The Motherly Love of a Wrathful God

What if, instead of ignoring the great theme of motherly compassion because we see some wrathful, vengeful, Old Covenant deity who is somehow not the same God revealed in Christ Jesus, our churches took a yearlong walking tour of these 150 occurrences and motherly compassion became a part of our steady nourishment from Scripture?

...our churches would become even more the places of welcome to broken humanity that God intends them to be. When we see every place in the Old Testament where God expresses motherly compassion—and the people of Israel follow suit—wouldn’t we be moved to get past our too-easy self-righteousness and past our too-easy denigration of enemies and to open our communities to all God’s children in compassionate welcome? Wouldn’t we be moved to protect the lives threatened by death in our cities and communities?

Maybe we would realize that we let first impressions mislead us and that the God of the Old Testament is more complex and vibrant and, well, motherly, than we knew. Maybe we would quit saying “God of the Old Testament” and simply say “our God.”  Continue here....

-- Robert Foster