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Romans 1:16 "For I am not ashamed of the gospel..."

I love apologetics; I love being able to "defend the faith." But really, is it our job to defend the faith? A rationalization of God is simply that; boxing a being/person/divine one into human terms. As we try to figure who God is, it is nearly impossible to figure everything about God. And I don't think that's a bad thing.

So as I journey on this seminary life, figuring out who God is and how I am going to help lead others to Him, I'm a little bit confused in my Old Testament class. We use the historical-critical method, looking at the history behind the text, here at Princeton, and I very much appreciate this approach. If anything, it's helped me to empathize with biblical writers; they were trying to defend their faith against the polytheists, heathens, and barbarians. So in this regard, looking at the OT is somewhat hazy because it kind of rejects the sanctity of the text. When discussing the Old Testament story of the 10 plagues, there are many scholars who discount the credibility of the situation because there aren't any other non-Hebrew texts confirming these plagues (according to James Kugel).

But for me, I accept the 10 plagues not only as symbolic of God rescuing his people, but also I believe they actually happened. I employ the redemptive-historical method which looks mainly at ways that the OT in light of the NT. This could be dangerous ground, and might rob me of true appreciation of the OT, but I don't look at OT texts in order to see Christ, but I read them in light of Christ. With this redemption in mind, I look at these texts as divinely inspired words of God.

And I am not ashamed of looking at the texts this way. I might have a NT lens looking at OT, but in my opinion, that is fine. Bias or not, I believe in Jesus. So I look at OT with Christ in mind. The OT is beautiful. It does not need to be heavily scrutinized or dissected, but if someone feels the need to perform surgery on Old Testament texts, there will be plenty of defenders of the faith. Maybe I'll be one of those eventually, but as of now, I'm just learning. Someone asked me why I was here, and I told him, "I'm just here to hang out." And I am. I don't have all the answers. I don't want all the answers. But I'm going to keep diving into my relationship with God and trying to figure out who he is. And I'm going to learn a lot here.