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.
There are theological difficulties. For example, God’s blessing in the OT seems to be in prosperity (Deuteronomy 7.12-14), but in poverty in the New Testament (Luke 6.20).
There are ethical difficulties, such as the treatment of the Canaanites or the execution of a stubborn, rebellious son (Deuteronomy 21.18-21).
There are practical difficulties. The OT is long. It contains different types of writing and covers many different periods of history. Just which Jeroboam are we talking about?!
Grounding our view
The OT is all God’s Word. The Christian reader of the OT draws his or her attitude to the OT from one in whom they have put their trust, Jesus Christ. John Wenham, in his Christ and the Bible, saw this so clearly. And Jesus treated the OT as God’s Word. He submitted to it, even as a baby being circumcised and dedicated (Luke 2.21,23); he studied it, prayed in the temple and celebrated the Passover. He defined his mission and identity by it (e.g., Daniel 7; Isaiah 53). He used it for himself in his temptations and on the cross. He regarded it as authoritative in debate (Matthew 22.37-40).
Most strikingly of all, he regarded it as inspired. In John 5.37-39, it is the Father’s testimony about him. In Matthew 19:4-5, in a debate on divorce, Jesus talks of the ‘one who made them male and female and said …’. The subject of the two verbs is the same: the God who ‘made’ is also the God who ‘said’. But in Genesis, the words Jesus insists God ‘said’ are in fact spoken not by God but by the narrator (Genesis 2.24). The implication is clear. For Jesus, what the narrator said in Genesis, God in fact said. God’s words are not limited to the words on his lips.
In similar vein, Paul insists on the inspiration and authority of the OT. In 2 Timothy 3.15-17, he declares that ‘all Scripture is God-breathed’ and goes on to maintain that it is ‘useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.’ So how do I hear God’s Word in the OT?
A pointer
Of the many things that could be said, I want to highlight one: read the text in its contexts. The OT is not like a chocolate box, where we can pick out our favourites. It is more like a jigsaw puzzle, where the pieces fit together. We need to read it in its different contexts.
Particular ones to highlight are: Immediate context – what happens before and afterwards. For example: ‘In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength’ (Isaiah 30.15) sounds positive and encouraging – until we read on: ‘but you would have none of it’. It forms part of God’s judgment on Israel that they refused to trust.
Wider context – that could be the section of the book, the book as a whole, the collection of books, or the OT as a whole. For example, it might seem an isolated incident that a pagan king granted Ezra ‘everything he asked, for the hand of the LORD his God was on him’(Ezra 7.6). But in fact it is part of a pattern that identifies God’s activity in the heart of pagan kings, whether earlier in Ezra (e.g. 1.1) and in Nehemiah (2.8).
Whole Bible context – the words of OT books were part of a communication between God and his people before Christ appeared and made sense in that context. We should read what it says, not squeeze it to fit what we already believe.
But we also need to recognise that they form part of a history that climaxes with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We must interpret them in the light of the New Testament. For example, we cannot simply pick and apply directly OT laws to today. Nor can we ignore them. To pick a topical example: when we eat prawns, but believe that sexual relationships outside heterosexual marriage are wrong, we do so not because we are being arbitrary, but precisely because we are reading them through the lenses Christ’s coming gives us.
