Mike taught us this morning about the pervasive old song sung by Israel over hundreds of years found in Psalm 145: "The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love." It is also found in Exodus and in at least six other places. How then, did we wind up in the 50's and 60's with the skewed vision of God described so well by Tom Ehrich: "The cagey, hard-to-please God of legalism is a human fabication. No more real is the prickly God who fusses about our solemn assemblies . Or the hair-splitting God who monitors our puncutation and prefers certain translations. He continues, Scripture tells an entirely different story. Scripture tells of a passionate God who loves first, who treasures honesty and eagerness in return, who changes constantly in a quest for oneness with humanity. Scripture tells of a God whose sabbath matters less than healing, who rushes to greet returning exiles, prodigals and sinners."------I guess the answer to that is that we never studied the Old Testament in my formative days.....I will take Ehrich's God anytime.
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