Why would anyone want to study the Old Testament?

Why the Old Testament Still Matters

Why would anyone want to study the Old Testament? After all, it was written by an ancient group of authors to an ancient audience whose customs and traditions are nothing like ours. Besides that, at least one famous megachurch pastor has said that we don't need the Old Testament scriptures to prop up the New Covenant.

So, how much effort should a Christian exert to understand the Old Testament? Did you know that the Old Testament helps us understand why Jesus selected fishermen as his disciples? Why Jesus cursed the fig tree?

The Old Testament helps us understand why Jesus said to forgive 77 times when someone sins against us. And it also explains why the woman with an issue of blood expected healing by touching Jesus' garment.

The Bible as an Interconnected Whole

Let me give you three reasons why the Old Testament is vital to our understanding of the scriptures. Reason number one. Although the Bible is a collection of many books, it tells one story. The Bible, both Old and New Testaments, is an interconnected whole.

It's like a living organism that can't be reduced to smaller pieces and still retain the essence of what it is. Let me show you what I mean. This really cool graphic depicts how the Bible connects and hyperlinks to different parts of itself.

Along the bottom of this image, there is one vertical line for each chapter in the Bible. And there are 63 ,779 colored arcs connecting the vertical lines. These arcs are cross-references where the Bible refers to other parts of itself.

This is a fantastic visualization that drives home the fact that the Bible is an incredibly complex and interconnected collection of text. Want to make sense of the New Testament without the Old Testament to refer to?

Good luck with that. The Old Testament makes up three-quarters of the Bible. To put this in perspective, if a person reads through the entire Bible using a one-year Bible reading plan, he'll spend from January through September in the Old Testament before ever reaching the New Testament.

That's a tremendous amount of background information to ignore. Ignoring the Old Testament would be like watching only the last 30 minutes of a two-hour movie and expecting the story to make sense. Reason number two.

Remez and Jesus' Use of the Old Testament

The Jewish rabbis of Jesus' day used a technique called remez. Remez is a Hebrew word that means hint or clue. When a teacher used remez, he quoted a small part of a Scripture passage assuming his audience's knowledge of the Old Testament would allow them to deduce the fuller meaning without having to quote a lengthy passage.

Now, if the students weren't familiar with the short quotation, they would not be able to follow the teacher. Jesus also used remez, and one of his best-known sayings was this technique in action. When he was on the cross, what did Jesus mean when he said, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Was he only expressing that he felt like he had been forsaken by the Father, or was there something a little bit more going on here? This is a quote from Psalms chapter 22, and Jesus didn't quote it merely to express that he felt forsaken.

What he was doing was quoting only a few words from Psalms 22, knowing that the people who heard him would call to mind the remainder of the psalm. This psalm very accurately describes the scene of Jesus' crucifixion.

To anyone who was present and witnessing Jesus' crucifixion, the words of the 22nd psalm should have been a jarring realization that they were seeing the prophecy of this psalm fulfilled right in front of their eyes.

They were crucifying and willingly participating in the humiliation of the one this psalm was written about. Thanks to remez, Jesus only had to utter a few words for his point to be made. Remez is used throughout the New Testament, and the more familiar we are with the Old Testament, the easier we can follow along with the thoughts of the New Testament authors.

The Old Testament as the Early Church's Bible

Reason number three. The Old Testament was the only Bible that the early church had. Did you ever think about what Bible Paul and Peter and the earliest disciples studied, and what scriptures they used to persuade people that Jesus was the Messiah?

What scripture are these New Testament verses referring to? Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this scripture, he told them the good news about Jesus. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica.

They received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so. When the New Testament speaks of the scriptures, it's talking about the Old Testament. The early church didn't even have the New Testament scriptures yet.

The Old Testament was the only Bible the early church had for many decades, and they were able to use the Old Testament effectively to share the good news about Jesus. Paul said, 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.

The writings of former days, he speaks of, was the writings of the Old Testament. Now clearly, the apostles and the earliest Christians considered the Old Testament to be of utmost value. Our understanding of the New Testament will be distorted if we try to interpret it without the insights that only the Old Testament can provide.

So how much effort should we exert in studying the Old Testament? We need to exert enough effort so that we know the Old Testament just as well as the New Testament.