At Sojourn Community Church, we are doing a year-long preaching series on the Old Testament. Every Sunday we will be looking at snapshots throughout the Old Testament narrative, as we see how it builds to a crescendo in the coming of the Messiah. Already, we have looked at the creation accounts of Genesis 1 and 2, followed by a look at the fall in Genesis 3. In order to facilitate reading through the Old Testament, Sojourn has produced a reading guide for the entire year of 2009. It’s a great way to go through a portion of the Bible that is often overlooked or ignored today.

There are many reasons why we tend towards ignoring the Old Testament Scriptures. Many people don’t see them as important, because they take the “newness” of the New Testament as being a “better” testament. Certainly, the author of Hebrews speaks of the new covenant as a “better” covenant, but the same author quotes the old testament more than any other author. The “better”ness of the new covenant is not the same thing as the supposed “better”ness of the New Testament; those of us who hold to inspiration must hold to the equal inspiration of both the old and new testaments. Paul himself, in speaking on inspiration, is applying it not to his own writings but that of the (what we now call) the Old Testament (cf. 2 Tim 3:16-17). It wasn’t the Old Testament to Paul- it was the Scriptures themselves. In fact, the word used for Scripture in the New Testament is always referring to the books that comprise the Old. Other people tend to ignore it because it’s just really hard to comprehend and follow. And it is really hard. Considering what Paul taught about the Old Testament, however, this is hardly a legit reason for ignoring what accounts for over half of our Scriptures today. So then, what are we to do?

First, let’s lay our cards down on the table, and confess that the Old Testament is so hard for us because we are very ignorant of the cultures it was written in. One of the things we must do is seek to increase our knowledge of the culture and customs of that era. It’s a daunting task, to be sure, but it’s not impossible. There are many resources available, for those who are just starting out on this journey or those who have made it a career. Many books are available, as is a ton of online resources. Of course, you want to be careful of each source, but they are available. For example, John Walton, an Old Testament scholar, has started a weekly series on background study.

Second, I see in the New Testament two principles (well, two that I’m mentioning in this post) on how to interpret the Old Testament. For sake of ease, I’ll call them the Luke 24:27 principle, and the 2 Timothy 3:16-17 principle. I’ll look at them in reverse order.

In 2 Timothy 3:16-17, noted above in regards to inspiration, Paul gives us several purposes of the Old Testament Scripture: teaching, refuting error, correction, disciplining for righteousness, and equipping. The 2 Timothy principle is very simple. Take each of these things, and turn them into questions about the passage. For example: “What is this teaching me about _________ ?” “Is this text showing me that I believe something about God that isn’t true?” “What is this text showing me about myself that needs to be corrected? or Where do I need more discipline?” or “What can I see in this text that will equip me for life and ministry?” A less general example might be “What does the book of Judges teach about the sinfulness of people, and the just, righteousness, and grace of God?”

In Luke 24:27, the resurrected Messiah explains to two people how the Old Testament Scriptures all point to him as their culmination. There is a huge debate on how much of the Scripture is fulfilled by Christ, and also just how we are to see Christ in the Scripture, but that is beyond the scope of this post. What can be agreed on, by those of us who believe the Bible is true, is that the overarching movement of the Old Testament Scripture is the coming of the Messiah- the Suffering Servant, the Davidic King, and the One who will crush the serpent’s head. Again, there’s debate over the extent of how much we can apply this principle (and I would apply it much more than others), we can approach texts by asking, “what does this text teach or show me about Christ and his mission?” An obvious example of this is the sacrificial system portrayed in the first few books (called the Pentateuch), particularly Leviticus. Christ fulfills the sacrificial system by being the ultimate sacrifice.

Yes, the Old Testament is hard. We are removed from it culturally and temporally by over 2,000 years. However, if we take the New Testament at its word, we cannot deny the importance and necessity of our reading and understanding of the Old Testament. It was the Bible of the first Christians. According to Galatians, those of us who place their faith in Christ acquire the Old Testament story as our own story. Hopefully, if you struggle to realize the importance of this portion of Scripture, these ideas I’ve given can help spur you on to becoming more familiar with God’s story.