Pastor’s Corner | Old or New Testament?

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

We are people of the New Testament, of course, but does that mean that the Old Testament in our Bibles goes away? Do we devote our attention and study only to the New Testament? Since Jesus taught that he came to fulfill the Old Testament, not to replace it, it seems important to emphasize that the Old Testament continues to be important to our Christian lives, as we seek to live out faithful and obedient lives before God.

Some years ago, when I was pastor of a church in Conway, Ark., I met a lady who was on our membership roll but hadn’t attended church services in a long time. In the course of trying to influence her to a more active, churchparticipating practice of Christian discipleship, I learned that she had anunusual and very narrow concept of the place of Bible study in the life of a Christian. She had apparently concluded in years past that the Bible was too big for her to study as a whole; so she decided just to study a limited part of it, hoping that God would be OK with that. Not only did she pass over the entire Old Testament, but actually most of the New Testament as well. She focused almost entirely on reading and re-reading the book of Revelation. I was not in that community long enough to learn if I helped to broaden her sense of the importance of the whole Bible in Christian living, but I certainly tried.

I am committed to being a whole-Bible Christian.

The Bible has a story to tell, and we don’t get that story by reading only certain selected passages over and over, even though they be wonderful passages and very inspiring. God is revealed in the Bible as he works with his people through times and changes, through challenges and crises, through seasons rich in opportunity and prosperity, and through seasons of suffering and heartache.

The Bible is not a book of philosophy of life so much as it is a story of God’s work to lead and save his people and to bring their lives to high fulfillment.

The history in the Bible is revelational history. God is revealed as he works with his people in the sense of purpose they pursue, in the ups and downs they experience through time, working with them in the times of faithfulness and times of disobedience, leading on toward the completion of God’s design for all creation. The godly life is not a static life. God has always been saying, “Come, let us go forward together!”

In John 5:39, Jesus remarks to some who have not accepted him, “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they who bear witness of me.” Thiswas spoken well before the New Testament books and letters were written;

and Jesus is saying that the Scriptures, the Old Testament Scriptures, bear witness to him. Thisis saying that reading the older parts of the Bible in an open and genuinely inquiring spirit can lead us to Jesus. It will help us grasp the gospel story, of how God has been leading through time to reveal the Savior, who is Christ, the Lord, to the world.

It is most interesting to me to note that when the Apostle Paul begins to teach about living by faith, and about being accounted righteous through faith rather than through law observance, he points to Abraham and the history of the covenant of God with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, to show that “the just shall live by faith” is not a new and novel idea that originates with the New Testament, it is a very old idea, which comes from the heart of the Old Testament legacyof faith.

Some people have tried to sum up the Old Testament with the idea that the God of the Old Testament is a God of wrath and judgment and retribution, whereas the God of the New Testament is a God of love and compassion and forgiveness. To those who might be inclined to accept that summation, I would encourage them to do a serious re-reading of the Old Testament, to discover that a God of grace and forgiveness and steadfast love for his people is very much an Old Testament idea, not just a New Testament idea. Read again the book of Hosea to see how God seeks to restore and show mercy toward a massively disobedient people. Read again in Jeremiah how like a loving parent seeking to restorea wayward child, God earnestly seeks to reconcile a people who are far gone from understanding. Even in the Old Testament, God seeks transformation and renewal of life, not punishment as an end.

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Editor’s note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.

Church, Pages 2 on 09/01/2010