Trinity Mount Barker

Does the Old Testament really have anything to teach us today? Is it simply a prologue to the real story, that we might skip over to get to the good stuff? How have I been ignoring three quarters of the bible? I’ve been grappling with these questions as I bite the bullet and properly read through it this year as part of my studies.

So far, there have been three features that have stood out for me:

1. My knowledge of God was stunted by my lack of reading it. The promises fulfilled in the New Testament, in Jesus, can only be understood in reading the promises made in the old. My desire to learn more about Jesus has to go beyond the boundaries of Matthew to Revelation to gain a fuller understanding of who Jesus is and why he came. 

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My nearly two year old son, Jamie, says one word, I think, more often than any other – “More?!”  It’s a question, a request and an expression of pleasure all rolled into one.  Anything he likes, whether it’s food, a funny face or a song on the car CD player, is greeted with cries of, “More?!  More?!”

As I was reading Habakkuk’s great cry to God in chapter 3, “I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD. Renew them in our day.” I couldn’t help but think of Jamie asking for “More?!”.  Habakkuk is praying, “Do it again, Lord! Do once more among your people, the great things you have done in the past.”

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Our currents series in the book of Habakkuk has raised a question for some in our community: How do we as Christians read and understand the Old Testament?  We often find it easier to make sense of the New Testament; it was written closer to our time and in the same era of salvation history as we live in – between Christ’s first coming and his second. But the Old Testament seems a bit more foreign, it was written down longer ago and in a time when people were still looking forward to Christ’s incarnation.

Below are a few things to bear in mind as we read the part of God’s Word that is the Old Testament.

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