By Rick Blumenberg @rickblumenberg
The
Israelites of the Old Testament thought God was their God—like God belonged to
them. Paul writes in Ephesians 3:6 that when Jesus came his good news (Gospel)
was that we all belong to God because
he is the God of all creation. God is not a Jewish God, nor a Christian God. He
is not a Muslim God. He is just God. One of a kind. Even though he reveals
himself to us in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit he is still One
God and there is no other.
The
Israelites were sometimes polytheists. They thought their God was the greatest
God of all but they really believed the other people had gods too—just not as
powerful as theirs and maybe even subject to theirs.
They
didn’t realize God was their God not because he belonged to them, but because
they belonged to him. When they realized they belonged to him and related to
him as such they were in a good place, but when they forgot and got the
relationship backwards—thinking God belonged to them in a possessive sense—their
lives got complicated and they propagated a false image of the God of all
creation.
We are all children of
the One True God
Because they were (children of the one
true God) and they knew who God was (Creator of everything that is) they had a
responsibility to share that knowledge with the rest of the world. But instead
of sharing their knowledge, they clung possessively to that relationship and
refused to even believe gentiles could have such a relationship, much less try
to teach them about the true God, who loved them all.
A Human Folly
It would be easy to be critical of the
Israelites because of their folly, but we must be careful about that. It is more
helpful if we look critically at ourselves to see if we are not much like them
in that respect. Perhaps it is a human folly. We find it easy to think God belongs
to us rather than think we belong to God. When we do so, the fallacy expands so
we think our view of God is the only correct view. We then refuse to consider
and respect how others see God so we might learn something from them.
Different views are not
necessarily wrong
Looking at God is a lot like looking
at the world. Your view depends greatly on your point of view. People with
different views see the world (and God) very differently. As an example, if we
come to know God during a time of great loss and grief we may think of God
primarily as the Comforter because that is how we experienced him in our time
of need.
The warrior who has a foxhole
conversion may see God as the Protector because he saved him or her from the
enemy. Or perhaps we see God as the Supreme Warrior because we feel he helped
us win the battle. In other words, our view of God may have more to do with how
God revealed himself to us in our time of need rather than the totality of God’s
Being.
An Incomplete View
None of these images of God are
incorrect. They are merely incomplete. He is all those when needed and more. To
really know God is to realize we can never know him fully and completely
because God is so far more than we can even comprehend. Our glimpses of his
glory when he reveals himself are only wrong, however, if we try to limit him
to just our understanding.
An Incorrect View
Sometimes we have an incorrect view of
God perhaps because of a misunderstanding or because we try to create him in
our own image. We give him attributes that are really ours and not necessarily
the good part of us. So we can have a totally false view of God. That thought is
not new and could be developed to create an entirely new and different blog
post.
Meanwhile, on this first day of the New
Year and the last teen year of this century I share these thoughts for your
consideration…reminding you that these thoughts are not necessarily gospel.
I’m Rick Blumenberg and these thoughts
at this time are simply My
View from here on Tanner Creek.
