The holiness of God through 21st century eyes

In his comments on Exodus 13 & 14, Prof. Conrad Gempf struggles with the difficulty of reconciling the destruction of Egyptian forces in the sea with the view of a loving and merciful God. From a pesonal standpoint, Conrad points out, this kind of violence can be a little hard for to take these days:

I can even get by, I suppose, with the destruction to property that God causes with the chariot wheels getting jammed or falling off (14:25). But killing them all? Sweeping them all out to sea? After the plague that killed all their first born infants (like Herod seeking the Christ child)? And repeating over and over again that 'he will gain glory through Pharoah and all his army'? You and I were not built for that time in the history of civilisation, nor, I suspect, do we fear God as much as we might. Whatever Lewis tells us in Narnia, we want him to be a tame lion. He isn't.

Conrad has a gift for seeing the text with new eyes and a sharp mind. He can ask the tough questions, but still hold by faith, it seems, to the wisdom of God.