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Tag Archives: New Testament

Jesus On Every Page

09 Oct

When you get right down to it, what is the Old Testament really all about? Is it just some musty old stories about how the earth was made and then how the Jewish people got started? Just a few poems and prophets with some miracles spread about?

Or is there something more here? Someone more here?

David Murray, Professor of Old Testament and Practical Theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, wrote a book detailing how he came to change his views on the most important question about the Old Testament: Is it really about Jesus? If you didn’t know, there is some debate about it, as he himself writes…

“I know of one Old Testament professor who banned the use of the New Testament in his classroom. Talk about trying to study in the dark.” – David Murray, Jesus on Every Page: 10 Simple Ways to Seek and Find Christ in the Old Testament

Yes, some people can be pretty passionate about their wrong ideas. For Murray (and for yours truly) the answer to this great question is found in what Jesus Himself said:

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life….For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. John 5:39 – 40, 46 (ESV)

Moses? Moses, the one who wrote Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy – where did he write about Jesus? And the answer is in those same five books, again and again and again. Yep that’s what Jesus was saying. And He said the same thing on the road to Emmaus…

And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. Luke 24:27 (ESV)

So, Sally Lloyd-Jones wrote (to children) in the first chapter of her wonderful Jesus Storybook Bible:

“Now some people think the Bible is a book of rules, telling you what you should and shouldn’t do. The Bible certainly does have some rules in it. They show you how life works best. But the Bible isn’t mainly about you and what you should be doing. It’s about God and what he has done.

“Other people think the Bible is a book of heroes, showing you people you should copy. The Bible does have some heroes in it, but (as you’ll soon find out) most of the people in the Bible aren’t heroes at all. They make some big mistakes (sometimes on purpose). They get afraid and run away. At times they are downright mean.

“No, the Bible isn’t a book of rules, or a book of heroes. The Bible is most of all a Story. It’s an adventure story about a young Hero who comes from a far country to win back his lost treasure. It’s a love story about a brave Prince who leaves his palace, his throne – everything – to rescue the one he loves. It’s like the most wonderful of fairy tales that has come true in real life!

“You see, the best thing about this Story is – it’s true.

“There are lots of stories in the Bible, but all the stories are telling one Big Story. The Story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them.”

So whether we read the Old Testament or the New, we celebrate the young Hero, or if you prefer, the brave Prince…Who came for you and me.

For Monday, October 12th: John 6

 
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Posted by on October 9, 2015 in Bible Interpretation

 

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The Field is the World

19 Jan

Operation WorldIt’s pretty easy to get focused on those close to us when we think about reaching out to the lost.  If your child doesn’t know Christ, or your mom or dad, or your spouse, it’s fairly easy to forget about what’s going anywhere else, and focus only on them. It’s also easy for us pastors and church leaders to think that what is really important is what is going on in our locale, our city, our neck of the woods.  Believe me, I personally have narrowed my focus too many times.

But our call is to more than our Jerusalem.  It is also to all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest parts of the earth (Acts 1:8). To this end, I had a Navigator leader who once told me that he thought Matthew 13:38 was the key verse of the BibIe. I think that was overstating it, as it is hard to get the gospel from this verse, but there is no doubt that it contains an important truth:

The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one,

Matthew 13:38 (ESV)

That man was thinking of the first five words of this verse in particular: The field is the world.

Not my backyard, not my town or city, not even my county or state.  The field…is the world. And yet how easy it is for us to forget the great needs of the world.

But Christ calls His people to be World-Christians.  I’ll never forget George Verwer, the founder and leader of Operation Mobilization talking about this – I think it was at the 1984 Urbana missionary conference where he spoke of holding a globe up during his morning prayer time, and crying out, “Lord, I love the world!!!”

And we should.  We should love the world because God loves the world.  Yes, of course, our heavenly Father loves the ones we hold dear. But he also loves the journalists of Charlie Hebdo in France, and the Ebola victims of Africa, and the persecuted Chinese.

Our Heavenly Father loves the world, and it is the field to which all of us have been called.

Short of going overseas longterm, my application for this has been to try to pray for the world semi-regularly.  I get a daily email from Operation World which has helped. Now, I confess, I have a ways to go – I too often skip over this part of my daily prayer time, but I do get to praying for the world more than I used to.

And that’s good, because my field, just like yours…is the world.

Our reading for Tuesday, January 19: Matthew 14

 

 
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Posted by on January 19, 2015 in Uncategorized

 

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