Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Does God Ever Change? | New Testament | Acts 5

Episode Date: April 27, 2023

Is the God of the Old Testament the same as the God of the New Testament? What box do you put God in? In today's episode, Patrick uses Acts 5 to describe God's unchanging character. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in one year. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Acts 5

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. Have you ever heard someone talk about the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament? As though those are two different beings from two different moral universes. I often hear Christians talk this way. Maybe you've done it. I know that I've done it, so I'm not judging. But I think what we mean when we say that is straightforward. Not that there's literally two different gods. the idea is that the God of the Old Testament is figurative language for a God of judgment and justice, who smites you down for the smallest sins and infractions, whereas the God of the New Testament is a God of

grace and mercy, who's patient. He's patient with our sin. He's always forgiving. The question is whether this is a fair characterization of God in either Testament. Since we're going through the New Testament right now, I think it's a valid question to ask. Is God only grace, mercy, and forgiveness in the New Testament? Does God not take sin as seriously? In the New Testament, does he not judge sin as seriously? Does he give unending patience to sin in the New Testament? Well, many passages could be discussed under this question, but today we are in Acts

Chapter 5. And for some reason, as Luke unpacks the story of Jesus told through the lives of the apostles, for some reason, Luke thinks it's necessary very early on to tell his readers a very short story, a small vignette. We pick it up in verse 1. but a man named Ananias with his wife Sapphire sold a piece of property and with his wife's knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and bought only a part of it and laid it before the apostles feet but peter said anonias why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the holy spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land while it remained unsold did it not remain your own and after it was sold was it not at your disposal why is it that you've contrived this deed in your heart. You have not lied to man, but to God. When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last, and great fear came upon all who heard of it. The young man rose and wrapped him up,

and carried him out and buried him. After an interval of about three hours, his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. And Peter said to her, tell me whether you sold the land for so much, And she said, yes, for so much. But Peter said to her, How is it that you have agreed together to test the spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door and they will carry you out. Immediately, she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. When the young men came in, they found her dead and they carried her out and buried her beside her husband.

And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things. So what in the world is this? I mean, is this a cameo of the God of the Old Testament in the New Testament? Well, I take it for a gift. I know that's a strange take, but I do. I really think this is a gift. It's a reminder that our categories of God are so broken. We all create mental models, mental images of who God is in our head.

And oftentimes, those models, those images become boxes that we stuff him into. Some of us are spiritually scrupulous. In other words, we're constantly looking inside of our hearts. We're evaluating our own salvation. worrying about our sin. We're worrying about our emotions. We have spiritual OCD and we're constantly worried that we aren't doing enough for God, that we won't measure up for God, that God is frustrated and ashamed of us and not very pleased with us. For us, we often see God as a caricature. We see him as what we might call the God of the Old Testament. He's judgmental,

punitive, scrupulous, disappointed. Perhaps that's the caricature that matches your view of God. maybe you think of God as what we often call the God of the Old Testament, but the problem is that's not the God of the Old Testament. The God of the Old Testament is much more complex than your picture of God. Check out Psalm 103, verses 11 to 13. This is what God says in the Old Testament. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love towards those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgression. from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so Yahweh shows compassion to those who fear him. So if you have a caricature of God, whether it's the God of the Old Testament or God in general, that

he's just some sort of judgmental, fear-mongering, terrifying being, you need to hear what the Old Testament says. He is far more loving, far more gracious, far more forgiving than you could possibly imagine. But you know what? There's others of us out there who have a very different caricature of God.

For us, God's a little more like a winking grandfather. He laughs at the silliness of our sins. He perpetually shows patience. He doesn't take holiness too seriously. And so as a result of that caricature, we're spiritually lacks. It's not that we don't care about our sin, but we don't spend much time thinking about it or much time worrying about it. We know that holiness is good, but we don't really long for it. We don't pray much for it. And when we fall short of God's calling, well, we don't feel too much guilt over it. And maybe you think that's okay because you believe in the God of the New Testament and it's all grace and forgiveness, but no, you believe in a caricature of God. You have put him into a box. He is far more

complex than you realize. And that's why Acts 5 is such a gift, because it shows us that the God of the New Testament is interested in justice, in sin, and in holiness. And this isn't the only passage in the New Testament that highlights this point. I could list off a bunch of them, but one of the more interesting ones, comes from Paul's letter to the church in Corinth. He wrote to them that he had heard that people literally died because they took communion without repenting of their sins. That's how seriously God took communion that he was willing to cause people to die if they did it in the wrong way. It's surprising, but that is the God of the New Testament. Okay, what's the point here? Well, let me get theological. God's forgiveness is not in opposition to God's justice. God's love,

is not in opposition to His holiness. God is perfectly consistent in his character. There's no such thing as a God of the Old Testament or God of the New Testament or a one-sided judgmental God or a one-sided, gracious God. God is one God and he has more complex and more beautiful than we can imagine. He holds together love and justice. I think of Miroslav Volf. He's a Croatian theologian. And if you know anything about his story, he saw terrible violence during wars and the Balkans in the 1990s. He saw the murder of people he loved, sexual violence that is frankly unimaginable. And so he knew that if God was truly loving, he would also need to be holy enough to judge the awful wrongdoing that he saw. Miroslav Wolfe said that because God is loving, he must judge on behalf of those he loves. Because

God is holy and perfect, he must also be perfectly forgiving. He said the only way that a Christian could respond to that kind of violence with nonviolence is because he knows. He knows. He said, the only way that a Christian could respond to that kind of violence with nonviolence is because he knows that God is just and that he will punish. But also the only reason why a Christian can respond that way is because he knows or she knows that she's been forgiven of grievous sin, him or herself. Jesus died to pay the penalty for our sins so that he could bring us into the loving presence of God. Holiness, grace, love, justice, forgiveness, judgment. These are not even two sides of a coin. They are mutual realities that require one another. So know yourself.

and know your vision of God. If you lean into His grace, praise him, but learn to take passages like Acts 5 very seriously. Learn to take the justice and judgment of God against Ananias and Sapphira seriously. He loves you, and so he also hates the sin that destroys you. But if you struggle with God's judgment, you see him as a scrupulous, angry God who's always upset with you,

and so you're overly introspective, then you've got to learn to relish his grace and his mercy. know that he takes your sin seriously, yes, but because he loves you, he sent his son to die for you, said he could be equally serious about forgiving your sins. The love of God and the justice of God against sin are not in opposition to one another. They meet on the cross of Christ in perfect union. Before you forget, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talks newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes and you'll get an email every Wednesday that's going to help you beat that midweek slump

and go deeper in your wallet. Walked with Jesus. Thanks for listening.