Week 2 Response

For as long as I can remember, I have attended church.  As a kid, I remember being told about stories in the Bible, so when I heard that we would be reading the first twenty-three chapters of Exodus, I thought that this would be a fairly easy assignment.  However, as I went through the reading I found that I was confused.  There are things in the Bible that have and still do confuse me, but I’ve never been confused about a Bible story that I’ve heard a million times.

My first major point of confusion was in Exodus 1:10 when the pharaoh says, “Come, let us deal shrewdly with them [Israel], lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land” (English Standard Version).  The logic behind this really did not make sense to me.  If Israel was really so numerous and strong, wouldn’t it behoove the Egyptians to become allies rather than enemies?  Later on, God unleashes ten plagues over Egypt.  These plagues ruthlessly lay waste to the land and people of Egypt.  I found myself wondering why Pharaoh would not let the Israelites go after the first few plagues?  I then remembered that God promised Moses that He would “harden pharaoh’s heart” (Exodus 7:3a ESV).  It seemed to me that God was controlling both sides of this conflict.  He was punishing the Egyptians for not letting the Israelites go, but wasn’t giving them the opportunity to let them go.

It was at this time that I also wondered why God found it necessary to punish Egypt so brutally.  As an aspiring engineer, my logical mind didn’t understand this.  Samuel C. Florman once defined engineering as “the art or science of making practical” and this did not seem very practical to me.  If he is truly all-powerful, couldn’t He have found a peaceful way to resolve the issues at hand?  In the midst of all these plagues, God claims that “I may show these signs of mine among them, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am the LORD” (Exodus 10:1b-2).  Then it clicked.  In ancient times, stories were spoken and passed down through generations by tongue.  No one would pass on stories of peaceful resolutions, but rather mighty, divine displays power and deliverance.  If God had resolved the problems peacefully or prevented them altogether, I would not be reading about it today.  Since this story has been passed down for thousands of years, we all get to hear about God’s great power and we can know that He is the Lord (just like the verse says).

Modern Christians tend to feel uncomfortable with the Old Testament.  Marilynne Robinson acknowledges this in her book of essays When I Was a Child I Read Books.  She states that the Old Testament is treated as “greatly inferior to the Gospels,” but continues to say that “the significance of the Old Testament cannot be denied” (96).  Robinson is completely right in saying this.  God uses the Gospels to show his love for humanity, but his love means close to nothing without an understanding of His infinite power which we can experience through the Old Testament.