The difference between the Old and the New Testament:

I am sometimes approached by people and asked about the Old Testament and why everything was so brutal, forceful and unloving. Many times people, including some practising Christians, also seem to have a poor understanding of God’s intention during Old Testament times, why would a God of love destroy whole cities, including women and children? Did God change His mind and then ushered in the dawn of the New Testament? Why would God destroy his enemies with plagues, fire and brimstone, and floods in the Old Testament but tell us to love our enemies in the New Testament? These are all very valid questions that deserve an answer because as the Bible itself instructs us we should “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you…” (1 Peter 3:15)

I have the belief that in these matters one should always keep everything as simple as possible, avoiding long complicated answers with complex doctrine that will lose your intended audience within the first few minutes, so here is my condensed version.

Right from the beginning God had a very different plan for mankind. He created the World and everything in it for our enjoyment and benefit. Within this newly created environment He wanted to live in harmony with the people and they would live within a beautiful relationship of love and harmony with Him in return, and in balance with the Earth and all it contains. Unfortunately due to the influence of a fallen angel, Lucifer, the humans disobeyed God and it went all downhill from that time forwards.

Over time man became more and more “religious” and yet further and further from God. They needed all kinds of laws to try and keep them in check and they still failed. It finally got to the point that for the last 400 years before the arrival of our saviour Jesus Christ no prophets had any meaningful contact with God and there is a silent period where “God’s people” just followed along religiously, observing customs and traditions but were to all intents and purposes spiritually blind.

Then along comes the most wonderful miracle of all, the birth of Jesus who turned all the traditions upside down and proclaimed a new way, a way that was totally foreign to the people who had been in darkness for so many years. He showed them (and us) a way that was closer to the way it had been in the Garden of Eden where we could once more walk with God and have a personal relationship with Him. He proclaimed that now instead of doing it the old way that didn't actually work we should do things a new way where we use love as our guide in all our interactions with God and our fellow human beings. He even went so far as to say that from that time forwards we should love our enemies and pray for them!

This didn't sit well with the religious people who had Him killed at Golgotha to try and stop Him from destroying their religious ways and traditions. But soon after another miracle with His resurrection and the promise of eternal life, followed by His ascension to the right hand of God and the arrival of the Holy Spirit who would be with us, lead and guide us, and complete our new relationship with God!

In a nutshell, the Old Testament showed us that the ways, laws and traditions that man valued so highly simply don’t work and the New Testament shows us a way that does work, the way of love for God and our fellow inhabitants of this glorious planet that God created for us! It even shows us how to treat the people that like us the least.

The unbelievers of our modern world do not believe that Christianity is a real and viable option because they have not seen Christians living the way God intended when ushering in the New Testament of Jesus Christ. Supposed Christian churches have been fighting, bickering and even killing their enemies for so long that the average “wordling” sees only the bad example and not the sample of love that Jesus intended for them to see: “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” (John 13:35)

Dwight L. Moody once said "The only Bible the world reads is the one bound in shoe leather: you and me!" He was so right, and until people see a living breathing sample of a New Testament Christian living the way God intended they will never believe any of what we tell them.

Paul said to the Galatians when he discovered they were trying to go back to Old Testament ways: “Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3)

So in conclusion, embrace the new ways of the New Testament and use the Old only as a handy reference for seeing how far God has brought us to a better way and relationship with Him and others!