Reading Scripture - PART 2
“It is not right that we should neglect the word of God … we will devote ourselves to prayer and to serving the word.” Acts 6.2,4 NRSV
In the first recorded dispute among the believers in Jerusalem, the apostles provided a solution, appointing deacons, and in so doing resolving among themselves to not neglect their prime duty to prayer and scripture. The ‘word of God’ Luke refers to was what is known as the Old Testament, the Jewish scriptures; there were no epistles or gospels available to the apostles, at this juncture.
They had Genesis to Malachi, as their text. Their devotion was to be to both the Jewish scriptures and to prayer. It was through prayer that they began to see in scriptures what had so long been hidden from them – things angels longed to look into. Ephesians 3.1-6; 1 Peter 1.10-12
In scripture they began to see Jesus: prophetically, typologically, in allegory, etc. In prayer and by the Holy Spirit the Jewish scriptures were seen to be completed, fulfilled, in the Messiah, Jesus. This Christocentric reading of scripture became the way they interpreted the Old Testament.
This interpretive (Christocentric) model was initiated by Jesus when he stated, “Oh, how foolish you are, and slow of heart to believe all the at the prophets have declared. Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory? Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.” Luke 24.25-27 The disciples walking the road to Emmaus later declared, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us.” V32
The opening up of the Jewish text refers specifically to seeing Jesus and all he would accomplish – fulfilling the promise to Abraham that all the families of the earth would be blessed, fulfilling the law (not abolishing it), and fulfilling what was spoken by the prophets. Genesis 12.1-3; Matthew 1.22; 4.14; 5.17. Jesus is the end game; what is hidden in the old is revealed in the new.
Paul said as much when he stated, “For in him every one of God’s promises is a ‘Yes.’” 2 Corinthians 1.20 This has been read far too narrowly when applied largely for personal benefit - healing, finances, well-being, favour, etc. It may include these, but Paul’s scope is that everything God has promised in the scriptures is summed up in, fulfilled in and by, completed in the person of Jesus – and not in what was expected: land, temple, political/military dominion, Israel, etc. Jesus doesn’t just fulfil everything – he changes everything, even if that change was already anticipated by the prophets, seen in the advent of Christ.
Jesus, the early church, and Paul all agree that Jesus is the interpretive key of the Old Testament. That being so, it means our reading of the Old Testament isn’t true to this tradition (Jesus, Paul, and the early church) when we try to prophetically interpret the scriptures to conform to nationalistic, political, and/or end-time schemes. We miss the point – Jesus is the fulfilment; he is God’s emphatic yes – in every way. No temple will be rebuilt - he is the temple of God as is his church, no land given forever – the land is now the world, his church is the new holy nation - the renewed/returned people of God, there is no reinstatement of the law - the law is fulfilled in us by the indwelling Holy Spirit.
To read and understand the Old Testament is to see Jesus prefigured and prophesied in it. All the promises of God are summed up in Him, not in the nation of Israel, not in the land, not in the temple, but in Jesus and in his church/people.