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What a Non-Violent Atonement reveals about Scripture

By Jeremy Myers
2 Comments

What a Non-Violent Atonement reveals about Scripture
https://media.blubrry.com/one_verse/feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/1350365986-redeeminggod-what-a-non-violent-atonement-reveals-about-scripture.mp3

(#AmazonAdLink) I am taking a short break from teaching through Ephesians to record an audiobook for my book (#AmazonAdLink) The Atonement of God. A reader has generously offered to sponsor the recording of this audiobook. This podcast episode provides a preview of the audiobook by giving you Chapter 5: What a Non-Violent View of the Atonement Reveals about Scripture.

In this podcast episode, you will learn how to read and understand the violent portions of Scripture in light of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

On this cross, Jesus shows us how to properly read the Bible. If you struggle with the violent portions of Scripture, it helps to read them through the lens of Jesus Christ on the cross.

If you want to sponsor a reading of one of my books into audiobook format, please reach out to me through the contact form.

God is Redeeming God, Redeeming Theology, z Bible & Theology Topics: christus victor, non-violence, non-violent atonement, The Atonement of God, violence of God

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Did the Flood of Genesis 6-8 really happen, and if so, did God really send it?

By Jeremy Myers
18 Comments

Did the Flood of Genesis 6-8 really happen, and if so, did God really send it?

The flood of Genesis 6-8 is one of the most troubling passages of Scripture due to its violent portrayal of God. In general, there are three approaches to understanding the flood event.

1. Resistance is futile! Assimilate or die!

This view says this about Genesis 6-8:

It happened exactly as the text says, and God is sometimes very violent. Deal with it. If you don’t like this, God will probably be even more violent toward you in eternity when you burn in hell. But I love God, so He’ll be nice to me. And even though God said He would never again destroy the earth with water (Genesis 8:21), in the future, God will send a flood of fire upon the earth to destroy everyone again (2 Peter 3:6-7).

the waters of the flood(Note: I include Greg Boyd’s “Divine Withdrawal” view in this category. He argues that God finally got fed up with the evil of mankind, and so He withdrew His divine hand of protection that was holding back the destructive floodwaters, thereby allowing them to destroy humanity. In this view, God didn’t do the destroying Himself; He simply stepped back to let the destroyer have its way with humanity. In a personal conversation with Greg Boyd, I related to him the following video clip, and he agreed that for the most part, it represents his position.)

2. Flood? What flood? We don’t need no stinking flood!

This second view says this about Genesis 6-8:

The account is some sort of myth. Maybe it complete fiction. Maybe it’s a fable of some sort that teaches a lesson about God’s hatred of sin. Maybe there was some sort of local flood that might have happened a long time ago, but it certainly didn’t cover the earth and kill everyone. Whatever happened (if anything happened at all), it didn’t happen as the text says.

People who hold this view also reject the historical accuracy of many other passages in Scripture as well. Some will even reject the historicity of the miracles of Jesus, including His resurrection.

I have never been comfortable with calling anything in Scripture an error, partly because such an approach often allows people to simply pick and choose which passages they like and which ones they don’t, consigning the texts they don’t like into hermeneutical oblivion. In other words, writing off a text as “error” allows a person to avoid seriously studying and teaching that text, thereby ignoring or missing the deep truth(s) it contains.

3. The Correct View

(That’s a joke! I’m proposing a view, which I think has a lot of merit in Scripture…)

(Oh, and I believe the flood truly happened. I believe the worldwide flood is an historical event. There is lots of sociological and geological support for the flood, which I won’t dive into here. But regardless, my view of the flood can still be true even if there was no worldwide flood.)

Before I suggest a third view, note two things from the text:

1. People were violent before the flood (Genesis 6:5, 11, 13).

The stated reason for God sending the flood is because the earth was filled with violence. God seems opposed to how violent mankind has come, and so decides to do something about it.

2. People were violent after the flood (Genesis 8:21)

The flood brought no change to the evil and violent tendencies of the human heart.

Isn’t this strange? If the stated reason for the flood was to stop the violence of humanity, then God seems to have failed in His task of stopping violence. Is God so foolish that He couldn’t look at the hearts of humanity before the flood and see that even if He killed them all, the survivors and their descendants would continue to constantly live with evil hearts and violent lives?

To ask the question is to answer it. Of course God is not foolish! Something else must be going on behind the scenes.

So … Wait … God hates violence?

As soon as we start looking for what this “something else” might be, some other details from the text start to jump out from the page.

For example … God states at the beginning of the account that He is sorry He made mankind because they are so evil and violent (Genesis 6:6).

Ok, so God is opposed to violence. That’s a good thing.

But then … to show how opposed He is to all the violence that covers the face of the earth … God engages in the greatest act of violence possible by drowning all the people and animals on the earth (except for those on the ark)?

So to stop the violence that covers the earth, God sends a violent flood to cover the earth?

Something’s not right here.

Yes, “God is God and can do what He wants,” but this seems a bit over the top, even for God.

family drowning in the floodIs this just a divine example of the bad parenting advice “Do as I say; not as I do?”

If so, then since we become like the God we worship, it is no wonder that people were just as violently evil after the flood as they were before.

It is a very, very tiny step from believing that “God is extremely violent against evil people” to “God wants me to engage in violence against evil people.” Indeed, the rest of biblical history (along with all human culture) reveals this exact step taking place over and over and over again.

If God really is so violent, why wasn’t Jesus?

Jesus was adamantly opposed to all forms of murderous violence, even against His so-called “enemies.”

He didn’t call down fire from heaven, but rather rebuked His disciples for thinking such things (Luke 9:54). He didn’t call down angels to defend Himself (Matthew 26:53). He even told Peter to put away His sword, and then He healed the man that Peter has struck (Matthew 26:52).

Yes, Jesus cleansed the temple, but no human or animal died, nor does the text say anyone was even hurt (Matthew 21:12-17; Mark 11:15-19; Luke 19:45-48; John 2:13-16). Yes, Jesus told his disciples to buy a sword , but this was to fulfill prophecy; not so they could actually use it. And don’t even get me started on the book of Revelation.

If it is true, as Scripture says, that Jesus fully reveals God to us (John 1:14, 18; 14:9-11; 2 Cor 4:4; Php 2:6; Col 1:15; Heb 1:2-3), but Jesus was never violent, then we are faced with a choice: Either (A) God truly is violent and Scripture is lying when it says that Jesus fully reveals God to us, or (B) Scripture is not lying, and Jesus does truly reveal God to us, and therefore God is not violent, and we need to understand all those violent texts in some other way.

I go with Option B: Scripture is not lying, and Jesus is not violent, so neither is God.

Isn’t that a contradiction?

If Scripture is not lying, but Scripture says God is violent, while Jesus shows that God is not violent, isn’t this a contradiction?

It initially seems so.

But with one small little tweak on how you read the Bible, it all falls into place.

Most people think the Bible reveals God to us. And while it does to some extent, the ultimate revelation of God is found in Jesus Christ (whom we read about in Scripture, of course). But Jesus shows us how to read the Bible. Jesus provides the interpretive lens through which to study Scripture.

Jesus crucifiedAnd when we look to Jesus, and specifically the most violent aspect of the life of Jesus, His crucifixion, and we carefully see what is being done to Jesus on the cross, we discover something surprising.

God didn’t kill Jesus on the cross; we humans killed Jesus on the cross … and we blamed God for it. Humans killed Jesus and claimed they did so in God’s name, to fulfill God’s will.

But they weren’t fulfilling God’s will. They were doing the opposite. They were committing the greatest sin in human history. And they were completely ignorant of what they were doing. This is why Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

Through the cross, we see Jesus showing us how to understand the “violence of God.” The “violence of God” against Jesus on the cross is not God’s violence at all, but is rather the violence of humans which we then blame God for.

Since we (1) Believe God is violent, we (2) become like the God we worship by engaging in our own violence, and (3) justify our violent actions by blaming our violence on God.

But Jesus entered into this twisted framework of violent theology and blew it up from the inside. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus showed (1) that God is supremely non-violent and that (2) we humans are the violent ones.

Once we see this revelation of Jesus on the cross, we then discover that all the other violent portions of Scripture reveal exactly the same thing.

The violent texts of the Bible do not reveal God to us … they reveal us to us. The violent passages of Scripture are not a revelation of the heart of God; they are a revelation of the heart of humanity.

But humans didn’t send the flood!

So now we come back around to the flood. The flood event is extremely violent, and the text blames this violence on God. This fact invites us to read the flood through the lens of the crucifixion.

2 Peter 2 the flood

And when we do, we realize that the flood account of Genesis 6–8 sounds like the explanation that is offered for any natural disaster throughout human history.

“God sent Hurricane Katrina on the people of New Orleans because of Mardi Gras and Voodoo.”

“God sent the Indonesian Tsunami because the people there are Muslim and Hindu.”

“God caused my neighbor to get in a car wreck because he said some profane things about God when I invited him to church.”

Meanwhile, God, through Jesus Christ, is saying,

“NO! No no no no no! Please stop saying such things! I didn’t send those storms. I didn’t kill those people. I love them and forgive them as my own children! It was a terrible disaster that happened to those people, and my only involvement is to weep and mourn with them, while calling you to go help them!

“But as long as you think I am punishing them, you will continue to sit and gloat at the disaster that has come upon your enemies. But your enemies are not my enemies, for I have no enemies. I call you to love your enemies, for they are my children too.”

So What Happened in the Flood?

I believe the flood account of Genesis 6–8 was written many thousands of years after it actually happened, and is therefore a human explanation for an actual historical event. I believe it is an inspired and inerrant account of the human explanation for a natural disaster, and as such, it invites us to see how we humans explain natural disasters today.

The flood event of Genesis 6-8 contains all the signs of a human rationalization for a violent natural disaster:

The people committed great sin (Genesis 6:1-4) and became monsters. They were so bad, they did nothing but evil all the time (Genesis 6:5, 11, 13). And so God destroyed them all! Yay! But … it didn’t really work, because we’re still pretty violent. So be careful … If you sin against God, He might destroy you too!

Do you see? A flood did occur. It was a terrible natural disaster unlike anything the world had ever seen. After the fact, the few survivors started to postulate about why such a disaster occurred, and, just like every human before and since that time, they decided that God sent the disaster to punish humans for their sin.

But now, in Jesus, we have learned that this is not what God does. So when we read the flood account of Genesis 6–8, we no longer read it as a warning about what God might do to us if we sin, but rather as a warning about how we will be tempted to think and act when we see bad thing happen to other people.

the flood and total depravityLooking at our face in the mirror of Genesis 6–8, we must ward ourselves against the common human practice of condemning others when bad things happen to them. We must stop saying, “Well, he lost his job and got cancer, so God must be punishing him for some secret sin.” (Remember Job?) Instead, when bad things happen to people, we must, like Jesus, enter into their hellish pain and sorrow, and help them or love them in in any way we can.

When bad things happen to others, we must remind them (and ourselves) that God did send the disaster and is not punishing them for sin. Instead, He is with them in their suffering and grieving for their loss.

So the flood account is a hard text to read. Not because it reveals a God before whom we must cower in fear and trembling, but because it reveals to us the blackness of our own sinful hearts when we prefer to condemn others in God’s name rather than help them through their pain.

The next time something bad happens to a family member, friend, or foe, how will you respond?

This post was part of the September 2018 Synchroblog on the topic of the flood. Here are the other contributors to this month’s topic. Go and read them all!

  • The Flood Story – K. W. Leslie
  • A Flood of Insightful Hope – Jordan Hathcock
  • There will Never Be a World Wide Flood Again but Was There Ever One in the First Place? – Done with Religion
  • The Flood as a Foreshadowing to the Cross of Christ – God is Not like Thanos from the Infinity War – Scott Sloan\
  • The Great Flood: 7 Amazing Lessons Every Christian Needs To Know – Joseph A. Brown
  • Is God like Thanos from the Avengers Infinity War? – Scott and Sadie
  • The Flood is a Remedy for Corruption – Tomasz Leszczynski
  • Did God Really Drown Millions in the Flood? – Mike Edwards

God is Redeeming Scripture, Redeeming Theology, z Bible & Theology Topics: crucifxion of Jesus, flood, Genesis 6-8, Genesis 6:1-4, Genesis 6:11, Genesis 6:13, Genesis 6:5, Genesis 8:21, inerrancy of Scripture, synchroblog, violence of God

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Why is the Bible so Bloody? Jesus tells us why in Matthew 23:29-35

By Jeremy Myers
7 Comments

Why is the Bible so Bloody? Jesus tells us why in Matthew 23:29-35
http://media.blubrry.com/one_verse/feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/417229323-redeeminggod-111-why-is-the-bible-so-bloody-and-violent-matthew-2329-35.mp3

Lots of people wonder why the Bible is so bloody … that is, why there is so much violence and bloodshed in the Bible. (I am going to provide a brief explanation below, but if you want a more detailed explanation, you can read my book, (#AmazonAdLink) Nothing but the Blood of Jesus.)

Many Christians often condemn the Muslim Qu’ran for being a violent book, but did you know that the Bible is far more violent than the Qu’ran? And this is not just descriptions of violence. There are more endorsements and commands to violence by God in the Bible than in the Qu’ran.

Of course, many Christians rightly point out that Jesus came and changed all that. That Jesus revealed a new a different way, a way of love and forgiveness.

I agree.

blood to horses bridles Revelation armageddonBut then many Christians turn right around and say, “But in the future, Jesus is going to return to this earth, and slaughter millions of people. There will be the greatest, bloodiest war the world has ever seen. When Jesus returns at the battle of Armageddon, the Valley will be filled with blood up to the horse’s bridle.”

So … wait. Is Jesus violent and bloody or not?

Are we saying that God in the Old Testament was violent and bloody, and then Jesus showed up to try love and forgiveness, but at the end of the world, even Jesus realizes that violence and bloodshed is the only solution after all? That love and forgiveness doesn’t actually work?

I think something is terribly wrong with this way of reading the Bible.

And by the way, this way of reading the Bible causes people to become violent themselves. I have heard Greg Boyd say that we become like the God we worship. If we worship a God who is violent at heart, and even though He tries love and forgiveness for a bit, He ultimately resorts to violence and bloodshed … then this is how we will act toward others.

This is why we hear Christians say, “Well, we tried to love and forgive those people over there …we really did, but they didn’t change, so now we are forced to drop bombs on them.”

Maybe we don’t drop bombs on them … but we do feel justified to hate other people when they don’t respond to our attempts to love and forgive them.

I had a conversation on Facebook Messenger the other day which reveals this attitude pretty well. Here is a screenshot:

(By the way, if you want to Message me on Facebook, you can do so here.)

Do you see? When we believe that God loves for a while, but then turns to hate when people don’t respond to Him, this causes us to hate those who don’t respond quickly enough to our evangelism efforts.

Now, if this is truly the way God is, then I agree that this is how we can behave as well.

But I do not believe that God is hateful, angry, violent, or bloody. I believe that Jesus reveals that God is quite the opposite. I believe that Jesus shows us what God is like, and that God has always been and always will be just like Jesus in the Gospels.

Jesus says “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” Paul says in Colossians 1:15 that Jesus “is the image of the invisible God.” The author of Hebrews says that Jesus is the exact representation of God, the express image of His person (Hebrews 1:3).

Now when Jesus, Paul, and the author of Hebrews were teaching these things, they were talking about how Jesus lived during this life on earth as recorded in the Gospels.

During His life and ministry, Jesus did not engage in bloody violence or acts of vengeance upon anyone. Instead, He always loved and only forgave.

If we believe that Jesus, Paul, and the author of Hebrews knew what they were talking about, then we are forced with a decision: We must either decide that Jesus was hiding the dark, bloody, and violent side of God so that He did not actually reveal to us the full and perfect image of God (and therefore, Jesus, Paul, and the author of Hebrews are not telling the truth), or we must decide that Jesus did, in fact, fully reveal God to us (as He claims to have done), and so God has never been violent and bloody, and never will be.

does God hate us while Jesus loves us

For myself, I believe that Jesus is telling the truth, and so is Paul and the author of Hebrews.

Which means we need to figure out why the Bible is so violent and bloody. We need to figure out why the Bible contains so much bloodshed. We need to figure out why God apparently commands so much violence and bloodshed in the Old Testament. We need to figure out why John writes in the book of Revelation about the return of Jesus in such violent and bloody ways.

Thankfully, this is not something we have to figure out on our own. Jesus Himself told us why the Bible is so violent. He did this in numerous ways and at various times during His life and ministry.

The greatest explanation was provided through His crucifixion, of course, but many of the parables and teachings of Jesus were also directed at revealing the truth to us about why the Bible is so bloody and violent.

Jesus tells us why the Bible is Bloody (Matthew 23:29-35)

One of the key texts where Jesus reveals this is Matthew 23:29-35 (cf. Luke 11:49-51):

[You] say, “If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.” … Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.

why is the Bible so bloody and violentIn this text, Jesus provides a summary of how He reads and understands the Old Testament. This is “The Old Testament according to Jesus.” And according to Jesus, the Bible is filled with violent bloodshed.

From Abel to Zechariah, from A-to-Z, the Bible reveals the violence of the human heart as we kill others in the name of God. According to Jesus, the Hebrew Scriptures are primarily about a revelation of bloodshed.

They reveal what the origins of bloodshed, and how sacrificial religion is often at the root of bloodshed, as human beings kills others in the name of God.

And it is not just evil sinners who are killed in the name of God, but righteous, innocent victims, such as Abel, Zechariah, and the prophets.

Jesus also says that the people in His day are doing the same thing.

This violent murdering of others in God’s name is the constant human sin of every culture and every generation. Yet no generation thinks that they themselves are guilty of it. The people in Jesus’ day say that if they had lived in the days of the prophets, they would not have participated in killing the prophets. Yet the people in Jesus’ day killed Jesus.

Today, we say that if we had lived in the day of Jesus, we would not have participated in killing Jesus. But is this true?

If you had lived in the days of Jesus, do you think you would be among those who cried out for His arrest and crucifixion? Or would you instead be among those who stood faithfully at His side and wept for Him as He bled and died?

Do not be too hasty to answer.

In Matthew 23:29-35, Jesus explains that the religious people who claim they would not have participated in murdering the prophets are the very same people who are planning to kill the prophets of their own day.

In this context, Jesus clearly equates blood with murder and violence, and especially the bloodshed that is religiously motivated. When the Bible speaks of blood, it primarily has in mind the sacrificial and religious bloodshed which takes place when we kill and murder in God’s name.

Of more importance, however, is the shocking truth that this text contains for us modern Christians. We Christians like to say that if we had lived in the days of Jesus, we would not have been among those calling for His crucifixion, but would have sided with Him instead, defending His innocence and calling for His release.

Sadly, Jesus disagrees with our assessment. The human condition and tendency is to side with the mob in calling for the death of the innocent scapegoat victim. The religious people in Jesus’ day claimed that they would not have participated in killing the prophets of old, yet it is they who led the charge in accusing, condemning, and killing Jesus.

Just as with every other violent text in Scripture, Matthew 23:29-35 is a serious call to take a careful look at the condition of our own hearts toward others.

This text, like so many others, was not primarily written so that we can condemn the ignorance of those in the past, but so that we can allow this text to expose the darkness in our own hearts. Just as the people in Jesus’ day were guilty of the same sins they condemned in their ancestors, so also, we are guilty of the same sins we condemn in them.

We say we would not have condemned Jesus, yet it may very well be that the people we think God should kill today are the very prophets whom God has sent to us to reveal our sin. Who is it that you want to see dead?

Who is it that you believe God could (and should) “righteously” kill? Could it be that you only think this about them because they are exposing your sin to you, just like the prophets of old?

This reveals why the Bible, and especially the Old Testament, is so violent.

Jesus died to reveal the source of violence

Why is the Old Testament so Violent?

Much of the Old Testament is filled with blood, whether it is the blood spilled in the sacrificial rituals of the Mosaic Law or the blood spilled during Canaanite Conquest and subsequent wars of Israel.

It is not without reason that some have called the Bible the bloodiest religious book in human history. Such a charge is not unfounded, for when the actual calls for violence and bloodshed are tallied, the Bible has more bloody texts than the Muslim Qur’an or any other religious holy book.

The proper response to all this bloodshed in the Bible, however, is not to try to explain it away and justify God as the bloodiest deity in the history of religion, but instead to embrace the revulsion that we feel and recognize that the reason the Bible is so bloody is not so that we emulate the behavior we read about in its pages, but instead to see these events as though they were a mirror being held up to our own faces (James 1:23-24).

In Matthew 23:29-35, Jesus says that the Bible is so violent and bloody, because it reveals what we ourselves are doing in our own day. Jesus says that the Bible is so violent and bloody, not so that we can condemn the people of the past, but so that we can see how we ourselves participate in the same exact bloodshed and violence.

Jesus says that the Bible is so violent and bloody, not because it reveals what God is like (for only Jesus does that), but because it reveals what mankind is like. And therefore, what we are like.

The Old Testament does not reveal God to us as much as it reveals mankind to us.

The bloody passages of the Old Testament provide a better glimpse into the heart of man than they do the heart of God.

This is how to read the violent portions of the Bible, so that when we turn away from them in revulsion, we are trained to turn away from similar violent tendencies in our own heart as well.

Until we read the Bible this way, we will forever be confused about why there is so much blood and violence in the Old Testament. But once we read the Bible through this lens, we see that the Bible reveals man to us so that in Jesus Christ we receive both a perfect revelation of what God is like and a perfect revelation of what mankind is supposed to be like.

Through His death on the cross, Jesus willingly submitted Himself to the violent death of ritualistic sacrifice as a way of exposing to humanity the sin to which humanity is enslaved.

Jesus died, not to affirm and reinforce the idea that God wants blood sacrifice, but to unveil and expose the truth about sacrifice, the truth that it is we who want sacrifice; not God.

It is we who shed blood; not God.

By letting us kill Him in such a violent and bloody way, Jesus unveiled the truth about humanity and the truth about sin, and in so doing, called us to abandon these scapegoating, sacrificial rituals in our own lives.

By letting us shed His blood, Jesus revealed that all such scapegoating sacrificial rituals have nothing whatsoever to do with God and originate instead within the hearts of mankind.

Jesus fully exposed and unveiled the mystery of the scapegoat sacrifice by fully submitting Himself to it.

Through His life and death, Jesus revealed how to live:

We are not to make sacrificial scapegoat victims of others, while at the same time we are to willingly lay down our lives for others.

The blood of Jesus reveals that true life does not come through the death of others, but through the death of self for the sake of others. While seeking life through the death of others leads only to more death, seeking life through the death of self leads to life for all.

The blood of Jesus teaches that while humans seek death, God seeks life, and so when the life of God is in us, we will stop seeking the death of others.

To learn more about this, get my book, (#AmazonAdLink) Nothing but the Blood of Jesus, or take my online course, The Gospel Dictionary, which you can take for free by joining my online discipleship group:

The Gospel DictionaryUnderstanding the Gospel requires us to properly understand the key words and terms of the Gospel. Take my course, "The Gospel Dictionary" to learn about the 52 key words of the Gospel, and hundreds of Bible passages that use these words.

This course costs $297, but when you join the Discipleship group, you can to take the entire course for free.

God is Redeeming God, Redeeming Scripture, Redeeming Theology, z Bible & Theology Topics: blood, blood of Jesus, crucifixion of Jesus, death of Jesus, Matthew 23:29-35, violence, violence of God, violence of Scripture

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The Old Testament Case for Nonviolence

By Jeremy Myers
5 Comments

The Old Testament Case for Nonviolence

I always love reading books that attempt to explain all the violence in the Bible … especially the violence that is attributed to God. I have written two books on the subject myself, but love seeing how other people deal with this difficult topic.

So when Matthew Fleischer asked to send me a review copy of his book, The Old Testament Case for Nonviolence, I readily accepted.

Old Testament case for non violenceAs I read the book, there was much that I loved and agreed with, but a few things that did not sit well with me. Let me start with the positives.

3 Things I LOVED about this Book

First, the book is very readable. It is not overly technical and provides a good overview of some of the views, issues, and texts related to the topic of violence in Scripture.

Second, despite the title of the book, it actually presents a New Testament case for nonviolence as a way of reading and interpreting the Old Testament. I love this approach to Scripture, and have written elsewhere about the importance of “reading the Bible backwards.” Though the New Testament chronologically follows the Old, it provides us with the theological and hermeneutical framework through which to read and interpret the Old Testament.

Third, and related to the first point, Fleischer not only encourages people to read the Old Testament through truths revealed in the New Testament, but specifically points people to the truths revealed through Jesus Christ on the cross (e.g., chapter 10). In one of my books, I call this the “crucivision” lens. I completely agree that the death of Jesus on the cross provides the clearest explanation of all violence in Scripture.

There are other things I love about the book, but let me briefly discuss two things I disagreed with.

2 Things I Disagreed With

First, Fleischer places a lot of emphasis in the book on progressive revelation (which he calls incremental revelation). This is the idea that as human history progressed, God revealed more and more of Himself to humanity, so that the later portions of Scripture more accurately reveal the true nature of God than the earlier portions (see chapters 2, 11). I have never been a fan of this view.

I know … I know. It seems that earlier I said exactly the opposite when I praised the practice of reading the Old Testament in light of the New. Let me try to clarify.

In the progressive revelation view, we see humanity at its lowest in the early chapters of Genesis, and then as God calls Abraham, then Israel, then Judges, then Prophets, and then Kings, each successive step gets us higher up the ladder of truth until we ultimately arrive at Jesus, who then encourages us to keep learning and moving upward toward truth. So in this view, the revelation from God can be drawn like a slope that moves higher as human history progresses, so that we are smarter and wiser and know more truth than did the people of 500 years ago, and especially the people of 5000 years ago.

C. S. Lewis called this view chronological snobbery, and I agree.

In my view, we probably know less today about God and “true” theology than did people of the past, such as Adam, Abraham, and Moses. While we do have a superior revelation in Jesus Christ, we have so drastically failed to understand what most of what Jesus revealed about God, we are still theologically inferior to Adam, Abraham, and Moses.

So in my view, rather than a constant upward slope toward “truth,” human history actually made a downward slope into sin and ignorance. Jesus Christ came at the deepest trough of this slope, and turned things around. His life, ministry, and teachings provided the correction, so that we are now generally on an upward trajectory, but we are still “below” some of the biblical saints of the past when it comes to what we know to be true about God.

This may seem like a minor point, but really, it makes a world of difference in how we approach some of the ancient biblical texts, like those of Moses and David. Rather than approaching them with a morally and theologically superior attitude, we instead approach them with humility, asking and hoping and praying that we can see what they saw and know what they knew.

This brings me to my second criticism of Fleischer’s excellent book.

Due to his view of progressive revelation, he frequently mentions that since people of the past did not have the full revelation that we have today, God had no choice but to occasionally accommodate their violent tendencies by engaging in some violence Himself.

Fleischer especially argues this in his chapters on “Just War” (chapter 7; see esp. pp 121-122), and then reinforces this idea in some of the concluding words of the book where he writes that God “may have temporarily used limited violence to advance his nonviolence agenda, but his use of such violence was always good and just” (p. 230).

just war theory

I simply cannot agree, based on what is revealed about God in Jesus Christ. Jesus reveals what God is truly like, and Jesus shows us that there is no violence in God and never has been.

So should you read this book?

Of course. And you can get it here on Amazon. It is a good introduction to the difficult theme of violence in Scripture. But as you read, just recognize that there are other ways of dealing with the violence in Scripture than by assigning these activities to God and calling them “good and just.” God does not accommodate such violence, nor does He withdraw and allow it to fall upon us.

Instead, He dives into the mess and sin of life with us, and bears the blunt and the blame for sin on His own beaten and bloody back. This is what we see in Jesus. I present this idea in one of my other books, which is also available on Amazon.

God is Redeeming Books Bible & Theology Topics: Books I'm Reading, nonviolence, Old Testament, violence of God, violence of Scripture

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Jonah 3:10 – The Repentance of God

By Jeremy Myers
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Jonah 3:10 – The Repentance of God
http://media.blubrry.com/one_verse/feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/344209586-redeeminggod-89-jonah-310-the-repentance-of-god-1.mp3

What is repentance? What is evil? If you think you know, here are some harder questions:  Does God ever need to repent? Does God commit evil?

Well, Jonah 3:10 seems to indicate that God does commit evil and does repent of it. Yikes! What does that mean? This is what we’ll look at in today’s study.

repentance

The Text of Jonah 3:10

Jonah 3:10. And God saw what they had done, that they repented from their evil ways, and God was sorry about the evil which He had declared to do to them, and He did not do it.

In this discussion of Jonah 3:10 we look at:

  • What is repentance?
  • Does God ever repent?
  • What is evil?
  • Does God commit evil?
  • The sad, humorous truth about repentance from evil in Jonah 3:10

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God is Redeeming God, Redeeming Scripture Bible & Theology Topics: evil, Jonah 3:10, One Verse Podcast, sin, violence of God, violence of Scripture

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