Confessions of a Seminarian

Why I Do Care

In response to the article I wrote called “Why Do I Care,” it became clear that for many, a generic answer to why someone should follow God left out a crucial aspect: Love.

This was truly a keen observation, as the logical chain I constructed focused primarily on God as creator and enforcer. Yet that is not all.

We have no reason to assume there is anything more to the story about God unless He Himself indicates as much. For that reason, I will attempt to show why someone should revere God from a Biblical perspective. This is because I believe that the communication He has provided to us comes through the Bible (for further discussion refer to the Why Do I Care article).

For the purposes of this discussion, certain assumptions are made. Since the nature of God’s communication to us is the only reason to believe there is more to the story, we will be using the Bible as a sufficient and trustworthy communication from God. Many will take issue with these assumptions, but this thread is not the place to discuss those. We are simply looking at why someone should follow God according to the Bible, and I have outlined why that is the tack we are taking.

Contextually, God first appears in the Bible as Redeemer. That is a loaded word, so I am going to unpack that some. At the beginning of the story in Genesis 1-2, God is described as creator, but remember that the author of that story is Moses. This is significant because God reveals Himself to Moses in order that He might deliver Israel from their bondage and that God’s promises to Israel might be fulfilled. The people of Israel have done nothing to deserve God’s attention, love, and special favor. There was no fulcrum they used to gain leverage on God.

On the contrary, this God YHWH has come down to them and pulled them out of bondage and promised them a home for His name’s sake. In other words, so that the world might know the name of God, He exemplified Himself through a people, not because they deserved it, but because He loves all the peoples in the world. This is best encapsulated in Exodus 19:3-6. In fact, the literary structure of Exodus places primary importance on Exodus 19-24, meaning that Moses didn’t want his readers to miss how gracious God is by redeeming the Jews.

From this place of undeserved favor, God asks us to follow Him. If God wasn’t obligated to condescend to this world and save people, He certainly wouldn’t be obligated to tell us more about Himself. Yet He is attentive to the questions His people ask. Israel knows that their God has acted in the world to save them, but what about other gods? True God had already laid the smack down on the Egyptian pantheon through the ten plagues, but there were many other gods in the world. What about them? At this point, God reveals through Moses that He is also the Creator God. There is no need for other Gods because the God of the Jews has done it all. Put another way, YHWH is a one-stop God shop.

But there are many other questions the people have, and God answers them. What should we think about this world? If it is all good, why is everything so bad? If our ancestors defied God, why didn’t their disobedience die with them? How has God acted to rid the world of this disobedience? If God has already acted, why wasn’t it effective? How did we become His chosen people? What exactly does that even mean? How did we first get to Egypt? (All these questions are answered throughout Genesis)

Keep in mind that the people just redeemed from Egypt not only have questions about where they have been, but where they are going. Their questions regarding where they are going are all answered in the next three books (Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy). In the midst of answering all of these questions, Moses makes it clear that the story isn’t finished. People still willfully reject God, many of whom are even among God’s chosen people. So Moses makes it clear that God is still working, that He is not slow to work, and that His plans are coming to fruition.