No excuses for avoiding OT

But the OT is 3/4 of our Bibles and the it’s all about Jesus. The OT was the Bible that Jesus read and taught from, and Jesus who met with people and began:

“...with Moses and all the prophets [and] interpreted to them the things written about himself in all the scriptures.” (Luke 24:27 NET)

Jesus condemned the Pharisees saying:

“You study the scriptures thoroughly because you think in them you possess eternal life, and it is these same scriptures that testify about me, but you are not willing to come to me so that you may have life.” (John 5:39-40 NET)

So why do we struggle to read the OT? Perhaps it’s because we have lots of questions about it, and don’t know how to read it. Mark Driscoll has launched a series of books called “A book you’ll actually read”. The first of these books is on the OT. The book is so small you can barely see it, but it takes no time at all to read.

Driscoll answers nine common questions about the OT - things like “who wrote it?” and “why were these books included in the Bible?” and “how do I read the OT?”. He also gives very short overviews of each of the books of the OT and why they’re important in the scheme of the whole Bible.

I was amazed to discover that the NT has upwards of 300 explicit OT quotations and upwards of 4000 OT allusions. When we don’t know the OT, we fail to appreciate the depth of what is happening in the NT.

This is an encouraging book that dealt with my questions about the OT and further opened my eyes to God’s plans and purposes right from day 1. You can order the book online at Crossway Books. Here’s a short video about the book:

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Excerpt from Tales of the Talking Tiger