(Part 1 is here. Part 3 tomorrow-ish.)

Surely we don’t think Jesus came to abolish the Old Testament, do we? It’s two-thirds of our scripture, so surely we take it as seriously as Christ did, right? Well, let’s ask ourselves some questions.

If we all agreed to start (or continue, if you’re one of those holy few) a quiet time tomorrow in which we picked, blue sky, what we read, how many of us would pick an Old Testament book? Not including Psalms.

In the last year, what percentage of sermons or Bible studies you’ve heard have been from the Old Testament?

I’ll confess, my focus in seminary was Old Testament and Hebrew. I claim it to be my passion. I’ve preached 4 times in the last 3 months. All 4 were New Testament passages.

Surely we wouldn’t claim we want the Old Testament abolished, but wouldn’t we say we at least diminish it?

How else do we diminish the Old Testament?

One way happens around Christmas and Easter. We believe that Christ fulfilled Old Testament expectations and prophecies of a Messiah. But sometimes we use the Old Testament like it’s a pantry from which we pull out ingredients now and then to make some kind of Jesus casserole. Throw in some random Isaiah passages we never refer to otherwise. Maybe a Psalm, or at least some verses taken out of a Psalm. A sprinkle of Job, a dash of some minor prophet, and bam! Pasta de la Passion. Immaculate Cupcakes. However you want to think of it. Then we slam the pantry door and leave it closed until we need to make it again the next holiday. We pick and choose passages without thinking about the encounter with God that generated those prophecies or the people who heard them for the first time, long before Jesus was born. Those people experienced God in rich, personal ways that we neglect because we’ve been trained to do so.

How else do we diminish the Old Testament?

Laws. That’s how we think of it sometimes. We think of the Old Testament as Law and the New Testament as Grace. How many books are in the Old Testament? How many of those are law books? Actual legal lists? Leviticus. Deuteronomy. The Old Testament is overwhelmingly a narrative. It is a collection of stories that tell the larger story of God’s revelation and relationship to God’s people.

I think we tend to forget this, because our habit in reading the Bible is shaped by how we read the New Testament. Back to the quiet time reading. I would guess that most people would choose a New Testament letter, probably one of Paul’s. The New Testament letters are easier to understand, more direct, more instructive. They are where our memory verses come from. We like their directness and simplicity. As a result, we try to make all the Bible just like them. We look for single verses, instead of thinking about bigger-picture stories. The Old Testament stories take time and patience to understand, but they are important to us as Christians.

The Hebrew origin of the Greek word translated as ‘abolished’ is a pretty insightful word picture. It began as a traveling word, meaning to cut short a journey. And though the Greek word grew to mean something much stronger, maybe that’s still a good way to think of Jesus’ relationship to the Old Testament. He did not come to end the journey, but to be its next, biggest step.

N.T. Wright said the Old Testament is like the earlier acts of our current play. The fact we are in the later act is no reason to neglect where our story began.

If we neglect the Bible that Jesus read, we put ourselves in conflict with Jesus. That’s why this is such a tough saying.