How You Should and Shouldn't Interpret Violence in the Old Testament

earlier this week I was interviewed on a remnant radio on the topic of violence in the Old Testament and just understanding those concepts and passages better dealing with challenges and tough ideas I'm in the same interview that you're about to see we also get into a whole section of discussion on how some people try to reinterpret the Bible I think in a very bad way it's called the cruciform hermeneutic and it's been championed by a gentleman named Greg Boyd so we're gonna deal with that in detail after we deal with some of these passages as well I hope this is really fruitful for you I will get into these topics in more detail in the future on my channel I can't tell you when but it will happen consider this like a good introduction and then maybe maybe a little bit of help as you're kind of thinking through these things if you're interested in remnant radio the people who interviewed me I'll put a link in the description to their youtube channel as well everybody this is Joshua Lewis of remnant radio thank you so much for tuning in today we've got an exciting episode with Mike winger we're gonna be talking about the God of the Old Testament the kind of congruence between Jesus in the New Testament and God in the Old Testament as if Jesus isn't God that was a slip of the tongue God in the New Testament God in the Old Testament is it yeah the mics over there already writing a list of things to correct now that was wrong I already got to fix something they're looking forward to this interview today mike has been on the show twice before he's come on to talk about we did a eschatology video where you debated kind of a futurist view of eschatology and you've also come on to do a water baptism episode early on on when we were on youtube so yeah those are two totally different episodes and this one it's gonna be yeah totally different writers you know that Lane of randomness yeah yeah so Mike for those who aren't familiar with you tell us a little about yourself in your ministry before we dive in okay well I I do online ministry where I teach theology and apologetics and that means you know what we believe as Christians especially giving up assist to scripture I want to know what does the Bible actually teach about things and I'm really committed to that specific adventure of discovering what Scripture teaches you know do we have really do you really have verses to support this and also apologetics which is giving a defense of the Christian faith like why should I believe this is true or or maybe a better way to put it is do we have evidential support to bolster our confidence in the things that we that we believe as Christians and so I present that kind of stuff as well so I do videos twice a week it's all free content and it's all there just to build up and equip and edify and strengthen people and God's really been blessing it right now the YouTube channel has been growing it's like it's coming up close to a hundred thousand viewers probably by the end of the year it'll be a hundred thousand subscribers not views that's insane yeah it's awesome I'm this is first time I've actually gotten to meet you but I'm a huge fan of the podcast and watched several episodes so I'm super good off you doing this we'd love your Romans 9 we recommend it regularly we've got a pastor friend that's a mutual friend of ours and he'll go we're going through Romans 9 and he's like I don't know about this and then we're kind of breaking it apart and using your stuff and late and stuff who was on last week which was fun so hey let's dive into our topic today if we can we don't talk about I would have liked more about the congruence there's a lot of accusations made at Jesus in the New Testament that Jesus is somehow rewriting the narrative of the Old Testament how the Old Testament God is some kind of vengeful angry unforgiving God and Jesus in the New Testament is this merciful Savior who is just not an ounce of judgment you know sin not list or no judge not lest ye be judged Jesus right and there is promoted by the world promoted by people in the church we we have a bit of a propaganda of making Jesus like this really really nice guy and God of the Old Testament is a really really mean guy but we believe that they're all one in the same God so we're gonna have a fun time dialoguing about this let us know so when you come to this topic you've done some work on atonement theory that we're also very appreciative of and that kind of ties into some of this conversation so maybe talk to us a little bit about atonement theory so that we can kind of jump into some of the questions we have prep for you okay I'm not really sure where to launch from with that kind of broad summary because they feel like there's sort of two different subjects to me I feel like when people try to address the first one first people try to say that say Jesus is offering us some sort of alternate version of God that's different than the Old Testament this works if you don't pay close attention to Scripture but if you're actually reading the Bible and you're in it carefully you realize that this just doesn't work this doesn't fit the Old Testament like when you describe the God of the Old Testament as this sort of one-sided like mean you know malicious kind of evil thing that this is simply a misnomer in fact a phrase the God of the Old Testament is an unchristian theologically right as opposed to the God of the Bible yeah well either the God Jesus God yes and in the old and the New Testament we have accurate revelation of God and this is something that you you have to know Jesus would affirm that the Old Testament gives us an accurate revelation of God the New Testament gives us an accurate revelation of God but some want to say Jesus gives us the fullest revelation of God so we can use Jesus to tell us where the Old Testament got it wrong but we'll get more into that a little bit later I'll say that this this to me is unconscionable I can't swallow that kind of theology and when you tease it out and think about it carefully you see that it just it seems like it just breaks down at several points I suppose where I was thinking of like penal substitution is a lot of people are saying that Jesus is saving us from God and that in itself is kind of a misrepresentation it pits the eternal triune God against himself and I think that's that I think that's the congruence that I see in this conversation is that Jesus is himself God and so he's not yeah yeah I would agree with you there I and a lot of the debate on penal substitution comes down to it ends up being rhetorical trickery in a century so yeah well I just don't think Jesus saved us from his angry father and I'll be like yeah well me neither you know I mean that's just not this is not the doctrine that's a caricature of it so you know Jesus saved us from the just consequences of our sin which would be expressed in God's wrath upon us but God the Father the Spirit and the son are united in both wrath towards sin and grace toward sinners both of those elements are in the hole of who God is so there's no separation there between the father and the son that's just kind of a waste of time to even get Road says it is too conversations but one obviously leads to the other and I think it's the same same thing playing out in that we're trying to get God off the hook from appearing evil God the Father and that that's really where it boils down to which if you've read any Greg Boyd crucifixion of the warrior God I mean all of his literature open theism is in a sense a way to get God off the hook and yeah I think no I wanted to be fair and say some open theists would totally argue with with us right here and they'd say that's not the purpose of my open theism sure sure but let's say we're not talking about those guys yeah the other ones because there is a group who will use open theism this idea that God isn't doesn't know the future doesn't know exactly what will happen in the future he just knows what could happen and has a plan for every possible eventualities well the the idea though is yet what we're gonna we're gonna use that to sort of say well God couldn't help it some of these things and I think that there's there's a lot of problems with this for one God isn't subject to our moral refutations i I mean just from the outset the scripture tells us the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and I think we should start in a place that says God if you tell me that you judge sin I don't look at you and say you're evil I look at me and say wow my sin must be really bad and this is such a really basic level of respect towards God and honoring towards the God who created all things who is the grounding of all moral truth I mean there's there's a reason right there where we don't do this we say God is the grounding of all moral truth it's not he's not capable of error morally he's just not capable of it so if God reveals to us that he judges sin or that he punishes wickedness we we are the greatest of fools to look at him and say well something must be wrong with you in reality we're looking at ourselves and saying something must be wrong with us if God really judges sin and it's that bad there must be something really bad with us because it's simple wisdom to think God's right I'm wrong if there's a conflict between my opinion and him I'm wrong this is this is like a good starting point for this reality and God has a right to judge sin has a right to do what he wants with his creation deuteron thirty-two he says I kill and I make alive and he lays this on his identity he goes see now that I even I am he and there's no God besides me I kill and I make alive I wound and I heal and there's none who can deliver out of my hand now if you think that's an evil God I would say no that that's that's the moral judge of the universe is what that is if you want to call representation of sake yeah it's it's a great fundamental flaw in reasoning to think that you can come to God and and label him with moral error yeah that's already from the start we've already got that going on so let's let's do that we'll play the devil's advocate and we'll toss questions at you and in such a way so I want to make sure this is clear if anyone goes back and takes Eclipse out of this video we're not we're not suggesting these are the things but here are the accusations that are tossed against Jesus for example in John chapter 8 there's the woman caught in the act of adultery right she's tossed at Jesus's feet Jesus sees the woman that's caught in the act of adultery he writes something in the sand tells you know you thought sin cast the first stone kind of thing and they all disperse but Deuteronomy says that we're supposed to stone people who are caught in the act of adultery what's what's going on with this why does Jesus let this woman off of the hook for breaking the law when there seems to be a consequence doesn't that create a discontinuity between God in the old and God in the new yeah well let me let me say it does create a discontinuity between what we deserve and what we get right there's the discontinuity right what we deserve and what we get and Jesus is giving us that discontinuity and his the cross justifies it but let me give you a bunch of stuff real quick on that passage we could talk about it all night but we have a lot of things lots of things to talk about so um one thing I'll say is we we shouldn't approach the law with the phrase God told us to stone such and such people because the law was never given to all people for all time this is not the purpose of the law and so a full or better standing of the New Testament gives us an understanding of the law we get this in Romans we get this in Hebrews where we we see the typology of Christ we see the in Galatians it's a tutor that leads us to Christ all that to say I'm not under the law so when I see the commands to stone I learned from them but I don't say this is what I do in all cultures for all time but there's a few other problems with this um with this using this passage that way one of them is that and this is disses gets into hot water quick in John eight verses 1 through 11 this is very likely not original in the Gospel of John now this is one of the few passages you know here the ending of mark mark mark is debated mark has more evidence that its original John Aidid most almost everybody agrees it's not actually original to the Gospel of John and so we we look at that and we say long story short historically it's probably a true story about Jesus probably but to call it authoritative Scripture is is perhaps problematic and so I have a whole video on this and on three videos on like textual problems and how we got our New Testament and has it changed over time all that kind of stuff I deal with it all but that not to say I don't want to build a whole theological construct off this passage for that reason that it's because of how highly debated it is whether or not it should be in there yeah and in a sense I want to say this John passage isn't even hotly debated for the most part yeah I mean we get guys like like Todd white not talk white doesn't sound right um James white yeah and he was a white James white won't even preach this passage yeah yeah confused Todd white and James white in a single program this is going to have a lot of use this episode that would not be good so yeah so okay that's just something to say well okay something else if we take that I'm sorry go ahead well just when you mentioned this is second ago about how gosh now I'm forgetting it you were saying that I've lost my friend sorry come back to that so my for those who don't know Michael has been traveling all day he just felt like an hour with his family and then came into the studio so Mike Mike are you saying oh she stayed home okay well here's a few things about this passage - real briefly I'll just run through them like a list one thing here is Jesus does not rebuke the law in any way shape or form he rebukes the mob trying to abuse the law for mob violence see the law would require them to take her before legitimate judges and elders who would then hear a case way the evidence and then make a decision about stoning her or not so what the mob is doing is they're trying in this passage are trying to kill a woman really they're trying to get Jesus in hot water with Rome because they weren't allowed to execute people under the Roman law so again we have legal precedents in the Old Testament for when you're when you're under the oppression of a foreign government you submit to those laws and so there's even another lauralee to reason reason not to stone this woman well there's some possible other points going on to the overall view i get from this is that though the woman deserved to be stoned through jesus you can be forgiven of that which you are condemned for under the law and that is entirely gospel centered that is you did deserve the judgment but christ sets you free and also that taking the law into your own hands that you're gonna be the without governmental proper governmental authority but you're gonna be the vigilante just going out to just kill these people because god's law says so he is something jesus refutes and he puts a standard and says yeah you just have to be morally perfect if you're gonna be able to do that you know he who's without sin cast the first stone so this is actually not even different than the Old Testament in the Old Testament King David was condemned under the law for committing murder and adultery but we read that he was forgiven simply by God's total grace it wasn't so the law properly condemns it shows us our sin but it leads us to humility and contrition so that we'll have a broken and contrite hearts as David says when he repents over this adultery and murder so it's consistent Old and New Testament and that's what we need to do we need to take and not try to pit Jesus against the Scriptures but realize he said I come to fulfill not to like abolish his words that are not mine it's a regardless of whether you think the text is original or not there's still an explanation for it then how it's complete act within so yeah there's no way to take it the way that someone to use it to leverage Jesus combating the Old Testament no no he's combating a mob crowd who's abusing the Old Testament and he's also revealing God's grace speaking of Jesus saying I'm not here to nullify the law let's go to Matthew chapter 5 where it seems as if he's like hey I'm not here to notify the law but the law says this and I say this he seems to contrast himself with what the law says the law says hey don't don't don't break your oath Jesus is like hey don't even make an oath the law says or what he said you've heard it say that you should you know hate your enemies I'm telling you love your enemies he he gives this contrast of what the law says versus what he says so turn the other cheek go the extra mile these are things that it seems as if Jesus is either adding to or contradicting all entirely the Old Testament your thoughts sir yeah okay well I'm gonna say and now you're playing what you call devil's advocate so what that term I can tell no I I hate that term but I thought about wearing horns and putting red in the background or that would that have made you more comfortable if you did what put horns on and put red in the background yeah that would make me even work now um what what what I will say is to to the way that you cuz okay your question included certain assumptions right questions often include assumptions and I would say those assumptions are actually wrong and I think you probably did that way on purpose to try to showcase that side but the idea is that the claim is that Jesus is here saying the Old Testament says this but I tell you this and he's disagreeing with it not the case what Jesus is actually saying is you've been taught this by your rabbis and I'm correcting it now I'm he's he's adjusting it he's he's fixing their misconceptions he's restoring a better understanding of the law he's not changing it and that is actually what's happening in Matthew so you know it starts with this in Matthew 5:19 where Jesus after he says he hasn't come to abolish but to fulfill he says therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these Commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven but whoever does them and teaches them what we call great in the kingdom of heaven so he starts with an affirmation about the very minut details of the law so it'd be weird if the next thing he says is and the law is totally wrong by the way like after saying don't you dare teach otherwise so let's talk real quickly about some of the things he says in that Sermon on the Mount he says you've heard people tell you you know don't break your oath you know fulfill to the Lord the vows you've made but I say don't swear an oath at all either by heaven for it's God's throne or by earth for its footstool just let your yes be yes is what Jesus tells them right well in the context first century they're taking the idea where they're told not to break their oaths which is a biblical thing and they're using it as a way of saying well technically what I said wasn't an oath so I don't have to obey that one so they're using OHS as an excuse for lying you know the people who are the most untrustworthy are often the people who are promising things the most often because they're like I promise a promise approves because nobody believes them anymore because they're their normal word isn't any good Jesus is getting rid of a a misuse of the law about oaths to allow them to break their word to people well I didn't make an oath all right I made the oath by by the temple but not by the stuff in the temple I maybe oath based on and they would actually categorize things like how important is my oath so he's refuting that in another place here he says you've heard it said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth which the law does say that right but I say if anyone slaps you on the right cheek turn to them the other cheek also and here's the abuse I for an eye tooth for a tooth is a judicial law thing it's it's like about civil law when you go before the judge and the judge is determining what the penalty for the crime is or the restitution in particular you killed my sheep what what is the judge declare well sheep for a sheep you know eye for an eye tooth for a tooth it's about equivalency in penal law that's the idea and with Jesus he's saying don't use this for personal vengeance you have a governmental law but we recognize that's different than personal vengeance you know if my neighbor parks out in front of you know the house in front of the fire hydrant a cop could go and give my neighbor a ticket but I can't go to my neighbor's house and demand money because they parked in front of the fire hydrant this is an abuse of the law I'm not in that position Jesus is saying yes judicially eye for an eye tooth for tooth but individually and how you relate to one another I want you to turn the other cheek and turn the other cheek refers to an insult so he again kind of like with the points we got from the woman caught in adultery he's he's letting people realize the law stands as judge over us we don't stand as judges over one another quite like that that's that's a different kind of thing so in some sense what they're doing here is they're miss applying the law personally they're they're taking it upon themselves to get back at somebody for what's been done to them and I've heard this today my family is all Jewish and I mean literally I've heard those kind of comments come out well an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth yeah yeah I think that's exactly what's gonna and I think that you know when we remember Jesus how he says the problem with the Pharisees is they would add man's commands to the law of God so Jesus here he's not getting rid of the law he's trying to separate the man's garbage that they added to God's law and a great example is the next one where he says um you've heard it said love your neighbor and hate your enemy but I say to you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you well the phrase love your neighbor is in Scripture but the phrase hate your enemy right that's not in the law so he's talking about additions to the law they were abusing the law so he tells them love your enemies and that idea of loving your enemy is actually in Scripture the Proverbs says proverbs says that you should be taking care of your enemy you should help them out at exodus 20:3 Forrest says if you meet your enemies ox or his donkey going astray you shall bring it back to him so you know it doesn't say hate your enemies that that's a an abuse of the law so Jesus is purifying and perfecting their their understanding of the law putting it back in context so the law can take that rightful place is showing us how sinful we are actually which is why Jesus actually makes the law worse in the perspective of showing us how sinful we are in this very Sermon on the Mount when he says oh you've heard it said you know don't commit adultery but I tell you if you look with lust you commit adultery in your heart so all of a sudden it's like oh gosh not only is it true that I shouldn't commit adultery but it's also true that the lust in my heart is adultery of the heart this is where Jesus says hey you know you've heard it you've heard it said something about not not blaspheming your friends or something like I can't remember the exact phrase right now it's in it's in around verse 21 or 20 but then he adds it and made stew it and makes it sort of worse and says if you say to somebody you're a fool you'll be liable to the fire of hell so what Jesus is doing is he's he's removing these little escape hatches they had for how they could disobey God's intentions with the law through little technical tricks and he's showing the heart behind the law of moral perfection that God calls us to so it's like using the the law as kind of an excuse to divorce your wife and upgrade to the newest model every year he's he's saying that no just because the the the the law allots for how this is to hash out judicially it doesn't actually make your heart right before God yes and I'll give you a quick example this and you guys might identify with this um I've watched these uh Praeger you guys know Dennis Prager Prager you videos where they talk about the Ten Commandments and when they got to the commandment on coveting I was really interested to see what they would write because here's where Jesus he like brings it to the next level he's like look you left in your heart that's adultery in your heart but when I heard Dennis Prager give his explanation of coveting he watered it down to the point if you listen carefully I respect the man is not about me attacking him it's just this is how he handled that verse and he watered it down to the point where coveting isn't the passionate desire for something you ought not have but it's coveting your neighbor's wife is actually trying to sleep with her in his interpretation so he's kind of taking away the sort of Hart immorality that God is actually trying to point out and this is stuff that they were doing back then as well we're just watering down God's intention with the law it's meant to reveal sin to drive us to Christ because on the cross we see both God's hatred for sin as well as his love for mankind you know we see both of those things and we don't want to minimize either of them so do you think and this is a bit off topic maybe Matthew chapter 7 where he says of the the scribes and Pharisees acknowledged that Jesus was teaching is one with authority they're like they're not he's not teaching like the scribes and the Pharisees who-who are copying the law who are writing their their commentary around the law this one is like he's revealing the heart and the intention of the law alright would this kind of come in line with that yeah well you know there may be another element to that too about teaching with authority because when you read in like the Talmud when you actually read the Talmud it's a lot of quoting of rabbis rabbi so-and-so said this and rabbi so-and-so said that and rabbi so-and-so said this and some the Talmud won't even take a position it'll just quote various rabbis so that there there was a sense in which there wasn't like the authority of what is true you know in Christ comes and he's not quoting anybody he just tells people how it is so he's teaching his one with authority I've heard it said that the authority piece there is similar to authorship like the word is it's got a similar etymology that he's not teaching us someone who's copying or adding their commentary but he's riding a someone who's written the thing as an author authorship Authority now that's interesting I have to look into that yeah so so the second kind of follow-up question we have in in the Gospels Jesus seems to be doing things that you know we see in the Psalms like not to not to have you know to have company with those who are evil don't sit in the seat of scoffers that kind of thing when you're hanging out with people who are sinful when you are hanging out with people who have leprosy when the when the woman with the issue of blood touches you these things are supposed to make you unpure and unholy if Jesus is God and he is this holy spotless blemishless lamb how is it that he is sitting with sinners how is he allowing the unclean to touch him or touch a leper or have a woman who's hemorrhaging touch him and yeah except actually it's even more extreme when you when you look at it carefully because when this woman with the the hemorrhage of blood touches them technically she's unclean now he's unclean too right technically and not only is Jesus not unclean but now she isn't either she is now clean and so the things that could make people clean in the old testament were were things related to the temple and a sacrificial system and Jesus shows up as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and so Christ comes as the one who says you are really unclean but I make you clean you know and so he sends her away and she's clean and he's you know he heals Peters mother-in-law who's sick and she gets up and starts serving them food right away that's significant in a Jewish mentality right yeah she's unclean for days now still and but she just gets up and starts serving food me and they don't get unclean because of this because Jesus is the one who makes the unclean clean so that's the it's not a repudiation of the Old Testament it's a fulfillment of it and the New Testament affirms this too with Ephesians people missed it in Ephesians chapter 2 it talks about how the law creates the separation between man and God and it highlights it with these ideas of you're separated from lepers or you're separated from you fill it you fill in the blank here right whether it's sin or just other kinds of impurity but with Jesus all that separation breaks down and we now have full unity and fellowship with God because he's fulfilled that law so just like that woman was unclean she touched him now she's clean so we to come to Jesus unclean and we're made clean let me let me read to this passage from Ephesians it like talks about this I'm it says Ephesians 2:11 I'll start there therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what is called circumcision which is made in the flesh by hands remember that you were at that time separated from Christ alienated from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise having no hope and without God in the world right they were unclean but now in Christ Jesus you who were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ for he himself is our peace who has made us both one and is broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility and that phrase the dividing wall of hostility refers to the separation of Jews and Gentiles that was if it was a physical wall in the temple that separated the Jews and Gentiles and he's like it's it's gone that the separation is gone by abolishing the law of Commandments expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two so making peace it might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross thereby killing the hostility and he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near for through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father so this is Christ let's only summarize it this way the separation of people that we read about and keeping yourself separate and all that and we read about that to see that sin does cause separation and that the holy in the unholy are not meant to mix and then Jesus comes now the cure of course is sacrifice in blood and atonement and all that Jesus comes he is the ultimate solution for this it's prefigured when he touches unclean people and they become clean and then when he ultimately goes to the cross it's totally fulfilled so now through the law I'm dead I'm dead to the law but it's a fulfillment not a repudiation of the law that would be an important distinction excellent so this this next one is reloaded unit you want a what yeah so so this next one is definitely a loaded question okay and for those who are just now tuning in we we are playing the counterpart to this conversation we're trying to ask what would the opposition say right in this in this given situation so a mini would look at the events of like September 11th right of this is a holy war event right where these religious fanatics are flying a plane into the World Trade Center to kill women and children and and men and all of the alike because we're in this holy war we see kind of like a holy war text here in Deuteronomy I you know we see kind of hashing out when they destroy Jericho in the book of Joshua we're old men young men women children they're all slaughtered at the sword Rahab is the only one who is left how how is this how are we to look at this how is this to be a how are we to understand this this form of justice if Jesus is saying things like forgive your enemies you know if those take advantage of you you should forgive them turn the other cheek doesn't this seem to be really violent and aggressive and and some would say evil as you can compare these two things and they seem very similar yeah and I want to start again and just say from these starts I don't really want to be in the position where I have to defend the goodness of God to those who think that they can stand a moral judgment over God based upon whatever data they think they have about history I I think that this is an unwise place for me to put myself in as a Christian and I think that I want to encourage others to say the minute you asked you you allow yourself to say I think I can morally condemn God you are in an incredibly foolish place I mean dangerously spiritually foolish place for so many reasons for one like I said earlier God is the grounding of moral truths God is the philosophically he is the grounding of moral truth there's no such thing as this is right this is wrong morally speaking without God I don't see that's as even a possibility and if God therefore does something I already know it's right because God is the one that did it this is a prince no not now I want to come back to the understanding these things in a minute but I just wanna say that's a super important principle to get in into your heart and mind if you're not able to say that I trust God I trust his acts if he judges it must have been good because he's good it's a philosophical standard of transcendence right be philosophically if we believe that anything is just and moral it's something that transcends us and god is that transcendence yes yeah and and whatever standard you're using to judge God would have to come from God in which case you'd just be contradicting yourself to use it against him if you think that somebody but also the gunner's this simple wisdom the feared Lords the beginning of wisdom that's there you know so I'm gonna say this I'm not defending not here I'm not gonna defend God I'm gonna say whatever God does is right whatever he chooses to do is right Inc including killing people and if now I understand not being comfortable with that but I can't see not agreeing with it you know I can be like I agree with that I don't like it I'm not comfortable with it but I submit to the sovereignty and goodness of God but on the on the same token I do want to understand this stuff better as I want understand all the scripture better and so it's healthy and good to go into these texts and ask what's really going on here how do I understand this better let me compare it to 911 real quick on the main problem with 911 the in my mind the biggest issue with 911 or at least one of the biggest issues is it wasn't from God okay this was not God commanding these these behaviors it wasn't God and you can't use the the stuff with you know the conquests of Canaan that kind of thing you can't use that as a justification for future acts and the reason is because these were clear specific one-time commands they're not repeated principles there's no holy war triggers in the Old Testament that tell you if ABC happens go to a holy war like that might be true in Islam but it's not not according to scripture not according to the Bible the general principles are love and care for people your neighbors strangers who dwell among you take care of the people that are downtrodden help those who are hurting sometimes this requires fighting against those who are causing justice but there isn't like this kind of hold award triggers it was like a one-time thing that God did he didn't give us principles to apply it to future situations but there may be some things to consider for instance in the case of the Canaanites for example or the flood I mean that's gonna be the biggest one you when you really think about it is that God says over and over again that these acts are because of judgment and because of sin so God says yes these things are happening but this is my my judgment upon the wickedness of mankind it's not just about random acts of violence or or one group of people's angry at another group of people it's God's acts of judgment against sin also there's times where you you might ask but what about there's people caught up in those judgments that seem to be innocent in which case in my own mind there's a couple things that I would at least try to work through one is the possibility that that sometimes in some scenarios it might be morally justifiable to even kill an innocent person in the cot in a greater context and so like if a plane is hijacked and we know that planes gonna be driven into whatever building with thousands of people in it and we shoot it down we we we do so with grief and with sorrow but we do so justifiably does that make sense even though there's some innocent on that plane so there's there's these are things to wrestle with and I don't have all the right answers for all this kind of stuff I don't pretend to but these are some of the elements that we need to work through and I would recognize to that even if there were innocents caught up in these things God controls their eternal fate and from a Christian worldview these questions are often asked as though when a person dies that's the end of their eternity yet from a Christian worldview there is there is the glorious future that God has for the fate probably of the innocents I think that babies go to heaven I'll put it that way but there's other factors and this might really change how you view it now I'm in a punt to a guy named Paul copán who I know you guys are familiar with and Paul cope has done a ton of work on this topic and at first I was really skeptical of his work because I just heard it like here in there and I'm like I don't know and then the more I listened to him I'm like wait he's really been doing his homework and I think he's made some points I'll share a few of them here for you as I think about basically it goes like this the some of the statements in the Old Testament warfare texts they're using exaggeration and hyperbole and this is where you go wait but wait a minute Mike gets literal I really the Bible's literal well I believe it means what it was intended to mean you know at the time it was written there's certainly certain statements of exaggeration of hyperbole even Jesus does this yeah you know you can't you can't follow mean less you hate your father and mother I mean you know if you want to take that perfectly literally you can but that's the total distortion your hand causes you to sin Paul does in Romans Jacob and Esau hated yeah and these are these are not meant to be taken quite in that same way so let me give you some examples where he says he builds a case and he's pretty pretty smart about how he does it he says I'm gonna look at other ancient near-eastern texts and asks ask the question when they talked about like utterly destroying people did it mean literally they took them all out because that's that's where we really we have moral questions right you took them all out all of them really sort of arbitrarily all of them wiped out in an instant yeah yeah exactly um so there's an Egyptian text from the 15th century BC and it has a TIF Moses the third who's an Egyptian leader hosel and how he huh that's a good old tip sorry tip anyway he's boasting about he destroyed the army of Mitanni and he says quote they perished completely as though they never existed now Westerners want a lot of specificity and clarity right they perished completely as though they never existed so you'd think that they were completely destroyed that none of them were even left but historically this army continued to exist and fight for many years on into the next century after this so now you could think well he was just lying except we see this over and over again and they're aware of what's going on in the bulletin of RAM assists the second a 13th century BC text it talks about what was actually barely a victory it was close to a stalemate between him and Syria and he says quote millions of foreigners his majesty slew the entire force of the wretched foe from haughty as well as all the Chiefs of the countries that had come with him just totally they were all completely destroyed and ruined and we might be thinking well they're just they're just exaggerating because they're lying they're lying on purpose but what we do is we see this over and over again like consistently and so when you see over and over again consistently amongst people who would know you you ask is this like a like an exaggeration thing like this is the way that when they go dude that team got annihilated just to show that all malice that's some kind of a literary figure of speech it's it's they just call them warfare texts and they tend to use exaggeration hyperbole okay but that doesn't okay that's interesting I find that really interesting but how do you how do you bring that to the old testament though how do I bring that idea into the scripture of the Old Testament and what you would look for is you would look for a text that declares that a people group was completely annihilated and then you would you would look to see them show up later on right if they're completely annihilating the show up later on then that means the word completely annihilated it doesn't mean completely annihilated so we have some examples of this actually in the scripture first named you for Samuel 1520 this with King Agag yeah this is this is about the Amalekites yeah a guy and Saul said to Samuel I've obeyed the voice of the Lord I've gone on the mission to which the Lord sent me I've brought a gag the king of Amalek and I've devoted the Amalekites to destruction that's a technical term using the Old Testament for your communities or groups of people or you know or objects that were devoted to destruction I rent Hiram is the is the term and so the only the Kings alive right mm-hmm from the Amalekites only the King remains everyone else is dead that's what you would think and for Samuel 27 eight same author don't call it contradiction it's the same author here it says now David and his men went up and made raids against the Amalekites wait why are they raiding the amount guys in for Samuel 30 David two fights the Amalekites again and if you read on it for Samuel you see that they're fighting not just the Amalekites but the Amalekites from the same region okay well that's really interesting it sounds like this terminology we're taking very literally might have other connotations here's another example Joshua 11 21 and Joshua came at that time and cut off of the cut off the Anakim from the hill country from Hebron remember that they worked the Anakim they were cut off from hebron from deBeer and a knob and from the hill country of Judea or Judah and from all the hill country of Israel Joshua devoted them to destruction with their cities there's that term again there was none of the Anakim left in the land of the people of Israel okay none of them are left in the land of the people of Israel well later we read in Joshua 15 verses 13 and 14 Caleb goes out to drive the Anakim out from Hebron again same location well that's interesting overall the implications that we get from Joshua and judges is these statements of driving them all out and then later they tell us and they didn't drive them all out because we realize these are figures of speech that we're they're really weird ties they don't fit our normal way of speaking but that is how they talk and know that what's really interesting I was gonna ask you about King Agag because when you were explaining that this literary genre exists that was something that bothered me back in Bible School and I kind of filed it away and things I'll learn one day I kind of marked it there so that that's an interesting explanation for some of these texts I don't know that I've heard that honestly I've never got I want to be careful that I don't go too far with it because I honestly don't know that I don't think that's a one-size-fits-all answer I think it's a layer that we bring into our understanding of the text but there's times where I don't know if that if that really applies you know Paul Capone would go so far as to suggest that when it says women and children that they're really probably weren't even maybe children there at least in some cases I don't know if he puts it that plainly but but he kind of implies it and so I'm gonna say I don't know the full answer there I feel like that's something I'm something I'm still working through and learning I would come at it from this from the standpoint of whatever God does I trust him he's the rightful judge and he it's in his right in his rights to do as he pleases with creation and I trust his goodness that what he did was correct even if I might feel uncomfortable with it that's my position but I also see that we may have we may be misinterpreting some of these texts literally yeah and we've got to take into consideration different literary devices we can't just throw those out completely and yeah you asked the question but just as a further clarification I think for this point we see it actually in scripture where God doesn't destroy certain people because their sin hasn't reached its fulfillment yet it hasn't reached its its it smacks apex he hasn't chosen to judge because he's kind of in the state of of waiting because the sin isn't great enough so so he is self-contained in his own judgment he's not just arbitrarily saying be really convenient if that guy and that nation wasn't there he's actually saying hey the sin of it might have been the amorite s' the sin of the am rights hasn't reached fullness so you can't wipe them out yet yeah and there's a difference between individual sin it seems and sort of this sort of cultural sin or like a sin soaked culture and how that culture impacts and affects so many people and so like they flood their their their thoughts were evil continually this is entire people group yeah it's like a limiting of a you know culture moves in directions and it's possible culture can move to a direction where God's like I'm not gonna allow that culture to continue and so that's an element there there's other stuff too like Jericho for instance seems like as though it was a military base we think of it as just a city of people it seems like it was more of a military base Paul coupon says there's no archaeological evidence of a civilian population there he says the same thing about some of the other locations that we read about them being completely destroyed and that they were often military locations and so there's in other words we're we don't want to be - there's a lot of things in that context we're not entirely sure about yeah I just want to understand it all I don't want it yeah I'm not entering this discussion though thinking if I can't find some way out for God then God's in trouble I'm like this is a really foolish perspective to have towards the god of creation this is um I'm not his judge he's my judge I don't know that it's it's all my theology is gonna get messed up it's almost a default thing for you to say okay yes it does seem harsh you know maybe there's some things in the Old Testament that make make him look bad but you want to be careful not to say that he is bad and make that judgment because there may be more going on than you can actually see at this moment we're going to go ahead and assume that we are the center and not God and that our inability to see right Lee is hindering us to seeing God's justice we're gonna go ahead and presuppose God is right and I'm seeing this wrong if I think this is evil I'm probably not seeing this and a common analogy would be like if if a friend of mine is having a problem with another guy and it comes to me and tells me the story I'm gonna go you know I don't know the other side of this story there may be more going on than what I can make sense of right here and so I'm gonna withhold judgment in this situation until I get all the facts what was your next question Michael yeah so this this comes from a guy named Chris who's been commenting and it you know I think it's it's worth bringing it up and and you may or may not have an answer to it but I might throw it your way anyways so this isn't second Samuel God tortures David's baby to death with a sickness and then allows his wives to be taken and given to someone else I'm sorry could you start that over again sure sure in second Samuel God tortures David's baby to death with a sickness and then allows his wives to be given to someone else and raped and then in Leviticus 25 this is two different things I'll just stop there and let you address that one what do you think about that yeah I think it's interesting that the word torture was put in there did I hear that right yeah I think I think he's taking this he's got a bit more personal with this one but but either way I said no but that's what usually happens at these discussions is it yes yes eat it and it's very emotional and we often try to offer a thoughtful intellectual response to what is an emotional question mm-hmm and to the emotional question I want to say you are not the judge of God this is incredible folly that you think you can sit in a place and judge the god of creation your soul is in danger when you are shaking your fist at the Creator yeah that's what I want to say and say this is not you know the the question of why did God do that I want to understand that that's it that's an important and very good question but when the when it when I hear emotional words I start to think there's a whole different thing going on I think I feel like if I answer this it won't matter and that it will be the the anger or the the railing you know there's something else going on here and I think we need to have a humility towards God and if we don't it's the getting a wisdom and you're not gonna have wisdom on these issues and so as Christians we we do wise to not put ourselves in the place where I have to defend God I'm not the defender of God now on on that other note I'll say that I do think that God seems as I read the passage it seems as though he directly did not just allows the child to die but it seems as though God is directly involved in as child dying and I say God has a right to do that he's and he seems to have some justifications that I'm that I can be aware of at least this child is going to be the son of the king of Israel and God knows all the implications of that and how that came from adultery and how that might affect the future line of the Kings and who knows what else the signal it sends to the people of Israel may be affirming the adultery and the murder that David did maybe this is about what's the term I'm looking for about showing showing God's disapproval of David's rebellion of David's sin there could be an element of that there I also know from a Christian worldview that I think this child went to be with the Lord in fact David's what David says about the baby hey Mike how about to be him yeah but he can't bring him to be with me you know and so the implication is of course that this child you know this child could look at God in heaven and be like I know I was born into this crazy situation and I know that you did this floor but I trust your sovereignty and I'm in your eternal glory and joy for forever I I don't think I don't think the kid's gonna have the kind of problem that the skeptic is having with this passage yeah I think that you know if it were to be repeated you know why did the sinless son of David die for the sins of David like when it's phrased that way there's even a rather beautiful imagery that the son of David dies for sin that there is an interesting correlation possible representation of something that has to come later down the road not to say that the son absorbed the sin of David but there was some kind of representation that took place and again and there's there's an element of that where I go I wonder if that could be some kind of typology that's there I I don't know I'm not trying to make an authoritative statement for sure yeah yeah so so what was the second part of that question oh but but I also think that it's fair before we move forward there's a lot of people who have had a ton of miscarriages and look at that passage to to think that they have committed some kind of unforgivable sin oh yeah he's telling their children I would just really really encourage you not to use a passage like that and weaponize it against yourself and your family yeah that not to do that and I hope what a horrible thing to have on your heart or mind yeah you know you know how David knew that this was this was related to his sin because a prophet of God came him and told him that's right that's how he it wasn't like you just assumed if something Bad's happening to you just read your fears into it and that's not healthy for your heart and I would encourage people to not do that you know the person asking the question Chris I think I can totally empathize with where he's coming from you know he's he's coming into the Old Testament going there's all these passages that you know if he's the judge it makes God look really bad and I can I can get that I would you know at the same time say there's probably more going on than what you're seeing but then but at the same time want to recognize okay like I'm I see that you're seeing something here I see that this is hard for you to digest you you want to worship a god that's good and obviously I know I'm on thin ice here when were talking about this but I'm trying to think out of phrase this you know I would if I was worshiping Allah and looking at some of the arbitrary things Allah does I would probably go shopping for a new God and I can imagine that people are approaching the Old Testament seeing certain things like this and going I don't know if I can get behind this what do I say to that let's see the idea that when I see the story of David and the death of this child do I see God as revealing the wickedness of David's rebellion against God and showing the consequences of sin that he will exact you know and why so do I see how bad sin is or do see how bad God is because generally you will see somebody pick one of those paths to go down with these passages with all of them either sin is really really bad or sin ain't bad in which case it must be God God's overreacting God's God's doing something wrong here but God continually does this it's not like the pagan deities of old were they literally for no reason would just kill people like it was not justice it was not a holiness with with Scripture it is God's goodness and holiness and justice it is sin like we have this sin thing to talk about because God gives us that thing to talk about and so but I'm either gonna see the wickedness of what David did or I'm gonna think that something's wrong with God yeah all Israel you know in the sight of all Israel did this yeah so maybe one of the last questions that we can ask it kind of comes to one of where there's kind of popular of justifications for these actions and these events like you said it's as if we've come to the text and we're like oh man how do I find a way of explaining this away you know one of you we say okay maybe maybe the sin Israel even leave God is really evil maybe we can kind of work our way do some some emotional jujitsu around this thing one of the the interpretations one of the ways to approach these difficult texts is that God is allowing himself to be misrepresented and misunderstood because of the violent Near Eastern you know worldview we see that you mentioned it earlier with Boyd's work on crucifixion of the warrior who's the warrior God yeah so so he suggests that these ancient Near Eastern people that they needed a blood sacrifice a native violence they needed to see this this God of justice so when these events took place they attributed to them to to be a divine God thing when actually God wasn't doing this he was just allowing himself to be misrepresented and I might be my misquoting it ya know he was reading of his Boyd would say he was donning the image at the ancient near-eastern gods that he was willing to take on that yeah that persona for the sake of those who he was trying to reach so he was you know many in the same way many missionaries would contextualize the gospel and try to meet people where they're at God was doing that in the Old Testament it's okay I've heard him connected to the cross and he says in the glass Jesus you know became sin he became a curse so he's like looking bad for us and so in the Old Testament when we get your portrayal of gods how I understand Boyd he's allowing himself to look evil because it's reflecting our vision of God because it's reflecting our evil so we're putting on him this wickedness then Jesus comes and says ha here's the real version of God here's who I really am I have I have a thousand problems with this view but let me start by saying is that another episode entirely like but I would love to hear those thousand problems I have a thousand problems with it but here's a few things all affirmed okay the cross does show us God's character Jesus Jesus really is this full revelation of God's character right we see in Christ we see God we see Jesus loving and healing and forgiving and overlooking but what Boyd he uses those elements those aspects but he's not really teaching just that he uses those elements to leverage saying that the Old Testament is literally just totally wrong in many many places when it tells you God said this God did this God once this God likes this God God is this way that the scripture is not an accurate revelation of who God is on any sort of plain reading of the text it's only through what he calls us cruciform hermeneutic or a way of reading the Bible where you say does that Old Testament passage look like Jesus's attitude to me it doesn't look like Jesus is attitude to me so that's not really God and you could just straight-up say that scripture is just wrong on things and I would say this doesn't work for the the Old Testament or the New Testament and that's part of the problem it's this this artificial god of the Old Testament god of the New Testament thing doesn't really work because God is consistent he is both wrathful towards sin and incredibly loving and gracious and merciful in the Old Testament and he is both of those things in the New Testament and Jesus is both of those things and in the New Testament as well so for instance in the Old Testament you know great boy wants to say that it people's violence addicted minds that sort of made it so God had to look that way so when they write you know God tells them go enter the land of Canaan and he just wants them to go into the land but they're there violence addicted Minds they here go in there and kill everybody now you know an eleven-year-old can hear the problem with this thinking right this it's like you're just making stuff up this doesn't make any sense now Greg Boyd has written like a 12 million page book on the topic and he's very well-thought it's like I don't know as how many pages super long to volume set and he's very thoughtful and he's very careful in trying to build his case but it's nice to know that the simplistic simplistic evaluation of the case on the surface is just like wait what you know like what you know and never you never really get past the wait what part in my opinion there's an example of this in of what refutes this in Exodus 32 where God tells Moses leave me alone Moses I'm gonna I'm gonna destroy the people and destroy the people of Israel because of their their making of the golden calf and now if this was coming out Moses wrote the book right so you'd think this had to come from Moses his poisoned mine he's making God say this but God didn't really say it but what we read about is where Moses says oh lord please don't destroy them and he intercedes becoming this beautiful picture of the cross beautiful picture of Christ God's rightful wrath towards and yet the intercession of one you know giving grace and so Moses then here is less violent prone than God according to Boyd at least based on his hermeneutic of the Old Testament so the whole Old Testament just becomes confusing but this doesn't work for the New Testament either there's there's places where over and over again God is given credit for the judgments we see in the Old Testament from a New Testament perspective in acts 7 it's God who empowered them to go into the land and take care of the Canaanites right this is New Testament so there's no changing after Jesus this is long after Jesus right in Hebrews 11 we read about this kind of stuff there was it was God who enabled them to do these things that that boy would say it wasn't God at all God just allowed himself to look that way then there's passages in the New Testament like this one second Thessalonians 1 let me read you this passage and then I'll read to you what Greg Boyd says about it because you can see it I don't think I have to work that hard to show the problems with this view 2nd Thessalonians 1:5 it says this is evidence of the righteous judgment of God that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God for which you also are suffering since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you and to grant you grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ they will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might when he comes on that day to be glorified in his Saints and to be marveled at among all who have believed because our testimony to you was believed so that seems to be a clear statement Paul understand that it's Jesus who's coming to judge right and it's not like a pleasant thing its affliction to those who are afflicting you so it's judgment especially on those who persecute believers Greg Boyd says this about Paul he says Paul seems to be satisfying the Thessalonians and his own and/or his own fallen thirst for vengeance to come upon their enemies and nothing about his socio religious context seems to alter this impression so he can actually take a passage that you would on the surface just thinks talking about Jesus coming to judge and he's like man the cross tells me Jesus wouldn't do that sort of thing and I'm like this is weird this is really weird it's super complicated ly weird but it's really weird we see this a lot and in the circles that I that were in a lot of ways where people will talk about miracles and healings and those kinds of things and we'll see sickness and disease and the assumption is well God would never use those things we see jesus heals the sick God would never send a play God would never make someone mute God would never make someone blind God would never and we would say because we see Jesus here doing this he would never do these things anywhere else except that we see that in the Old Testament and in the new that in the New Testament right Paul is awesome and I've fallen asleep yeah you know getting drunk off the Lord's Supper and so it's rather interesting to just use Jesus as a scapegoat in a sense to just ignore the parts of the Bible that we don't like in appealing to Jesus as if you know he displays that he would never judge he would never you know make our lives uncomfortable or difficult he's here to serve us and make all things better yeah or the idea you know because the thing is Gregg's gonna have great Boyd's gonna have interpretations for all the passengers I'm bringing up right and he's gonna have I'm just saying they don't work that's all I'm saying is I know they exist but let me give another example revelation 6:10 it's now this is New Testament reflection right in fact this is you know the latter part of the New Testament your book of Revelation yeah we should at this point have from the disciple of love John this guy should know that God hates judgment for the sake of you know retributive kind of judgment but instead that's exactly what it looks like revelation 610 it says they cried out with a loud voice o Sovereign Lord holy and true how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth these are saints in heaven crying out for God to avenge and then later revelation 16 verses five and six it's like God answers them it says and I heard the angel in charge of the waters say just are you a holy one who is and who was for you brought these judgments for they have shed the blood of the Saints and prophets and you've given them blood to drink it is what they deserve now he would have to say this is this is John's you know wrong John hears he's receiving a revelation and vision he's just quoting what it ain't but it must be his polluted mind that's forcing it's like God's not omnipotent enough to say hey John write down that I like don't ever judge people like that way you know I'm I would never have attributed violence you know that's violence is all evil please write that down John and John's like no you'll make them drink blood Lord like yes welcome John but you know here's the problem to another one of this problem number 17 with this view and the issue is that he's trying to use Jesus as like a as like a skeleton key that you can plug into any passage and you can turn it and it will get rid of all the violence or wrathful kind of content that might happen in that passage well Jesus doesn't work that way because Jesus himself seems to affirm some of the things that he's opposed to here and so you'll actually find guys like Boyd I don't know if he does this or not but guys in his camp where they actually have to say yeah that you know that portrayal of Jesus must be wrong so it doesn't even even granting them that you can use Jesus to overturn the old testament which I don't grant it still doesn't work because Jesus overturns that view that he's gonna overturn the Old Testament that's right and in Luke 18 he talks about the the woman who appeals to the unjust judge and then he applies it and says won't God get vengeance for you if you keep appealing to him wait a minute Jesus this is like seems the opposite of what they're saying let me give another passage Luke 13 verses one through five I'll read it to you there were some present at that very time who told him Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices he had killed these Galileans and he answered them do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans because they suffered this way no I tell you but unless you repent you will all likewise perish now this blows my mind because you you would expect in our modern our modern Western culture you'd expect Jesus to say they didn't deserve it they did not deserve what happen to them Jesus seems to say the opposite and he's like you think they were worse you think that's why they got because they were worse than you I tell you what you're gonna get it too if you don't repent wait Jesus hold on you're not acting like Jesus Jesus and then in verse 3 he or verse 4 he goes on and here's another example he says or those eighteen on whom the the tower in Siloam fell and killed them so kind of like a random tragedy it's Howard fell and killed people he says do you think they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem no I tell you but unless you repent you will all likewise perish sin is worse than we think that's what we're getting from the Old Testament that's a reading from the judgments God brings on sin and we're getting it from the words of Jesus sin is a lot worse than we think Jesus talks about the when he talked about the coming of the Son of Man he talks about it like he's bringing wrath and judgment you know to some people and salvation and grace to others depending on the life they chose and so the sheep and the goats and about how they'll get everlasting punishment then in Revelation 21 here we have one of the latest things we have recorded of Jesus saying revelation 22 verse 21 he says this about this woman Jezebel who's seducing the churches and he says I gave her time to repent but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality behold I will throw her on to a sickbed and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into Great Tribulation unless they repent of her works and I will strike her children dead and all churches will know that I am he who searches searches mind and heart and I will give to each of you according to your works now the phrase children there's probably talking about her followers is not physical children it's those were following her false teachings so my point is that when you're using your idea of Jesus to say the Old Testament is wrong but your idea of Jesus is refuted by Jesus you should stop I think boy division of Jesus I think boys vision of Jesus is partially true the incredible grace and love and goodness of Christ that God forgiving and embracing the wicked and making a way for us to come to Christ that part is absolutely true but to set that against the reality of judgment and the wickedness of sin is is to distort what the message of the Cross is because the cross reveals both right it reveals God's wrath on sin it also reveals God's incredible grace towards humans that's good hey my own ears let me say one more thing the other thing I'll say about this and I'm enjoying it so alright here's my last comment on this unless you have more questions but when I look at this I'm like asking myself if the hermeneutic is so bad that there's just constantly verses after verse after verse that seems to refute it then what fuels the hermeneutic what fuels people to go after it and that's where I get worried because here's I think the most and I don't know if I'm not saying great boy that ends this at all I'm not saying he intends it okay and I don't think he does but I think pragmatically when he tries to bring his case to people the most effective tool in his arsenal is demonizing the Old Testament or demonizing various passages of scripture because how do you get people to agree with you that what the Bible says God said such-and-such God didn't say that youyou get them to think that it's unconscionable that God said that so that's where Greg Boyd sounds very much like the skeptic shaking their fist at God who's saying boy this this this portrayal of God is so horrific it couldn't be God look how terrible it is and so he'll ah you know I offer these sort of you know explanations to try to help us understand it help us understand that the harshness of it or maybe it's not even as harsh as you might think or he'll do the exact opposite he'll he'll invert that picture and offer it as harsh and as uncharitable as possible and here I think it's doing a lot of harm because either you'll get on board with his view or you'll or potentially you won't get on board with his view but you'll believe his caricature of the Old Testament and you'll think that it's wicked and that to me does great harm yeah there there's an individual injured history by the name of Marcion that I find this seems eerily similar to that he wanted to kind of unhitch the Old Testament and the the vengeful God of the Old Testament in light of Jesus because Jesus is the exact representation of the father's nature you know upholds all things by the word of his power so so we clearly misrepresented a lot of that stuff in the Old Testament this is the real stuff in the new forget all that Old Testament stuff and he was marked as a heretic by the early church and I know that there are some who'd say this is not that but I would encourage those to go back and read some of that those conversations because there are some striking similarities between the two and I think that that we when we study some stuff that's old we find out that a lot of this new stuff just gets repackaged with a little bit of nuance and it's basically the same stuff so we've got to wrap up this video Mike thanks so much for coming on tell people where they can find you again for those who aren't familiar with you ministry well I mean you could just be just google me mike winger wi nger you can find me on youtube that's where I do like live streams usually every Tuesday at 5 p.m. Pacific Standard Time and I put up usually at least two videos a week doing theology apologetics I'm teaching through the Gospel mark and I'm doing a series on penal substitution area told me right now those are the two things I'm work and and you can also get it on podcast wherever you get your podcast from and there's a Bible thinker app now that for your smartphone you can download and you can check that out it's it's all free and no in-app purchases or anything like that you said so yeah that'd be the way to find me cool well Mike we really love you your ministry we love everything that you're doing out there we highly recommend to you frequently on the show off the show we think that you guys you guys you you're your own crew you know we've got help over here but we think that you're doing a great job over there even when you're doing your critiques we think that they're fair that they're balanced they're honest so I highly recommend that for anybody who's on our channel and is not already following you which is gotta be a pretty slick group we enjoy your ministry man any closing thoughts Michael no I just super appreciated you addressing some of the Boyd stuff I read the two-volume work and was I mean it bothered me I was I was having a hard time making sense of everything going well gosh if he's true then how much of the Old Testament might actually like can take its value it's just super hard name I really appreciated it cool well and just you guys know Paul copán he's done way more stuff than me on if anybody wants to do more homework on it go look up Paul coupons book he has his book he's got a moral monster he has a couple different books that would help people on this time I'm actually gonna get it I'm gonna put that on my Amazon list right now okay everybody thank you so much for watching this episode of remnant radio you can find us every Monday night 8:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on the youtubes at the remnant radio we've got a lot of really exciting guests coming up in the near future we've got Andrew Wilson who is frequently in the gospel coalition he was with us at hand at me like that I don't know I just feel like I got to talk to somebody I got dr. Michael Brown coming on we got dr. Michael Heizer coming on twice in December we've got Robert salir de we've got dr. doug weaver we've got tons of really really good guys coming on the show so you guys stay tuned and I'll see you then blessings

Channel: Mike Winger

Views: 34,684

Rating: 4.882535 out of 5

Keywords: Violence in the Old Testament, Cruciform hermeneutic, cruciform hermeneutic refuted, understanding violence in the Bible, why is there violence in the Bible, War texts in the Bible, Canaanite slaughter, mike winger old testament violence, Greg Boyd, how you should and shouldn't interpret violence in the Old Testament, amalekites, killing in the old testament, Mike Winger, the remnant radio, remnant radio mike winger

Id: iNlMBrP2Jm8

Length: 70min 50sec (4250 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 14 2019