Is that offensive? Is it offensive that we’ve dubbed the first portion of our Bible as the Old Testament? To Jesus and to Paul and to the early church wasn’t the Old Testament simply the Scriptures. When they talked about the Bible (not that they used the term ‘bible’ of course) they were referring to the Old Testament. Doesn’t that make the New Testament primarily an exposition of the Old Testament? And yet I remember a time when my church’s public statement was something about being a New Testament church as if we dare not try to associate ourselves with the Old Testament! OK, sorry, I can’t stand it anymore, from this point on in my blog the OT will simply be summed up as the Hebrew Scriptures. Cool?
Don’t get me wrong, the Hebrew Scriptures at times completely baffle me and confuse me and raise more questions than they answer. The perspective and world view underlying the Hebrew Scriptures is so foreign to how my logical mind works. But the reality is that the New Testament is simply a continuation of the Hebrew Scriptures. We could sit down and work through a pile of New Testament passages to try to prove that Jesus’ intention was not to do away with his Bible but to live out and show it’s true identity and purpose. But that would be an even more boring post than this one. Why is it that I’ve graduated with a Bible degree and yet the only classes on the Hebrew Scriptures was a fourth grade level survey of the Old Testament where I learned to spell the books correctly, and a class on the book of Psalms. That’s it. I realize that there are lots of books and only a few classes, but doesn’t it make sense that if Jesus preached from it, if Paul based his theology on it, if Peter lived by it, if God wrote it, then it must be crucial for us to understand. Isn’t it foolishness to think that we could understand the words of a Jewish rabbi (Jesus) apart from a growing knowledge of the Jewish Scriptures?! Lucky for us the word of God is living and active, it grows with us, it transforms us even through and despite our lack of knowledge. Because no matter what the Bible (both the Hebrew and the NT) are simply a reflection of the God who stands behind them. That is very reassuring to me.