Many Christians think they need not bother with the long, sprawling saga of the Old Testament: "Just give me Jesus." Yet personally, Jesus was very attached to the Old Testament, which to him was simply
the Bible: he was taught Scripture by his mother, he read and memorized extensively, quoted it in his preaching, and uttered its words with his last breath on the cross. If Jesus could say he did not come "to abolish the Law and Prophets but to fulfill them" (Matthew 5:17), if he could say those "old" Scriptures "bear witness to me" (John 5:39), and if he could read from Isaiah, look up, and say "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled" (Luke 4:21), we can expect the Old Testament to take us on a most exciting adventure.
Notice the Old Testament is not superseded, but fulfilled in Jesus - and not merely in a crystal ball manner, as if the Old Testament accurately predicts the New. In its pages we discover a profound, befuddling, humorous, intriguing story of God's involvement with people. Can't you identify with Hannah as she battles unanswered prayer? or David as he succeeds in life but then is kicked in the gut within his own family? or the people of Israel who crave freedom and then squander it? or Ruth and Naomi, both heartbroken, clinging to each other and to God?
Do you feel some discomfort with the God of the Old Testament? Yet this is the God Jesus called "Abba," and to whom he prayed. This God exhibits wrath - yet is immensely patient, unfathomably merciful. The New Testament (if we read it!) in just the same way portrays God not as blandly indulgent, but as zealously serious, merciful and patient, judge and savior. Is the New Testament "progress" over the Old, the way a DVD is an advance over reel to reel? or is it the way a father gives his daughter in marriage as the apogee of love, while still relishing memories of her as a toddler, those tender years not invalidated but crowned, the precious threads of life woven together into a fabric stretching from a happy past into a hopeful future?
The Old Testament is more focused than the New on real life in this world, and our responsibilities here. The commandments teach us how to live, not as masters of our own existence, but as loyal subjects. The wisdom of Proverbs would benefit any child or family. The Psalms teach us to pray. The Old Testament plumbs the mystery of God's elusive presence. God's name was so revered that it could not be spoken aloud, very different from today when God's name is trivially spoken in vain. Our habit of idolatry is exposed. We meet God who makes and keeps promises.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, near the end of his life, wrote, "My thoughts and feelings seem to be getting more and more like those of the Old Testament. It is only when one knows the unutterability of the name of God that one can utter the name of Jesus Christ; it is only when one loves life and this earth so much that without them everything seems to be over that one may believe in the resurrection; it is only when one submits to God's law that one may speak of grace. It is not Christian to want to take our thoughts and feelings too directly from the New Testament alone."
James
james@mpumc.org
The complete email series on Bible Questions can be found if you click here.
Coming up:
eBibleQuestions9 - What about Creation and Evolution?
eBibleQuestions10 - Who invented the idea of Original Sin?
eBibleQuestions11 - Why would Israel be God's Chosen People?
