Did God's Personality Change from Old to New Testament?

The simple answer is, no. However, I realize that as you read the OT and see the attacks the Lord orchestrates against certain people groups it does not seem consistent with Jesus' declaration about the blessing that comes to peacemakers, for instance.
We know that Jesus is the exact representation of the Father. Jesus told Philip that since he had seen Him, he had seen the Father. When God declares His Name in Exodus 34:6, 7, He says He is compasssionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness and truth who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.
God is compassionate and full, or abounding in, lovingkindness. We know from the OT that He "delights in mercy". The last thing He mentions in the declaration of His Name is basically that He is pefectly just. The guilty cannot go unpunished. I was reading in Leviticus, today,and was just noticing all the things people were to be put to death for doing. There were a lot of situations where violation of that law was punished by death. Several of the situations, such as adultery, you can see how God would show no tolerance and this was a great deterrent to an expanding adultery problem. In contrast, our society today shows relatively little outrage, horror or even much concern over adultery. If you didn't notice it is spreading like wild fire. A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough. When the source is stopped so is the problem. In the OT several societies were destroyed on command from God because to allow them to continue on and curse the next generations with their sin was a worse alternative than to eliminate the source of the problem in that generation.
However, even in that, God was not without mercy, or hasty to bring punishment. Before Israel was allowed to go in and take their land, first the cup of iniquity of the Amorites had to be full. God waited for them, but there was no repentance. Jonah preached a message of judgment upon Nineveh. We are not told in the message that he even mentioned repentance, but when the city repented God had mercy.
We actually see the same thing taking place at the end of the age. When the sixth trumpet is blown there are horrendous calamities, but we read in Revelation 9:20, 21 that people will not repent. When people no longer repent God unleashes the seven bowls of wrath which are loosed when the seventh trumpet is sounded. Why? Because God is not willing that any should perish but all should come to repentance. He waits to see if there is any repentance left before the final judgment is released. This is consistent with His actions OT or NT. When there is no longer any repentance there is nothing left , but wrath. This is OT and NT alike.
Since God is just He cannot, by His nature, just say, that's o.k., no big deal, you're forgiven. Every sin must be dealt with according to the rightful payment. It is with this in mind that we can somehow deal with Isaiah's prophecy about the Father's hand against his own Son when it says, "But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering." It "pleased" the Lord to crush him. What it did, was satisfy the necessary just payment, so that, in view of justice being rendered mercy could then be offered. Justice was dealt out, but wait, Who was it dealt upon? He himself provided the sacrifice. He paid for us. The sermon on the mount lifestyle is following this same pattern. Bless those who curse you, pray for your enemies is taking "the hit" ourselves, rather than returning eye for eye and tooth for tooth. Eye for eye and tooth for tooth is perfectly just. God took justice for us upon Himself and now leads us in a lifestyle that follows that pattern. He is abounding in "lovingkindness", or mercy. There comes a time where repentance is no longer going to come that it is better to end the source of the problem than to allow it to spread upon forthcoming generations. That is in God's hand to decide.
He brutally dealt with our sin problem at the cross. Our sin was not without consequence. It is now that by grace, He took the consequence Himself. God was pleased to satisfy the just requirements of the Law upon Jesus so that we could go free. Our sin was brutally dealt with just as OT sin was brutally dealt with. We were just fortunate to receive the payment on our behalf by faith.

Greater Love



When Jesus gives His New Commandment in John 15:12, "that you love one another, just as I have loved you.", He follows that commandment by stating, vs. 13, "Greater love has no one than this that one lay down his life for his friends." With that powerful statement in mind, what should we call abortion? It is not laying down our lives, but taking lives for our convenience and economic well-being. Jesus warned of a time when the love of many would grow cold. Killing the most innocent and helpless humans on the planet sounds like love "gone cold."



"Raising that child will be too expensive, and will hinder my career or plans for my life." Yes, it will. But isn't that the nitty gritty of laying down one's life?



Often pictures of abortion have been banned from the public arena because they are too graphic. The pictures simply portray the reality of little body parts being cut up. The graphic nature of the pictures is simply a result of the horrifying reality of the process. I hear rumblings that it is getting harder to find medical professionals to do abortions because of the horrific reality that you are cutting little babies into pieces.



I believe that those who approve of this process should be required to hold the arms, legs and heads of the babies who are destroyed by abortion. If you move abortion into the ethereal realm of debate over rights it has a much cleaner, more sterile sound, than the reality of what actually takes place behind closed doors.



If we are so proud of the rights to abort may I suggest a business possibility for the stimulus money out there. Someone can design some picturesque glass jars in which we can preserve some of the aborted parts of these babies. We can then proudly display these preserved parts on our mantles in our homes, or we can let our kids have them on their bedroom shelves to assure them that if they ever are involved in an "unwanted pregnancy" that we will not punish them by making them have a baby, but they can simply have their own parts jar to show how much we respect their right to choose. Or, maybe, we should keep the process hidden, like it is, because it really is shameful!

We should, if abortion is simply a matter of rights, extend the rights to cover new borns, toddlers and even teen-agers. Otherwise the rights are being denied on the basis of age and that is discrimination. In fact, there should be extended a child's right to choose, since some would like to do away with inconvenient parents. And if their rights are denied that would also be discrimination on the basis of age. We need to establish a first come, first served policy when doing away with unwanted family members, parents to get rid of children or vice versa. I say this sarcastically now, but the mentality of selfishness is leading not too far off this path.

Maybe, those who subject babies to abortion should themselves be candidates for abortion

if we vote them unwanted or a hindrance to our economy. That would qualify congress, the president and those that dress up in robes and call themselves Justices. They could be subjected to the same barbaric process that they approve of. We of course would not call this murder, killing or any such toxic word. We could simply call it post-fetal abortion. The way we label something helps us to change our thinking about it.

On the other hand, maybe it would be best to have a greater love and actually lay down our lives for those we conceive. Consider others as more important than ourselves. We are in deep need of a Spirit of repentance to return to America again. Blessings to you as you endeavor to be salt and light.

Individual Salvation Heresy?

I read today that the Episcopal Bishop Katharine Jefferts said that the idea that someone can pray a prayer and be saved individually is heresy. I thought for just a second (that's about all it took) about whether that had any credibility or not. One of the first things to come to mind was the Philippian jailer in Acts crying out, "What must I do to be saved?" Paul and Silas didn't say, "You know that is simply heresy to think that you, an individual, could be saved." They had an answer for him, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ."

There were individuals saved in each of the cities Paul visited, some of whom became the elders of that city Church. So the statement is so ignorant of the simple flow of what happened in the Bible that we have probably already given more attention to the thought than it deserves.

However, she actually alluded to something that I agreed with later in the statements that I read by her. She was resisting the idea "that salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus." Too many all around us today can tell you they got saved. How do they know? They said "the sinner's prayer." The prayer is often presented as the way to enter into a relationship with Jesus. It can be the vehicle to get you into a relationship with Jesus, but just like what Paul said to the jailer, the key is believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord = Master
Jesus = Jehovah saves/salvation (His name means basically I am salvation) Christ = Messiah (Anointed One of God) Believe in Him!! What happens in salvation is a revelation of and confrontation by the living God. No man comes to Jesus unless the Father draws him.

The sinner's prayer is not a sure fire formula for salvation. Repentance toward God and faith in Jesus is the entry into a saving relationship. Saved, comes from the Greek word, Sozo, which means, in essence, to make whole. Being saved isn't punching your ticket to heaven via any man's formula. It is being made alive by the Spirit of God. I've heard too many times someone say something like, you mean if I just say these words, I'll go to heaven? You know what often separates the true convert from the false? I found years ago when I asked someone if they loved Jesus and they with conviction said yes, they understood something essential about relationship with God. Salvation is not a recipe it truly is a relationship. Holy is the Lord!! The whole earth is full of His Glory!!!! Lovers of Jesus, Arise!!!

How we got the Bible

I had a conversation this week with one of my younger friends (that's beginning to be everybody). He had been asked about how we got the scriptures and those asking apparently had some expertise of their own. However, it seems most of the knowledge of such things in the general public comes from verbal tradition, such as Uncle Bob once said.. or from movies and books. One that had a lot of impact on public information was the Davinci Code.

This book/movie took historical realities such as the Council of Nicea and attached a story to that occasion. It is very deceptive in this way because there really was a Council of Nicea, but it was not convened to come up with a Bible. It was concerned with orthodoxy, what we should believe, so authoritative Christian writings were an important issue but let's take a look at some of the development of the New Testament.

Most of the writings of the New Testament were complete by the late 60's A.D. By about 100 A.D. the last of what we have as our New Testament had been written. As early as the mid 100"s we hear reference from the Church fathers' writings regarding the books they read as authoritative. Justin Martyr refers to the Memoirs which are a reference to what we know as the Gospels (you know the memoirs of Jesus, kinda neat, huh?) These were read regularly in the Church meetings. In about 150 A.D. there was a man named Marcion who was considered a heretic, who rejected all the apostolic writings except for 10 of Paul's letters and the Gospel of Luke. His reference to these let's us know that already in the Church there were several letters that were being regarded as authoritative. Some that he rejected.

The Gospels gained their authority from the fact that they recorded the sayings and message of Jesus. Irenaeus in the late 100's used the 4 gospels, Acts, Paul's letters, I Peter, I & II John and Revelation along with the Shepherd of Hermas (definitely a Book you should read sometime). The Shepherd of Hermas was used a lot in the early Church, but didn't have the same connection to the Apostles as the other writings.

Tertullian around 200 first used the term New Testament and accepted all current New Testament books except James, I Peter, 1-2 John, and Jude. Origen of Alexandria accepted a similar list in the early 200's. In all the Church the Books that were considered authoritative then are the ones we have now in our New Testament. The only additional Book in the early Church was The Shepherd of Hermas in some communitites.

In the early 300's when persecution began against the Church and the scriptures were being burned Christians had to decide which books were worth dying for. This began to crystalize in the Church which books should be finally recognized as the New Testament. In 367 Athanasius of Alexandria published a list of Books considered Divine which included our current 27 N.T. books along with the Old Testament. Jerome in 385 recognized the same and the Councils at Hippo in 393 and Carthage in 397 officially accepted our current N.T. (Much of this information I am taking from the writings of David Hubbard.)

Popular thought espoused through The Davinci Code was some people got together in the 320"s for the Council of Nicea and "created" the Bible. That's just not the truth.

What the New Testament scriptures give us are the words of Jesus and the teachings of the Apostles. The scriptures do not give us life. Jesus said, "You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me." John 5:39 The Bible is not a book to be worshipped. It is revered as God's revelation to us. The greater revelation of God comes through meeting the One the scriptures bear witness of and that is Jesus. I love to read the Bible and can often feel the presence of the Lord as I read, because they are leading to that very One.

We don't have the very original letters written by the Apostles, but we have so many copies that as we look and compare you can find a very reliable source that has power in it to lead you to Jesus and that is the goal.

During the reformation period the scriptures of the New Testament were scrutinized again. Some of the leaders of the reformation, such as Luther, brought up the questions about some of the books that were not fully accepted by some during the early 200's and Luther also questioned Esther in the O.T. Esther it might be noted never mentions God, but if you didn't know that fact, it's hard to believe His Name is not in there when you read it.

Did men write the Bible? Yes, inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Old Testament books are almost all connected to or written by Prophets who had incredible revelations of God. The New Testament books were accepted on the basis of Apostolic connection, with the possible exception of Hebrews whose authorship is not absolutely known. Everyone else was an Apostle or had direct connection with the Apostles.

One last note, the Apocrypha, which is a compilation of writings that are questionable as to their Divine authority for use in matters of doctrine, are included in some Bibles, including the 1611 King James Bible. These were included in many Bibles in the early Church not as part of the accepted scriptures, but as readings that could be edifying or helpful. The Maccabees for example provide some good history of the time between the 2 testaments.

I may come back to this topic. Got a question? Let me know.