Why should we study the Old Testament?

 

Inquiringly,
Older By The Minute

Dear Older By The Minute,

Why?  For the moral of the story!  There is a great dispute in the religious world about what parts of the Bible to follow.  Some people follow just the New Testament, some the Old Testament, and the majority fit somewhere in-between those two positions.  The answer is in the word "testament".  Testament means 'covenant' or 'contract'.  There is the old contract that people followed before Christ came (Gal 3:24-25), and christians are under the new law that Jesus set up (Rom 8:2).  If you are going to be a christian, the New Testament (i.e. new contract) is your rulebook.

So what use is the Old Testament to christians?  It is still a great teaching tool for several reasons:

1. Examples of good and bad lifestyles (1 Cor 10:1-6, Heb 12:1)
2. Prophecies about Jesus and His church (1 Pet 1:10-12)
3. Explanations of where we came from (Gen 1:1)
4. Knowledge of the world Jesus lived in
5. God wrote it!

The Old Testament is not the place to go to find the specific standards you should live by, but it is a wonderful place to see God at work, interacting in the lives of men.  God's character never changes, and how He valued His old contract should impress upon us how important the new one is (Heb 2:1-3).

     Since Jesus was literate, why didn't He write the New Testament?  And why doesn't anyone discuss the fundamental differences between the Old Testament and the New Testament?  How did God talk to Adam and Eve and tell them not to eat the apple when they had never ever spoken any language and wouldn't have known the words of ‘don't eat the apple’ or anything else?

Sincerely,
Linguist

Dear Linguist,

When God made Adam and Eve, they were fully-grown adults with a fully-functioning language.  On the same day that Adam was “born”, Adam named all the beasts of the field (Gen 2:20).  Adam and Eve were fully capable of understanding language.  Just like everything else that was originally created, Adam and Eve were fully-formed and mature at inception.  On a separate note, God warned them to not eat the ‘fruit’ of the tree of knowledge of good and evil… it wasn’t an apple (Gen 3:6).

As far as why Jesus never wrote part of the New Testament, anything we say would be purely speculation.  It wasn’t a matter of literacy; it was a matter of God’s wisdom that He didn’t have Jesus write the New Testament.

And lastly, we recommend you read the post, “Two Covenants, One God”.

     How does Psalm 110:3 relate to everyday life?

Sincerely,
Applying Myself

Dear Applying Myself,

Psalm 110 is a Messianic Psalm, which means that it is a psalm that prophesies about Jesus.  Ps 110:1 is quoted by Jesus in Mk 12:36 as referring to Him, and Heb 5:6 quotes Ps 110:4 and says that it is talking about Jesus.  Therefore, we can conclude that the 110^th Psalm is about Jesus.  Ps 110:3 says that Jesus’ people will willingly serve Him and give their youthful strength to the cause of Christ.  As Christians, this should be our character, to always serve God willingly and place Christ first in our lives.

     Does the word "perpetual" in Leviticus 3:17 refer to today?

Sincerely,
Continually Questioning

Dear Continually Questioning,

It refers to today if you are a Jew, but if you are a Christian, it has nothing to do with your life.  Lev 3:17 says that the burnt offering laws were a perpetual law for “your generations”.  The ‘your’ in that context is the Jewish people.  God gave the Old Testament law to the nation of Israel (Deut 4:44).  The word ‘perpetual’ means that something is to be done over and over again, but it doesn’t tell you who it applies to or in what circumstances.

     In Isaiah 24:21, who are the "hosts of heaven on high" or "powers in the heavens above" (NIV)?

Sincerely,
Identity Verification

Dear Identity Verification,

The “hosts of the high ones on high” that Isaiah says will be punished and cast down are synonymous with the “spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” found in Eph 6:12.  These represent the spiritual powers that have attacked and attempted to devour mankind since the beginning.