Among all the questions, how we are walking with God is the most important

Paul Luckraft reviews ‘God Behaving Badly’ by David T Lamb (2011, IVP)

This is an excellently-conceived and well-written book on an important theme, outlined in the subtitle: Is the God of the Old Testament angry, sexist and racist?

For Christians as well as non-Christians, this is a problem that has to be addressed. Certain parts of what we now call the ‘Old Testament’ seem to portray God in these terms, so how are we to settle this in our own minds and how should we respond to those who use this to attack our faith?

Combating Misconceptions

Lamb’s opening sentence is intriguing: “How does one reconcile the loving God of the Old Testament with the harsh God of the New Testament?” (p9). Read this too quickly and you’ll miss the point! The author often asks this question of his students and once they’ve realised he hasn’t misspoken a lively discussion usually ensues.

In the book, Lamb makes his initial point well. We are so fixated on the New Testament portraying a God of love that we forget how often the Old Testament shows him to be merciful, compassionate and slow to anger. We also forget how God’s angry side is still apparent once we cross the divide into the New.

Perhaps Lamb’s title should end with a question mark, just so that we are clear on the author’s intent. But we soon realise that he is very much wanting to clear God’s ‘bad reputation’ and set the record straight by examining as many biblical texts as possible across the diverse genres of Old Testament literature. His aims are to discuss many of the problematic passages in which God appears to ‘behave badly’ and combat the negative perceptions that arise from these.

Lamb sets out to clear God’s ‘bad reputation’, discussing many of the problematic passages in which God appears to ‘behave badly’ and combating the negative perceptions that arise from these.

Tackling Difficult Issues and Passages

Lamb tackles these issues one at a time, chapter by chapter. After three initial chapters on the topics of ‘angry’, ‘sexist’ and ‘racist’, he goes on to ask if God is violent or peaceful, legalistic or gracious, rigid or flexible, distant or near?

He places all of his discussions within historical context, for instance with reference to ancient Near Eastern texts, and also ends each chapter “looking at a relevant incident from the Gospels, showing how the particular characteristic of Yahweh is also manifested in the behaviour of Jesus” (p24).

As he goes, Lamb does not shy away from tackling difficult and controversial passages, such as the smiting of Uzzah dead simply for touching the Ark as the oxen pulling its cart stumbled. His explanation here is excellent – but you’ll have to read the book to discover it!

Safe Hands

The author writes in a way that convinces us that he has thought through every point he makes. Indeed, he has taught this often to his classes so the reader feels in safe hands. He employs occasional touches of humour where appropriate to lighten what could otherwise be a heavy and disheartening read.

Lamb mentions those who get round the ‘problem’ of God’s apparent bad behaviour by saying that those passages can be regarded as fictitious. Some today, like Marcion of old, say we can simply cut out those passages from our Bibles. Lamb’s counter-response is this:

While I find this conclusion attractive in one sense (the problem does disappear), I am unwilling to reject large sections of the Old Testament because the God it portrays doesn’t fit my perception of what he should be like. I continue to be troubled by Old Testament images of God, but I will work to understand them better by continuing to study the text on its own, within its biblical context and within its ancient Near Eastern context. (p102)

The author writes in a way that convinces us that he has thought through every point he makes.

Yesterday, Today and Forever

He ends the book with an epilogue summarising each of the eight chapters that have gone before. While all our questions may never fully be answered, he demonstrates that God is loving and gracious across the whole Bible, both as Yahweh in the Old and Jesus in the New. There is no discrepancy of character. Our God is fundamentally good, whichever part of the Bible we are reading.

After the epilogue comes a section of discussion questions, several for each chapter, making the book an excellent resource for study groups. There are also good endnotes, a sufficient bibliography to encourage further reading, and a very extensive Scripture index making it easy to look up any passage you might come across later in your Bible reading.

The author has tackled a difficult topic extremely well and his book is highly commended.

‘God Behaving Badly’ (205pp, paperback) is available from Amazon for £11.99 (paperback). Also in e-book form.

A meditation on Proverbs 28:2

In the last few days I have found myself pondering this verse in the book of Proverbs: “When there is moral rot within a nation, its government topples easily. But wise and knowledgeable leaders bring stability” (Prov 28:2 NLT). It seemed particularly striking in the context of the political turmoil currently engulfing Britain and a number of other countries at the moment.

Of course, it is dangerous to apply Old Testament passages to any modern political system. The world has changed: no modern nation is like ancient Israel and I doubt that any politician would be elected in a modern democracy if they promised to ‘rule like King David’.

Nevertheless, despite the vast gulf of time and culture between that world and ours, there is much in the wisdom of the Old Testament that is profoundly relevant to 21^st-Century politics. Let me suggest that this verse has three truths.

The simplest truth first: stability is a good thing. Revolutions may be very exciting but after you’ve taken a country apart it takes a long time to put it back together again. Stability may not make headlines and isn’t the most exciting of political goals but it is a condition that allows law and order to exist and allows everybody to get on with their lives.

The Old Testament illustrates the value of stability as it recounts the history of God’s people after Solomon’s death. The northern kingdom, which increasingly drifted away from the worship of the one true God, had a turbulent history in which it was ruled by a long string of monarchs whose reigns were almost always brief, brutal and bloodstained. In contrast the southern kingdom, with a faithfulness to God’s covenant and the line of King David, had much greater stability and peace.

In the New Testament we see that Paul – whose experience with Roman rule was far from happy – could write, “Pray this way for kings and all who are in authority so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity” (1 Tim 2:2 NLT). Stable times of peace are worth seeking.

There is much in the wisdom of the Old Testament that is profoundly relevant to 21^st-Century politics.

A second truth concerns the character of those who lead us. This side of heaven a sinful human race will always need people to lead and govern: without leadership we would have tyranny. Yet precisely because the role of leading a nation is a hard task, we must pray that those who rule us are indeed ‘wise and knowledgeable’.

In the Bible that phrase does not refer to the possession of a high level of intelligence or an advanced educational qualification (although there’s nothing wrong with either) but more to a humble and reverent attitude of mind that respects God and his law. In a world controlled by the media, it’s not easy for the modest, God-fearing individual to rise to the top but God is perfectly capable of ensuring their promotion. Let’s pray that this would happen more often.

The third point is that the morality of a people affects how they are governed. This seemingly simple truth – the spiritual version of ‘a nation gets the leader it deserves’ – is profoundly important. It’s very tempting in times of instability to look to politicians for the answer, something encouraged by the way that in any crisis there is never a shortage of individuals who, with a minimum of modesty and a maximum of confidence, put themselves forward as those who will deliver the nation from its ills. Yet history provides very few examples of leaders who have genuinely put everything right. On the contrary, there are many cases where the coming to power of a political leadership has led either to widespread disillusionment or to a dictatorship.

The teaching in this proverb and elsewhere in the Bible is that what really determines the fate of nations is not the individual at the top but the people themselves. Politics alone can’t truly fix a nation; God and godliness can.

Politics alone can’t truly fix a nation; God and godliness can.

There’s a fascinating and apparently true story that when Billy Graham visited Camp David in the 1960s, the then US president Lyndon Johnson said to him, “Billy, you ought to be president of the United States. If you do run, I’d like to be your campaign manager.” It was an offer that Billy rejected then, and continued to do so in the years ahead. He felt to seek political office would be to fall far short of his appointed task as evangelist. He also knew the truth of this proverb: the best way of effectively changing a nation is not by changing leaders, but by altering what people believe.

If you are genuinely called by God to be a politician, then I wish you well and I’m very happy to pray for you. But in the meantime, I’m going to stick to my calling of preaching the good news of Jesus. True and lasting change begins at the bottom and not the top.

Revd Canon J.John

Director, Philo Trust

www.canonjjohn.com / Twitter: @Canonjjohn

Reprinted with permission.