Evening the playing field

This post is a collection (loosely defined) of thoughts that emerged from our Sunday morning class discussion and flared up again during the reading of Ellen's latest post. There has been a lot of talk in my social circles lately about the unchanging nature of God in light of the seemingly contradictory nature of the Old and New Testaments. Because you can read some interesting thoughts on that specific topic at the link above, I'm choosing to ramble on about the implications of this discussion. I like to spend time thinking about what it is I truly believe and how those beliefs ought to affect my everyday life. I'm often pretty terrible at blending all the compartments of my life together, so it's good for me to think about how my life would look if God seamlessly flowed through all the cubicle walls. I'm getting to the point sometime soon, I promise.

So, if I am to truly believe that God is the same "yesterday, today, and forever," what does that mean for my life? Well, I think that there are several important implications, but the one that I keep thinking about is an increase in humility and tolerance. If the God of the Old Testament is still the same God who I serve today, then His Law is and was perfect. It was not the spiritual Articles of Confederation, but rather it was the keyhole view of God's heart that he was working on revealing a little at a time.

If I believe that His Law is perfect, I will have more respect, not only for those words, but also for the people they were written for. As a body of believers, we generally see modern-day Jews as those poor people who missed the boat. Their religion was abolished with the death and resurrection of the savior we worship, and -- all too often we think that-- they were just too narrow-minded to realize it.

The Jewish people are the generations of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They are the people who God set his heart on and spend hundreds of years yearning for, receiving unto himself, losing to idols, punishing, and reconciling with. Our perfect, gracious, and merciful God first bestowed His grace and mercy on the people of Israel.

I am by no means saying that we, as Christians, should embrace Judaism. I wholeheartedly believe in the resurrected Son of God and choose to be loyal to him always. (Besides, the Jerusalem Council decided I didn't have to in Acts 15.) I am only asserting that we realize the special place our own loving God gave to Israel and learn to be more tolerant and loving toward them as the beloved people of God.

What do you think? How is your life different when you live as though you serve an unchanging God?