A few weeks ago while I was home, my sister gave her life to the Lord. It was an emotional moment, not that anyone could tell by just glancing at us. At least for me, the moment was full of excitement and fear. As soon as my sister confessed her desire to know the Lord I knew that some part of her life was over, and she would have to grow wiser. I was afraid for her because at that moment I knew that the next few weeks would be filled with challenges and temptations. I knew that she would have to look at life through a different lens and discern each decision with God in mind. But my biggest concern was that she wouldn’t really get to know God.
I had a deep respect and love for the woman we prayed with, and I know that her main concern was making sure that my sister knew of God’s love and mercy. But when she recommended that my sister start out her journey of faith in the New Testament, I cringed. I have nothing against the New Testament. I love Jesus, I love what he did for me, it’s why I’m here. But I don’t believe that my sister can truly get to know the nature of God by reading the gospels. The gospels do a beautiful job at painting Jesus as a loving,compassionate and sometimes impatient person of God. Later books of the New Testament have helped myself and many others to understand what Jesus has done and what the Holy Spirit does in us daily. But the New Testament doesn’t give us a full picture of God.
The temptation of Christians now, and in the time of the gospel of Matthew, is to forget about the Old Testament and embrace this New Testament God without context—“forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead” (Phil. 3:13). Though I know this wasn’t the intention of our prayer partner, I feared my sister would only get to know this side of God and miss out on the fire throwing, ground opening, mountain dwelling God of the Old Testament that so strongly fuels my faith and reminds us to fear Him. "The fear of the Lord is beginning of all wisdom” (Prov. 9:10, Ps. 111:10, Acts 17:11).
As I read the Old Testament I start to admire the God I serve more, and I’m able to see Him more clearly in the New Testament and my life. I’m not saying I’m able to fully understand Him (I’m only human), but I am able to better discern how He’s moving in my life and what decisions might glorify and honor him best.
I don’t know if you could tell or not, but I love reading the Old Testament. When I started my Christian journey, I started reading in Genesis first. I skipped around a bit but tried to make it through the Bible in a consecutive order. Eventually, I gave up around Daniel and started the process over, and over, and over. As I read the New Testament in my alone time, in church, in small groups, I understood it better because of having read the Old Testament passages first. I could never make it through Revelations without reading Daniel, and I wouldn’t understand the context of Paul’s warnings without the Israelites persistent pattern of reconciliation and rejection of God. (I struggled so much with the idea that people actually turned away from God before reading the OT.)
Without reading the Old Testament we don’t have a full picture of God, and we can’t understand the richness of the New Testament. Reading the Old Testament early on helps to put the fear of the Lord in us (the start of wisdom [Prov. 9:10, Ps. 111:10, Acts 17:11]) and gives us insight into what it means to truly give our lives for God.
