Which God should I believe in?

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PaulVF

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I have been a Catholic all of my life but there is one part of Holy Scripture that causes me some dismay.
The Old Testament God seems to give to the Israelites (after their departure from Egypt) the order to go forth into the ‘Promised Land’ and put to the sword in city after city all men, women children and beasts that do not worship Him. Yet in the New Testament the same God/Jesus says just the opposite: love your enemy, turn the other cheek.

Did God have a sudden change of heart? Or did/have/was parts of the Old Testament written by the Israelites of that day to justify (using God) their actions?

These same two faces of our Lord and God seem incompatible.
 
They’re the same God. God is unchanging and immovable. What actually changed was us.
 
In the OT, the people that were inhabitants of the Promised Land were, for the most part, bad people, in terms of the Mosaic Law. They worshipped idols, they sacrificed humans to their gods, they practicted fertility rites, etc. God told them to destroy them because they would lead the Israelites into their ways. (Which, if you read the OT, happened.) I think, had they, as a culture, been willing to become holy, God would have spared them. He certainly gave Moses enough instructions regarding how to treat “the foreigner among you.” And there were individual “gentile” foreigners who were assimilated into Israel. But these individuals followed the Mosaic law. The Hittites, Moadites, etc-ites, wanted Israel to abandon their God. Ancient cultures each wanted to “prove” their god was the baddest god on the playground. There is only one God. Therefore, in the Mosaic Law, God said that those who worshipped idols, sacrificed humans, committed adultry, etc. should be put to death. Even if it was an entire culture.
Kris
 
PaulVF said:
I have been a Catholic all of my life but there is one part of Holy Scripture that causes me some dismay.
The Old Testament God seems to give to the Israelites (after their departure from Egypt) the order to go forth into the ‘Promised Land’ and put to the sword in city after city all men, women children and beasts that do not worship Him. Yet in the New Testament the same God/Jesus says just the opposite: love your enemy, turn the other cheek.

Did God have a sudden change of heart? Or did/have/was parts of the Old Testament written by the Israelites of that day to justify (using God) their actions?

These same two faces of our Lord and God seem incompatible.
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There is only one God. God never changes, only our understanding and perception of Him. God send His Only Son to reveal more about Himself. That is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
 
The article available at this link addresses your question very well: cuf.org/laywitness/Online_view.asp?lwID=1786

An excerpt:
(S)omeone might say, “the God of Jesus and the God of the Old Testament are the same. But that still leaves us with a problem: How can the ‘loving God’ revealed in Jesus be the same as the ‘angry God’ of the Old Testament?”

On this question we would do well to take some guidance from St. Augustine. Augustine wrote several defenses of the Old Testament and pointed out that people generally exaggerate how differently God is portrayed in the Old and the New Testament. The common caricature is the God in the Old Testament is a God of justice, wrath, and war. Jesus, on the other hand, is a pacifist who preaches mercy and reveals a God of abounding unconditional love. But is that accurate?

Full article here: cuf.org/laywitness/Online_view.asp?lwID=1786
 
nbccongress.org/features/prayer-for-healing.asp - siting this article again, for the simlpicity with which it mentions of the important role of repentance, inorder to do away with enemy claims …and to be able to apprecate how it is an important grace of God , which can be lost , by persisting in sin and hardening of heart !

Trusting in the goodness of God is important to have good repentance and the Incarnation - Passion gives as the truth of the goodness of The Father !

Reading an article on how even plants that ’ witness ’ someone plucking off leaves of even another plant , can react to that person, gives an idea of the role of interconnectedness in all our lives …for good or bad !

Could it be that in the Old Testament times , with all the evil practices and the attendant calling in of the enemy , they would have overwhelmed the ‘chosen people’ to such an extent , that the purity needed for the Lord to become incarnate would have been delayed even more and thus they had to be removed for the good of all around !

Some of the effects on the cultures might well have been the direct result of the workings of the enemy - easy to see how the enemy could go to The Lord , demanding even more than his due , just as he did with Job and the euphemism of the ‘wrath of the Lord’ as really such enemy claims take effect !

We also see the powerful mitigtaing effects of repentance , by even one person , on behalf of whole populations , even in the Old Testament !

As to the high #s of victime claimed in the wars , wonder , with the extent of evil prevailing , that it could even be possible that , just as there is mention of armies of angels protecting God’s people , if those high #s could have included agents of the enemy who too could have appeared as persons !

Glory be to The Father , Son and Holy Spirit , as well as gratitude , to the holy angels and saints too , who help to preserve and protect and free us , from the claims and ways of the enemy !
 
Thought of sharing these too, on the role of animal sacrifces from the time of Abel on ; it could be likely that Abel offering the lamb as sacrifice was an act of repentance as well , on behalf of his parents , which possibly helped to free him from the envy/ greed induced by the enemy , into which Cain had fallen ,from the disobediant act of his parents , to make him think that everything belongs to him - a lie that the evil one would later utter even to The Lord Himself !

Thus, animal sacrifices possily helped to do away , to an extent , such greed as well as the effects from it , may be until the enemy corrupted attitudes of pagan minds contaminated the Israelites too often , that such was done , to please the blood thirtsy gods ,to win favors from them , and not in repentance of one’s wrong doings against a Holy God by actions against one’ s fellow beings too !

The same pattern happens with the bronze serpent , that too was lifted up, to help Israleites repent of their lack of trust in their God given leader Moses !

Sts Peter and Mary Magdalene (and later , St.Paul ) stands as the prime icons of the role of repentance , in the New Testament - both having come to know of the goodness and mercy of God , in The Lord !
 
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