Proclaiming the Kingdom

 

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How to Understand and Apply the Old Testament
What the Old Testament Authors Really Cared About

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Does the Law of Moses Matter for Christians Today?

Delighting in the Old TestamentInstruction through the Lens of Christ

Moses matters for Christians, and yet he spoke in a context that’s very different from our own. The old covenant is not the covenant we’re under. We are under the new covenant. So all of Moses’s instruction matters but only through the person of Christ. That is, none of Moses—none of the laws—are directly binding and guiding for Christians, but all of Moses’s laws guide and direct us through the person of Christ.

We have to consider how Jesus actually fulfills the law in order to understand how particular laws apply to us. Sometimes Jesus’s fulfilling of Moses’s law means that he maintains that law in much the same form that it looked like before. “Don’t commit adultery” stays “Don’t commit adultery.” It’s a maintaining of the law through Jesus’s fulfillment. But other laws get transformed.

With a firm grasp of the progress of salvation history, this accessible guide helps Christians interpret the Old Testament, see how it testifies to Jesus, believe that Jesus secured every divine promise, and understand how Moses’s law still matters.

“Keep the Sabbath.” Jesus ultimately comes, fulfilling the Sabbath. Six days plus one, six days plus one—that’s how Israel lived. They lived for the goal of seeing Sabbath rest realized not only for themselves but also for the whole world, just like it was at the original creation. Jesus comes as Israel and fulfills the Sabbath. He brings the rest to all who are in him. He declares himself the Lord of the Sabbath and he says, “Come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” And in Jesus that rest is realized, not just one day a week but seven days a week.

And we gather often on Sunday because that was the definitive day that Sabbath went public, that rest became realized. So Jesus transforms the Sabbath, not that we’re keeping the Sabbath one day a week (we gather for worship one day a week) but to remind ourselves what he has given us seven days a week. The law has transformed.

And then we get laws like “Don’t eat pork,” and then we have “Delight in your bacon as victory food.” He annuls other types of laws. So Jesus maintains, he transforms, and he annuls. And so we need to consider at every stage and with every single law—when we’re asking, How does Moses matter for us?—we ask it in light of what the New Testament clarifies about Jesus’s person and work. And then we take the essence of what the law was pointed to and we apply it in a new redemptive context this side of Jesus.

This article originally appeared on Crossway’s blog.

Book Announcement: Delighting in the Old Testament

All Christians can enjoy Jesus and the hope of the gospel in the Old Testament. I argue this in my book, Delighting in the Old Testament: Through Christ and for Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2024). Here is a basic overview of the book:

Introduction: Ten Reasons the Old Testament Matters for Christians
Part 1––READING WELL: HOW JESUS HELPS CHRISTIANS INTERPRET THE OLD TESTAMENT
Part 2––SEEING WELL: HOW JESUS’S BIBLE TESTIFIES ABOUT HIM
Part 3––HOPING WELL: HOW JESUS SECURES EVERY DIVINE PROMISE
Part 4––LIVING WELL: HOW JESUS MAKES MOSES’S LAW MATTER
Conclusion: Tips for Delighting in the Old Testament read more…

10 Reasons the Old Testament Matters to Christians

Is Christ really part of the Old Testament message? Should I, as a believer in the twenty-first century, claim Old Testament promises as mine? Do the laws of the Mosaic covenant still matter today for followers of Jesus? In short, is the Old Testament Christian Scripture, and if so, how should we approach it?

To understand the Old Testament fully, we must start reading it as believers in the resurrected Jesus, with God having awakened our spiritual senses to perceive and hear rightly. As Paul notes, Scripture’s truths are “spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14) and only through Christ does God enable us to read the old covenant materials as God intended (2 Cor. 3:14). This, in turn, allows our biblical interpretation as Christians to reach its rightful end of “beholding the glory of the Lord” and “being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:14–18). Thus, we read for Christ.

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4 Ways Jesus Fulfills Every Old Testament Promise

When Jesus fulfills the Old Testament Law and Prophets, he is actualizing what Scripture anticipated and achieving what God promised and predicted (Matt. 5:17; 11:13Luke 16:16; 24:44). Truly every promise in Scripture is “Yes” in Christ (2 Cor. 1:20), and in him God secures every blessing for believers (Gal. 3:14Eph. 1:3).

Yet Jesus fulfills the Old Testament’s promises in more than one way, and this means Christians cannot approach Old Testament promises all in the same manner. Believers must claim Scripture’s promises using a salvation-historical framework that has Jesus at the center. Christ is the lens that clarifies and focuses the lasting significance of all God’s promises for us.

With a firm grasp of the progress of salvation history, this accessible guide helps Christians interpret the Old Testament, see how it testifies to Jesus, believe that Jesus secured every divine promise, and understand how Moses’s law still matters.

read more…

Help! I Don’t Enjoy Reading the Old Testament

Nurturing Delight

The Old Testament (OT) is big and can feel daunting, especially because it is filled with perspectives, powers, and practices that seem so far removed from Christians today. While we know that the psalmist found in it a perfect law that revives the soul, right precepts that rejoice the heart, and true rules that are altogether righteous (Ps. 19:7–9), we can struggle to really see how spending time in the initial three-fourths of the Christian Scriptures is really “sweeter than honey and dripping of the honeycomb” (Ps. 19:10). How can we nurture delight in the OT? read more…

The Story of God’s Glory in Christ

“When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son” (Gal. 4:4), and now we are living at “the end of the ages” (1 Cor. 10:11; cf. Rom. 13:11). Jesus opened his ministry by “proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel’ ” (Mark 1:15). Isaiah anticipated the good news of God’s end-times reign through his royal servant and anointed conqueror (Isa. 40:9–11; 52:7–10; 61:1–3), and Jesus saw his own ministry realizing it. His kingdom message continued after his resurrection (Acts 1:3) and was shaped by the testimony that to faithfully “understand the Scriptures” means that we will see the Old Testament forecasting the Messiah’s death and resurrection and his mission to save the nations: “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:45–47; cf. Acts 1:3, 8; 3:18, 24; 10:43).[1]

read more…

A Month in Deuteronomy

Over the next several weeks, the GearTalk Biblical Theology podcast will enjoy A Month in Deuteronomy. Hands to the Plow’s Creative Director, Mark Yaeger, has also designed some great cover art that may serve your ministry as you teach through this amazing book. Deuteronomy occurs in the Bible’s first division (= the Law), so the first gear is in blue in the first speech balloon; yet all Scripture’s gears (= Law, Prophets, Writings, Gospels and Acts, Epistles, and Revelation) influence or draw on Deuteronomy, which is why all the gears are colored in the second speech balloon. read more…

Fathers Discipling Children

Deuteronomy 6:4–9 commends formally and informally teaching our children the Supreme Commandment to love God with our everything. But what might this practically look like in daily, weekly, and yearly rhythms—in both the good times and the hard times? See my recent article at Christ Over All: https://christoverall.com/article/concise/fathers-discipling-children/.

A Month in the Servant Songs

Over the next several weeks, the GearTalk Biblical Theology podcast will enjoy A Month in the Servant Songs. Hands to the Plow’s Creative Director, Mark Yaeger, has also designed some great cover art that may serve your ministry as you teach through these gospel-saturated poems from one of the Old Testament’s most well-known prophets. Isaiah’s Servant Songs include Isa 42:1–9; 49:1–13; 50:4–11; 52:13–53:12. They occur in the Bible’s second division (= the Prophets), so the second gear is in yellow in the first speech balloon; yet all Scripture’s gears (= Law, Prophets, Writings, Gospels and Acts, Epistles, and Revelation) influence or draw on Isaiah’s prophecies, which is why all the gears are colored in the second speech balloon. read more…

Journey to Mount Sinai II

In this sixth installment to the Patterns of Evidence series, investigative filmmaker Tim Mahoney concludes his 20 year search for the biblical Mount Sinai. The onsite footage in this film is remarkable, and it draws together interviews, pictures, and videos that Mahoney and his team have gathered in over two decades of research. The five previous documentaries have all wrestled hard with the biblical, archaeological, and epigraphical evidence and have argued strongly for the faithfulness of the Bible’s claims. I strongly encourage you to get your tickets now and to see the film during one of its two Fathom Event showings. Watch the trailer here and visit www.patternsofevidence.com to learn how to get your tickets for either the May 15 or 17 shows. Before heading to the theatre, be sure also to download the Scorecard, so that you can assess the various site proposals against the biblical data. read more…

DeRouchie’s Audio & Video Sites

A Podcast on Biblical Theology
with Tom Kelby & Jason DeRouchie

Where DeRouchie serves as Research Professor of Old Testament and Biblical Theology

Where DeRouchie Serves as Content Developer and Global Trainer

See DeRouchie's Academia.edu Site