The need for the Old Testament in modern Christian life.

Like many Christ followers, I have had a tendency to neglect the Old Testament.  Because of its size and being, chronologically speaking, out of order, it is difficult to understand what the significance of many events are.  Also, a good portion of the Old Testament is poetry which, as a genre, has always made my brain cry sorrowful tears of sorrow.  Further more, it contains many names that are near unpronounceable and are difficult to relate to, which tends to put the mind into skip-this-part mode.  It is also hard to put the writings into the contexts of culture and past world events.

Additionally, much of the Old Testament does not seem particularly applicable to modern day Christian life.  Why read 613 Mosaic laws when, as a Christian, I am not called to obey them¹?  Why go through the nation’s history when much of it is repetitive?  Oh look, Israel screwed up again and repented.  Hey, yet another bad king!  The Detroit Lions lost again?  You just blew my mind!

And why should Christ followers concern themselves with something that is not Christ?  Is it not better to spend our precious time concentrating on the teachings of Jesus and the apostles?  On something that is immediately applicable to our current lives and to our future?

Over the last couple of months, as I have thought about it, I have grown convinced that, as Christ followers, we not only should study the Old Testament but need to.  Consider this: based on what we call the Old Testament with its many prophecies and descriptions of Jesus, the Jews of that day should have recognized Christ when he came.  Paul, for example, passionately studied Jewish scripture and was instructed by Gamaliel², one of the most respected rabbis of that time.  After his conversion from Judaism, Paul did not meet with the other apostles to learn about Christianity but instead used his existing knowledge of what the messiah would look like to immediately preach the gospel and begin his first missionary journey³.  Therefore, there is much we can learn about Jesus from the Old Testament alone.

Consider also the incident of Jesus and the adulterous woman⁴.  When we read this passage with an understanding of Mosaic Law we see that it is not simply a teaching against hypocrisy.  Instead, we learn that Jesus was talking to specific people⁵ about a specific sin⁶ that they had just committed.  Further more, we see that it is likely that the woman in question was not married as adultery is only punishable by stoning in cases where the woman is betrothed⁷ which opens up an additional area of investigation as to the meaning of this passage.  It is reasonable then to conclude that the other documented actions of Jesus hold a significance that is lost on those that are not able to put them into the context of the Old Testament.

Christ followers are called to act in the name of Jesus⁸, which is to say that our actions are to reflect his character⁹.  Is it possible to know the character of Jesus without understanding why he did the things he did?  If not then is it truly possible to do all things in his name or, put another way, can Christ followers to follow Christ if there is not a complete understanding of who he is?  No.  Consequently, the Old Testament must not be neglected.

While the Old Testament may not be the easiest thing to study, the need is clear so in order to help do so I have collected the following tools to help:

• Study Light
  http://www.studylight.org
  Many translations/paraphrases of the bible with original Hebrew and Greek texts.  Also contains several commentaries.
• Bible Gateway
  http://www.biblegateway.com
  Similar to Study Light but it does not have Hebrew or Greek and does not have nearly as many commentaries.  It does, however, have a topical index.
• Gnome/Mac/E-Sword
  Linux, Mac, Windows
  A program that allows you to download translations, commentaries and so on.  Sort of like an offline Study Light. Nice for parallel translations.
• You Version
  http://www.youversion.com
  I just discovered about a month ago.  It too has many different versions of the bible but also lets you see commentary written by members of the website and allows you to publish your own commentary.  Interesting and a great concept, but the interface is a little janky and care must be exercised when reading commentary written by Joe Internet.  It also has an iPhone app.
• Bible Map
  http://www.biblemap.org
  Another website I just recently discovered.  It uses Google Maps to display known locations for a given book and chapter.
• Old Testament Literature and Lectures
  http://people.cedarville.edu/Employee/millerc/ot%20pages/otlectures.html
  I have not yet gone over these personally, but they were pointed out to me by Dan and are a collection of PDFs, PowerPoint slides and audio files by an old professor of his.
• Timeline of the bible
  http://www.bibleed.com/bibleteachings/thebible/timeline.pdf
  Looking for something better, but this will do for now.