The Old Testament Matters
Recently a friend told me that he had spent a year reading through the Bible. When asked how it went, he was surprisingly blunt. ‘It was not a happy experience’, he lamented. ‘Ploughing through the Old testament was often a dark experience that was horrifying at times, bewildering at others. I think I’m going to stick mostly to the New Testament from now on’.
But that’s not a good decision. Admittedly, there are elements of the Old Testament books that make for a really tough read. The book of Numbers largely focuses on, well numbers!
Leviticus reads like a butchers manual, and Ecclesiastes catalogues the confused musings of a once brilliantly wise king who is somewhat lost in a maze where the meaning and purpose of life , ‘under the sun’ was elusive.
Tribes are tortured and slaughtered, political intrigue, selfish ambition and rape and murder stain the pages of the Old Testament with blood. But we need to be those who will wrestle with the Old Testament, because what we read in the New often only makes sense when we understand the old covenant background.
The stunning vision that John had of Jesus can only be understood in the light of what has been revealed previously in passages like Daniel 7, Daniel 10 and Exodus 19. The Old Testament sets the stage, shows us the need we have for a Saviour, and provides prophetic expectation for many things that are fulfilled in the New Testament which quotes the Old Testament over 900 times.