By: Gary L. Ivey
Christians usually spend most of their Bible study time in the New Testament. That makes sense, because Christians are focused on Christ and The New Testament is where we learn about Christ and his ministry in the Gospels, then the growth and development of Jesus Christ’s Church in the rest of the New Testament.
Not only that, but the message of the New Testament is usually more palatable. The word “Gospel” means “Good News,” after all, and who doesn’t like good news? Also, Jesus’ message is all about love, or at least that’s what we like to emphasize. “God is love.” That’s a direct quote from Jesus.
By contrast, the God of the Old Testament is usually seen as severe, demanding and cruel. You’ve got the Fall, the Flood and Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis, Sinai and all the rules and regs with the death penalty attached in the books like Exodus through Deuteronomy.
Why am I bringing this up? Because I’m writing a series of novels called “Age of the Kingdom,” based on the period in which Israel was united under three kings: Saul, David and Solomon. The first book in the series, Quest for a King, is available now and the second novel, Exile of the King, will be available soon.
So why do I say Christians should study the Old Testament? Here are five reasons:
1. The New Testament wouldn’t exist without the Old Testament. About one third of the NEW Testament is either quotation from or allusion to the OLD Testament. For example: In Matthew 22 Jesus was asked, “What is the greatest commandment?” He answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart…soul…mind…and… love your neighbor as yourself.” See? The New Testament is all about love. BUT Jesus’ answer was a quotation from two verses in the OLD Testament. “Love the Lord your God…” is a quote from Deuteronomy 6:5 and “Love your neighbor…” is a quote from Leviticus 19:18. Jesus finishes by saying “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” That last phrase, “the law and the prophets,” was another way of referring to the Old Testament. The “law” was the Torah or the Pentateuch or the books of Moses. The “prophets” refers to all the books at the end of the Old Testament from Isaiah to Malachi. So Jesus said “love” is what is behind the entire OLD Testament. There are a lot of places in the New Testament, especially in the Gospel of Matthew, which was written for Jews, that say, “This happened to fulfill the word of the prophet…” or words to that effect, showing how Jesus fulfilled predictions made in the Old Testament.
2. The Old Testament is the Bible from which Jesus read and taught. The books and letters that make up the New Testament were likely written no less than 30 years after Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension (some were written almost 70 years later), so Jesus and the apostles didn’t depend on the New Testament scriptures for study, evangelism and teaching, because the hadn’t been written yet. When Paul says in 2nd Timothy 3:16, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine…” he’s talking about the Old Testament.
3. Both Testaments, though written by multiple authors over more than 2,000 years, are really ONE story: GOD’s story. When you think about it, it’s amazing that the Bible is coherent at all, because it was written by many different people in very different times and cultures. But there are definite themes which run from beginning to end. There are even bookends in Genesis and Revelation, the first and last books in terms of when they were written and in the table of contents. One example: In Genesis, God creates the earth. In Revelation, He creates a NEW earth. It’s easy to see that the whole Bible is the record of God’s love to humanity and His unwillingness to let us ruin everything through our rebellion against Him. It started in the Garden of Eden and it finishes when God finally creates the paradise He always intended earth to be.
4. Jesus taught that Christians are spiritual heirs of Judaism. Some Christians think the Old Testament is just for the Jews and the New Testament is the Christian Bible. But in John 15, Jesus taught that Christians are branches grafted into the true vine, whom he identifies as Himself. Paul goes further in Romans 11, saying that ISRAEL was the vine into which Christians are grafted, and in Galatians 3, Paul says Christians are spiritual descendants of Abraham. So the Old Testament is every Christian’s spiritual heritage.
5. From the Old Testament we learn why Jesus had to die. Theoretically, God could have just forgiven humankind’s sins with a wave of His hand. But there are those who would say that wasn’t “fair.” There is an “accuser of the brethren” who is first seen in Genesis, when the serpent speaking to Eve says God was not telling the truth when he said they they would die if they ate the forbidden fruit. Adam and Eve chose to believe the serpent instead of God and that’s what caused “the Fall.” If it turned out that sin DIDN’T result in death, the devil would have been able to say he was right and God was a liar. To be just, God had to keep His promise of judgement for sin. Death is the result of sin. “The wages of sin is death,” Paul said, for the New Testament version of Genesis. There had to be death. When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, the devil tried to get Him to worship him instead of God. This kind of change of allegiance was the same temptation Adam and Eve failed to resist: to trust someone other than God. So our lot is death because to be separated from God is to be separated from life. Israel repeatedly acted this out through the death of animals they sacrificed. This was meant to underline the fact that sin was serious and death was its inevitable result.
There are plenty of other reasons, but I think this is a good beginning. Can you think of additional reasons?