Why Should I Study the Old Testament?

Many years ago, an elderly sister motioned for me to come over to her before a Sunday morning Bible class. She had been absent for a while, and she wanted to know what our next study was going to be about. “I hope it’s not the old Bible,” she said, adding, “I hate the old Bible!” After a little probing, I came to realize she was talking about the Old Testament.

Even if there aren’t very many who would go so far as to call the Old Testament “the old Bible” or vocalize this attitude towards it, there are many followers of God that have effectively torn their one Bible into two pieces, forming two very separate books, one of which is very neglected. It’s a little too common to find Christians who haven’t spent much time with the Old Testament, let alone given it the study it deserves. Here are some reasons why every follower of God should study the Old Testament:

1. The Lord never changes (Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 13:8) – I have an idea that some people who approach the Old and New Testaments as though they were old and new Bibles also may unconsciously think that there are two Gods – one old and one new. However, the same God who inspired the Old Testament also inspired the New. No understanding of God’s nature can be complete unless it takes into account the information given in both the Old and New Testaments.
2. The Old Testament is inspired by God (2 Timothy 3:16-17) – The Old Testament is not something that man put in our Bibles to confound us; it was something God gave to complete us. Paul told Timothy, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God.” More literally, he said that all scripture is God-breathed; it came from the mind of the Almighty! While the New Testament is Scripture, Paul references what Timothy had known from the time he was a child (2 Timothy 3:15), which could only refer to the Old Testament.
3. The Old Testament helps make us wise unto salvation through faith in Jesus Christ (2 Timothy 3:15) – Again, the “Scriptures” Paul is talking about in this passage are those in the Old Testament. No walk with God is complete without a walk in His book; and no walk in His book is complete without a walk in the Old Testament. The reason so many received the gospel after only hearing one sermon in the book of Acts was that they had studied their Old Testaments. Paul described the Old Testament as a tutor which leads people to Christ (Galatians 3:24).
4. You can’t understand much of the New Testament without first understanding the Old (Acts 2) – The scripture reference I gave for this thought is Acts 2; many others could have been put in its place. In this passage, Peter makes no less than three direct references to Old Testament passages. Large portions of the New Testament, including Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews, simply cannot be understood without a proper knowledge of the Old Testament. As Augustine once said, “The Old Testament is the New Testament concealed; The New Testament is the Old Testament revealed.”
5. The Old Testament helps us to know Jesus through promise and prophecy (1 Peter 1:10-12) – Sprinkled throughout the Old Testament are incredible pictures of Jesus Christ. For example, how did the Ethiopian Eunuch learn about Christ? With the help of Phillip, he was able to discover Him in Isaiah 53. We learn about Jesus Christ not just from the gospel accounts, but from the prophetical pictures of Him in the Old Testament. The Old Testament gives us a richer understanding of who Jesus is and what He did.
6. The Old Testament provides evidence that the Bible is indeed inspired through predictive prophecy (2 Peter 1:19, 20) – Though there are far too many illustrations of this point to include here, here are a few:
   • Isaiah 44:28-45:1 names Cyrus and describes his mission as the one to return the Jews to their homeland nearly 200 years before he took power – before the people of Judah were even taken into captivity! History both confirms Cyrus’ name and his actions. People often try to date the book of Isaiah later because of this profound prophecy.
   • Ezekiel 26 describes the destruction of Tyre in fantastically precise detail. The city being made like “the top of a rock” (Ezekiel 26:14) describes to a T what Alexander the Great did when he tore down the mainland city of Tyre to build a bridge across the sea to the island city.
   • Daniel predicts the fall of Babylon and describes subsequent empires perfectly (ch. 2).
7. The Old Testament gives examples of God’s care for the righteous and His wrath towards the wicked (Romans 11:22) – The God of the Bible is a God of both goodness and severity; He is a Being that inspires both love and respect. Some people limit His love and goodness to the New Testament and further limit His judgment and wrath to the old. Yet, as stated before, the Lord never changes, and examples of both His love (e.g. His mercy towards sinful patriarchs in Genesis) and His wrath (e.g. the Noahic flood) are found in the Old Testament.
8. The Old Testament shows us what faith can accomplish (Hebrews 11) – Of course, we would all like to follow the footsteps of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but too often we fall short. Our greatest encouragement in this pursuit lies in our cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1) – the living examples of men and women who overcame their shortcomings to serve God through faith. Their faith can be our faith, and their triumph can give us hope.
9. The Old Testament can help us defend our faith and hope (1 Corinthians 9:3; 1 Peter 3:15; Jude 3) – How do we know the Bible is from God? How do we know that Christianity is the only road to eternal life? The inspired pages of the Bible prove it to us. Though the Bible is not a science, mathematics, history, or geography textbook, when it speaks of these and other areas, it speaks with total accuracy. Christianity is the only religion based upon a flawless and perfect book; all others are based upon manmade documents filled with imperfections.

Many more things could be added to this list. Hopefully this is enough to establish the point: The Bible must not be divided into two different books, with one being judged to be important and the other unimportant. Instead, the whole Bible must be used; in its entirety, the Bible provides us with “all things that pertain unto life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3). If we desire both to stand before God and to equip ourselves against the wicked one, we must be girded with truth (Ephesians 6:14) – the whole truth. Paul made a declaration that we should strive to emulate both in our personal study and in our teaching: “For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27).

-Patrick Swayne  
patrick@tftw.org