Dr. Mark Ward: How We Got Our Old Testament

Todd Friel on Why Andy Stanley's Teaching About Unhitching the Old Testament from the Faith is Dangerous

R.C. Sproul on the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament

Book Review: Delighting in the Old Testament by Jason S. Derouchie

 

The Old Testament makes up 75% of the Bible, yet there are many Christians who want nothing to do with it. Sure, they might read the Psalms and Proverbs, but they ignore the other 37 books. We have some pastors who say Christians need to unhitch themselves from the Old Testament because they are not Christian Scriptures.

How are Christians supposed to view the Old Testament? Are those books relevant for today? The answer to this is yes. Jason S. Derouchie has written a book for anyone who is wrestling with the Old Testament especially those who do not want to interact with it. The title of the book is Delighting in the Old Testament.

The book begins with expressing the importance of the Old Testament which one of them, as mentioned earlier, it is 75% of the Bible. That is 3/4 of the Scriptures yet it is the most ignored. Another reason is that the Old Testament is what Jesus read. Every quote of Scripture Jesus used in the Gospels are from the Old Testament. One other reason I want to point out is we meet the same God. No, the God of the Old Testament and New Testament are not different beings. God is the same in both testaments.

The meat of the book is divided into four parts. The first deals with Jesus helping Christians interpret the Old Testament. Derouchie looks at audience and comprehension of the audience from both perspectives of the New and Old Testaments before showing that Christ is the lens for interpreting the Old Testament.

Next, Derouchie addresses the entire Bible is about Jesus not just the New Testament. Yes, the Old Testament is about Him. Genesis 3:15 is the first Messianic prophecy. Jesus even taught the two men on the road to Emmaus beginning with Moses how the Scriptures point to Him.

Derouchie continues with Jesus fulfilling the promises made in the Old Testament. He helps see those promises and how they were fulfilled. Finally, Derouchie deals how Jesus made the law of Moses matter for Christians today. Granted, the civil and ceremonial laws do not apply for those under the New Covenant, the moral law still matters. We have to be careful when it comes to the Old Testament law because we know Jesus fulfilled the righteous requirements of it otherwise, we would have no hope. I do not think Derouchie was communicating that Christians need to keep all of the law, but we still need to make sure that this does not form into legalism.

The book concludes with Derouchie sharing with his readers tips on delighting in the Old Testament. One of them is interpret the Old Testament with care as we would with the New Testament. Another is read the Old Testament through the light and lens of Christ. While Christ may not be pointed in every verse of the Old Testament, we must look at it through what Christ has done. Of course, there are many other tips that Derouchie gave his readers, but you get the idea that the Old Testament is something Christians cannot ignore not matter how hard you try.

This book is for the laymen who has never read the Old Testament and will help you see its importance. This book is also for the pastor and church leader who wants to ignore the Old Testament because it's out of date. This book is also for the seasoned believer who needs to be reminded of why the Old Testament matters. Even if you do not agree with Derouchie's conclusions, you will find this book very insightful.

I received this book from Crossway in exchange for an honest review.

Do Not Undervalue the Old Testament

Let us beware of undervaluing or despising the Old Testament. In its place and proportion, the Old Testament is just as valuable as the New. There are probably many rich passages in that part of the Bible which have never yet been fully explored. 

There are deep things about Jesus in it which many walk over like hidden gold mines and know not the treasures beneath their feet. Let us reverence all of the Bible. All is given by inspiration, and all is profitable. One part throws light upon another, and no part can ever be neglected without loss and damage to our souls. 

A boastful contempt for the Old Testament Scriptures has often proved the first step towards infidelity.

J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospel of Mark

Book Review: The Dawning of Redemption by Ian J. Vaillancourt

Most Bible reading plans being with the first five books of the Bible, which are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Most Christians do well as they go through Genesis and Exodus but struggle as they read Leviticus. Many have looked at the first five books of the Bible as history, which is true, but they do not see those books are part of God's redemption plan for mankind. Yes, they understand Genesis 3, but they do not understand why the other parts of these books are there.

We should not see these five books as just history, but as God's revelation on how He is going to bring about redemption to the world. We should not ignore the rest of these books because we may not understand it or makes us feel uncomfortable. 

In his book, The Dawning of Redemption, Ian J. Vaillancourt shows the gospel in these five books. The subtitle of the book says, "The Story of the Pentateuch and the Hope of the Gospel." The Pentateuch refers to the first five books of the Bible which Moses has been given credit for writing each one. 

Vaillancourt proclaims that the Bible from Genesis to Revelation is the Word of God, yet these five books are where the story of redemption begin. The Bible tells us what we need to know. It is not an exhaustive book where we see exact details as to appease our imaginations. The Bible is accurate and detailed in the facts of that need to be addressed, which the Pentateuch is no exception. Vaillancourt shows us the purpose of creation and how it relates to the gospel along with the Exodus, covenants, and even the blessings and curses of the Pentateuch. 

In the end of the book, Vaillancourt invites his readers to take up and read. He encourages to take the Bible and read the Pentateuch. As you are reading the Pentateuch, you will begin to see the connections because it and the gospel. 

For those who think the Old Testament is irrelevant, this book is for you. For those who want to dive deeper in their study of the Old Testament especially in the Pentateuch, this book is for you.

I received this book from Crossway in exchange for a review. 

Video Showing Where Jesus is in the Old Testment

In this video from Wretched Radio, Todd Friel shows where Jesus in the Old Testament:

The Old Testament is the Pedestal for the Gospel

The Gospel is the fulfillment of the promises of the Old Testament. Without it, the Gospel hangs in the air. The Old Testament is the pedestal on which the Gospel rests, and the root out of which it came forth...There was no such thing as a New Testament church without a Bible; from the very beginning that church was in possession of the law, the psalms, and the prophets.

Herman Bavinck, The Wonderful Works of God

Book Review: The Old Testament in Seven Sentences by Christopher J. H. Wright

The Bible contains 66 books which is God's special revelation to His people. It is divided into two parts, the Old Testament and the New Testament. There are 39 books in the Old Testament and 27 in the New. 39 books in the Old Testament. Think about that for a moment. That is over half the Bible and yet it is the most neglected part of the Bible. I get that there are some weird things in it and some things are hard to understand, but it is the inspired Word of God, which is profitable so the man of God might be equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16).

One popular preacher, you know who I am talking about, wants Christians to unhitch the Old Testament from the faith. Others just want to ignore it altogether. Some believers do not even have a clue about what the Old Testament book is about. They want to read it. They were doing fine through Genesis and getting better when they read Exodus, then they hit Leviticus and that is when they stop because of the sacrificial system. Many do not have a clue what the Old Testament is about. To give us a simple introduction to this huge part of the Bible, Christopher J. H. Wright wrote a book called, The Old Testament in Seven Sentences.

What Wright tries to do in this book is to show the importance of the Bible and how it connects to the entire story of the Bible. He uses on seven verses in the entire Old Testament while giving a theme for that verse. They are:

1. Creation: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)

2. Abraham: All peoples on earth will be blessed through you. (Genesis 12:3)

3. Exodus: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. (Exodus 20:2)

4. David: The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people. (1 Samuel 13:14)

5. Prophets: What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)

6. Gospel: How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the One who brings good news. (Isaiah 52:7)

7. Psalms and Wisdom: The Lord is my shepherd. (Psalm 23:1)

Wright teaches in the book the beauty of the Bible through these seven verses in the Old Testament while also showing how the Old Testament is also as much as God's Word as the New Testament. Wright teaches very clearly and simply explains the text while connecting it to the entirety of the Bible. Wright shares God's covenant and promises from the Old Testament also how it relates to the mission of God's people in the world today.

If you or someone you know have a difficulty in understanding the Old Testament, this book is a good place to start.

Thanks InterVarsity Press for letting me review this book.

The Unities of the Old and New Testement

The books of the Old Testament and the New Testament were written by different human authors over a long span of time. But they share profound unities.

•Every book in the Bible has God as the divine author, who inspired each human author. All of Scripture is the very Word of God.

•All of the Bible is Trinitarian communication to us. God the Father speaks all of the words through the Son, the eternal Word (John 1:1), and God speaks in the power and means of the Holy Spirit (2 Pet. 1:21).

•All of the Bible is Christ-centered. Christ is the central subject and focus of the Bible. This focus is obvious in the New Testament, but it is present in the Old Testament also (Luke 24:25–27, 44–47; John 5:39–40, 45–47; 1 Pet. 1:10–12).

•The Bible reveals how God redeems his people. Its focus is salvation as it applies to individuals and also to God’s people as a corporate unity.

•The Bible bears a unified message of salvation. The fall of Adam (Gen. 3:6–7) resulted in sinfulness coming to the whole human race, Christ excepted. There is only one way of rescue, namely, Christ himself: “Jesus said . . . , ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’” (John 14:6). People cannot make up for their sins by accumulating good works, because God is perfectly holy, and sins must receive judgment by the Father, who is just. Only Christ, who was also perfectly holy, can bear the burden of the penalty for sins (1 Pet. 2:24).

•This principle that salvation comes only in Christ is obvious in the New Testament but found in the Old Testament also. Before Christ came, sins were forgiven for the sake of Christ’s future work (Rom. 3:25; Heb. 10:4, 10). Saved people in the Old Testament believed in God’s promise of a Redeemer and enjoyed communion with God. He applied to them beforehand benefits based on what Christ would accomplish.

Adapted from the ESV Gospel Transformation Study Bible

Book Review: Confronting Old Testament Controversies by Tremper Longman III

For some the Old Testament is a stumbling block. Some cannot comprehend why it is written the way it is or how it portrays God. We see a lot of violence in the Old Testament such as wars and Israel wiping out nations. Most want to avoid the Old Testament and just read the New Testament. We need the Old Testament because it is part of the Biblical story of redemption.

There are things in the Old Testament that need to addressed Biblically and theologically. This is what Tremper Longman III attempts to do in his lasts book, Confronting Old Testament Controversies. This book addresses four areas on controversies that are divided into four lengthy chapters. Those areas are:

Creation and Evolution: Are the Bible and Science in Conflict?

History: Did the Exodus and Conquest Happen, Does it Matter?

Divine Violence: Does God Kill?

Sexuality: Is Homosexual Practice Affirmed?

Very tough subjects indeed that need to be addressed from a Biblical worldview. I feel that Longman did do that in a way that does not seem to go beyond one's comprehension. The issue of sexuality is a hot topic for our day. Longman addressed the issue of David and Jonathan's friendship which many think this affirmed a homosexual lifestyle, which is really a misunderstanding of the Biblical text. Longman affirmed that any sexual sin, heterosexual and/or homosexual, is not God's standard of sexuality and even went to Romans 1 to support his claims.

Longman knows there is considerable disagreement regarding controversies in the Old Testament, but that should not be the focus. He wrote:

What is certain is that God created us, but we rebelled against him. He did not give up on us, but pursues a restored relationship with us. That pursuit ultimately led to the cross, the death and resurrection of Jesus. To be reconciled to God, we must be in a relationship with Jesus. He will come again in the future to brings us to himself. For this we can all praise God.

Granted, some of the wording is not how I would say it, but the point is when we come to the Bible, the controversies should not be the ones that draw our attention. The purpose of the Bible is to point to the One who saves us. The One who redeems. The One who wants us to be reconciled to His Father to the praise of His glory.

Thanks Baker Books for letting me review this book.

Around The Web-April 26, 2019

WTS Books has a sale going on for their best books on Colossians and Philemon

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3 Helpful Reminders When We’re Surprised By Our Sin by Amy DiMarcangelo

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Pastors' Talk On Church Buildings

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Whiteness from Just Thinking

Does Grace Still Amaze You? by Randy Alcorn

Is Justification in the Old Testament? from Credo Magazine

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Whiteness, Blackness, Christless by Samuel Sey

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Around The Web-March 1, 2019

50% off the New Studies in Biblical Theology series

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Mark Dever on How The Old Testament Saints Were Saved

Around The Web-December 19, 2018

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Do the Gospels Borrow from Pagan Myths? by Timothy Paul Jones

Tattoos and Christians by Joe Thorn

You probably have seen the gif or meme of R.C. Sproul saying, "What's wrong with you people?!?!" Well, here is the source from the 2014 Ligonier National Conference.

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The Importance of the Old Testament

Thanks to Andy Stanley's recent teaching that Christians should unhitch the Old Testament from the faith, many have wondered why do we need the Old Testament. Is the Old Testament still important for the 21st century Christian as it was for the 1st century believer? In his book, How to Understand and Apply the Old Testament, Jason Derouchie gives us 10 reasons why the Old Testament is not only important in the Bible, but in the Christian faith as well:

1. The OT was Jesus’s only Scripture and makes up three-fourths (75.55 percent) of our Bible.

If space says anything, the OT matters to God, who gave us his Word in a book. In fact, it was his first special revelation, which set a foundation for the fulfillment we find in Jesus in the New Testament (NT).

The OT was the only Bible of Jesus and the earliest church (e.g., Matt. 5:17; Luke 24:44; Acts 24:14; 2 Tim. 3:15), and it’s a major part of our Scriptures.

2. The OT substantially influences our understanding of key biblical teachings.

By the end of the Law (Genesis–Deuteronomy), the Bible has already described or alluded to all five of the major covenants that guide Scripture’s plot structure (Adamic-Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, and new). The rest of the OT then builds on this portrait in detail. Accordingly, the OT narrative builds anticipation for a better king, a blessed people, and a broader land. The OT creates the problem and includes promises that the NT answers and fulfills. We need the OT to understand fully God’s work in history.

Further, some doctrines of Scripture are best understood only from the OT. For example, is there a more worldview-shaping passage than Genesis 1:1–2:3? Where else can we go other than the OT to rightly understand sacred space and the temple? Is there a more explicit declaration of YHWH’s incomparability than Isaiah 40, or a more succinct expression of substitutionary atonement than Isaiah 53? Where should we go to know what Paul means by “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” (Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16)?

Finally, the NT worldview and teachings are built on the framework supplied in the OT. In the NT we find literally hundreds of OT quotations, allusions, and echoes, none of which we’ll fully grasp apart from saturating ourselves in Jesus’s Bible.

3. We meet the same God in both Testaments.

Note how the book of Hebrews begins: “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (Heb. 1:1–2). The very God who spoke through the OT prophets speaks through Jesus.

Now, you may ask, “But isn’t the OT’s God one of wrath and burden, whereas the God of the NT is about grace and freedom?” Let’s consider some texts, first from the OT and then from the New.

Perhaps the most foundational OT statement of YHWH’s character and action is Exodus 34:6: “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” The OT then reasserts this truth numerous times in order to clarify why it is that God continued to pardon and preserve a wayward people:

But the LORD was gracious to them and had compassion on them, and he turned toward them, because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and would not destroy them, nor has he cast them from his presence until now. (2 Kings 13:23)

For if you return to the LORD, your brothers and your children will find compassion with their captors and return to this land. For the LORD your God is gracious and merciful and will not turn away his face from you, if you return to him. (2 Chron. 30:9)

Many years you bore with them and warned them by your Spirit through your prophets. Yet they would not give ear. Therefore you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands. Nevertheless, in your great mercies you did not make an end of them or forsake them, for you are a gracious and merciful God. (Neh. 9:30–31)

Thus God’s grace fills the OT, just as it does the NT.

Further, in the NT, Jesus speaks about hell more than anyone else. He declares, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10:28). Similarly, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” (18:6). Paul, citing Deuteronomy 32:35, asserts: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” (Rom. 12:19). And the author of Hebrews writes, “For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries” (Heb. 10:26–27). Thus God is just as wrathful in the NT as he is in the OT.

In Acts 10:42–43, Peter asserts, “And [God] commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that [Jesus] is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the [OT] prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” Here the NT apostle identifies himself as a proclaimer of Jesus as judge, whereas he says the OT prophets proclaimed Jesus as the means of forgiveness.

Certainly there are numerous expressions of YHWH’s righteous anger in the OT, just as there are massive manifestations of blood-bought mercy in the NT. What is important is to recognize that we meet the same God in the OT as we do in the New. In the whole Bible we meet a God who is faithful to his promises to both bless and curse. He takes sin and repentance seriously, and so should we.

4. The OT announces the very ‘good news/gospel’ we enjoy.

The gospel is the good news that through Jesus––the divine, crucified, and resurrected Messiah––God reigns over all and saves and satisfies believing sinners. Paul states that “the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed’” (Gal. 3:8, emphasis added). Abraham was already aware of the message of global salvation we now enjoy.

Similarly, in the opening of Romans, Paul stresses that the Lord “promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures” (i.e., the OT prophets) the powerful “gospel of God . . . concerning the Son” that he preached and in which we now rest (Rom. 1:1–3, 16).

Foremost among these prophets was Isaiah, who anticipated the day when YHWH’s royal servant (the Messiah) and the many servants identified with him would herald comforting “good news” to the poor and broken––news that the saving God reigns through his anointed royal deliverer (Isa. 61:1; cf. 40:9–11; 52:7–10; Luke 4:16–21).

Reading the OT, therefore, is one of God’s given ways for us to better grasp and delight in the gospel (see also Heb. 4:2).

5. Both the old and new covenants call for love, and we can learn much about love from the OT.

Within the old covenant, love was what the Lord called Israel to do (Deut. 6:5; 10:19); all the other commandments simply clarified how to do it. This was part of Jesus’s point when he stressed that all the OT hangs on the call to love God and neighbor: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 22:37–40).

Christ emphasized, “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (7:12). Similarly, Paul noted, “The whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Gal. 5:14; cf. Rom. 13:8, 10). As with Israel, the Lord calls Christians to lives characterized by love. However, he now gives all members of the new covenant the ability to do what he commands. As Moses himself asserted, the very reason God promised to circumcise hearts in the new covenant age was “so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deut. 30:6). Moses also said that those enjoying this divine work in this future day would “obey the voice of the LORD and keep all his commandments that I command you today” (30:8).

Moses’s old covenant law called for life-encompassing love, and Christians today, looking through the lens of Christ, can gain clarity from the OT on the wide-ranging effect of love in all of life.

6. Jesus came not to destroy the Law and the Prophets but to fulfill them.

Far from setting aside the OT, Jesus stressed that he came to fulfill it, and in the process he highlighted the lasting relevance of the OT’s teaching for Christians:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. 5:17–19)

It’s important to note here that, while the age of the old covenant has come to an end (Rom. 6:14–15; 1 Cor. 9:20–21; Gal. 5:18; cf. Luke 16:16), the OT itself maintains lasting relevance for us in the way it displays the character of God (e.g., Rom. 7:12), points to the excellencies of Christ, and portrays for us the scope of love in all its facets (Matt. 22:37–40). As Moses asserted, in the day of heart circumcision (Deut. 30:6), which we are enjoying today (Rom. 2:29), all of his teachings in Deuteronomy would still matter: “And you shall again obey the voice of the LORD and keep all his commandments that I command you today” (Deut. 30:8).

7. Jesus said that all the OT points to him.

After his first encounter with Jesus, Philip announced to Nathaniel: “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophet wrote” (John 1:45). Do you want to see and savor Jesus as much as you can? We find him in the OT. As Jesus himself said, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me” (John 5:39; cf. 5:46–47). “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). After his resurrection, proclaiming the gospel of God’s kingdom (Acts 1:3), Jesus opened the minds of his disciples “to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, ‘Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem’” (Luke 24:53).

A proper “understanding” of the OT will lead one to hear in it a message of the Messiah and the mission his life would generate. Similarly, Paul taught “nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass: that the Christ must suffer and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles” (Acts 26:22–23). As an OT preacher, he could declare: “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).

If you want to know Jesus more, read the OT!

8. Failing to declare ‘the whole counsel of God’ can put us in danger before the Lord.

Paul was a herald of the good news of God’s kingdom in Christ (e.g., Acts 19:8; 20:25; 28:30–31), which he preached from the Law of Moses and the Prophets––the OT (28:23; cf. 26:22–23). In Acts 20:26–27 he testifies to the Ephesian elders, “I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.” The “whole counsel of God” refers to the entirety of God’s purposes in salvation-history as revealed in Scripture. Had the apostle failed to make known the Lord’s redemptive plan of blessing overcoming curse in the person of Jesus, he would have stood accountable before God for any future doctrinal or moral error that the Ephesian church carried out (cf. Ezek. 33:1–6; Acts 18:6).

With the NT the Scripture is complete, and we now have in whole “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). This “faith,” however, is only understood rightly within the framework of “the whole counsel of God.”

So may we be people who guard ourselves from blood guilt by making much of the OT in relation to Christ.

9. The NT authors stressed that God gave the OT for Christians.

Peter asserted of the OT prophets, “It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you” (1 Pet. 1:12). The OT authors understood that they were writing for a future audience––Christians identified with the NT church.

Similarly, Paul was convinced that the divinely inspired OT authors wrote for NT believers, living on this side of the death and resurrection of Christ. “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Rom. 15:4; cf. 4:23–24). “Now these things happened to [the Israelites] as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come” (1 Cor. 10:11).

Accordingly, the apostle emphasized to Timothy, who was raised on the OT by his Jewish mother and grandmother (Acts 16:1; 2 Tim. 1:5), that the “sacred writings” of his upbringing “are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15). People today can get saved from God’s wrath and from the enslavement of sin by reading the OT through the lens of Christ.

This is why Paul says in the next verse, “All Scripture is . . . profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work” (3:16–17). New covenant believers can correct and reprove straying brothers and sisters from the OT, when read in relation to Christ, for in it we find many “profitable” things (Acts 20:20)––a “gospel of the grace of God” (20:24)––that call for “repentance toward God” and “faith in our Lord Jesus Messiah” (20:21).

Based on this fact, NT authors regularly used the OT as the basis for Christian exhortation, assuming its relevance for Christians (e.g., 1 Cor. 9:8–12; Eph. 6:2–3; 1 Tim. 5:18; 1 Peter 1:14–16). Because we are now part of the new covenant and not the old, there are natural questions that arise regarding how exactly the Christian should relate to specific old covenant instruction. Nevertheless, the point stands that the OT, while not written to Christians, was still written for us.

10. Paul commands church leaders to preach the OT.

The last of my 10 reasons why the OT still matters for Christians builds on the fact that Paul was referring to the OT when he spoke of the “sacred writings” that are able to make a person “wise for salvation” and the “Scripture” that is “breathed out by God and profitable” (2 Tim. 3:15–16). Knowing this colors our understanding of his following charge to Timothy:

Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching but having itching ears they will accumulate for the themselves teachers to suit their own passion, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. (2 Tim. 4:2–4)

For Paul, Christian preachers like Timothy needed to preach the OT in order to guard the church from apostasy. While we now have the NT, we can, and indeed must, appropriate the OT like Jesus and his apostles did for the good of God’s church. Paul stresses that those who unhitch themselves from the OT put themselves in danger of falling away from God.

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