I recently had a conversation with a friend at work who mentioned that a skeptic friend of his pointed out that the God of the Old Testament seems to be a different God from the New Testament using the classic example: O.T.=eye for an eye; N.T.=turn the other cheek.
Here is a classic Mike Erre sermon from the sermon on the mount in which he explains this supposed contradiction.
Take home: eye for an eye laws were VERY progressive at the time and were created by God to promote societal justice whereas turn the other cheek teaching of Jesus was what we as individuals should continue to strive to do.
Here is another great summary of eye for an eye laws vs. turning the other cheek
As always, please share with us your thoughts!
At some point in my Christian life I used to believe in the innerancy of scripture thinking that no one could change what God had dictated to his servants the scribes of the OT which turned out to be the Levites.
However I came to understand in time with some research that it is possible for men to change the word of God and mislead people in the process. This can be done in two ways. 1- Actually change the words in the Bible by various translations, 2- INTERPRETING the scriptures in a way as to deceive people into thinking that what they are reading means something other than what it says, for example, sermons and Sunday School lessons etc. In Matt. 23, Jesus reprimands heavily the scribes and Pharisees. Obviously they had distorted God’s message by their emphasis on the LAW, which is still preached by them today. Their is of course a lot of violence in the OT, but who is promoting it? 1- God himself is promoting it, and we cannot comprehend why He does or reconcile his actions against the God of the NT…Jesus. 2- Someone else is promoting it in God’s name such as the Levites called Scribes and Pharisees in Jesus’ time, using God’s name to vindicate their violence. Now read Matt. 23:29-35 specially verse 35 and compare that verse with Rev. 18:24. The rest is up to you.