Old Testament Struggles

[Nadiine]

Yeah, it's always the killing of the children that I can't reconcile. We grown ups... well, we make our own beds. But I don't understand all the first born being killed, for example.

GM, I struggled with this too.

But I did some study and prayed about it... and I think God gave me another answer to this (you can decide for yourself tho of course).

If you think about it, what would happen to all the kids if their parents were all wiped out? You'de have thousands of orphans left to themselves.
Israel couldn't take on all those kids & travel w/ them & support & nurse them all.

Leaving them as orphans to starve & die slowly isn't exactly loving either.

Another aspect on this is what I read from the Bible - the offspring of the pagan nations often followed the footsteps of their parents in paganism & idolatry. God said He was trying to keep Israel from that influence - & not to take slaves or wives from certain nations becuz they would end up being a snare to them and causing them to commit idolatry.
(which is exactly what happened).

One last thing I read in my apologetics book is that Israel always announced they were going to war and gave the people opportunity to leave or surrender first.
If they came to a city and any women or children were left there, it was a sign of defiance and they didn't choose to leave and then suffered the consequence of death.

So if you add those things up, I think it helps a little bit - altho I still dislike it. They also killed the animals too - that one always bothers me alot.
But I know God had reasons - either spiritual or practical.

*Oh, one last one I forgot - most of us believe that children go to heaven when they die.
If this is the case, these are mercy killings as they go to be with the Lord eternally. Becuz left to be raised in pagan nations, they'de of worshipped false gods, learned to be brutal tyrants who plundered innocent people and been condemned in their sin.

 

[MrJim]

*Oh, one last one I forgot - most of us believe that children go to heaven when they die.
If this is the case, these are mercy killings as they go to be with the Lord eternally. Becuz left to be raised in pagan nations, they'de of worshipped false gods, learned to be brutal tyrants who plundered innocent people and been condemned in their sin.

I've heard that last argument used by abortion supporters~I'm just sayin'...

Also heard it from an old Mennonite preacher in a revival service~he was preaching, saying that there were some people "in this tent tonight that are so hard-hearted that it would have been better if you had died when you were a baby..your parents crying over that little coffin..at least they would see you in heaven again." Yeah, he was a good one

 

[GreenMunchkin]

Also heard it from an old Mennonite preacher in a revival service~he was preaching, saying that there were some people "in this tent tonight that are so hard-hearted that it would have been better if you had died when you were a baby..your parents crying over that little coffin..at least they would see you in heaven again." Yeah, he was a good one

I always thought Mennonite teaching was really gentle and peaceable, Jimminy? That sermon sounds verging on evil

 

[MrJim]

I always thought Mennonite teaching was really gentle and peaceable, Jimminy? That sermon sounds verging on evil

The old Mennonite revival meetings were not huggy types of services. Much hellfire & brimstone~~the preacher simply was getting his message across; I can assure you he was not ebil in the least bit-but that particular part on that tape (it was an old service from the early 70/s-I have a bunch of his on tape) stuck in my mind.

 

[Nadiine]

The old Mennonite revival meetings were not huggy types of services. Much hellfire & brimstone~~the preacher simply was getting his message across; I can assure you he was not ebil in the least bit-but that particular part on that tape (it was an old service from the early 70/s-I have a bunch of his on tape) stuck in my mind.

This was how alot of preaching used to be up until probly the late 80's to early 90's.

 

[Nadiine]

I've heard that last argument used by abortion supporters~I'm just sayin'...

Well the difference here is that God is ordering the slayings of rebellious nations (Israel is the vehicle of His judgment - just like God used other nations to come against Israel in her judgment from God) and people are having immoral sex and deciding to murder their own infants selfishly.

Life is God's to take, not ours for random convenience.

So I accept your point, but there's a difference in this case.

 

[MrJim]

Well the difference here is that God is ordering the slayings of rebellious nations (Israel is the vehicle of His judgment - just like God used other nations to come against Israel in her judgment from God) and people are having immoral sex and deciding to murder their own infants selfishly.

Life is God's to take, not ours for random convenience.

So I accept your point, but there's a difference in this case.

 

[Simon_Templar]

Still, killing the children?

Guess maybe there was some genetic corruption sorts of things we don't know about-who knows?

This gets into an issue that really just doesn't fit with modern protestant theology at all, but never the less has some support biblically and that is the idea that as the head of the household goes.. so goes the entire household.

 

[Secundulus]

This gets into an issue that really just doesn't fit with modern protestant theology at all, but never the less has some support biblically and that is the idea that as the head of the household goes.. so goes the entire household.

That was the idea in the OT where it said one would be cursed to the third and fourth generation. That's how many generations often lived in the same household a long time ago.

 

[Nadiine]

That was the idea in the OT where it said one would be cursed to the third and fourth generation. That's how many generations often lived in the same household a long time ago.

Yes and alot of people in spiritual warfare relay how poverty follows generations, alcoholism-drug abuse, spousal-child abuse, violence, racism, occultism/psychic powers, sexual perversions, etc.

 

[Henaynei]

Can I ask if anyone else struggles to reconcile the "God of the OT" with God? I struggle very badly, so I just stay away from it, by and large. But recently have been thinking about this more, and Jesus Himself quoted the Bible extensively, so it's not something we can just discard. It's not only relevant to Judaism, and I don't think a Christian can just avoid it because it's uncomfortable. I sort of see it as the roots, with the NT being the actual tree. But we can't fully appreciate the tree - more than that, the tree won't flourish - without its roots.

But so without asking about specific parts, am wondering whether anyone else has/has had these same thoughts?

Thank you so much for any answers

He whom you call Jesus, aka Yeshua , IS the G-d of the OT. "These three are one..."
"in whom there is no variability or shadow of turning"

and He didn't go to the "Intertestamental Anger Management School" and come out a pacifist Go Read Revelations and compare it with anything you care to in the OT ....

 

[Atlantians]

Think about one thing:

Whenever God whipped out a people... he did so after hundreds of years of waiting... pleading... giving chances and opportunity to repent... and when they had boiled over in evil and viral perversion.... God said: ENOUGH!

The Amalekites were parasitical desert raiders and thugs who tormented Israel for 400 years before God said: Now destroy them all.

The Canaanites were aggressive child-sacrificing idol worshipers who the Israelites were very familiar with and easily would fall under their religious practices... God waited hundreds of years before the Exodus and then said: "Enough!" And ordered their destruction. But the Israelites did not destroy them all... and for the next half millennium fell time and again into those same pagan religious practices.

Sodom and Gamorah were called against by the surrounding nations and God waited decades... if not a century or more before saying: "Enough!" Even then He was willing to spare the city if only 10 people there were followers of Him... only 1 was and he was a compromiser. Yet God spared Him.

And then Noah's flood. God spared humanity for centuries... while they fell intoevery single evil under the sun until one family was all that remained fairhful... after the entire line of even God's followers intermarried and mingled with the rest of humanity.

Even in the most fiercest of judgements God's grace abounded... to the point we should be asking not: Why did you destroy these barbarous massacreing monsters in their entirety? But rather: Why did you wait so long to do it?

 

[Henaynei]

Think about one thing:

Whenever G-d whipped out a people... he did so after hundreds of years of waiting... pleading... giving chances and opportunity to repent... and when they had boiled over in evil and viral perversion.... G-d said: ENOUGH!

and His word says He will eventually do it big time.... who are we to judge G-d??

 

[drstevej]

He whom you call Jesus, aka Yeshua , IS the G-d of the OT. "These three are one..."
"in whom there is no variability or shadow of turning"

and He didn't go to the "Intertestamental Anger Management School" and come out a pacifist Go Read Revelations and compare it with anything you care to in the OT ....

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