Q.
52
Do Christians need to read the Old
Testament? Why?
Rebecca Bowman Woods
Who is...
?
Rebecca Bowman Woods
I love most sports, including ice hockey and NASCAR.A.
Would you pick up a novel, start reading in the middle, and expect
to know what’s going on? No, but unfortunately, Christians some-
times do this with the Bible.
The Bible’s two sections form a continuous tapestry of narratives and
perspectives, speaking of God’s activity from creation through the end of time.
Yet we can fall prey to believing that while the Old Testament has a few inter-
esting characters like Moses, David, and Jonah, most of it contains stories of a
wrathful God, outdated rules, and boring genealogies.
We’ll take the Ten Commandments and Psalm 23, but who needs those
half-crazy prophets and kings whose names we can’t even pronounce?
If we disregard the Old Testament, we limit our understanding of both
Jesus and the New Testament. Take Jesus’ last words from the cross in Mark’s
gospel: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” These words were
fi rst uttered by the author of Psalm 22 and are part of a Jewish tradition of
lamenting—crying out to God in godforsaken times.
Sometimes Christians look to the words and actions of Jesus to justify
ignoring the Old Testament. After all, didn’t he sum up all the commandments
as “Love God and love your neighbor”? Jesus healed on the Sabbath, social-
ized with people who were considered impure by religious standards, and
made a ruckus in the temple.
It becomes easy to think Jesus was rejecting Judaism instead of opposing
legalism and corruption by small groups of offi cials. From there, it’s not a big
step to disrespecting and rejecting the Jewish people today. Historically, we
have seen where this can lead humanity.