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Q.
How do we reconcile the Old Testament command for vengeance?
Christians should rarely fall back on the argument that the “New Testa-
ment supersedes the Old Testament.” In Matthew 5, Jesus warns that he has
not “come to abolish the law or the prophets” but to fulfi ll them. He teaches an
ethic that “embraces and extends” the law in several instances and refutes it in
a few.
Amy Greenbaum, a friend who is in the process of becoming an ordained
Reformed rabbi, says the “eye for an eye” text in Leviticus 24 would not have
been taken literally, even in ancient times.
Kathy Escobar
Who is...
?
Kathy Escobar
To me, people slurping or swallowing loudly is
like nails on a chalkboard. Worst pet peeve.A.
I started seeking God on my own when I was a little girl, apart
from my family who were not Christians. I can’t explain it, really;
I was always drawn to Jesus but couldn’t quite make sense of the
Old Testament and a lot of the crazy things that were in there—whole com-
munities being wiped out, God’s vengeance being poured out left and right. I
tried to skip over those parts and somehow erase them from my mind and just
focus on Jesus because that was a lot more comforting.
Later, as I began to mature in my faith, I realized I needed to wrestle with
this disparity. I admit that I still do. I rest on the new order that Jesus cre-
ated through the incarnation, turning the old ways upside down. I think the
contrast is important; the radical difference between vengeance in the Old and
New Testaments makes God’s point. Jesus changes everything, teaching what
the Kingdom now means.
The Sermon on the Mount clearly sets the stage for this new way that
completely demolishes the idea of “an eye for an eye.” I don’t think I have to
pick apart all the reasons why the Old Testament contains certain stories or
examples that are utterly confusing and seemingly contrary to God’s heart for
people. I try to rest on the reality that through the gospels, all that changed.
The commands shifted, the law got summed up, and the kingdom principles
that Jesus taught were going to be much harder to apply than the old laws by
a long shot.