Question:
Dear Greg,
Could
you please throw some light on the biblical character David?
It has always baffled me. Yes,
he was favored by God, and this is my problem.
Looking at it from “down under” here in Australia
, he
comes over to me as a butcher. David
writes all these ditties to teach others, but does not apply any of them to
himself. To me he belongs more to a
religion where butchery and contempt for women is standard practice, rather than
Christianity.
Can
you please explain this enigma?
Joe
Answer: Dear Joe,
You
correctly note that David was not a Christian.
None of the patriarchs of Christianity (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses,
etc.) were, of course, for to be a Christian you must accept Jesus Christ as
Lord and Savior.
The
disparity and distinction between, as some call it, the God of the Old Testament
and the God of the New is, to some extent, a false picture and fabrication.
What God has done in the new covenant, in sending us his Son, to be one
of us for our salvation, was not done, by design, in the old covenant, though it
was prophesied. The old covenant,
recorded in the pages of the Old Testament, is a testimony to what even the
people of God resort to and become apart from God living his life in them.
The brutality and endless warfare of men like David is not unlike what we
see in our world today, as men and women live their lives apart from God.
Christians
do not believe they need to defend all of the practices and examples in the Old
Testament, for they were nailed to Christ’s cross.
They were examples for us (1 Corinthians 10:6), but because of God’s
grace we do not have to live or behave as they did.
However,
whatever the butchery or savagery or mistreatment of women may have been in the
culture of Israel of the Old Testament, as perceived by our modern, western
eyes, if we are objective we will realize it was tame compared to surrounding
cultures, as well as many cultures the world has seen since that time—indeed
ones we are dealing with today.
In
Christ,