Question:  Dear Greg,

            I have serious doubts about the Bible.  Why does God conduct himself like a monster?  In 2 Kings 2:23,24 God sends two bears out of the woods to tear apart 42 children.  Why would a supreme creator entity do such a horrible thing?  This is one example.  I could give 100 more.

            Gregory

Answer:  Dear Gregory,

            Why did God “conduct himself like a monster” in deciding, from the foundation of the world, to become one of us?  He, as Philippians 2 describes, voluntarily became something that he never was—a human.  Not only did he become a human, but in Jesus he started his life as a baby, in a stable, a member of a race of people and country that was occupied by a foreign military power, a people that was impoverished.  He did not experience human life in a rich country club-like gated community, but very much as “one of us.”  He never sinned, never hurt anyone, never conducted himself as a monster, and in the end accepted the cross in our stead so that our sins would be forgiven.  Doesn’t sound much like a monster to me.  In fact, the monster part seems to always be on the part of humans throughout history.

            How can any human presume to hurl the accusation of being a monster at our loving Creator God, our Lord and Savior, given the gruesome reality of human history?  If we presume to find places in the Bible where God is a “monster” then I would say that our position would be the proverbial glass house—how many tens of millions of human atrocities can be named from history?  For starters, 6000 people at the World Trade Center in New York, September 2001.  Try the death camps of the Nazis 60 years ago--six million Jews, as well as a variety of ethnic, political and religious minorities.  God is a monster?

            To this specific case:

1.      This was not an incidental matter of failing to respect a man of God.  This was an act of contempt, with God himself the object of the “test” the young men perpetrated.

2.      These were not first graders, but the equivalent of our gangbangers.  Current statistics in the U.S. alone place much of the horrible and violent crime in this category—“children” as you call them.  The statistics are not opinion, they are documented fact.

3.      We can safely assume that the life of the prophet was on the line.

4.      God’s act was merciful since we humans test the boundaries and go as far as we can.  If he allowed this act to stand, much more violence would follow.  Far more lives than 42 would be lost, and those lives would be “innocent”—i.e., victims--rather than those who initiate violence, as these 42 were in the process of doing.

5.      Their act of contempt challenged the position of the prophet, and thus God.

6.      The old covenant, to which Israel had agreed—with God fulfilling his part and Israel theirs, prescribed death for young people who did what these 42 did. 

            7.  This was probably not the first act of lawlessness perpetrated by these 42, so God was doing what the elders and leaders of Israel had failed to do.  The Bible records many other examples of the anarchy and violence present throughout Israel at the time, bloodshed that was taking many innocent lives.

            You may wish to revisit your claim that God is a monster and look at the mirror of human history, as well as God’s love for us in spite of how we have conducted ourselves toward our fellow man and our God.

            In Christ,

            Greg Albrecht