I asked my wife, Bridget, for her thoughts on where to go with this article. She laughed and said: ‘Why do you ask me? You’re the one who’s taught the Old Testament!’ Then she added: ‘But I do keep hearing people saying, “I find the Old Testament really hard.”’
I’ve heard that many times, too. So I want to do three things here: acknowledge some of the challenges; ground our view of the Old Testament as God’s Word; give one pointer as to how to hear God’s Word in the Old Testament (OT).
Some of the challenges
There are historical or cultural difficulties. By this I mean not just the distance in time, but the discontinuities – it is addressed to a particular people, at a particular time, in a particular situation. That’s of course also true of the New Testament. God’s Word is always in a specific context. But it can still be difficult.
