Daniel's article below cannot be emphasized enough as to how to read the Bible. It is read first and foremost Christologically, that is, through Jesus. All the more startling when considering the many OT Jewish themes of promise left unfulfilled unless understood as fulfilled in Jesus. Who ends them. Completes them. Uplifts them. Transforms them. Transitions them.
These are known as the "Themes of Continuity and Discontinuity" found within the Bible and in perfect correlation with the overarching Christological themes of the Bible that bind the Old and New Testaments together as one documental revelation by God to man. The balance between the books then is given to the NT, as the OT should now be read from the perspective of Christ as Israel's Messiah Redeemer. As the Second Adam. As the risen King of Judah. The Inheritor of the Davidic throne. Who perfects the Israelic priesthood in Himself (Hebrews). Who is God's Prophet, Priest and King. Who is the Lamb and Lion of God. And so on, and so on. Each biblical theme is found changed by, and in, and through, and because, of Christ. Christ Jesus completes the testimony of God to man in the OT. And Christ Jesus continues the testimony of God to man in the NT.
These are known as the "Themes of Continuity and Discontinuity" found within the Bible and in perfect correlation with the overarching Christological themes of the Bible that bind the Old and New Testaments together as one documental revelation by God to man. The balance between the books then is given to the NT, as the OT should now be read from the perspective of Christ as Israel's Messiah Redeemer. As the Second Adam. As the risen King of Judah. The Inheritor of the Davidic throne. Who perfects the Israelic priesthood in Himself (Hebrews). Who is God's Prophet, Priest and King. Who is the Lamb and Lion of God. And so on, and so on. Each biblical theme is found changed by, and in, and through, and because, of Christ. Christ Jesus completes the testimony of God to man in the OT. And Christ Jesus continues the testimony of God to man in the NT.
R.E. Slater
December 8, 2011
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The Story of Christ… Really…
by J.R. Daniel Kirk
November 15, 2011
I’ve found myself indirectly thinking about what it means to read the Bible as Christians. By “indirectly” I mean that these thoughts have gnawed around the edges of my thinking while I’ve been working on other things: teaching the Gospels and Acts, writing a paper on wisdom literature in the Coen Brothers’ movies, listening to sermons on the deadly sins, reading books on what the Bible is and we’re supposed to do with it.
By “reading the Bible as Christians” I don’t just mean reading it like we’re supposed to learn from it. There are lots of ways to read the Bible so as to learn from it. But those among whom I number myself approach the Bible as Christians–not as Jews, not as Mormons, not to mention that we don’t approach it as atheists or pantheists or deists.
Reading the Bible as Christians means that we not only read it with a ready disposition to hear it as God’s word, as the story of salvation, it means to read the story with the conviction that the narrative comes to its surprising climax in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
You have to do this on purpose, if you want to do it.
Pick up the book of Deuteronomy, and you’ll come away with a strong sense that the way God will fully restore his people is through their faithful obedience to Torah. Jesus is a surprise.
Pick up the law or the prophets, and you’ll come away with the strong sense that God’s ultimate plan is for a nation to be located in the geophysical land of Israel. The explosion of the promise of land to a promise of the world and indeed of new creation is a surprise.
Pick up the Proverbs, and the next thing you know you’ll be looking for your diligence to overflow in wealth and peace. The call to embody the death of Jesus in all quarters of our world is a surprise.
To read the Bible as the story of Jesus is to decide that nothing in the OT comes to us directly. It all comes to us mediated through Jesus. This means both that it is mediated through Jesus and that it all comes to us. Some is transformed in him, some is fulfilled and left behind. And some comes as a word reiterated now for a people reconfigured around Christ rather than Torah.
To read the Bible as the story of Jesus is to decide that nothing in the OT comes to us directly. It all comes to us mediated through Jesus. This means both that it is mediated through Jesus and that it all comes to us. Some is transformed in him, some is fulfilled and left behind. And some comes as a word reiterated now for a people reconfigured around Christ rather than Torah.
The vitality, and validity, of our reading the OT as Christians hinges on our willingness to read it in light of what we know to be more ultimately true: the Christ who is the end of the Law, the Christ to whom the Law, Prophets, and Psalms bear witness.
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