The Rumor Going Around the Church

Unpacking a Common Question

Have you heard what people are saying about God? There is a rumor going around, one that I've heard often. In my years of being a parish pastor — serving in churches with both conservative and liberal leanings, in rural communities, in small towns, and in larger cities in several different states — I have heard the same rumor in every place. It does not seem to be confined to a region or limited to a demographic group. It is, in my experience, a remarkably — even frighteningly — pervasive rumor.

Most rumors, of course, are fairly localized. What may be a significant matter in one church in one community would be altogether irrelevant to a different church from another community. But this particular rumor seems to be widespread in churches all over the map.

It is a rumor about God. And the fact that it is about God means that the stakes are very high — especially if it's an inaccurate one.

Here's the rumor: The God of the Old Testament is different from the God of the New Testament.

Have you heard this rumor? Maybe even believed it? We want to evaluate that claim together.

In order to unpack some of our own personal feelings on this issue, let me invite you to conduct a simple experiment within the confines of your mind. Below are pairs of words suggestive of the two testaments. Read the words one at a time and consider the following: What comes to mind when you read each word? What sort of picture or image does each one inspire? Bear in mind that it takes only a moment to read the words and react to them, but if you can, allow extra time in each case to stop and examine your immediate reaction, taking a good look at the picture in your mind that represents each word before moving on to the next one.

Law
Gospel

Jehovah
Jesus

Old
New

Circumcision
Baptism

Prophets
Apostles

Passover
Communion

Did you notice a difference in the pictures that came to mind for each pair of words? Yes, the words are suggestive of the two testaments, but they are neutral. They are not loaded terms that carry strong negative or positive connotations. But you may have found that you liked some of the images these words evoked much better than others.

Meanwhile, there is one more pair of words that might be helpful for us to consider:

Mount Sinai
The Mount of Beatitudes

Mount Sinai is the place where Moses received God's Law (see Exodus 31). The Mount of Beatitudes is the Galilean hillside where Jesus famously delivered the Sermon on the Mount (see Matthew 5). For many, these two famous mountains emotionally represent the two testaments. Hereare the images that most readily come to mind: On Mount Sinai stands Moses, holding the stone tablets on which are written God's Law. On the Mount of the Beatitudes sits Jesus, holding children on his knee. The tone of voice in the first scene is stern: "Thou shalt not." The second voice, however, is gentle and compassionate: "Come unto me."

When you and I picture Mount Sinai, the scene is probably foreboding and volcanic. There is thunder and lightning, thick smoke, and a loud trumpet. The mountain stands in the midst of the wilderness. It is rugged, arid, and ominous. The slopes of the mountain are forbidden, cordoned off. The people shrink back in fear.

When we picture the Galilean hillsides where Jesus taught, however, the scene is vastly different. The sky is blue and the grass is green. The slopes are gentle and fertile rather than rugged and dry. Birds of the air and lilies of the field are nearby, where Jesus can reference them and the crowds can see them. The space is not foreboding but inviting. The people do not cower and stand back from God; they eagerly gather around and press close to Jesus.

Sinai and Galilee. These are the pictures that tend to capture our prevailing associations with the Old and New Testaments. One harsh and the other friendly. One judgmental and the other inviting. Is it any wonder that most of us are much more attracted to the one and far less comfortable with the other?

What I've Heard

By their very nature, rumors are almost always imprecise, if not wildly inaccurate. As the word gets passed from one person to another, it picks up layers of individual insight and personal prejudice. And because rumors often have a loose relationship to facts, there is a lot of room for interpretation. As such, what I've heard of this rumor, in different places at different times, has varied. But there are some common themes.

The recurring central theme is that God seems different in the New Testament than God seems in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, the Lord appears to be more angry and destructive. There is a lot of judgment and death. God seems impatient and exclusive.

In the New Testament, by contrast, the Lord appears to be kind and gracious, merciful and forgiving. God's basic posture is inviting, and the invitation is open to all.

Our natural preference, of course, is for the New Testament's portrayal of God, and so we assume that it is a more accurate representation. And that, in turn, leads to a conclusion that the Old Testament is in some way inferior. Either the Old Testament is inferior to the New Testament because it offers a less accurate portrait of God, or it is inferior because it is outdated, divinely replaced by a "new and improved" approach that is revealed and represented by the New Testament. That discounted view of the OldTestament, then, often results in a kind of dismissal of the first two-thirds of the Bible. Because we feel the Old is either inaccurate, outdated, or both, we are free to set it aside. And, either consciously or practically, we function as though there is nothing for us to learn from the Old Testament.

But what if this rumor is incorrect? What if God is not actually different in the Old Testament than he is in the New? If the rumor is wrong — and I most certainly believe it is wrong — then we need to go back and set up all of the dominoes that were knocked over by the initial misunderstanding.

I'm very concerned about this rumor. Why? Because it is a damaging business anytime we hear and believe something about another person that is not true, and it is profoundly damaging when it is about God. The...