Importance Of The Old Testament In Understanding Teachings From Jesus

Unhitching the New Testament from the Old Testament creates difficulty for our understanding of the New Testament. Both parts are essential to gaining a full understanding of what Christianity is about and should look like on a daily basis. However, not everyone agrees that both parts are required in order to understand the faith. Pastor Andy Stanley argues that we should move away from the Old Testament completely because it’s turning modern Christians away. While he is right about the decline in individuals identifying themselves as Christians, it is not for the reasons he claims it is. Christianity is based off not only Jesus’ resurrection, but, the word and teachings of God, which often start in the Old Testament and themes are continued into the New. Many of the New Testament stories make much more sense in light of some its Old Testament background. Stanley’s main purpose in making these claims is due to his concern about where the faith is headed. The percentage of people claiming to be Christian is steadily declining while the percentage of people identifying as atheists is rising. He believes that this is because the youth in our country is more interested in hard proof than the idea of blind faith. In a world taken over by technological advancements and science, Stanley argues, people are rejecting things like the creation story in Genesis because of how it doesn’t agree with the teachings of evolution, which is based off historical research. Another example Stanley uses of how the changing times are deterring people from Christianity is the use of violence by God in the Old Testament and how people don’t want to be a part of a religion that endorses slavery and can be misconstrued as being based on fearing God rather than loving him. Furthermore, he explains that the early church showed that there was a need to move past the Old Testament as well. In Acts 15, when discussing whether Gentiles should have to be circumcised, it states “It is my judgement therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God...”. He believes this is synonymous to his idea of eliminating the Old Testament, he wants to eliminate any hesitations new comers have about Christianity in order to make it easier for them to be on board with it, as the church did with the first century Gentiles, eliminate the things that are hard to completely accept. Stanley does believe that the Old Testament serves as a backstory for the Christian faith but not as a source of how to behave.

Andy Stanley brings up examples of how people like Paul have moved away from the Old Testament “Peter, James, Paul elected to unhitch the Christian faith from their Jewish scriptures, and my friends, we must as well.” However, in the examples he's uses he does not bring up the ways in which these apostles support the Jewish scriptures later in those same writings. In Paul’s letter to the Romans he uses the phrase “as it is written” and “scripture says” a total of 19 times while also referring to Moses, David and Isaiah on multiple occasions, based off just the prevalence of the Old Testament in Paul's writings alone shows that he clearly finds it be important. For example, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay, says the Lord”. Paul writes this directly to the church in Rome, a place he’s never been but still feels they are important to preach too, he talks about the way they should act towards people outside of the community. He is saying this in reference to the mistreatment that the church is facing from the Roman government and warns them “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone”. This is Paul's way of telling them to not rebel against the Roman government but leave it up to God because he will avenge you. Paul doesn’t quote Jesus, instead he quotes the Old Testament, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them.' It seems like the Old Testament promises that were made are important enough to Paul where he feels it is necessary to reemphasize them to the church. This is just one example of how Stanley's argument is flawed. The Old Testament is crucial in understanding teachings from Jesus. For example, the story of Jesus walking on water is found in three Gospels (Matthew, Luke and John) and there is more to it than Jesus just wanting to show off how powerful he was or to get attention. He didn’t do things just to inspire awe. Jesus sends Peter and other disciples out to sea and when they find themselves in a storm, they are fearful they might not be able to make it back to shore, Jesus then comes to them walking on the water, the men don’t know how to react and think he is a ghost. Peter asks Jesus, if he is truly the son of God, to give him the ability to also come stand on the water, and Jesus says “come”, After Peter is able to see the power of Jesus he, along with all the other witness’, know he is the Messiah. “Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’” Many people focus on Jesus’ relationship with Peter in this story and how Peter responds but Peter stepping out from the boat and onto the water with Jesus is only recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, so it seems like there is some other main point of focus. In all three accounts the common themes are the men that Jesus sends out on the boat that were caught in a storm and when they saw Jesus walking on water, they were all very scared.

The disciples thought they were seeing something supernatural, but this can be related to Old Testament texts in Genesis when Noah's Ark is described, in its original translation, to have walked. This is very interesting because ships are normally described to float or sail in all other passages in the Old Testament, this is the only time a boat is described like this but the reason for the exception is because of the relationship the two texts have to one another. The two texts talk about the danger over the water, the flood for Noah and the storm for Peter, and the fear that overtakes the men. The dangerous waters are a used as tool of salvation and together with Jesus the men will we be brought safely to shore as long as they have faith instead of doubt. We need the Old Testament teachings in order to fully understand what the New Testament is teaching us. If someone were to read the story of Jesus walking on water in the Gospel of Matthew without understanding how dangerous waters have been mentioned before in the Old Testament, then the story would lose much of its meaning. Although the reader may understand the power Jesus has, they don’t understand the reason why he would decide to prove his power, as if he needed to. Both sections of the bible build off of each other, nothing is written by mistake or without reason, the building blocks of the New Testament are the Old Testament. There are many teachings that are important to not only Christianity but human history as a whole that come from these texts, which also make up almost three quarters of the bible. Stanley said that the Jewish scriptures of the Old Testament may have been “divinely inspired” but “Jesus' new covenant, His covenant with the nations, His covenant with you, His covenant with us, can stand on its own two nail-scarred resurrection feet. It does not need propping up by the Jewish scriptures.' In reality, the exact opposite is true. Jesus’ validity as the Messiah may be lost if people don't understand the origins of God. The Old Testament purpose is to equip us with the tools we need for good work and understanding. Stanley's goal is to spread the Christian faith to a new generation of people, or at least not to lose the people that are a part of the faith currently. He thinks he can do this by eliminating an enormous part of the beliefs that drew people to Christianity in the first place, but by doing this he only takes away from the importance and the seriousness that is religion. All religions, and Christianity in particular, are not a buffet where you can pick and choose what you like and can ignore the things you don’t. A big part behind Christianity is the idea of sacrificing things and understanding that in order to be a good Christian you must do things and go through things that may not make sense to you in the moment but are all part of Gods divine plan. This is not to say that God is some type of puppet master pulling the strings and making everyone's decisions for them but it more likely means that you must have faith in something that can't be fully understood by our mortal/human selves. We are not God and we will never understand the true power of him but if we must do something, we must take all the teachings and lessons he has tried to lay out for us and apply them in our everyday lives, the way he wants, not what we find to be most convenient. There may be some people out there who agree with the things Stanley brings up, but the majority of young people who are stepping away from the church aren't doing it because they don’t believe in things like Mary being a virgin and still giving birth or because they think the creation story doesn’t make sense.

People have a problem with the Catholic Church’s failure to do Good in the world. Most people realize Christianity is about love, compassion and doing what's right but they don’t see it being put into action in today's world. When you move Jesus away from the Old Testament, you’re disconnecting Christ from who he is, he is the creator and the redeemer. Jesus refers back to the old doctrine on multiple occasions in the New Testament asking his follower if they have read. The New Testament is fulfilling the Old Testament, not replacing it. Stanley says “If you were raised on a version of Christianity that relied on the Bible as the foundation of faith, a version that was eventually dismantled by academia or the realities of life, maybe it's time for you to change your mind about Jesus”. This is a problem because the bible is the foundation of our faith, the reason we know where things such as sin and death come from are found in Genesis. Similarly, the reason we all wear clothes and have a seven-day week also come from Genesis. So, based off of that logic of pastor Andy Stanley if we unhitch ourselves from that then what are we left with? There are countless examples of Jesus referring to the Old Testament in the New Testament as a way of getting his message across. If our goal is to become one with the Lord and get as close with him as possible as we must read the things that he once read and try to gain some of the knowledge he had. Jesus was tempted by the devil three times and all three times he says, “As it is written...”. If Andy Stanley is right and the people of today's world want to focus on the grace and glory of Jesus and to move away from sin than we should do as Jesus did himself and get through our temptations by using this knowledge from the Old Testament. Unhitching the New Testament from the Old Testament creates difficulty for our understanding of the New Testament. Both parts are necessary to gaining a full understanding of what Christianity is about and should look like. Although people like Andy Stanley may not agree that both parts are required in order to understand the faith, we must look to examples from the Lord for evidence. Pastor Andy Stanley is doing himself a disservice when he argues that we should move away from the Old Testament completely because it’s turning modern Christians away. While he is right about the decline in individuals identifying themselves as Christians, it is not for the reasons he claims it is. Christianity is based off not only Jesus’ resurrection, but, the word and teachings of God, which often start in the Old Testament and themes are continued into the New. If an individual cannot accept the whole story, then they won't ever be able to fully understand God.