We need to bear in mind that his conversations recorded for us in Scripture are invariably pedagogic. God is not like a modern counsellor or therapist, non-judgmental. Nor does he chat with his people to pass the time of day. He communicates with them in order to bring about changes in them; for example to increase their faith, he now tests them, now reaffirms his promises to them. To test them it is necessary sometimes that God threatens by making a certain prediction, as he does with Moses in the wilderness, and with Hezekiah, for example. In order that his words to them are indeed threats, he proposes to them that he will, for example, disinherit his people, and then, Moses having responded to such a threat to him in faith, pleading God’s promises on behalf of his people, God relents. But there is no need in order to understand the sequence of threatening and then relenting, to propose that such changes not amount to a change in God. Rather it is his eternal will to test the faith of Moses by eternally willing this temporal sequence. Knowing the end from the beginning, God does not change, though Moses does. He grows in faith. The dialogue is for a purpose, and the dialogue partners are not equals, (as Lister recognizes; he is good on the Creator-creature distinction), as two people chatting together may be thought of as equals.
Zitat der Woche: Gott ist kein moderner Berater oder Therapeut
