Week 5 Exodus & Psalm
Today David said something about the Lord’s anger: his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime…
Then twenty minutes later Moses said the Lord was: a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.
These are a couple of useful things to know about the Lord’s anger. First it’s relatively brief. Second it takes quite a while before the Lord transitions to anger.
But useful or not my sense is that plenty of reader’s don’t like thinking about a God who is angry. So Moses and David take a kind of unwieldy emotion and begin adding some substance to it.
But substance or not some people prefer totally eliminating the idea of divine anger…to think of God exclusively as a non-angry God.
That’s a pretty appealing option. A better approach for me is to try to fit anger into the framework of a Total Bible System. Once I figure out what-all pieces I’ve got to work with then I can ask: can the system function if I eliminate that particular piece? Because if I find out that divine anger is a functional necessity in the Bible System then the question isn’t: am I willing to tolerate divine anger? It’s: will I accept the system as I find it?
Note: quotes from Psalm 30:5 & Exodus 34:6-7 (NIV). January reading update: Genesis + Exodus + Psalms 1-30 = 120 chapters (out of 1189 total).