January 27th, 2023
For as long as I can remember, (and honestly even before I can remember) going to church has been a huge part of my life. We were (and still are) a family that was at church every time the doors were opened. Sunday School, Sunday Morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. We memorized scripture and knew the Bible Stories. (Even the obscure ones) But it wasn’t until the last few years that I understood all of these parts of scripture as part of one big story not just a bunch of individual ones. And the more I understood that, the more I fell in love with the old testament.
Let’s face it, the vast majority of us are going to be drawn to spending time in the Gospels. And there is something really important about studying the life of Jesus on earth! Or we tend to spend our time in the epistles, because they are practical and transforming. But the Old Testament is sometimes hard for us to understand its purpose or its application to our lives, so sometimes we just skip over it.
But as we have been going through the book of Acts, we see the Apostles find tremendous value in the Old Testament. Let’s look at just a few examples from the first couple of chapters of Acts. In Acts 1:6 the disciples questions Jesus as to if he is going to “restore the Kingdom to Israel at this time”. The whole reason they are asking this question is because they had a deep understanding of the Old Testament and knew that that was the promise of Scripture.
Acts 2 is simply FULL of the old testament that we will miss if we skip over that part of our Bibles. The first is simply the day of Pentecost as we know it is the day the Holy Spirit came. But it was celebrated for thousands of years by the Jews as a God ordained feast. When they celebrated the giving of the law of Moses at Mt Sinai on the original Pentecost. Why is that all significant? Because the original Pentecost was God writing his law on stone tablets, and on the Pentecost in Acts, its God writing His law on our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
This was the promise of Jeremiah 31:33 " I will put my law within them, and I will write it ton their hearts. uAnd I will be their God, and they shall be my people."
And a beautiful depiction of Ezekial 36:26 "And I will give you ia new heart, and ia new spirit I will put within you. iAnd I will remove the heart of stone (like stone tablets) from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh" (like when the law is written on our hearts by the Spirit).
The sermon of Peter’s where 3000 people were saved? The vast majority of it was direct quotations from the Old Testament: Joel 2:28-32, Psalm 16:8-11, Psalm 16:10, Psalm 110:1. The Old Testament contains the Gospel as well.
We will see in Acts Chapter 3, Peter preaching the Gospel by using Deuteronomy and Genesis and referring back to the prophets all the way back to Samuel, because they directly point to who Jesus is. The most famous sermon in the book of Acts is probably the sermon of Stephen and he walks through the whole story found in the Old Testament to preach the Gospel.
This year our Kid’s Ministry (K-5th) is walking through a survey of the Old Testement, and as I am writing each lesson, I am more and more in awe of the central story found there. How the story of Ruth, isn’t just the story of Ruth and Boaz, but also the story of God bringing the gentiles into His family. Its a story that points to the ultimate redeemer. And there are examples like that in every Bible event found in the Old Testament.
So, if the first half of your Bible hasn’t been touched in awhile, go back and read it. Read it with an eye towards answering the questions: What does this tell me about God? How does this point to Jesus? And you will find a whole new world opened up in your faith journey.
- Stacy Hamsher
Let’s face it, the vast majority of us are going to be drawn to spending time in the Gospels. And there is something really important about studying the life of Jesus on earth! Or we tend to spend our time in the epistles, because they are practical and transforming. But the Old Testament is sometimes hard for us to understand its purpose or its application to our lives, so sometimes we just skip over it.
But as we have been going through the book of Acts, we see the Apostles find tremendous value in the Old Testament. Let’s look at just a few examples from the first couple of chapters of Acts. In Acts 1:6 the disciples questions Jesus as to if he is going to “restore the Kingdom to Israel at this time”. The whole reason they are asking this question is because they had a deep understanding of the Old Testament and knew that that was the promise of Scripture.
Acts 2 is simply FULL of the old testament that we will miss if we skip over that part of our Bibles. The first is simply the day of Pentecost as we know it is the day the Holy Spirit came. But it was celebrated for thousands of years by the Jews as a God ordained feast. When they celebrated the giving of the law of Moses at Mt Sinai on the original Pentecost. Why is that all significant? Because the original Pentecost was God writing his law on stone tablets, and on the Pentecost in Acts, its God writing His law on our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
This was the promise of Jeremiah 31:33 " I will put my law within them, and I will write it ton their hearts. uAnd I will be their God, and they shall be my people."
And a beautiful depiction of Ezekial 36:26 "And I will give you ia new heart, and ia new spirit I will put within you. iAnd I will remove the heart of stone (like stone tablets) from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh" (like when the law is written on our hearts by the Spirit).
The sermon of Peter’s where 3000 people were saved? The vast majority of it was direct quotations from the Old Testament: Joel 2:28-32, Psalm 16:8-11, Psalm 16:10, Psalm 110:1. The Old Testament contains the Gospel as well.
We will see in Acts Chapter 3, Peter preaching the Gospel by using Deuteronomy and Genesis and referring back to the prophets all the way back to Samuel, because they directly point to who Jesus is. The most famous sermon in the book of Acts is probably the sermon of Stephen and he walks through the whole story found in the Old Testament to preach the Gospel.
This year our Kid’s Ministry (K-5th) is walking through a survey of the Old Testement, and as I am writing each lesson, I am more and more in awe of the central story found there. How the story of Ruth, isn’t just the story of Ruth and Boaz, but also the story of God bringing the gentiles into His family. Its a story that points to the ultimate redeemer. And there are examples like that in every Bible event found in the Old Testament.
So, if the first half of your Bible hasn’t been touched in awhile, go back and read it. Read it with an eye towards answering the questions: What does this tell me about God? How does this point to Jesus? And you will find a whole new world opened up in your faith journey.
- Stacy Hamsher
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