Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Does the Old Testament Matter? | Torah | Genesis 49:1-27

Episode Date: April 27, 2022

If Jesus is the basis of Christianity, should Christians focus on the gospels more than the Old Testament? Is the New Testament more important than the Old? Is the Old Testament too distracting? In today's episode, Jensen uses Genesis 49:1-27 to explain the importance of the Old Testament. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Passages: Genesis 49:1-27 Resources: Why We Can't Unhitch from the Old Testament by Michael J. Kruger Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair. Right now, we're going through the first book of the Bible, Genesis. A few months back, I was with my extended family, and as it happens with extended family, we ended up in a lively debate. I'm sure you've taken part in one of these before. I've had my fair share of debates about politics, social events, and current world news. But this one was about the Bible. someone had asserted that they thought the Bible should start with the New Testament, and it devolved into multiple members agreeing that it made more sense because the New Testament was the more substantial part of the Bible.

Like if someone was just going to read a little bit of the Bible, they should start with a gospel so they didn't miss out on the important parts. And this debate ended with a family member saying, you don't need the Old Testament for salvation, you just need Jesus. You need to believe he died for you. That's all you need. And while I understand the sentiment, I think it misses something big. But it's not just my family.

Author and pastor Andy Stanley came out with a controversial book in 2018 where he proposes that in order for the modern church to reclaim its place in the world, the Old Testament must be disregarded. A Gospel Coalition article by Michael J. Kruger explains that Stanley's proposed approach to reaching more people is to take the focus off the Bible, especially the Old Testament and put it on the resurrection. Stanley goes so far as to say, the good news is that even if none of these Old Testament things actually happened, it does nothing to undermine the credibility of our new covenant faith.

Is he right? If the Old Testament isn't true, would it not really matter anyways? Should we just focus on the Gospels? Push the ideas of salvation and Jesus and leave the rest to the dustbin of history? Should we just disregard the Old Testament completely because it's distracting? I don't think so. Neither did Kruger, as he goes on to remind us that ultimately doing as Stanley suggests undermines Jesus' authority.

For one, Jesus believed that the Old Testament mattered for his life and for your life. He studied it. He upheld its authority and to disregard it as something that doesn't matter for my life is to ultimately say that Jesus had it wrong. Again and again, Jesus bases his authority to say and do what he does on the truth that we find in the Old Testament. And if that's not enough, there's another problem with leaving out the Old Testament. If we disregard it as of lesser importance to the New Testament,

we're left with a one-dimensional Jesus. Now, what do I mean by that? I just mean that instead of seeing Jesus within a larger story, we merely see him as our personal savior. We hyper-focus on one part of the story and elevate it to the point that all Jesus is is a man who came and died for me and my sins so that I don't have to go to hell one day. And while that might sound like a gospel presentation, in reality, it truncates the biblical narrative and it doesn't do justice to who Jesus says he is and what he came to accomplish.

Lucky for us the Old Testament matters. It's within the Old Testament that we see who God is, a God who created the universe and molded humanity to rule alongside him, a God who chose to redeem and restore those same humans, even as they rebelled against him over and over. He is a patient God, a powerful God, and he is the same God who came in the person of Jesus to redeem his people. It's in the Old Testament that we see the roots forming of Jesus' future coming as a man. He is present throughout the Old Testament, the promised person who would redeem his people. The Old Testament tells us why Jesus matters.

It tells us who he is. It tells us where he gets his authority and it broadens the scope of what he came to accomplish. The first promise of a Redeemer, Jesus, comes in the third chapter of the Bible, when God tells Adam and Eve that one day, one day someone will come who will destroy the serpent. And yet, as he does so, he too will be struck down. But through this event, this man will push back the effects of what Adam and Eve did that day in the garden, and he will restore all of creation. This is the first picture of hope.

And as Genesis has continued, we've seen God make a covenant promise with his people, a covenant to bless the nations through them, to use them to redeem the world. and yet these people fail. They fall short, make mistakes, and they live broken lives. And so here, nearing the end of Genesis in chapter 49, as Jacob on his deathbed blesses his son Judah, we see him paint another picture of who this coming Messiah will be. These blessings that Jacob is making over his sons, they're predictions of what their lives will be, but also what will come from them.

And as Jacob speaks of his son Judah, his way, his words, words also point to the one who will come from his line. Let's go ahead and read this blessing. Judah, your brothers will praise you. Your hand will be on the neck of your enemies. Your father's sons will bow down to you. You are a lion's cub, Judah. You return from the prey, my son, like a lion he crouches and lies down. Like a lioness, who dares to rouse him? The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he He to whom it belong shall come, and the obedience of the nation shall be his. He will tether his donkey to a vine, his colt to the choicest branch.

He will wash his garments and wine, his robes in the blood of grapes. His eyes will be darker than wine, his teeth wider than milk. It's easy to get caught up in the words and imagery in this blessing, so I'm going to break it down for us as best as I can. In verse 8, we see that Judah will be praised by his brothers. He will defeat his enemies. Verse 9 refers to him as a lion, powerful, royal, and unable to be moved. In verse 10, when it says the scepter will not depart from him, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, it's telling us that he will be the lawmaker,

the ruler of the land, kings will come from him. And they will rule until a promised person who rightfully holds the power to rule, comes and has the obedience of the people of the world. And finally, verses 11 and 12, signal that Judah will have plenty of what he needs. He will have riches of wine and milk. He'll provide for his family and his people. This is a good blessing for Judah, but even more than what it means for Judah, it points to a greater hope for all people. What we see here that is true about Judah is also true of the Messiah to come. The Messiah who we now know is Jesus. Jesus will be the ruler of nations.

He will be praised and all of God's children will bow down to him. In Revelation 5-5, Jesus is called the lion of the tribe of Judah. That's in reference to this passage. He too is powerful and royal. Jesus, King Jesus is the one who will come. come from the line of Judah to rule over the people, to be the ultimate lawgiver. The nations will live under his perfect rule and obedience. He will unite the world under his one kingdom ruled by a powerful, just and generous king. For just like Judah, Jesus, the creator

of the world, has plenty of what he needs, and he will provide for his people to have a richness of life. And so, in the first book of the Bible, the stage is set, for the people of God to look forward to this coming Messiah. They weren't hoping for someone who would just die for their individual sins so they'd be okay. They were looking forward to the coming of a king, someone who would be worthy of praise, someone who would rule over the nations to reestablish order and goodness that was broken in Genesis 3. The lion of Judah was coming, and in him was the hope of the nations. When we read the New Testament in light of the Old Testament, we are given a life-changing story,

a promise that we can build our lives on because its roots are deep into the truth of who God is and what he's doing in this world. With the whole story and view, we see Jesus clearly as the God of the universe, the king of this world. He came to redeem and restore what you and I and the men in women of the Old Testament had broken and rejected. He is a good, powerful, benevolent king. And as we believe that he is king, he wants us to give our allegiance to his kingdom and to work alongside him to usher in restoration to a broken and hurting world. Without the Old Testament, we miss out on all of that.

We miss out on the full picture of who Jesus is. we miss out on our purpose. Don't be fooled by the temptation to ignore parts of the Bible that seem less relevant. All scripture is God breathed. Die into the Old Testament. Don't skip over the confusing or boring or difficult to understand parts. Grab a study Bible or a commentary or a friend and challenge yourself to learn more about God's redemptive story. Because his story is weaved throughout every single page of scripture. It's worth it and it's necessary. Because when we understand the bigger picture of who Jesus is, we can step into a story that's bigger than our lives and find real purpose as we walk alongside King Jesus to redeem the broken corners of our world.

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