The Old Testament and My Life

In my life, the Bible is an essential element in learning more about God, His will, and how to follow it.  Many times I open up to parts in the New Testament in times of trouble or need, or just in my daily devotions.  Hardly ever do I look to the Old Testament to fulfill these needs.  To me, the Old Testament is filled with cultural rules of Israel, and bedtime stories.  It is hard to relate to my life, and to my problems. 

My opinion would help in Bruce C. Birch’s argument. He believes that many Christians today think the Old Testament is outdated, irrelevant, and not as useful as the New Testament.  The Old Testament displays a God of wrath and judgment, while the New Testament overrides the old with the God of Love.  He believes that the Old Testament is just as useful as the New to help understand God, and use key themes in those chapters as guides for our lives and our relationship with God.  He also stresses that God does not change from the Old to New Testament; The God of love is the same throughout the whole bible, not just the NT.

Birch wrote a book called “What Does The Lord Require? The Old Testament Call to Social Witness” to push the importance of studying the Old Testament and relating it to the church and our lives.  Birch states that stories, hymns, histories, parables and visions are just as important to study as the Ten Commandments and ethical teachings to help shape our faith and minister to the world.  It also helps us better understand God’s character.   While reading this book, he proved to me again and again, how important the OT is to the church and our daily lives.  But what most stood out to me, was the descriptions of God’s character and relationships with us, shown through the Old Testament in Creation, the Exile, Gods covenant, and through the Prophets. 

Birch first starts with Creation.  He describes an interesting view of the two creation stories.  Although the two accounts are different in its detail and importance, he believes they are complementary to each other in describing the power of God.  The first focuses on God’s absolute sovereignty.  From the void, God merely speaks a command and all of creation is made from His own free will.

 The second account focuses on the relatedness of God, and his personalized relationship with his creation. God makes all plants, animals and beings to live in a harmonious relationship with each other. He describes God’s creation of man by stating “God creates almost as a loving craftsman, intimately shaping the first human creature and breathing life into it.”  God makes woman to be man’s companion allowing them to have an intimate relationship.  Along with these examples, God walks and talks with his creation in the Garden of Eden, creating a loving God who cares about the needs of His creation. Another theme that goes along with the Creation story is Gods blessings.  The concept of blessings helps us to realize God is concerned for our wellbeing, providing for the care of His creation.  These two views combined portrays a powerful God who rules with love and care towards His people striving through an intimate relationship with us. 

  Birch stresses that God’s initial intention for creation was for us to experience “shalom” which means wholeness in Hebrew.  We are to experience the goodness of creation, while also having community with all creation.  Fulfillment is found from relationships with God and all of his creation.  Along with the gift of creation, we were given the gift of freedom; freedom to obey or disobey.  They choose to disobey God’s word, and the consequence of eating the apple, was sin and death, causing a brokenness of “shalom.”  This brokenness ruined the openness in their relationship with God, with one another, and with themselves.  This also helps us understand the brokenness in today’s world, and what we have to settle with, when God first created us for wholeness. 

The consequences of sin lead to Adam and Eve’s exile from the Garden of Eden, Cain’s exile, the flood, the scattering and confusion from the Tower of Babel, and then Birch moves on to discussing understanding out relationship with God through the Exile out of Egypt.  The generations of ancestors of Abraham and Jacob became slaves under the dominion of an oppressive Egyptian Pharaoh.  God heard the cries of His people, and sent Moses to deliver them from their oppression. Birch believes that this shows something about the character of God.  God is displayed as one who sees and hears, who notices Israel’s sufferings.  Birch goes even deeper to describing God as “knowing” their pain, which the word in Hebrew means also “to experience.”  For God to “know” Israel’s suffering demonstrates God’s unique relationship and involvement with His people, by actually participating in our pain and suffering. 

This story is a prime example of God’s salvation and liberation.  He rescued them from out of oppression and delivered them to the land of milk and honey.  Birch stresses that “Israel comes to know God not only as one who stands behind the ongoing created order of things (the God who creates and blesses) but as one who has entered history in a decisive way to affect salvation.”  The people of Israel were faced with a seemingly hopeless situation, and God saved them. 

There is a covenant made between God and the Israelites, starting with the Ten Commandments.  This covenant was to establish an understanding to the people of the alternate community they were to have with God, and also with each other in respond to God’s salvation.  This is the beginning of God’s faithfulness that carries through the Old Testament.  This covenant was also to base their community on justice, righteousness and to restore shalom.  Birch illustrates the concept that hope was possible through a God that was faithful and served justice. 

This concept of hope and justice is that same message reminded to the people of Israel through the prophets.  These two prophetic messages of justice and hope are two sides to God’s message to his people.  Prophets were considered guardians and protectors of the covenant of faith.  Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel are considered to be classic prophets. Many times the covenant community participated in the brokenness of man with selfishness, materialism, corruption and oppression, instead of encouraging justice and wholeness. When the people were lead astray from the covenant with God, they received the judgment.  Many times, God’s judgment was through exile.

Judgment is never given without hope.  Times of judgment were times of destruction and despair, but also of rejuvenation.  Because God was often displeased with the People of Israel’s violations of the covenant, judgment was needed to shake them of their misdeeds.  Hope given from God in these times was filled with joy, and renewal.  God promised to rebuild the nation into prosperity and peace.

These examples from creation, the exile out of Egypt, God’s covenant, and Prophetic messages helped me better to understand God’s character.  Like many other Christians, I believed that the God of the Old Testament was a just a God of wrath and judgment, and was later replaced with Jesus as a God of Love.  The God of forgiveness and love it was found in a loving creator, caring for our needs, and in the forgiveness of a straying Israel.  God didn’t love and protect Israel because they deserved it, he redeemed them because they were his chosen people which he had made a covenant with, and was fulfilling that covenant.  This Old Testament God is one that cares about our hurts and needs, and experiences that pain and brokenness with us.  He is a God of salvation and liberation, liberating his people from oppression and exile.  It has become clearer to me, that God hasn’t changed; it was only my ignorance that made me believe he had.  These themes carry across to the New Testament with Jesus.  Birch stressed the importance of the Old Testament to be known in the church as well as the individual.  The most important concept I learned from Birch is that it is important to read the Old Testament to learn from his examples he has given us, learn about our history, and altogether fully understanding the character of God.