Why The Old Testament Matters – Overview

If you’re like most people, you’ve probably started a “Read the Bible in a Year” plan, gotten halfway through Leviticus, thrown your hands up in the air, and said, “I’ll try this again next year,” more than once. There’s no question that the Bible can be confusing and overwhelming—especially the Old Testament. So, why is it even in there? We all know that Jesus is the really important part, so can’t we just start with Matthew and skip everything before it? Why do we need to read all these names we can’t pronounce, genealogies of people we can’t keep track of, ancient law codes, and poetry that doesn’t even rhyme? In this new series, Why the Old Testament Matters, we will answer these very questions and show you that interpreting, understanding, and applying the Old Testament to our lives isn’t as scary as it seems. But first, let’s establish a few basics.

One fundamental is that the Bible is structured as an anthology—a collection of different, smaller works by various authors, all with a similar theme. But the Bible as a whole is also one complete story. No one would pick up a novel, flip two-thirds of the way through, and start reading there—that would be ridiculous! If you did that, you’d miss the character relationships, the root of the conflict, and the author’s references to earlier events. But if we only ever pick up the Bible and flip to Matthew, that’s kind of what we’re doing.

Let’s pretend for a moment that we know nothing about the Bible and are opening it for the first time. Flip over to Matthew 1. We see a genealogy for someone named Jesus, a bunch of references to David and Abraham, repeated mentions of an exile to Babylon, and, toward the end of the chapter, a prophecy and someone getting pregnant by the Holy Spirit. We can tell Jesus, David, and Abraham are important, and there’s a lot of important history this Matthew guy seems to expect us to already know. And that’s because he does expect that! Matthew is writing his Gospel assuming that you’ve already read the Old Testament. If you have, names like Abraham, David, Ruth, and Solomon will be extremely familiar to you, and you may even recognize that the prophecy comes from the book of Isaiah. So, what else is Matthew expecting you to know?

If you’re wondering how a thousands-of-years-old book applies to you today, remember that the oldest parts of the Bible were already ancient when the New Testament authors used them! Through the discernment available to us through the Holy Spirit, we can learn to do this in our lives too.

Let’s go all the way back to the beginning of the Bible. If we start with Genesis 1 and 2, we see God (and His Spirit) at work, creating everything, including humans. He gave Adam and Eve one rule: don’t eat from one specific tree. In Genesis 3, we see them do exactly that, and their disobedience brings consequences. But in the midst of these consequences, God also makes a promise: one day, Eve’s offspring will “strike [the] head” of the serpent, defeating sin and Satan once and for all (Genesis 3:15).

In the next chapter, we see the first two children of Adam and Eve—and almost immediately, one of them kills the other! How is Eve’s offspring going to save us if her kids keep killing each other? God’s promise seems threatened, but He provides another son. From this point through the rest of the Old Testament, we follow this one family line. The people in this family aren’t perfect; in fact, many of them make some pretty big mistakes. Yet no matter how badly they mess up, we can see God continuing to be faithful to them and protect them. It’s within this context that Matthew starts. People are messed up, but God has promised that someone will make a way for us to come back to perfect community with Him.

Now, maybe you’ve been in church for a while, and you know all this already. But does that mean you’ve gotten everything you need from the Old Testament and never have to open it again? To quote Paul, “Absolutely not!” (Romans 6:2). This is only scratching the surface of what the Old Testament has to offer. To quote another statement of Paul’s, “All Scripture is inspired by God, and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16–17). Now, when Paul wrote this, the New Testament as we know it didn’t exist. It was still being written, so Paul had to be talking about the Old Testament! As you start to get more familiar with the Old Testament, you’ll start to recognize the New Testament authors quoting from the Old Testament to address issues they were dealing with. If you’re wondering how a thousands-of-years-old book applies to you today, remember that the oldest parts of the Bible were already ancient when the New Testament authors used them! Through the discernment available to us through the Holy Spirit, we can learn to do this in our lives too.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll guide you through the different sections of the Old Testament, and some of the specific books, to help show you how accessible the Bible truly is, and to help you learn how to study and unpack the Old Testament yourself.

If you would like more guidance on this, check out our resource Understanding the Bible. It has a podcast and workbook that you can go through on your own or in a group. It is available wherever you listen to your podcasts, on the church’s app, or on our website, experiencecc.com.