Comments on: Reading the Bible in the Right Direction

By: Jonathan Toenniges

Jonathan Toenniges — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 23:53:37 +0000

I totally disagree with everything Richard has said.. Jk.

I think this is really good. This paper lays out a solid vision for the importance of understanding the Old Testament. I realized the importance of understanding the Old Testament in our OT survey class with Jono Hall. I was amazed by the beauty of the story of redemptive history and noticed specifically how much more glorious the cross is in light of this story.

But I’ve not been mindful of this importance much, so this is a really good refresher.

I need to step back from the NT some and focus more on the OT.

I agree with Richard…

By: Chad Murray

Chad Murray — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 20:57:52 +0000

Are not we all formed and shaped by our experiences in Church fellowship? Our understanding of who God is and how to respond to His initiations toward us and how then to treat fellow believers and unbelievers, for each of us in varying degrees came from our ecclesiastical experience. Some of us may have been more heavily influenced by our immediate family in these regards, while others of us relied solely on the family members of God, whether pastors, elders, Sunday School teachers, priests, close friends, or mentors, to teach us the way read, to pray, and to live. My personal journey has been primarily influenced by the family of God. So also in my experience it strikes me that in attending and visiting many different churches (40-60; I love the diverse expression in the family of God) since the age of 6, that there is either widespread avoidance of the OT or at most, narrow topical teaching on subjects of personal interest. The churches that taught me the famous OT stories in Sunday School served to inform me that our God had relevant and miraculous and historic interventions with humans. I learned that Moses’ God of the Red Sea and Jonah’s God of the fish in the sea was also Paul’s God of the Mediterranean Sea (NT, Acts 27-28). I learned that the NT God was the same as the OT God, but somehow acted differently. I also learned that my God and Paul’s God stopped intervening in miraculous and historic ways at Acts 28. My freshman year in high school, I began asking myself questions about the relationship between the God and teaching of the NT and the God and teaching of the OT. I began listening to my preachers and teachers and was shocked and disappointed to discover at 14/15 that the ADULTS and LEADERS that I looked up to were grasping to cover up the naked embarrassment of their own conscious awareness of their ignorance and confusion over the issue.

By: Shaklee

Shaklee — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 20:52:11 +0000

Yeah i always get ticked off when i hear teaching or talking about the OT interpreted through the NT lense because its always read into and made to say what peoples presuppositions are that they know through study or hear say of the new.

By: Matt Dettman

Matt Dettman — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 20:03:50 +0000

I’ve noticed that as a reader, just reading the New Testament is akin to beginning a story by reading the last third of it. The result is confusion. Why is Jesus and later His disciples chewing out the Pharisees? Why does Paul draw out such a seemingly and bewildering, convoluted explanation of the mystery of Christ in the epistle to the Ephesians? Since any story does not begin in the last one-third, is not more agreeable to start with the missing two-thirds? It might be difficult initially to pull down my convenient view points on how all the texts function with teach other, but without Old Testament undergirding what is said in the New Testament, I am leaving out things critical for a complete understanding of the Scriptures.

By: Lauren

Lauren — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 19:48:27 +0000

Having grown up in Sunday school, I was taught disconnected OT stories and NT doctrine. But I’m very thankful for the ways I’ve been pushed towards the OT the past few years. I’m finding that many of NT truths which seemed impossibly difficult to grasp make perfect sense in the OT framework. My introductory understanding of the OT seems to turn a light on that fits doctrinal concepts into their context and makes sense of them.

A question that has been growing in me is how to properly communicate this to people. Often friends will ask me questions that cannot be properly answered apart from the OT narrative. It is hard for me to build the framework needed to even address their question without giving way more than they are asking for. But I can’t give a part answer because I desire them to see themselves living within the beautiful story of the OT and NT.

By: James Kufeldt

James Kufeldt — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 19:41:50 +0000

I grew up in a church background that, as a whole, adhered quite closely to what you call “quasi-Marcionism”. “We have to read the Old Testament through the lens of the New Testament” was a mantra that I heard many times throughout my Sunday School years. This method of Biblical interpretation led to exactly what you described: seeing most of the Old Testament as spiritually allegorical and applying it to the Church instead of Israel (well, at least the blessings – the negative passages can still be applied to Israel). While I’ve come to disagree with these views, I realized while reading this post that, perhaps, I’m not as free from “quasi-Marcionism” as I thought myself to be. Deceptive in its subtlety, the roots of “quasi-Marcionism” actually go quite deep, imperceptibly shaping the way I interpret different passages and especially the way I so carelessly apply them.
Hello. My name is James. I am a recovering quasi-Marcionite.

By: Kara VanHover

Kara VanHover — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:56:27 +0000

I agree that the Old Testament is indispensable – indeed the only lens through which we can clearly view the New. It is where the story of every believer begins. Yet, when reading the letters the apostles, we can see that first century believers must have had more understanding of their O.T. beginning than we do twenty centuries later. We have lost much of our stories’ substance as it relates to things like the land and people of Israel, the covenants, and the exile. It has become allegorical instead of literal as it once was. May we recover the invaluable substance of our beginning so we will not forfeit that substance at the end.

By: Katie Thompson

Katie Thompson — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:44:53 +0000

I am excited to read the OT! I have been wanting to get familiar with the OT and this gives clarity on why I need to. I have heard before that you must interpret the NT through the lense of the OT and the OT through the lense of the NT (I may not have this completely correct), but this gives more understanding that you cannot fully interpret or understand the NT apart from knowing the OT. You must have the groundwork and understanding of the OT (that it is not just references to spiritual meanings, but it is an actual history that really happened with real people, with Israel, and real life) to fully understand the NT. There is so much I am missing (and letting myself be “robbed” of) when I do not interpret the NT through the understanding and knowledge or story of the OT.

By: Spencer Baker

Spencer Baker — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 09:29:51 +0000

I love that the NT doesn’t negate or cancel out the story of the OT. I haven’t really read enough of the OT to fully comprehend it all myself, but I love the continuation of the story into the NT. Everything that happened in the OT really happened, and it was important. The good times and the bad times were incredibly important for the people of God to remember. So instead of reinterpreting the OT to fit our views of the NT, let’s explore the text and world of the OT and begin our story there.

By: Kristina Wu

Kristina Wu — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 04:49:08 +0000

This post reminds me of the necessity of reading the OT. Often I will find myself settling in the comfort of the things that I’m familiar with in the NT (which I’m sure that I will soon find out that I am not as familiar as I thought), but not be able to quite understand what the author’s saying because I don’t understand the context of when it was written in the OT. This provokes me to want to read the Old Testament not only for the stories but also that I would be able to get the bigger picture and be able to read the NT through the lens of the OT. I want to see Jesus throughout the whole Bible and be able to connect the God of the OT to the God of the NT because they are one and the same.