On the Old Testament and Vengeance
Peter Kirk linked to my post on “an eye for an eye” in responding to David Ker’s post What to do with the vengeance in the Old Testament? Skip it!
As a result I’ve been able to follow a rather substantial number of posts discussing this issue. One of these comes from John Hobbins, who tells us that one can’t be a “New Testament only” Christian. I’m glad he used the word “only” because we all should be New Testament (or covenant) Christians. As it is I can agree with him completely. Dr. Platypus gets somewhat more helpful as he discusses the value of some of the difficult passages, especially in the Psalms. Bob MacDonald also provides some good thoughts and resources.
I emphasized Old Testament rather strongly in my studies and would certainly not want to be without it as part of my spiritual life. I wanted to link in three more posts that provide videos of presentations made recently by one of my undergraduate professors, Dr. Alden Thompson. I also am the publisher of his book Who’s Afraid of the Old Testament God? You can regard this as a semi-commercial announcement.
I have not yet watched this set of videos, but having both taken classes from Alden as an undergraduate, and must more recently hosted him as teacher of several seminars, I have no doubt that he will make a valuable contribution to this discussion. One of the things he says regularly is: “You may not like the Old Testament, but Jesus did!”
Links to the videos:
The presentations were at the Toledo First Seventh-day Adventist Church. If you’re harboring some denominational prejudices I’d urge you to lay them aside for the time it takes you to benefit from Alden’s teaching.
