What Studying the Old Testament Taught me About the Gospel Part 1: Relevance and Applicability

Many spiritual leaders in today’s modern churches downplay the importance of the Old Testament in the preaching of the gospel. They argue that because Jesus came to redeem the world through a new covenant, then the old covenant is irrelevant and simply does not apply. This is an unfortunate mistake.

In reality, we lose so much by not studying the Old Testament – there is so much value in a good two thirds of the entire Bible that we completely miss out on if we never take the time to read and study it. These many church leaders neglect to fully appreciate how the God of the Old Testament is the same God of the New Testament, and therefore do not believe it is profitable to study the ancient scriptures at all.

On the contrary, studying the Old Testament provides invaluable insight into God’s timeless character and man’s sinful condition.

For my Old Testament class, I got to read a book called From Paradise to the Promised Land: An Introduction to the Pentateuch, by T. Desmond Alexander. I can’t honestly say it was my favorite book I’ve ever read, but it definitely emphasized some amazing and vital truths found in God’s Word that we as Christians simply cannot live without.

Through reading this book alongside the Bible, I discovered that the Pentateuch had much to say about my faith as a follower of Christ in the twenty-first century. Through my studies, I discovered parallels between God’s holy tabernacle and the Holy Spirit’s indwelling within me, came to appreciate God’s stringent requirement for sacrifice, and grew to love Christ’s full accomplishment of this on my behalf all the more.

It is vital that we as a collective church of today’s Christians come to realize and believe that the Old Testament is as much the Word of God as is the New Testament, and therefore should be studied and taught.

In my next post, I’m going to unpack these parallels I found between the tabernacle and the local and global church of today.

Today’s post is the first post in a four-part series on studying the Old Testament. To read this series’ introduction, click here!