The Bible... well actually the Old Testament...

A vaguely heated discussion happened on Friday about the Old Testament. On one side someone was saying it was a 'bronze age document' and therefore untrustworthy and on the other side someone saying it was the 'word of God' and therefore entirely trustworthy. I started to respond to these positions but realised it deserved more than a brief statement. This blog post is an attempt to express more fully my position.

There are two things of note: Firstly, I'm dealing with the OT (Old Testament) here not the New Testament. Secondly, when I use the word 'myth' I mean 'a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events' not 'a widely held but false belief or idea'. When I use the word myth I am not making any statement about the veracity of the myth. When I make a statement about truth or otherwise I will try to make that clear.

I believe in peer review so if I have missed or misunderstood something please comment below or send me a message through Facebook. This means that potentially this blog post will be updated in the future.

Among my friends I observe wide-ranging views on the Bible from at one end that God does not exist and therefore the entire Bible is completely false to other friends for whom it is the verbatim word of God where the creation myth has to be understood as seven twenty-four hour periods. But the opinions are not binary. This is a continuum with many varied understandings all along the path. Some of those understandings are dismissed by some people and embraced by others. Many of the statements made are derisive of other people's statements. Particularly in the Anglo world where binary political views are the order of the day, positions on the OT and the Bible have become binary even if within narrow bands on the continuum.

Some thoughts

How the OT was copied

From what we know of the process and particularly from about 600 BC there was a defined process: The copied manuscript had to be reviewed within thirty days, and if three or more pages required corrections then the entire manuscript had to be scrapped and recopied. It seems like an OCD dream because in order to check if it was an accurate copy the letters, words, and paragraphs had to be counted, and the middle paragraph, word and letter must correspond to those of the original document. Τhe document also needed recopying if any two copied letters touched each other.

Rabbi Ariel Louis the Sofer (Jewish scribe)
of Masada completing a copy of the torah
for the The Israeli Security Service,
Masada, Israel, January 2012

The process of copying the text was painstaking and extreme. I'm glad I wasn't a scribe doing that all day, every day. It would have driven me mad. But it does suggest to me for at least six centuries before the start of the New Testament the copying of the text was accurate. It is argued by some people that this painstaking process was inspired by God to guarantee the accuracy of the preservation of the text.

How far back before 600 BC this painstaking process was undertaken in unclear but by the middle of the Iron Age it was the defined process. My personal perception is that the defined process started in 600 BC was a codifying of an existing process and thus the text remained intact for many centuries before that. It still continues to this day.

Creation Myth

The OT starts with the creation myth. Around the world there are many creation myths and if Genesis was first written down around the start of the Iron Age (ie between 1500 BC and 1200 BC) then it is probably not the first creation myth written. A potentially earlier dated creation myth from the same part of the world is the Enūma Eliš from Babylonia. There are significant similarities but also wide differences between the two myths.

Winged bearded genii with various
attributes, Nimrud, North-West
Palace of King Assurnasirpal II, 
c.870 BC, Mossulalabaster
photo by Rufus46

In the Babylonian myth there is a single God (Apsû) from whom all things came into being through Tia-mat. Obviously very similar to the one true God creating all things through Jesus. Everything was chaos/disorganised matter and through the gods the everything was made to the ordered universe we know today. Similar to the story of the seven day creation. In Enūma Eliš there is a war among the gods and Apsû is killed. Quingu the god who started the war is executed. The battle between good and evil has parallels but God being killed and the devil being executed is very different. 

The close similarities between Genesis and Enūma Eliš suggest that the writers of Genesis were familiar with the myth in Enūma Eliš. But the differences are significant: In the Baylonian myth humans are created to serve the gods. In Genesis humans are created in the image of God and God walking and talking with humans. The OT version shows people as the climax of creation, with a very special relationship to the one true God.

When one looks at creation myths the important thing to evaluate is the relationship between God and mankind. It is a special relationship initiated by God. Why is this the starting point? Because Jesus as God's Son taught and demonstrated that. We start from Jesus.

Source-books to the Pentateuch

However, there is debate among scholars as to the date of authorship of Genesis, some claiming that it was redacted to the form we now know in only the fourth century BC. Some scholars believe the entire Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) are redacted from multiple sources known as J, E (and RJE), P and D with potentially some extra material from the redactor. The redaction to the Pentateuch is believed to have happened during the period I have listed as the codified copying era.

Conservative Evangelicals and some others disagree with this preferring to believe in what they see as traditional authorship by Moses. For example they highlight Luke 24:44 suggesting this means that Jesus accepted that Moses wrote the entire Pentatech: 'When I was with you before, I told you that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms must be fulfilled.' and John 5:25-47 'Yet it isn’t I who will accuse you before the Father. Moses will accuse you! Yes, Moses, in whom you put your hopes. If you really believed Moses, you would believe me, because he wrote about me. But since you don’t believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?' Neither of those two references imply to me that Jesus believed Moses wrote the entire Pentateuch.

Personally, I find the book by Richard Friedman with the first five books of the OT highlighted by their source to be convincing. Accepting that thesis helps to see the OT in context and explains many of the jumps in the text. Obviously this only applies to the first five books leaving another thirty-four books from different authors. At a distance of three millenia it is difficult to be certain. However, the multiple source theory makes an understanding of the OT more coherent. It doesn't take away from the core proposition that the people of Israel were worshippers of the one true God and though frequently failing were trying to follow his leading.

Psalms

Many Christians and Jews love the Psalms. Anglo Christians reading or using them in English rather than the original Hebrew. This means that they are reading translated poetry. 

Poetry is notoriously difficult to translate and any people who have compared, for example, the famous Iranian poet Rumi in Farsi, Arabic and English with attest. At best you are getting thought-for-thought translation in poetic form, but the reality is the original poetry is lost unless you read it in Hebrew with enough Hebrew to understand and enjoy. 

Many of the psalms set to music in English are very liberal translations though reputedly still holding to the original Hebrew ideas. Some communicate potentially different ideas to those of the original authors because we don't live in the same culture or era of the writers. They do however often communicate coherent thoughts about God if one accepts the precept that it relates to the understanding of the people of Israel at that time.

The psalms express all sorts of human emotions -- pain, grief, joy and as some people express it 'the desire for victory over our enemies'. That victory over our enemies is one that we as 21st century followers of the Messiah living in peace rarely struggle with. Thus we discount parts of the OT as not applying today.

Some American Christians might see the political struggle in similar terms to the physical attacks against the people of Israel 3,000 years ago. For most of us 'My enemies surround me like a herd of bulls' doesn't ring true. Of course in places with ongoing conflicts like Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza, Myanmar, Syria, Yemen, Niger, Libya, Mali, Burkina Faso... to name but a few, it might ring true.

Some reformed theologians see the OT battles of the people of Israel as part of a three-part struggle against 'the world, the flesh and the devil' and hence though the Psalms refer to physical struggle we read them today in terms of spiritual struggle.

It is interesting that Jesus quoted Psalm 22, a psalm about war and conflict, when he was on the cross. 'My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?' That psalm also includes 'My enemies... have pierced my hands and feet.' (v16) and 'They divide my garments among themselves and throw dice for my clothing.' (v18) Both of those happened to Jesus at his crucifixion! However, while it was a psalm about war and conflict Jesus was submitting to the oppressors and in doing so negating their effect. Hence reading Psalms about war we need to read them through Jesus eyes more than those of the original authors.

When thinking about books of this era one must remember that the people of Israel were not the only monotheistic people/tribe even if most were polytheistic. One notable leader was Akhenaten from Egypt. Akhenaten was pharaoh from about 1353 BC to 1336 BC and a monotheist. However, the culture away from 'traditional religion' to monotheism was reversed after his death. 

Some of his songs read similar to psalms and indeed one of them even talks of one single God as both father and son. His theology was certainly not what we would see as 'Christian' but it gives a context into which we read the Psalms.

Israel as a template for all other nations

It has been suggested that one way to read the OT is to see the people of Israel as a template or model for all nations on the earth. I have two problems with that. The first is in God's covenant with Abraham recorded in Genesis 12: 1-3

The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.” 

(Highlighting mine)

I have understood this to mean that in the diaspora of the people of Israel throughout the world they were to be a blessing to all the nations of the earth. Jesus talks about being salt and light 'You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavour? Can you make it salty again?' Salt is a preservative and taste enhancer. It is minority ingredient. If you drink salt water it will make you vomit. The people of Israel failed to be that blessing (salt that had lost it's flavour) hence why Jesus talked about it to his followers as grafted into the original 'chosen people'. The phrase 'grafted into' is important: It is neither continuation nor replacement but grafting. That grafting also gives us insight into reading the OT. Demonstrably as we read the OT we see that the people of Israel had lost their saltiness and so Jesus needed to demonstrate further revelation of what it means to be a follower of the one true God.

The second problem I have with Israel being a template for all the nations of the earth is that if all nations are following the one true God and doing so as badly as the people of Israel you will potentially have multiple nations mishearing God and all believing they are God ordained to go slaughter the surrounding nations! Or will God tell some to slaughter and others to be slaughtered? I am not convinced that God ever intended the modern nation-state that we see today with borders and disputes over borders. In the Law God commanded 'Do not take advantage of foreigners who live among you in your land. Treat them like native-born Israelites, and love them as you love yourself.' This suggests to me not quite a border-free existence but one where the borders are permeable and easily transgressed. 

Hence I do not see the OT as a series of books demonstrating 'this is how you should set up each of your nations throughout the world'!

Other monotheistic groups - Melchizedek and Zarathustra

There is frequently an assumption that the people of Israel were the only true worshippers of the only one true God. Even the OT points to it being somewhat more complex than that. Take for example Melchizedek. Melchizedek is not part of the Abrahamic tribal family yet he is described as the 'priest of the Most High God'. There was clearly a relationship between Abraham and Melchizedek. Had Melchizedek not served the same one true God that Abraham served it seems difficult to believe that they would have shared bread and wine together and Abraham then accept his blessing. 

In the New Testament in the book of Hebrews the author points out that Melchizedek was not a Levite, yet still a priest and received a tithe from Abraham. He points out that potentially Levi, not yet born and still a potential person actually paid the tithe to Melchizedek through Abraham. Inheriting the blessing through a gift of one's ancestor doesn't sit well with 21st century humans and then the author of Hebrews goes on to express that Jesus is in fact not a Levitical priest but a priest of the order of Melchizedek. So we see that although there is series of books like the OT the priestly order of Melchizedek is potentially more important than the record of the people of Isreal and their relationship with God! 

Another ancient monotheistic religion is that of Zoroastrianism. Founded by a prophet called Zarathushtra in Greater Iran (probably Afghanistan or Tajikistan) it has similarities and some differences to what we read in the OT. As well as a single God there is also a satan character and an ongoing battle between good and evil.  The  Zoroastrian creation myth follows similar steps to the Genesis creation myth, with man as the pinnacle of creation and protective angels to serve the one true God.

Some Jewish scholars attest that what they call 'universalism' which appears in the second book of Isaiah comes from core Zoroastrian dogma. 'This was the notion that God's law is universal and "saves" all who turn to God, no matter their particular faith.' This is different to western universalism which claims all will be saved regardless, but that all who turn to the one true God will be saved. The exclusiveness of salvation through Jesus is not an OT concept but only introduced into Christian thinking in the NT.

The Word of God

NT writers clearly accept that the OT contains the words of God. The phrase the 'Word of God' is a little confusing as there are two Greek words meaning word and they have different and separate meanings. Those words are logos and rhema. 

In the NT at the start of John's Gospel we read 'In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God.' The Greek word for word there is logos and is understood to mean the expression of a thought. Logos is also used for what we understand to be the written word of God for example in Hebrews 4:12 'For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.'

The other Greek word rhema refers to the actual spoken or written words of God for example in the Gospel of Matthew 'But Jesus told him, "No! The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"' 

Because Jesus and the writers of the NT accept that the OT contains the 'word of God' it's clear in some sense we should too. However, there is a caveat. The writers of the NT do not cite any references to God saying 'Go out and kill...' We thus have a more complex understanding than just accepting God of the OT was a killer God and God of the NT was a peace-loving God.

Conclusions

So putting all those thoughts together, the way I would see the OT is as an accurate perception of the beliefs of the tribes of Israel at the period it was written. I remain unconvinced that they heard God correctly in each and every instance, though it is clear that they had unwavering conviction that they did. (In fact, that is virtually the Jewish perception of the OT!) In some cases that assurance helped maintain a belief that killing tens of thousands of people was acceptable because it was 'God ordained'. 

Mankind has not changed much in that respect, some people today still see ethnic cleansing and mass killing in terms of being directed by God. The debate about Saint Augustine's and Saint Thomas Aquinas' Just War Theory continues to this day. And it is complex when one thinks about defensive action, offensive action and preemptive offensive action in defense without clear words from Jesus to give us guidance. 

Frequently people teaching from the OT do so from the position of God always being good and that 'we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them'. The assumption is that those in the slaughtered people group killed were either against God or that it was for their best. 

I've heard this questioned by those on the receiving end of the killing! I think we often need to re-read parts of the OT putting ourselves in the position of those being killed or attacked.  For instance, imagine yourself as a God lover living in Jericho in the 14th century BC... 

Am I therefore rejecting the OT?

I am not rejecting the OT nor am I rejecting that God was dealing with the people of Israel throughout this period. Indeed quite the opposite; we see many instances of God that match with Christ's communication of God in the Gospels and we see many instances that match with our experiences of failure to follow the Holy Spirit. It therefore reads pretty accurately as a record of fallible people trying and sometimes failing to follow the one true God. As Cromwell is reputed to say to his portrait painter 'paint my picture, warts and all'; it shows the people of Israel 'warts and all'!

If someone wrote a book about my wife I would not measure my wife by that book but I would measure the book by my experience of my wife. The same should be true for the OT for those of us who know and love the one true God. It is our understanding that  'God loved the world (so much): He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life'. Therefore we should read the OT in terms of God loving everyone. The people group of God lovers (the tribes of Israel) sometimes, like us today, misheard God.  

Does that me we arbitrarily chose to cut out from the OT verses we find unacceptable? No, we read them all and include them all but understand them from our understanding and experience of God. People argue that means we are making subjective assessments about the 'word of God'. Since the Bible itself refers to Christ as 'the Word of God' we are actually taking the Word of God (ie Christ) more seriously and evaluating the OT in terms of the Word of God! 

Now obviously at repeated times throughout the OT the text reads 'The LORD says...' And some of those times it claims He said to go out and slaughter loads and loads of human beings 'created in his image'. At no time in the NT do we read 'The LORD says...' followed by an injunction to go and kill people. Hence we either have a God who radically changed between OT and NT or we have a misunderstanding of either the OT or the NT. Some people resolve that potential paradox by believing that today there are times when it's God ordained to kill. 

Knowing Christ as we do today I suspect we have a misunderstanding of some of the OT and mankind receiving progressive revelation of the nature and person of God starting in the OT, progressing in the NT and still progressing today. This is the complex journey we treat as pilgrims following the Messiah.

Summary

My belief having looked at the evidence is that the Old Testament is a faithful and authentic record of a very imperfect people group writing their subjective and sometimes blinkered understanding about the perfect and one true God. 

As such it needs to be read in the light of how Jesus, as God's Son, expresses truths about God. Where there might appear to be contradiction between OT and Jesus teaching requiring complex abstractions, then Occam's Razor suggests the 'simplest solution is almost always the best'. The simplest solution is frequently that the very imperfect people group misheard the perfect and one true God who in his love for us has given us all complete free choice. After all Jesus reinterprets Psalm 22 about a physical battle to a spiritual one where surrender is the way to overcome.

Criticism of this position

Criticism of this position would be that I am potentially cherry-picking or cutting out verses I don't like and using human rather than divine logic. I would argue that it is not cutting out verses from the OT, but accepting they are all there, it's just how we understand them. I would argue that, as a parallel example, though the church accepted slavery for hundreds of years it was not 'human rather than divine logic' that made us change but progressive revelation as we understood more of God. It is thus understanding more of the infinite God in our finite minds that we bring to the OT. 

We need to accept that our understanding of the OT in 2024 will be different to our understanding of it in 2124, 2224 and so on. It is indeed dangerous to assume that the understanding of it in 1024 or one thousand years earlier was either better or fixed in time for all eternity. Though God is the same yesterday, today and forever, our discernment of Him isn't. Thus our perceptions from a series of books written three millenia ago also doesn't reveal a perfect understanding of God. But we can learn from the Old Testament's imperfect understanding of God. However, alongside this we need to remember we learn more about God from the teaching and life of Jesus.

Christmas, Gaza and the politicising of Christianity

This Christmas a lot of our thoughts are about the situation in Israel and the war between Hamas and Israel. Palestinian civilians are caught in the middle of this and it is horrendous to see the death and destruction of people whom God loves and who are created in His image. Most of us wish to see an end to this carnage and peace in the Middle East centred around Jerusalem which means city of peace.

'Christ in the Rubble'
an icon by Kelly Latimore

There are a number of images circulating this Christmas of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Two are notable: The first is a crib in the Lutheran church in Bethlehem where the baby Jesus is shown in a Palestinian kafeeyah amongst rubble, and the second an icon showing Jesus, Mary and Joseph in a bombed-out area that looks like Gaza.

Whereas, as followers of Jesus, we wish to care for the oppressed, these images illustrate a lot of falsehoods and wild inaccuracies that are making the situation more complex than it already is. One example of this was the sermon at St Helena’s Church in Larnaka on Christmas Day where it was claimed ‘Jesus was born a Palestinian Jew into an occupied oppressed land.’

Whereas he was indeed born into a land that became occupied and oppressed by the Romans during his lifetime, he was not a Palestinian but Jewish, which was both a religious and ethnic description. It is very important theologically to see Jesus as a Jew not a Palestinian. The Palestinians as a people group primarily come from the other side of the family divide, not from Isaac but from Ishmael, ‘a wild man’ living ‘in open hostility against all his relatives’ which fairly accurately describes the actions of the Hamas terrorists! This is not to say all Palestinians are wild terrorists, far from it, but they are not descendants of Isaac and thus not covenant inheritors of the land.

But let’s put this all in context: At the time of Jesus birth Judea was a Jewish kingdom under King Herod, a Jewish kingdom. The Kingdom of Judea had been a Roman ally since the second century BC; albeit since 63 BC and the war of succession in the Hasmonean court effectively a client of Rome. It only formally became a Roman Province in 6 AD, some years after Jesus was born, and hence was a Roman province by the time Jesus was put to death.

More than 30 years after Jesus' death, in AD 66, someone emptied a pot of urine outside a synagogue, thus defiling a holy place. This led to riots and the Roman governor demanded the Jewish authorities hand over the culprits, which they refused to do. Florus, the Roman governor, then ordered his troops to massacre everyone in the market. This turned the violence into full-scale revolt, described by Jewish historian Josephus as ‘From one end of Galilee to the other there was an orgy of fire and bloodshed.’ In 69 AD the temple was destroyed and many Jews escaped from the Province of Judea which later became known as the Province of Syria and Palaestina. Between 6 AD and 1948 AD there was no nation-state of Palestine though the name was used by the occupying powers over more than 1900 years.

That bit of history is important for several reasons. We see that bloodshed and an orgy of killing is something that has happened against the Jewish people right down through the centuries, the holocaust was not, by a long way, the first genocide against the people God had identified as having a special relationship with Him.

The second is that it demonstrates that to describe Jesus as a Palestinian Jew is both inaccurate and misleading. It carries political and theological implications that should definitely not be promulgated. Hence too, the crib in Bethlehem with Jesus in a Palestinian kafeeyah also creates an inaccurate picture. The fact that crib is in a Lutheran church, a church which during the Second World War embraced antisemitism, further complicates the issue.

The Christmas Day Sermon again: ‘Sometimes preachers are criticized for being political, but how can the act of God in coming into the world in this way not be political? He comes to bring peace and love, justice and mercy—these are all political words… Being a Christian means… accepting the political significance of that (Jesus) birth…’

Jesus himself, when accused of being political, responded to the Roman governor by saying ‘My Kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my Kingdom is not of this world.’ Thus he separated political and spiritual kingdoms. In Arabic and Aramaic it’s easier to see this as there are two words memlekah (physical/political kingdom) and malakoot (spiritual kingdom) so in the Lord’s prayer it uses malakoot for ‘May your (spiritual) Kingdom come soon’.

Alongside this, justice should be a function of the judiciary rather than politics. One of the disputes between the European Union and Hungary is that there is a cross-over between the political government and the judiciary. Although it was as far back as Aristotle that the problem of mixing political governance and the judiciary was recognised, it was Calvin in the 1500s (and later John Locke and Montesquieu) who suggested that the separation of political and judiciary was important for the functioning of a democracy. Hence, bringing 'justice' into the realm of politics is both counter-the-way of Christ and counter-democracy. That concept may sound counter-intuitive but we will see why later.

Now it’s clear within Israeli Jewish thinking – which doesn’t accept Christ’s separation of the political and spiritual – that the formation of the nation-state of Israel is both political and spiritual. This merging is also common in Islamic thinking. 

However, this is further complicated by the fact that Hamas bases their thinking on a debunked conspiracy theory called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which is a notorious 1903 document that falsely purports to reveal a global conspiracy by Jewish leaders, known as the ‘Elders of Zion,’ to seize control of the world. (https://bxi.international/2023/10/30/hamas-and-israel/)

Because of this, Hamas sees a battle between ‘good’ (Islam) and ‘evil’ (Jewish take-over of the world) which requires the elimination of all Jews everywhere:

‘The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: 'O Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.'’ They see it as the duty of all Muslims to take part in the elimination of Jews worldwide. ‘The day the enemies usurp part of Muslim land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Muslim. In the face of the Jews' usurpation, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised.’ (Quotes from The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement, 18 August 1988 which is the Hamas governing document.)

Hamas is therefore implicitly antisemitic and the claim ‘Palestine shall be free from river to the sea’ is about the elimination of Jews as much as freedom for a nation-state that never existed.

Within all of this, of course, are the horrors we see of what Israel is doing to the civilian population in Gaza. On the website of the Anglican Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf they quote the pastor of the Lutheran church which created the Palestinian crib as saying ‘In Gaza today, God is under the rubble. If Christ were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble. We see his image in every child killed and pulled from under the rubble.’ 

This of course wouldn’t be true because Jesus was born a Jew, not a Palestinian and the rubble is in Gaza, not Israel. God didn’t choose to make a political statement of his son being born in an occupied oppressed land but being born within a specific family within a specific tribe within the Jewish people group. To get that confused is not only theologically incorrect but changes the Christian faith into a political movement rather than a relationship with the incarnate God.

However, separating political and spiritual can sometimes be seen to favour the oppressor and to accept the horrors to the civilian population in Gaza. In fact, this is far from the truth and separating justice from the realm of the political and returning it to the realm of the spiritual elevates the problem. The death and injuries to the people in Gaza are not merely a political issue to be debated at the UN Security Council but an existential issue against people created in the image of God. It is therefore against God as much as against man.

Of course, this is complicated by Hamas and the conspiracy theory of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. But that brings in another part of the nature of Christ, that of truth: ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.’ As followers of Christ, we are truth-bearers exposing the lies of Hamas and the injustices of the Israeli government against the civilian population of Gaza who have been led astray by the lies of Hamas. Palestinians are not covenant inheritors of the land, and thus, as part of that same covenant with the people of Israel, require protection not death and destruction from the Jewish nation!

This politicising of Christianity by some factions of the church ends up leading us down a path that is away from the covenant pledges and demands that would end up protecting the very people they claim to support. The problem is intensely spiritual rather than just political. But the error is to see the spiritual world as merely passive and not active. Following Christ is not being part of a political movement but listening to the Holy Spirit on a day-by-day basis and being involved with what God is doing in the world.

Jesus explained, 'I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does.' (John 5:19)

Baptism -- what's it all about?

How important is water baptism?

Since the 5th Century when Augustine described sacraments as ‘an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace’ baptism has been seen in the church as a sacrament. For some churches it is a critical part of becoming a Christian or 'saved', with Baptists arguing for Believers Baptism and other churches practising infant baptism where the child obviously cannot 'make the profession of faith'. Other churches and Christians put the emphasis on faith. Is baptism a symbol or something deeper than that?

There are a number of times that baptism is mentioned in the Scriptures, many with a similar emphasis starting at what is called the Great Commission:

‬And he said to them, 'Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.' (Mark‬ ‭16:15‭-‬16‬ ‭ESV)

And Jesus came and said to them, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.' (Matthew 28:18-20 ESV) 

Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 3:21 ESV)

And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name. (Acts 22:16 ESV)

Having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. (Colossians 2:12 ESV)

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:3-4 ESV)

Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 3:21 ESV)

Reading those passages it could be interpreted that baptism is far more important than just a symbol that we do following Jesus commandment. 

Three things to note:

1. The third version of the Great Commission in Luke doesn't include baptism at all but a proclamation of the gospel: [Jesus] said to them, 'Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead,  and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.' (Luke 24:46-49 ESV)
2. There is no record in the Scriptures of Jesus baptising anyone, yet he commanded others to do so, implying (if he didn’t baptise anyone) that we are following his example in doing so in obedience rather than actually following a method taught by him. In Scripture, we see only the method demonstrated by John in which Jesus was a participant.  Contrast this with the model prayer which we call the Lord's prayer and the meal we call the Last Supper.
3. There is no record in the Scriptures of the 12 disciples being baptised. Because it would be incoherent for them to baptise unless they themselves were baptised one needs to realise that some things are probably implicit rather than explicit. However, if they were baptised, who baptised them?

In Acts 2:38 Peter's words merge Luke's version of Jesus' words and Mark's version of Jesus' words including baptism:

And Peter said to them, 'Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.'

Following on from in verse 41 we see that those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.

It was an immediate response to Peter where three thousand were baptised, with no discipleship course and no other preparation. Was this because there was some urgency to do it immediately? 

In a discussion with a friend from Nicosia he summarised it as:

There are certain things in the scriptures above that we cannot deny. 

• Jesus commanded that everyone be baptized
• Jesus said that the one who believes and is baptized will be saved.
• Peter said that we must repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins.
• People were baptized immediately upon believing. There was no delay, even to the point where they had to baptize 3000 people in one day.
• There is language in the Bible that shows that baptism is somehow linked to our death and resurrection in Christ.
• There are scriptures that show that baptism is somehow linked to forgiveness.

This doesn't address the issues of how the baptism takes place -- should it be still or moving water, sea or fresh water and full immersion or sprinkling. Nor does it address the question of whether it includes the infant family members of believing parents or not. 

Because there is no record of Jesus baptising people we don't have a direct model to follow, though of course Jesus himself was baptised in the river Jordan, hence why some people argue that baptism must take place in fresh water that is moving (like a river). 

And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. (Acts 16:33 ESV)

There are at least three references in Scripture to whole families being baptised. Though it is argued by those who follow only adult Believers Baptism and that didn't include the children and infants of the family, this is argued from cultural assumptions rather than Scriptural text.