Do you ever contemplate why the Old Testament exists? Do you find it not only boring at times, but also confusing? Where is the resolve; is what these people do right or wrong, are they models to follow or to steer clear of? Why are all the numbers rounded, can’t they count? Is this God the same one that seems so patient and kind in the New Testament? Do contradictions mean the Old Testament is not trust-worthy? Why is called so many different names? Can’t we just skip to Jesus and the Apostles? Is Ezekiel or Song of Solomon saying what I think it might be? Does God really call the murderer and adulterer and bad-parent and guy who ended is life as a cold, weak man one after His own heart?
I hope to start a small series of blogs on how to study and look at the Old Testament and hopefully it addresses the why as well. But here I want to give a few sweeping, general, and broad reasons why I love and am thankful for the Old Testament.
It is different. The Old Testament is crazy. The Old Testament is wonderful. The Old Testament is exciting. The Old Testament is not the scientific-based Western thought. The Old Testament (OT) is a gathering of books like no other. It’s aim and way of getting at its target is like no other book. It has reasons for all it does but does not always disclose them (‘the secret things belong to the LORD’ and ‘wisdom conceals knowledge’).
It’s genres. There is history: of the Earth’s formation, destruction, and renewal. Of man, his purpose, failures and struggles. Of nations—Israel, Egypt, Persia, Assyria, Babylonia, and a lot of smaller Canaanite peoples. It can look at the life of one man or one nation. It is introspective and, at times, painfully ambiguous. There is poetry: The first being in Genesis from Adam’s lips, to the entire love-struck book of Song of Solomon, to the singing in the Psalms of people being murdered and lands being destroyed, and in myriads of other places. Much of what is written is done in the form of story, oral tradition written down. There are legal documents: of how to treat one another, how to tend flocks, take care of the land, how to treat outsiders, how to perform justice, how to clean, how to celebrate, how to worship, etc.
The way the OT is written is a way of theology—this word simply means the study of God, who, what, how He is. If it is kept in mind that the entire reason the book was written is to inform us about God, and to know God and to discover the human and his nature, then we can understand the Bible as a whole much better.
It’s way of making us think. There are ambiguities, there are unresolved matters, there are deep insights all to make us ponder God and ponder how the world works.
It’s breadth and depth. There are prophesies and prostitutes. There is Ruth the Moabite and Ruben the son of Israel. There are grotesque acts of rape, genocide, envy, pride, and injustice. There are spectacular manifestations of the power of sin and God.
It’s ability to create in us a substantial longing for a good ruler and a right world. In reading the OT we are to grow in our desire for something better, Someone better. We see hope that is often frail and then quickly broken only to be built back and crushed again. The OT is meant to bring us to the point almost of despair crying, ‘who will make things genuinely right?!’
It’s way of displaying God’s desire to have us love Him—He gave us language and His revelation. God decided to speak to us, the creatures who He knew would desert Him, forget Him, try to bring shame and dishonor on Him, continually disobey and rebel against Him. He knew all this yet He still decided to speak graciously to us.
These are only tips of the iceberg of why I love and am thankful for the OT but I hope it serves as a perking of your curiosity to join me in looking at some ways of how to rightly study the OT.
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