The God on the Mountain and the God at the Table
Why the same God can feel both distant and deeply near
Welcome to the weekend!
Today, I reflect on how we can subconsciously treat the God of the Old and New Testaments differently.
Whatever you are doing this weekend, I hope you manage to find some space to reflect and ponder on our God who never changes.
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As a child, I was afraid of God.
Who could blame me? Stories of judgement and damnation were common. Even when Sunday school teachers attempted to soften the more difficult parts of the Bible, the underlying message still found its way through.
There were floods that wiped out the world, plagues that devastated nations, and warnings about punishment for those who got things wrong.
As a young boy, I came to think of God as someone who was watching me closely, waiting for me to slip up. I knew He was supposed to love me, but I was never quite sure what might happen if I disappointed Him.
Looking back, I realise that much of that fear came from the way I understood the stories rather than from the stories themselves. Yet it shaped my faith for years. When I opened the Old Testament, I often encountered a God who felt distant, powerful, and, at times, frightening.
Then I met Jesus in the pages of the New Testament.
Suddenly, the same God seemed different.
It is a question that has followed me for much of my life, and one that many people still ask today. Why does God appear so different in the Old Testament compared to the New? In one, He seems severe and overwhelming. In the other, He appears compassionate, approachable, and deeply personal.
For a long time, I assumed there must be a simple answer.
As a teenager, I imagined that the harshness belonged to the Old Testament and the love belonged to the New. Once Jesus arrived, I thought, the problem was solved.
What surprised me was that the more I studied the Bible, the less satisfying that explanation became.
Years of theological training, ministry, and preaching did not remove the tension. If anything, they helped clarify and deepen my understanding of the God of both testaments.
Some Old Testament passages remained deeply challenging. Yet I also discovered that Jesus could be far more demanding than I had first realised.
Loving your enemies is not easy.
Forgiving those who hurt you is not easy.
Surrendering the right to retaliate is not easy.
The more I read, the more I realised that the contrast between the two testaments is often overstated. The God who speaks from Sinai is also patient, merciful, and faithful. The Jesus who welcomes children and eats with sinners also speaks about judgement, repentance, and costly discipleship.
The categories I had created as a child slowly began to collapse.
