Harry Emerson Fosdick tells of a young girl who was very troubled by some passages in the Old Testament where God commanded Saul to smite the Amalekites, and “not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” So the girl’s father read to her some passages from the later Hebrew prophets—such as “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God”—and from the New Testament: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God.” The girl sat silent for a moment and then said, “Daddy, God grew better as he got older, didn’t he?”
Has your God grown better as you have grown older? Are you seeing the God of the Old Testament or the God of the New Testament? No intelligent person can retain faith in God unless his or her God does grow better, as that person, gets older. The old covenant has been superseded by a NEW ONE! God has grown better.
