What about the difficult and violent parts of the Old Testament?

These passages can be deeply troubling, especially when children and whole communities suffer. We should read them honestly and bring our questions to God. Abraham himself appealed to God when facing the destruction of Sodom:

That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?

Recording an act is not approving it

Some passages describe human wickedness; recording an action does not mean God approves of it. Others explicitly describe God’s judgment. Concerning the conquest of Canaan, Moses told Israel:

Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The same passage warns Israel that this was not because of their own righteousness. These events are presented as judgment, not evidence that one people was inherently superior to another.

God’s own heart toward the wicked

Yet God also reveals His heart in the Old Testament:

Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?

These truths do not remove every difficult question about particular events. We can trust God’s justice while admitting that we do not fully understand a passage.

These accounts do not authorize us to act the same way

Jesus commands His followers:

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

And God’s purpose in sending His Son is expressed this way:

For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.