The Old Testament is not "out of touch" - it is still relevant to us today
It's all too easy to feel that the Old Testament is out of touch. I used to feel like that for a long time. I would read the New Testament, and I felt like I could see the relevance. For that reason, the New Testament felt more "real" to me than the Old Testament. After reading the Bible all the way through a few times, I know that the Old Testament is just as relevant and "real" as the New Testament. I'll explain this here using an example.
First though, the best way to consider the New Testament is as a continuation of the Old Testament; not as an alternative or something that is supplanting it. I find it helpful to think of the Old Testament as the "First Testament".
For our example, remember when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt? At first they were joyful, but then they started grumbling during the long journey. During this time, some of them even started worshiping other gods. God didn't like this, and he punished them. Then the people turned to God and asked forgiveness for their sins. They obeyed the commandments again. But all too soon, they'd start being ungrateful, and began the cycle all over again. As I was reading this passage, I'd think "How silly! They knew it was wrong and they did it anyway! God was leading them, couldn't they have simply trusted in God the whole time? Why did they repeatedly make wrong choices?"
Well, I looked at myself in my journey along life and didn't like what I saw. I didn't literally worship other gods, but I certainly grumbled and spent far too much time thinking about worldly things and disobeyed God. God would even do wonderful things in my life, but I'd be too self-centered to even think of stopping for a minute and thanking Him for this. I was behaving exactly like the Israelites during their journey out of Egypt!
This part of the Old Testament was very helpful for me to point me toward putting God first and to recognizing all that God has done for me. It's so very relevant because we can see clearly where the Israelites disobeyed God - and yet, we disobey Him too. So it's virtually impossible to think the Old Testament is "out of touch" when we think about the journey out of Egypt. Every time some difficulty came their way, the Israelites grumbled and started wishing they'd never left Egypt. They were so ungrateful, not even remembering to think that they were on a journey to something much better (the Promised Land). No matter where we are on life's journey, I'm pretty sure we can all relate to the Israelites.
There are other examples too where the Old Testament is relevant today. One example is Joshua conquering the Promised Land. At the time, God had said He would give the Israelites the Promised Land. However, he didn't make it be a situation where Joshua fell asleep and when he woke up the land was his. Joshua still had many battles to fight to get that land. God was in charge and God guaranteed him the victory. Yet Joshua still had to do his part. If it had been so simple that he would just wake up in the morning to new territories, he may have forgotten to credit God. Instead, he and the army of Israel had to go into battle, which surely must have been daunting for all of them. They had to rely on their faith. They knew God had given them the victory even before the fight, but they still had to fight. They couldn't just stand there and do nothing.
The reason that the part of Joshua is relevant today is that so many of us expect God to just hand us things on a plate. He does indeed want to bless us and give us things that are good for us spiritually. But he wants us to do this through Him and through prayer and going through the process of our own life "battle" in a Godly manner, not a) by doing absolutely nothing, no prayer, etc nor b) by doing a lot of actions in the flesh without any thought of God.
Ultimately, the Old Testament is the First Testament. It is the beginning of a very important document (the Bible), and should not be disregarded as "out of date" or "irrelevant". There are many examples there which are highly relevant to our lives today, of which I've outlined two above.
If you found this post interesting, you might also like these related posts on this blog:
First though, the best way to consider the New Testament is as a continuation of the Old Testament; not as an alternative or something that is supplanting it. I find it helpful to think of the Old Testament as the "First Testament".
For our example, remember when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt? At first they were joyful, but then they started grumbling during the long journey. During this time, some of them even started worshiping other gods. God didn't like this, and he punished them. Then the people turned to God and asked forgiveness for their sins. They obeyed the commandments again. But all too soon, they'd start being ungrateful, and began the cycle all over again. As I was reading this passage, I'd think "How silly! They knew it was wrong and they did it anyway! God was leading them, couldn't they have simply trusted in God the whole time? Why did they repeatedly make wrong choices?"
Well, I looked at myself in my journey along life and didn't like what I saw. I didn't literally worship other gods, but I certainly grumbled and spent far too much time thinking about worldly things and disobeyed God. God would even do wonderful things in my life, but I'd be too self-centered to even think of stopping for a minute and thanking Him for this. I was behaving exactly like the Israelites during their journey out of Egypt!
This part of the Old Testament was very helpful for me to point me toward putting God first and to recognizing all that God has done for me. It's so very relevant because we can see clearly where the Israelites disobeyed God - and yet, we disobey Him too. So it's virtually impossible to think the Old Testament is "out of touch" when we think about the journey out of Egypt. Every time some difficulty came their way, the Israelites grumbled and started wishing they'd never left Egypt. They were so ungrateful, not even remembering to think that they were on a journey to something much better (the Promised Land). No matter where we are on life's journey, I'm pretty sure we can all relate to the Israelites.
There are other examples too where the Old Testament is relevant today. One example is Joshua conquering the Promised Land. At the time, God had said He would give the Israelites the Promised Land. However, he didn't make it be a situation where Joshua fell asleep and when he woke up the land was his. Joshua still had many battles to fight to get that land. God was in charge and God guaranteed him the victory. Yet Joshua still had to do his part. If it had been so simple that he would just wake up in the morning to new territories, he may have forgotten to credit God. Instead, he and the army of Israel had to go into battle, which surely must have been daunting for all of them. They had to rely on their faith. They knew God had given them the victory even before the fight, but they still had to fight. They couldn't just stand there and do nothing.
The reason that the part of Joshua is relevant today is that so many of us expect God to just hand us things on a plate. He does indeed want to bless us and give us things that are good for us spiritually. But he wants us to do this through Him and through prayer and going through the process of our own life "battle" in a Godly manner, not a) by doing absolutely nothing, no prayer, etc nor b) by doing a lot of actions in the flesh without any thought of God.
Ultimately, the Old Testament is the First Testament. It is the beginning of a very important document (the Bible), and should not be disregarded as "out of date" or "irrelevant". There are many examples there which are highly relevant to our lives today, of which I've outlined two above.
If you found this post interesting, you might also like these related posts on this blog:
- The danger of thinking we are not in the days mentioned by the Bible
- Creationism vs evolution
- The Bible tells us THAT something will happen, but not necessarily HOW or WHEN
- What does our world tell us about our Creator?
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