Hello again scout,
I agree with what IP Sec said....however,
Unlike JWs, I believe most of world's most respected Bible scholars, commentators, theologians and Christian church leaders would perhaps answer in a similar way to IP Sec. Those same Christians also believe that "God is love". How can such apparent contradictions be reconciled?
I think the Bible can only begin to be understood, on several levels, in its entirety, and it therefore makes little sense to arrive at an important conclusion based on any selected portion. Perhaps that is why much of religion is in a mess.
I think the issue you raise helps illustrate that for most Christians the Bible is something very different to what JWs and others perceive it to be - in its nature, form and purpose. In this regard JWs are no different to some of those who often describe themselves as bible-based, or fundamentalist Christians.
I suppose to all Christians the Bible is central to their belief. But you are right to challenge Christians with such passages, of which there are thousands, that portray an unjust and vindictive God. However, most Christians are immune to such challenges, because frankly the apparent motive behind the question probably misses the point, and fails to recognise or understand how most Christians perceive scriptures. We don't all interpret scriptures in a one dimensional, literalistic way. Nor do we believe they were dictated by God. It is in Islam that people hold such beliefs about their own holy scriptures.
For me personally, if the choice was to worship the God portrayed in your quoted text or reject God with all my being, then I would undoubtedly choose the latter. So in that respect, to me your challenging question above is perhaps preaching to the converted, except I suspect you and I have arrived at very different conclusions. It would be a mistake to think that someone who recognises the injustice and vindictiveness you point out could not therefore believe in the validity or importance of the Bible, or have love for God.
Fortunately many believe there are deeper, spiritual meanings to scriptures. Many recognise the Bible does not contain a set of doctrines, much less a set of rules. Your questions are valid in order to challenge JW style Christians who still believe in the vindictive God portrayed in the OT and to a lesser extent the NT. Your questions would only challenge this significant minority of Christans. Most of us believers recognise that such a text is just one of hundreds if not thousands of examples of what is an ancient people's perspective about justice.
I would argue that the vindictiveness that is clearly present in the bible, is caused by a limited understanding, including by some of its authors, of the punitive justice of God. What I have learned about the Bible is that human understanding of divine revelation is often very limited. This continues into the NT when the apostles plainly failed to understand Jesus. Even Paul, at 2 Thessalonians, 1:7-9 mistakenly thinks of Jesus as a vengeful warrier.
However, the scriptures themselves, teach deeper levels of their meaning, both OT and NT. If God inspired the authors minds and imaginations, revelation was still received by fallible and very limited minds and cultures. I often ask myself - where did this modern, trendy doctrine that scriptures are verbally inerrant come from? That is certainly not what the Bible teaches about itself. Such doctrines are what sets the Bible up for attacks upon it.
The Bible portrays a God of vindictiveness. The Bible portrays a God of unlimited love. Surely these two things are mutually exclusive. Why are there so many contradictions or paradoxes in scripture?
The principle of sublation is very clear in scriptures. So does the God of vindictiveness trump the God of love...or vice versa? To many, the Christian scriptures provide a resounding answer on that key question "God is love" yet some believers wrestle with proof texts and somehow conclude that the God of 2 Samuel is the accurate face of God. I think the following texts are examples that give me some idea of how to answer your question about 2 Samuel 12:15:
Matthew 7:12 Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them…for this is the law and the prophets
Matthew 22:40 On the two commandments of loving God and loving one’s neighbour, “depend the law and the prophets”
1 Corinthians 13 (English Standard Version)
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love,
I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind;
Love does not envy or boast;
It is not arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way;
It is not irritable or resentful;
It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends.
As for prophecies, they will pass away;
As for tongues, they will cease;
As for knowledge, it will pass away.
When I was a child I , I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now, we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully even as I have been fully known.
So now faith, hope and love abide, these three;
But the greatest of these is love.
