#148 - Old Testament Violence {Reflections Re-Release}

Some Bible passages don’t just confuse us, they unsettle us. If you’ve ever read Old Testament laws about severe punishment and thought, “How does this belong in the same Bible as Jesus?”, you’re not alone. We hear that exact question from a listener reading Scripture chronologically, and we slow down long enough to name the tension between troubling passages in the Hebrew Bible and the mercy, forgiveness, and enemy love we see in Christ. 

We also touch a real moment from church history: Marcion’s attempt to solve the problem by separating the “Old Testament God” from Jesus. It’s a clean answer, but it costs too much, and it doesn’t match how Christians have understood Scripture as a unified story. From there, we offer something you can actually use the next time you hit a hard text: a Jesus-centered way of reading the Bible, what Ryan calls putting on “Jesus lenses.” Hebrews 1 becomes a guidepost here, pointing to Jesus as God’s clearest word. 

The heart of the episode is the cross. We talk about why the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus reframes everything, and how starting with God’s self-giving love helps us hold difficult passages in tension without denial or despair. If you want a practical Christian framework for Bible interpretation, Old Testament violence, and faith that doesn’t flinch at the hard stuff, press play. If this helps you, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find it.

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Transcript

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Why This Episode Returns

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Hey everyone, Olivia here. Pastor Ryan is on sabbatical this summer, so I'll be re-releasing some of our most listened to episodes from the Reflections podcast. Today's episode originally aired in July of 2024. It tackles one of the most challenging questions people have about the Bible and offers a simple framework that I have found helpful ever since. Enjoy.

The Question About Old Testament Violence

SPEAKER_01 0:44

What is up, everybody? Hey, this is Ryan, and welcome to our Reflections podcast. You know, the in the summertime we take a couple of weeks and we ask people in the congregation here at Central and say, hey, what are some things you want to talk about? We call it our you pick sermon series. And people will write in questions or topics or verses that they want to hear us talk about. And we try to hit them all, but we can't. There's just too many questions and um thoughts and topics that come in. So I thought it'd be kind of fun to just address briefly even a couple of these in my reflections podcast. And so this one comes from Beth. Beth writes this. She says, I've been reading the Bible chronologically, and when reading some of the Old Testament laws, I get really confused. In some of the laws given to the Jews, God tells them if they uh if they break these rules, or if anyone if anyone does, take them to the edge of town and kill them. She says, I get it. I get that removing the bad parts like cancer, uh, you know, from the people, removing those parts before they spread is I get that. But when Jesus comes, he tells them that got it all wrong, is what she writes. I know that I'm missing something between the the Torah or the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, and the New Testament. It just seems like two different approaches. Well, there you go. That's that's a bit of a doozy. I mean, he sort of here's the question behind the question. There are all kinds of passages in the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible that are really troubling, especially for us with modern sensibilities who are living in 2024. And uh a lot of these things that seem to happen, or that God commands, or that God does, or that the people say that God does, it seems so counter to our modern sensibilities. But even more or more troubling, probably, is this idea that as Beth writes, these passages in the in the Hebrew Bible they seem to contradict outright the teachings of Jesus. Now, there's all kinds of things to be said about this. There's a couple of wonderful books out there that are written, and um, you know, I know that Greg Boyd has written extensively on this topic. He's written a couple of long, you know, books, and uh, and actually he he sort of combined them and wrote a shorter book more for the popular audience. You just google Greg Boyd Old Testament Violence, you'll find it.

Why “Two Gods” Fails

SPEAKER_01 2:52

There's a lot of different books on it. But but I'll say this you know, there's a guy called Marcion in the early days of the church, and Marcion, his way of solving this problem, which later was deemed heretical because it wasn't really what the church was trying to do, but he says, look, really it's just two different gods. The God of the Hebrew Bible is this sort of God who's mean, vindictive, retributive, violent, and Jesus is a different sort of God. He sort of separates the two. And uh, of course, this later becomes uh deemed as a you know a sort of a heretical idea because the people of God want to maintain both the divinity of Jesus and the Hebrew Bible and the Hebrew God. And so, how can we reconcile these two? Is the question.

Reading Scripture Through Jesus

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Well, here's what I'll say just in my five minutes or so on this on this podcast, is that look, for us, you know, for many of us, we want to interpret, there's all kinds of ways to interpret the entire Bible. And my way of interpreting the Bible is through through Jesus. And so I might put on like a pair of lenses or goggles that are like Jesus lenses or Jesus goggles. So there are these guys named Mark Baker and Joel Green. They wrote a great book called Umething About the Scandal of the Cross. I forget what it's called, but it's really good. And in there they write that they say the whole of Scripture finds its meaning in the suffering and death and resurrection of Jesus. In other words, like the the scriptures themselves, from the Hebrew Bible all the way to Revelation, it finds its meaning uh in the suffering and death and resurrection of Jesus. All of the scripture really culminates and sort of crescendos in the action and the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. In the book of Hebrews, it says it like this. Hebrews 1 says that you've heard these prophets in the past speaking to us. Now, in these last days, God has spoken to us by his Son. In other words, like Jesus seems to be kind of elevated over all the rest of Scriptures as the fulfillment of all those scriptures. So it's important for all of us. Luther thought the same stuff. It's important that we that we read and interpret everything, the Hebrew Bible, the Jesus stories, obviously, and then all that comes later through the lens or the goggles uh of Jesus. That our hermeneutic is the fancy $5 seminary word. The way we interpret it is through Jesus.

A Parade Story About Reframing

SPEAKER_01 5:05

So if if I was downtown, for example, at a parade, let's say we had, you know, we have these parades here in Elk River, but let's say I was downtown somewhere at a parade, and you saw me across the parade route, and you couldn't you couldn't talk to me because the parade is going in between us, and you couldn't hear me or see me really closely. You saw me from afar, and you saw me there with my wife, Katie, and all of a sudden, I just like often like decked Katie, like just punched her right in the side of the head, which I would never do. But let's say I did that, you would be like, oh my gosh, Ryan just punched his wife. What in the world? Now, now you let's say you've known me for many, many years or decades even. You might be we might say or be tempted to say, oh my gosh, everything I thought I knew about Ryan is is wrong. I I'm gonna throw it all away. I cannot believe I ever thought Ryan was a decent guy if he did. And I ever liked the guy if you liked me. But like it's all wrong. Uh now that this moment, I uh it's all I everything I see or everything I know about Ryan is wrong because of this moment. So that's one option. Another option might be to say, okay, look, I know Ryan. I've known him for, you know, however many years. I know his heart, his character, I know what he's like. I'm gonna try to reinterpret this moment, this is one moment of like utter violence and whatever. I'm gonna reinterpret it as, you know, through the lens of all that I know about Ryan. So you might say something like, golly, that maybe, maybe, you know, Ryan's kids were kidnapped, and Ryan loves his kids so much. They were kidnapped, and the kidnapper said, Hey, listen, if you and Katie, you know, if you don't get into a public fight on the street corner, I'm gonna kill all your kids. I know this is like an egregious example, but just bear with me. Then you're like, oh, that's why Ryan punches his wife, because Ryan got this phone call from this kidnapper who said, Hey, unless you punch your wife in the head, I'm gonna kill your kids. And then Katie, of course, like, yes, punch me in the head. Of course she would do that, you know. So you can reinterpret this moment in light of and through the lenses of all that you know about me. And I think the same is true of the Bible, that we can look at the Hebrew scriptures, and there are lots of bizarre, troubling, antiquated, ancient writings in there that just, man, they don't make sense. And it's hard to bridge the gap always, but if we can take the Jesus lens and reinterpret some of that through Jesus, it might help us make a bit more

Start With The Cross

SPEAKER_01 7:17

sense. Now, my guess is there are probably some passages that are just are really hard to swallow, and I just kind of hold those intention. But Jesus reframes everything. And so with that, I start with what I know, and I know that Jesus is the embodiment of God, and Jesus is the embodiment of love, that the cross, this moment of beautiful self-sacrifice, love for the other, even while we were yet sinners, Paul writes, Christ died for us, and while he's hanging on the cross, like while they're crucifying him, Jesus declares, Father, forgive him, for they don't know what they're doing. Jesus has compassion on those because they're like sheep without a shepherd. Like, so this moment of the cross, this pinnacle, like central moment of Jesus' suffering and death at the hands of the mob and the and the people. Uh, but his love extends into that depth of violence and rejection. Even there, his love goes. And like that's what Jesus is like. So I'm gonna interpret the whole of Scripture through that moment that, regardless of everything and anything else, I know that Jesus is love. He loves others while they're yet sinners, that Jesus has come to be with us and heal us of our woundedness, our violence, and our brokenness. And so I start there, and then I try to like rewind and and and sort of and sort of like lay that over top of everything else. So at least start there. Start with what you know, which is Jesus, that Jesus is the embodiment of love, that he's God in the flesh, that he loves his love, reaches into the darkest, most you know, ostensibly Godforsaken parts of our lives. And then let's interpret everything else from there. So start there and see where it takes you. Okay, uh, love you guys. Talk to you soon. Peace.

Share The Podcast And Join Us

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Hey, if you enjoy this show, I'd love to have you share it with some friends. And don't forget you are always welcome to join us in person at Central in Elk River at 8 30, which is our liturgical gathering, or at 10 o'clock, our modern gathering. Or you can check us out online at clcelkriver.org. Peace.