This week’s sermon explores the differences between the Old Testament and the New Testament. quite an undertaking to explain in the space of a 10 to 15 minute sermon. So I began my research as any child of the computer age would, I went to the internet and googled the question “What is the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament.” The answers that came back to me were quite interesting.
- “The Old Testament was written before Jesus was born and the New Testament was written after.”
- “The New Testament is the sequel to the Old Testament.”
- “The Old Testament is the covenant between God and the Israelites (sons of Abraham) and the New Testament is the covenant between God and everyone else.”
- “The Old Testament is Jewish, the New Testament is Christian.”
- “In the Old Testament, the stories tell of a wrathful and vengeful God, whereas he does not exhibit his wrath as often in the New Testament until the book of Revelation.”
- “The Old Testament is about the Law, The New Testament is about grace.”
- “The New Testament trumps the Old Testament.”
There are a lot of opinions out on the World Wide Web but it is hard to figure out what is the truth. It reminds me of my very first day of Old Testament class in seminary. The professor began the class by asking us to share our perceptions of the Old Testament and many of the answers that came were similar. Many of us said that we didn’t like the Old Testament because the God of the Old Testament is a vengeful and angry God. We thought that the Old Testament was all about sin, starting with the fall of humankind from it’s beginnings in the Garden of Eden. That in the Old Testament God was all about laws and obedience, bringing wrath upon those who disobeyed him. Some perceived the Old Testament as writings of doom and gloom where God thought badly of humankind and that in order to redeem us God sent his gentle son Jesus to be sacrificed for our sins which is written about in the New Testament. In essence what we were saying was that the Old Testament was bad and the New Testament was good. So why were we endeavoring to take a year long class on a section of the Bible we so detested, does required class for graduation ring any bells. But thank goodness for required classes because they can help a student to open their eyes to new ways of seeing old stories.
First we must remember that the Bible is not just one book; but it is a collection of 66 books that tell the story of God’s relationship with humankind and creation. Throughout the New and Old Testament this relationship is communicated through covenant—the promises of God made to humankind to love, care for, and guide us in the ways that give us life. In the Old Testament the covenant is expressed most simply when God said, “I will walk among you, and I will be your God and you shall be my people.” (Leviticus 26:12). This covenantal relationship was also expressed by Jesus in the New Testament when he made this promise to the disciples at the Last Supper “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” (1 Corinthians 11:25b)[i] The Bible is not a single story with a single plot line, but rather the books of the Bible are put together like a family album. The Bible contains a compilation of different kinds of literature. Within it are sagas, laws, poetry, and even heroic biography to name a few. Some of the books of the Bible are in placed in chronological order whereas other parts of it seem to be out of sequence.
The Old Testament is the life story of Ancient Israel. What some are now designating as the Hebrew Scriptures. The distinction between the Old Testament and the New Testament is only a Christian one. For the Jewish community there is only one Testament and they refer to it as the Tanak. The Christian Bible divides Older Testament into four sections. The First being the Pentateuch, the first five chapters of the bible which tells the basic story of the Israelite people which includes laws to guide them in living. There we have Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Then come the numerous historical books, Joshua, Judges, Kings, Chronicles and others which talk about the political history of the Israelites Nation. Then we have the books of Poetry and Wisdom, the book of Job, Psalms Proverbs etc. Then it come the prophetic writings: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel to name a few. In these we find stories where God calls prophets to speak on his behalf to warn nations that if they keep doing things the way they are, that calamity will come down upon them.
The New Testament contains the stories of the Christians. It begins with four different accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry in the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The story continues with the history of the first Christians in the book of Acts. Then we have the records of the early church through Paul’s letters to various churches, what we call the epistles. Then the New Testament ends with the Book of Revelation which is the prophesy of what the world will be like in the culmination of the things to come.
The over arching theme of the Old and New Testament is the grace and love of God. Throughout the Bible, God longs to be in relationship with humankind, God blesses humankind with an abundance so that all may have what they need to live whole sustainable lives. However God also gives humankind free will, we can either move towards God and heeds Gods call to spread the blessing of abundance or we can move away from God and deal with the consequences. What the stories of the Old Testament are trying to do is to explain why life is difficult. Beginning with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, we hear stories of the consequences of people and nations who fall short of God’s call for all of creation to live in right relationship with each other. God’s will is justice for all of God’s creation.
The law is the same throughout the Old and New Testaments. It is grounded in covenant, which is God’s commitment to be in relationship God’s people. The punishment that nations and peoples suffer in the Bible is not by God coming down on them to smite for their bad behavior. Rather the punishment suffered is a result of a a nation living in unjust ways, where wealth is held by few while many live in poverty, where nations fall by their own arrogance and abuse of the earth leads to plagues, storms and famine.
Unfortunately misinterpretation and misunderstanding have given the Old Testament a bad reputation in Christian Church history. Throughout history some have incorrectly interpreted the New Testament as being over and against the Old Testament. Pieces of it have been taken out of context and misunderstood to validate such things as violence against Jewish folk, the taking back the Holy Land through the crusades and conquering new lands in the name of Jesus.
The Gospel of John has been misused many times for this purpose. In it we read, “He came to what was his own and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God” This text has been used to discriminate against people of the Jewish faith and the Hebrew scriptures. But if we take into account the context in which this gospel was written, we remember that the early Christians whom the evangelist John writes to were part of the Jewish community but in conflict with their faith community because of their belief that Jesus was the messiah sent by God to be the embodiment of God’s grace and love. They were expelled from their church home, the synagogue and so they had to carve a new church home for themselves. What this newly formed community needed was comfort and assurance and John provides it for them by recalling that Jesus wasn’t accepted by his people either.
The God of the Old Testament and the Jesus of the New Testament are the same. In the Christian tradition we believe that Jesus is God incarnate. That God loved the world so much that God poured Godself down into the human form of Jesus. And the New Testament very clearly states that the incarnation of Jesus did not do away with all the teachings that came before him, as he states in the gospel of Matthew, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.” Matthew 5:17-18
The accomplishment of the Law is love and God’s love and grace are found in the stories of both Old and New Testaments. Do not think that one is better then the other because it is all God’s story. May it be so. Amen.
[i] Kathleen C. Ackley, Project Editor; writers: Kealahou Alika…[et al.] Affirming Our Faith: A Congregations Guide to Confirmation. (Cleveland
2 comments:
Well done, good overview of the Bible!
Impressive.
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