circuitrider]

You can indeed know about God from the Bible. But the Bible takes study and interpretation. The way people understood God in the Old Testament is not the way Christians have come to understand God as you read about God in the New Testament.

In Christian theology this is called "progressive revelation." Over time we come to know more and more about God and that helps us to understand God better.

If you really want to know the nature of God the New Testament tells us that you look at Jesus. Jesus said, "I and the Father are one." So what you see Jesus saying and doing is tells us what God is like.

 

[Nihilistic Journey]

Thank you circuitrider. That is exactly what I was looking for.

 

[katerinah1947]

Thank you circuitrider. That is exactly what I was looking for.

Hi,
Leaving the Witnesses is extremely hard, and you have done that. As you progress along, reading the Bible will really help a lot. Depending upon how you learn will determine maybe how you can learn best, about Who and What God is for real.
The Bible to use other words is True where it says it is True and it is False where it says it is False. If you recall anything The Devil says is considered false, or there is some lie in there somewhere, as Christ said he is a liar. As you recall God said that two of Job's friends were wrong about Him, God, so what they said is also not a reliable set of statements about God, and some of it or all of it, is wrong.
Next stick to the simple things. If God said it, and if it so simple you cannot get the understanding wrong, then it is true.
I used up to 10 Bibles in the old days as I was coming up to speed, that was to get around translational differences easier. I just compared all of them.
Also, one thing that really made a difference in my training. Every subject covered by The Bible, all of the things God said about that subject are true, simulataneouly. Eliminating anything, gives an incomplete picture.
LOVE,
...Katie., .... .