Why is it important for Christians today to understand the Jewish scriptures of the Old Testament?<\/p>\n\t
Try for a moment to pretend that you know nothing of the Old Testament. You sit down and read about the destruction of Jerusalem in Luke 17: “In that day, he who is on the housetop, and his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away. And likewise the one who is in the field, let him not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it<\/em>” (Luke 17:31-33). Now, explain the meaning of the warning, “Remember Lot’s wife” without reference to the Old Testament.<\/p>\n Next, go to Hebrews 11 which contains a list of the heroes of faith. Explain why these people were chosen and how they demonstrated faith without reference to the Old Testament.<\/p>\n Finally, start thumbing through your New Testament and look at all the quotes made from the Old Testament. Some are stand-alone quotes, but some are meant to trigger your memory of the context from which the quote is drawn. For example, as Jesus died on the cross, he refers to Psalms 22 by only quoting the first verse (Matthew 27:46;\u00a0Mark 15:34). Can you possibly know what Jesus was inferring without reading the remainder of the psalm?<\/p>\n In explaining why Christians need to be concerned about others, Paul offers the example of Christ: “For even Christ did not please Himself; but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached You fell on Me.” For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope<\/em>” (Romans 15:3-4). Here insight to Christ’s character was revealed in the Old Testament and Paul tells us that by learning the Old Testament we can have hope by learning patience and comfort from its words.<\/p>\n As an example, could you really appreciate the certainty of God’s nature in keeping His word without seeing the many examples of His steadfastness over thousands of years? Could you appreciate the inspiration of the Scriptures if you didn’t see all the prophecies being fulfilled? Think of the proof Christ offered the Jews: “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me<\/em>” (John 5:39).<\/p>\n The Old Testament also servers as counter-examples. After citing several examples of failures of the Israelites, Paul said, “Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted<\/em>” (I Corinthians 10:6). After giving a few more examples, Paul stated, “Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come<\/em>” (I Corinthians 10:11).<\/p>\n Full understanding of the New Testament cannot be had without understanding the Old Testament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Question: Why is it important for Christians today to understand the Jewish scriptures of the Old Testament? Answer: Try for a moment to pretend that you know nothing of the Old Testament. You sit down and read about the destruction of Jerusalem in Luke 17: “In that day, he who is on the housetop, and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[268,558],"class_list":["post-8035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-old-testament","tag-study"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10799,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-do-you-quote-from-the-old-law\/","url_meta":{"origin":8035,"position":0},"title":"Why do you quote from the Old Law?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 9, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I read Why We Don't Follow the Old Testament and saw your point of view on the matter, but you do quote laws from Leviticus to justify positions. Aren't all those laws thrown out, along with all other laws from the Old Testament? I'm not debating homosexuality here, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2792,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/did-lots-wife-go-to-heaven-or-hell\/","url_meta":{"origin":8035,"position":1},"title":"Did Lot’s wife go to heaven or hell?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 5, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Did Lot's wife go to heaven or hell for her sin of looking back? Answer: \"When the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot to hurry, saying, \"Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city.\" And while\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2040,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/abraham-wasnt-baptized-so-why-should-we-need-it\/","url_meta":{"origin":8035,"position":2},"title":"Abraham wasn’t baptized, so why should we need it?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 3, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: In Romans chapter 4 it talks about Abraham being saved by belief.\u00a0 \"For what saith the Scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness\" (Romans 4:3).\u00a0 \u00a0Did they baptize in the Old Testament?\u00a0 Nowhere that I have read.\u00a0 Now you might say that baptism wasn't\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":59357,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-roman-catholics-1486-ad-and-the-title-page-argument\/","url_meta":{"origin":8035,"position":3},"title":"The Roman Catholics, 1486 AD, and the “Title Page” Argument","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry W. Benton The Argument: \"..the Roman Catholic church in 1486 AD arbitrarily placed the four books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John --before the cross -- (MMLJBC) in the New rather Old Testament by placing an erroneous New Testament \"title page\" between the books of Malachi and Matthew.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27480,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-are-we-to-be-obedient-to\/","url_meta":{"origin":8035,"position":4},"title":"What are we to be obedient to?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 13, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: What are we being obedient to? Is it the Old Law? Is it God's commands? What commands does God have? The old testament commands? I know about the plan of salvation and the steps to become a Christian, but where do we find out how to know we are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":21686,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-old-testament-and-new-testament-christians\/","url_meta":{"origin":8035,"position":5},"title":"The Old Testament and New Testament Christians","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 19, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Joe R. Price The Old Testament is a relevant part of God\u2019s word, even though it is not the standard of authority by which we obtain reconciliation and life in Christ (Colossians 3:17; Galatians 3:23-27; Romans 7:4; II Corinthians 3:14; Ephesians 2:14-18). To conclude that we cannot benefit from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/scan0021-6-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}