[If you haven’t done so, please read the prequels to this post: Revisited: “Who’s Afraid of the Old Testament God?” 1 and Revisited: “Who’s Afraid of the Old Testament God?” – 2, first posted 2012 and reposted 2014, still and always will be relevant.—Admin1.]
Image from enrichmentjournal.ag.org
Rule of thumb for seekers of Truth:
Keep an open mind when you read books you normally would not read because it counters everything you have ever learned from a lifetime of religious orientation.
Some wise person (sorry, can’t remember who) said something to this effect:
Education is not about
filling empty minds
but teaching
how to keep an open mind.
My father, founder of an educational foundation, has penned something similar:
“Education is a shield against
the intolerance of the mind.”
Rightly so, a narrow and closed mind is the only block to getting further educated on any subject, but particularly in religion where an open mind should be the first requirement; yet unfortunately, narrow-mindedness or worse, closed mind and tunnel vision instead prevail because the tendency of religionists is to conclude that only they have a monopoly of truth. Read our Sinai 6000 banner-scroll again please!
Now back to our MUST READ flavor of the month.
The author Alden Thompson in his Preface—calls himself a “conservative Christian” whose concern is for the “conservative Christian community” and who has chosen a “conservative approach” to the Christian tradition because within this approach lies “great potential for good or for evil.”
“Conservative” to him is related to “strong religious convictions” which can lead to:
- “a beautiful and liberating experience”
- OR can result in “bitterness, hostility, or despair.”
- He believes whichever way one’s experience goes–whether it blossoms or withers—depends on “the kind of God we serve and the kind of God we find revealed through Scripture.”
Even if admittedly I can’t understand what he means by the foregoing, let us pause and think about that last line which I clearly understand and agree with:
- the kind of God we serve
- depends on—-
- the kind of God we find revealed
- through Scripture.
This is true whether you apply it to Jews and Sinaites whose God is YHWH of the Hebrew Scriptures, or to Christians like this author whose “Scripture” is the whole Christian Bible composed of OT and NT.
We think and act according to what we believe God requires of us; the OT God requires one thing, the NT Godhead require another. With the very use of “Old” and “New” in the Christian Scriptures, the words settle the issue on what Christians are required to obey and that would be the new-er revelation, the later version which they say has superseded the earlier revelation.
Thompson continues: [reformatting and highlights mine]
You may find it surprising that it was actually the Old Testament that brought my Christian experience to life. The Old Testament God generally has a rather poor reputation, even in Christian circles. But it was indeed my study of the Old Testament which has forced me to reexamine my understanding of God and has led me to a much clearer grasp of how he would have me live and what he would have me believe about him.
Throughout the book you will recognize an active dialogue with–
*the New Testament,
**with traditional Christian positions,
***with modern scholarship
****and with Christian experience.
The book is not designed to be “scholarly,” but it does attempt to show how modern scholarship can often shed fresh light on biblical interpretation. I have discovered that taking a fresh look at Scripture in the light of modern scholarship can lead to very worthwhile gains in the understanding of Scripture, and thus for Christian experience.
Conservatives have often been quite hostile to modern scholarship; part of the reason for that hostility no doubt stems from the rough treatment that their approach has sometimes received at the hands of biblical scholars. In any event, more heat than light has often been generated, and that has been most unfortunate. My own exposure to modern biblical scholarship came from the faculty of New College at the University of Edinburgh, under the direction of men who were extremely helpful even though they did not always share my convictions. They asked the questions that I needed to face, questions that conservatives have often avoided. The experience forced me to confront God and his word in a way that ultimately has led to this book.
Fundamental to the approach I have taken is the position that “All Scripture is inspired by God” (2 Tim. 3:16). That means Old Testament as well as New. Furthermore, I am convinced that we should never let Christian tradition or even another passage of Scripture rob us of the opportunity of coming afresh to each passage of Scripture as God’s word to us. The Bible is normative, but we must not impose upon it a false unity which would have the practical effect of denying canonical status to certain parts of Scripture.
Conservatives have often overlooked that canonical principle, if not in theory, at least in practice, for we have often assumed that the New Testament must always have the last word even in the interpretation of Old Testament passages. I develop this argument in the first chapter, probably the most crucial one in the book, though others may be more helpful in other ways.
The discovery that I want to share above all else is that —
the Scriptures of the Old Testament can remain alive
and can lead us to a fresh appreciation
of all that God has done for us.
That really is what the gospel is all about.
Table of Contents
- Don’t let your New Testament get in the way of your Old Testament
- Behold it was very good — and then it all turned sour
- Whatever happened to Satan in the Old Testament?
- Strange people need strange laws
- Could you invite a Canaanite home to lunch?
- The worst story in the Old Testament: Judges 19-21
- The best story in the Old Testament: The Messiah
- What kind of prayers would you publish if you were God?
————————
The intent of this author in his book is noteworthy; he refocuses Christian attention to the part of their bible which they have neglected or shied away from and endeavors to change their perception of that strange God many of them can’t relate to. If this author has gone this far in his research, he could keep going and who knows where he might end, probably Abrahamic faith, just like we did . . . and faith in the gracious, merciful, all-wise, all-just, righteous self-revealing God on Sinai . . . just like us!
May it be so, for him and everyone else on this beautiful planet earth which the awesome Creator God perfectly designed for all His creatures but most specially for the creature made in His Image.
NSB@S6K
P.S. Instead of presenting more excerpts from this book, if anyone is truly interested, the book is downloadable as ebook from amazon.com. So sorry, after dragging you readers through a long-winded triplet-commentary, I must confess I lost my taste for my own ‘flavor of the month’!
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