The Importance of Studying the Old Testament

It was Saint Augustine who said… the new is in the old concealed and the old is in the new revealed.  This is the reason why we study both the Old and the New Testament.  There are some churches that only study the New Testament… but the Old Testament or more correctly the Hebrew Scripture, is the commentary to the New “Testament” (latin for “Covenant”).  Thus the New Testament, more correctly referred to as the “Brit Chadash” or the New Covenant, is the new covenant God referred to in the Hebrew scriptures when He said…

Jeremiah 31:31–34 (NKJV)

31 “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

Now why am I making this point?

Because you need to understand the Bible is one seamless book that flows from Genesis to Revelation.  God is the same yesterday, today and forever.  He wasn’t mean in the Hebrew scriptures and all of a sudden turned nice in the New Covenant scriptures.  He’s the same God all the way through.  So if you want to fully understand the teachings of the New Covenant, it’s essential that you know the Hebrew Scriptures or what we refer to as the Old Covenant, the Old Testament.  Make sure you attend a church that teaches verse by verse through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. 

If your church doesn’t teach verse by verse, then I would invite you to watch our studies online to become better equipped to serve your home church as an informed disciple of Jesus.  Meet with your pastor and encourage him to teach the scriptures verse by verse in one of the church Bible Studies.  If your church doesn’t want to teach the Bible, then find a church that does teach the Bible.  The Bible says in the last days there will be a famine in the land of the teaching of God’s Word and the number one sign will be deception.  Deception is the result of churches that do not teach God’s Word.  Pay attention to this… it’s important.