Out of Zion

Guest (Male): Welcome to Out of Zion with Susan Michael, an exploration of the Bible and the land of Israel. From ancient biblical sites to the story behind the stories, join Susan on a journey through the most exciting book on the planet. Hit the subscribe button for future episodes which will deepen your faith and bring the Bible to life. And now here's our host, Susan Michael.

Dr. Susan Michael: Well, hey there and welcome back. This is the 3D Bible Series part four about the Old Testament and how should we as Christians relate to it? Before we get started today, I wanted to take a quick minute just to review what we've learned so far. We learned first of all that the importance of studying the Bible, so much for us to learn from it, but it's such a powerful book and so exciting. So in our second part, we talked about how to read the Bible and how to get to that level where it just becomes three-dimensional and comes alive.

Last week, we talked about the story of the Bible, the story that's behind the stories. I apologize I took a few extra minutes last week, but I wanted to show the importance of understanding that overarching story throughout all the stories of the Bible and to guard against oversimplification. So what did we learn about that story? Well, first of all, that it began in eternity. That God always had the intention of creating a family and he created man knowing that he would fall into sin and he chose Abraham to birth a nation knowing that Abraham and Sarah couldn't have children.

And he birthed the nation of Israel knowing that they would fail him at times. The point is this. God's plan was always dependent on him, not upon mankind. So this eternal plan also said and provided for Jesus to come to the earth and die on the cross on our behalf that all of us could partake of its fullness and be adopted into the family as sons. Now while Jesus paid the price on the cross, he will return to fully implement everything that he bought for us. It is not finished yet. So in the meantime, the plan from eternity is still in place.

It's plan A. It didn't end. And all of God's promises to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, all of the predictions through the prophets, it's all in place. It'll all still come true and in its fullness, at the fullness of time. So I tell you this little rundown to guard against oversimplification of that story so that we don't come out sounding like there's two stories or there's part A and there's part B. So this week, we're going to talk about the danger of another oversimplification and that's in how we as Christians approach the Old Testament. You know, our Bible is made up of two parts and our church fathers that put together the Bible and decided which books were going to be in it.

They put these titles. They put the Old Testament in front of of the larger section of our Bible and they put New Testament in front of the second section of our Bible. Now you know when you talk about Old Testament, New Testament, old, well, sounds kind of old. And new sounds new, exciting, right? So we come to kind of feel like well, the old is old. Maybe I don't have to deal with the old. I'm just going to deal with the new. But it goes beyond there. You know, I heard a pastor say and and you may have heard someone say this that the Old Testament is is actually one of the stumbling blocks in Christianity and and he said that people that leave the faith, they don't leave the faith over Jesus.

They leave the faith over the Old Testament. And that once they get to where they can't defend the Old Testament, they can't explain it, then they lose all of their faith. So his solution is just forget the Old Testament. Throw it away. Just disregard it. Doesn't apply to you anyway, to quote him. Well, my advice is teach your people how to read and explain the Old Testament. Don't throw it away. So how can anyone really say that? And I want to explain really quickly and very simply what's behind it. Um it he said and many say this that the New Covenant which was the final and the eternal covenant cut with the world replaced the old covenant what had which had been cut with the nation of Israel.

Since the Old Testament means old covenant, it's been replaced by the New Testament which means new covenant. So don't worry about teaching the Old Testament. Just start with Jesus. Just start with Jesus. Well, this is what is called classic replacement theology where it teaches that what came later, the the church replaced the Jews or the New Testament replaces the Old Testament, the New Covenant replaces the Old Testament. Anytime there's this replacement, it's called replacement theology. And what it does is it robs Christianity of its very foundations and it actually creates the disconnect between the Old Testament and the new.

It creates something like a plan A and a plan B. So I just want to very quickly explain. The Old Testament does not equal old covenant. Now it is true that the word testament is the same word for the word covenant. And so it can be translated old covenant. But that doesn't mean that this whole book is the old covenant. It just means our church fathers chose to put a piece of paper in the front of that section and called it old testament. But it's actually a book of made up of say 39 different books written by something like 30 different authors and it it tells a narrative that covers about 2,500 years of history.

And it tells about five major covenants that God cut either with the world or with the people of Israel. So get rid of this concept that Old Testament means this is the old covenant. Nah. Okay. Secondly, when he says that the New Covenant was cut with the world whereas the old covenant was with the nation of Israel, nah. Let's go back to Jeremiah 31 which describes this new covenant that one day God was going to cut with his people. And this is exactly what it says. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

So the covenant that God cut is with Israel and the house of Judah. So how do we partake in it? We as sons of faith, the sons of the faith of Abraham, we are grafted into this through faith in Jesus who cut the New Covenant. We can participate in the New Covenant. But it's totally wrong to say that covenant was cut with the world. Now also it's wrong to say that the old covenant with the people of Israel has now been replaced. Now there is a scripture in the New Testament that's often quoted at this point.

It's in Hebrews eight and there's a whole section here it repeats the words of Jeremiah that God was going to cut this new covenant with the house of Israel and with the people of Judah. And at the very end of this whole section in Hebrews, it says this. It says now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. And it's talking about the Mosaic Covenant that God cut with the people of Israel in the wilderness. And it says it is becoming obsolete. Maybe in a later episode we'll talk about these various covenants so that I can go into more of an explanation of this.

But it is true that the the Mosaic Covenant and the giving of the law was given as a preparation, as a precursor to the new covenant. So the old covenant with the people of Israel gave them the law and taught them to way to go. And of course the the frailty of that covenant is that man was going to fail. Had nothing to do with the law or with God, but man was unable to fully obey. And so the New Covenant which would come in the future would replace that by writing the law on our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

And so whereas Jesus came and cut that covenant on our behalf and shed his blood on our behalf on the tree, it has not been fully implemented until his return. And so we are in a transit transitional period where the old is becoming obsolete, but it's still in place as a covenant that points to our need for Jesus. So like I say, we'll talk about this later. My point that I want to make today is that um the New Testament doesn't replace the Old Testament just like the New Covenant doesn't replace the old covenant. And when he says to begin with Jesus, just preach Jesus.

Well, who is Jesus? I mean is he some Greek god out of mythology that just appeared on the earth and died on the cross and then whoop into heaven? Well, the New Testament begins with the story of Jesus. And the very first verse of the very first book of the New Testament begins with this. The book of genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Well, who is David and who is Abraham? There's no way for us to understand who Jesus is and what he came to do unless we understand all that foundation that was laid in the Old Testament.

So point number one, all that to say this, the Old Testament is still very relevant to us as Christians. And so we need to study it and be able to explain it. Now secondly, I would say well, let's approach the Old Testament the way Jesus did. I mean Jesus is our gold standard, right? So how did he view the Old Testament? Well, I will tell you this that uh he never called it old. Okay. So what we call the Old Testament was his Bible. And he referred to it as the word of God, as the Scriptures.

He uh referred to it as the law, the prophets, and the writings. Or sometimes he just said the law and the prophets because those are the three sections in the Hebrew Bible. The law being the Torah, the prophets, and then the writings, the historical writings. And so that's what it's called today. The Jewish people call their Bible the Tanakh. And Tanakh stands for the T, the N, and the K stand for the law, the prophets, and the writing. So Jesus referred to the Bible as that. He often referred to the authority of what was written in it and he would say it is written.

It is written because it had authority. Now I find it interesting to ask what was the book of the Bible that Jesus quoted the most? What would you think it was? You know, we might think oh a Psalm. Psalm is so beautiful and it has such, you know, beautiful poetic verses to it and and uh no. The the Jesus quoted the book of Deuteronomy more than any other book, the book of the law. He referred to it. So it is not to be disregarded. He also believed that the Bible was true. So he referred to events in the Bible as though they were absolute truth and happened like the creation, Adam and Eve, Noah's Ark, the flood, Abraham, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Not only did he refer to them, he said they're still living. That God spoke to Moses in the burning bush and that God fed Israel manna in the desert and that Jonah was delivered from the great fish. He referred to all of these things and more as truth. Now I've also heard it said well, let's look at the Old Testament through Paul's eyes because Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles. And you and I more than likely those listening to me were Gentiles. So we should listen to Paul. He didn't harp on the Old Testament.

So well, let's quote Paul, okay? So Paul is writing a letter to Timothy. Timothy was one of his disciples and Timothy was uh his mother was Jewish, his father was Greek. And so Paul is uh telling him about the importance of the scriptures that he grew up on. And in 2 Timothy 3:16, this is what Paul said. All Scripture. Now what Scripture is he talking about? They did not have the New Testament at this time. So all Scripture referred to the Hebrew Bible, what we would call the Old Testament. All Scripture is given by the inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

That's how Paul saw the Old Testament. When he said that it was inspired by God, the Greek there literally means God breathed. That's how he saw the Old Testament. So how should we read it? Well, first of all, now that we have laid the groundwork that we should read it, how should we approach it? How should we interpret it? So first of all, I want to repeat something that I said in a previous episode. To approach it as a thoroughly human book. It's written by human beings, written from their memories, with their words, maybe with their pen, or they uh dictated it to a scribe and it was taken down.

It's a thoroughly human book. It's not absolutely complete. It doesn't tell every detail of every story. It tells the details that that writer remembered or thought of or thought was important. Now it's also divinely inspired. It is God breathed. So we approach the Bible with that reverence and that awe. But secondly, let's read it within the context of the time in which the events took place. Do not judge events and things in the Old Testament or or even in the New Testament based on today's society. Today's culture and society is so different. We cannot judge it based on our culture today.

We must judge it based on the culture and society that it was that it took place in. Now um culturally, you know, reading the Bible is a cross-cultural experience. Now those of you that are younger, you're going to love that. You love cross-cultural things and uh I say stay with me and I think you'll find a lot of this very very interesting. Um some of us that are older or maybe we're less traveled, um you know, it's a challenge for us to not see and read the Bible from our own societal and cultural lens. And so it I think that this series is going to be very helpful to uh stop and take a look at some of the things um behind the story, the things that aren't being said.

Those are the things that are cultural, the things that are assumed that you know them. You know, uh we as Western Americans in the 21st century, we are very uh individualistic, our society. And uh we're very scientific and linear, very logical and linear in our thinking. But the Middle Eastern culture that the Bible took place in and that it's written from is is a a group culture. It's very social. And it's a little secular, circular instead of linear. And a very relational. It it's a different approach to stories and sometimes we gloss right over that because we're reading it all about individuals.

When it comes to the law, you know, you and I read some of the laws uh given to Moses and and we think really? And that's because we're comparing them to today's society and today's practices and what we know today. And so we need to judge them based on the society around them. And what we'll find is that some of the laws that we struggle with today were actually far more advanced than the societies around them. God was speaking to them in their society, but he was bringing them along. He was lifting them up to a degree above that society.

It was a step in the right direction, a step forward. Um but sometimes we don't realize that because we don't know what the society was alike that's surrounded. And another point, you know, someone may say so you interpret the Bible literally or you believe the Bible literally. Well, yes and no. I mean I believe the Bible literally as it was intended as the writer intended it to be written. So in other words, if it's poetry, I take it as poetry. If it's allegory, I take it as allegory. If it's a parable of Jesus, I take it as a parable.

So uh but yes, I interpret it literally as it was written. A a better term for that is actually contextually. Um I interpret the Bible contextually, but not everybody knows what that means. So I just want to give you one example uh as we wrap this up. Actually two examples, but the same point. Um just as we see Jesus who came to earth 2,000 years ago, he was fully divine, but he was also fully human. And that means that he sounded like the humans around him in that day. He dressed like them. He looked like them.

So he wore tunic. He had long hair. He had uh a beard unshaven or shaved less. Um he spoke their language. He lived in their culture and their society. He was very Middle Eastern in his culture. Um he wore sandals. Uh if he had come 2,000 years ago and dressed the way we dressed today, no one would have listened to him. He had to come wrapped in the culture of that day. So same thing with the Bible. I keep saying see the Bible as something divine, but it's wrapped in human wrapping. So in the days of Moses, the word of God came.

It's fully divine, fully true, but it was wrapped within the culture and society of the day. And um just like if uh you know, God told Moses to build a tabernacle. So how did he tell him to build it? Well, first of all, you get the skins of animals and you put them just right and you you do that and he towed him how to build the tabernacle using all of the things available to someone in the wilderness 4,000 years ago. So if God came today and towed me to build a church or towed you to build a church, he's not going to tell you to get the skins of animals.

He's going to say lay your concrete foundation and then get your wood frame in place and then put your siding around it. Do you get my point? That's how we build today. I don't expect God to tell us to go get the skins of animals. And if 2,000 years from now he towed someone to build a church, he's not going to tell him to build it the way we build today. Does that mean it's not God? No. It means that he understands you and me. He understands where we are. And he comes and he meets us where we are.

That's the wonderful God that we serve. And that's how we need to approach our Old Testament. Now I have a little tool for you that's also going to help. When you are ready, and you may not be ready yet, that's okay, but when you feel ready to begin reading the Old Testament, and I suggest that you begin on a chronological basis as we've been talking about, when you're ready, I'm I've developed a little timeline for you. It's a timeline of the Old Testament so that you can review this as you're reading and remind yourself where you are in the big picture because I know the challenges, there's so many stories, so many characters, so much history.

And we can kind of get lost in it. So this basic timeline is going to help you to know where you are in the story. We have a link to that in our show notes and also on our website. Now future episodes that we have coming up next week, we're going to talk about the land of the Bible. And then we're going to talk about the people of the Bible. And we're going to talk about some of the proof that the Bible is true. And once we finish this series called the 3D Bible, then we're going to talk about the 3D Jesus.

And I can't wait for that one either. We're going to talk about Jesus and and explain some of the history, some of the background, some of the culture that we just don't know because it's so different from our 21st century American culture. And we're going to help Jesus come alive to you uh along with your Bible. So today I want to end with uh some resources. We have um a little booklet written by Reverend Malcolm Hedding called the Four Great or the Great Covenants. And this little booklet, it's an easy read. It's for beginners or advanced because it doesn't overview of the Four Great Covenants of the Old Testament being the Abrahamic, the Mosaic, the Davidic, and the New Covenant.

And he explains them how they are different and also how they're connected and how they paint one story, one big picture. It's a very exciting little booklet and I highly recommend it. For those of you who would like to understand just a little bit more what I was talking about, about the the Mosaic Covenant being sort of a temporary covenant, a forerunner, and that it would eventually become replaced by the New Covenant. I recommend a book called It Must Be Finished by Samuel Whitfield. In that one he explains from beginning to end these covenants and this concept of the tension that's between the Abrahamic Covenant and the Mosaic Covenant and how it is resolved in the fulfillment of the New Covenant.

Lastly, there's a little booklet you can get on Amazon. It's called The Christian's Pocket Guide to Loving the Old Testament by Alec Motyer. It's a great little book. And if you would like to have just a better appreciation of your Old Testament, some of the things I I went over very quick quickly today, it's a very small book, very easy to read, very nice um sections and and chapters. And I recommend that you get that. The Old Testament is the foundation to the New Testament. It's the foundation to our faith. It's the foundation to understanding who Jesus was and why he even came and what it was he was all about.

So I hope that you can fall in love with the Old Testament the way I have. And while today's episode is just a brief introduction to that, these tools and the resources will help you to dig deeper. So have fun doing that. I'll see you back here next time when we talk about the land of the Bible. Until then, God bless.

Guest (Male): We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Out of Zion with Susan Michael. Be sure to subscribe to Out of Zion now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, pray.com, Salem Oneplace, Salem Life Audio. Out of Zion with Susan Michael is a production of ICEJ USA. All rights reserved.