Bible Study with Jairus - Levticus 21

A common problem when reading the Old Testament is that after a person reads how God is depicted in the Old Testament, they often think that God is cruel, angry and frequently kills people. This is the reason that many atheists think that the God depicted in the Old Testament, is bad-tempered and narrow-minded. He seems to frequently seek revenge against debtors. But the Gospel of John in the New Testament tells us that God loves the world. John the apostle also tells us in his epistles that God is love. So, how do we reconcile this contradiction? A friend and I used to talk about the Bible quite a bit. He had the same questions. During this time, I happened to see a person writing a big "I LOVE U" in the snow and the word LOVE was drawn inside the shape of a heart. Because more than a foot of snow had fallen in Maryland at that time, these three words were written in very thick snow and were written so big that you had to stand on the second story to see the full image of these words. When you stood in front of it, you would just see lots of indents in the snow. You couldn’t clearly see what the words said. Then, I suddenly received inspiration and said to my friend, understanding God relates to these words. When we are too close we can’t clearly see what it says. But when we look at it from high places, we clearly see the whole picture. The same is true for the Bible. The angle and height we view it from are not the same as the angle and height of God. The words and the works of God are like His footprints. From a distance, we may be able to clearly see the words: "I love you" But when we who are as small as an ant in comparison to God, look at things from a close view, we can barely make out the dot in the letter “i”. When we look at things from God’s view we can get a better understanding of what the Bible is actually saying. God is love, and every book, chapter and verse in the Bible show us His love. After reading any book of the Bible, if you feel that God is not loving or you feel that God is cruel, then there is a good possibility that you didn’t understand the chapter and need more of the Holy Spirit’s illumination. Each week in our study we read a chapter in the Old Testament and a chapter in the New Testament. We have already read up to the book of Acts in the New Testament and the book of Leviticus in the Old Testament. With each chapter we read we are moved by the love of God and the Holy Spirit gives us a deeper understanding and proof of the lavish love that God has for each of us.