So we just finished studying the Old Testament in Intro to Scriptures, and I have come to a significant realization. I'm sure other people have already figured this out, perhaps I'm way behind the times here. Until very recently I was not all that big on reading, so when I did decide, on occasion, to pick up the BIble and read it I never went to the Old Testament. But now with my new found love of reading (and making good grades in my class) I have read through a lot of the Old Testament, and not just skipping around from chapter to chapter but starting in Genesis and ending in Malachi.

Now I don't know about you but I always had the impression growing up that there were in essence 2 different Gods. The "Old Testament God" and the "New Testament God". This God of the OT was full of wrath, judgment, fire and brimstone if you will, as opposed to the NT God who was full of grace, love, mercy, I mean he sent his one and only Son to die on a cross for us. In my mind these two views of God were so separate that I felt bad for my Jewish friends because they did not know how loving and caring God could actually be...boy was I wrong.

Just read the OT straight through, seriously try it, and see what your view of the God of the Old Testament is then. Now sure, God has his intense moments in these books: sending the Israelites to kill entire nations of people, coming in the night to kill Moses, I mean he even wiped out the entire Earth except for Noah, his family, and the animals. But look past that, what do you see? The Old Testament is about a God who yearns for his chosen people to follow him. He makes covenant after covenant with them, renewing them over and over again, and the Israelites take it for granted. He sends prophets, raises up judges, and delivers them from their oppressors, and what do they do? They worship other gods, make idols, pursue all types of immorality. Eventually they are oppressed by their enemies and then, finally, they come running back to God, begging for him to deliver them....over and over again, a never ending downward spiral. After reading Judges I was surprised God didn't give up on us right then (note to self: re-read the story of Samson...apparently not such a hero after all). But not only did he not give up, he gave the Israelites what they wanted, a monarchy.

Now I'm not sure that it was ever explicitly described to me that "the God of the Old Testament is very different than the God of the New Testament", but that's the view I apparently held as truth through my sunday school education. Let's fix this. Let's teach our children in the faith that God has been yearning for us since the creation, that God has been there the entire way trying to catch our attention and it was us who constantly turned away. That the God of the Old Testament was just as loving, caring, and merciful as the God of the New Testament. In fact let's not refer to him in these contrasting ways at all, let's get rid of the phrase "The God of the Old or New Testament." Let's teach the story of the Old Testament as it is read from Genesis through Malachi; the story of a God who loved his people so much that he picked them up every time they fell down, welcomed them with open arms whenever they came running back to him, and continues, to this day, to desire for himself to be the one we worship and adore.