Since the post for my lesson outline is so long, I didn't want you to miss two valuable posts that Bro. Robison put up:
Cast Not Away Your Confidence
2010 Lesson Schedule
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This blog is dedicated to the members of the Sherwood Hills Ward Gospel Doctrine Classes (Edgemont North Stake).
In your lesson outline, you stated:
ReplyDeleteii) To some people, Jehovah seems to have a different attitude towards man than Jesus does in the New Testament.
This apparent evolution of the concept of God from the old testament to the new is also visible in the concept of God seen in the writings of prophets, from Samuel to Isaiah.
While God never changes, the level of understanding of a culture, and the understanding of its prophets who receive and write the words we see, changes and evolves. Jesus both taught and showed us what God was like -- a loving Father of All of us. Our prophets today do this work of revealing God in a very Christlike way.
It is so apparent in the Old Testament that primitive ideas of God, down-right errors written by no-so-holy men, are mixed together with lofty concepts that lift our spirits toward a true understanding of God, and how to choose to do His Will.
Isn't it apparent that we need continuing revelation because until a culture, and the individuals in it, can even think certain concepts, revelation much beyond that level of understanding is useless? No one -- or too few for it to survive very long -- will be able to think these thoughts. They will remain unthinkable. God as a loving father was unthinkable to Bedouin nomads who could only understand a harsh, judgmental tribal god. Gradually the prophets were able to introduce higher concepts of mercy, love, and a universal God who is over all, not just the tribal groups.
This concept of revelation as coming when we are ready, and not before, is attested to in may ways by the experiences and writings of Joseph Smith. It is comforting to me to be able to extract lofty spiritual guidance from some parts of the Old Testament, while dismissing the spirit of other parts as unworthy of the God that Christ and modern prophets reveal.