I covered several comics ago about foundations and how there are many that take what the world sees and apply that to the Bible. I gave examples of Earth shape, but that subject is much deeper than just that.

This is another one on foundations. What about those that don’t take what the world sees and apply it to Scripture, but just take Scripture for what it says? I present the error that commonly happens in that model. So many churches out there claim to be “New Testament churches”. If you attend these, as I have in the past, when any sermon happens it is based on the New Testament. If the Old Testament is taught, it is through the lens of what we have read in the New Testament. A common phrase is “the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed”. This phrase implies there isn’t a need to read the Old Testament. It has a bunch of hidden stuff in it and you couldn’t understand it unless you knew the New Testament first. These churches even further this understanding by printing only NT Bibles, which are usually passed out to new believers or even unbelievers. However, just reading these books leaves a lot to misunderstanding. Just typing in “What did Jesus mean” into Google and looking at the autocomplete list is proof enough of that. Even more proof is going to those and seeing the loads of articles written to explain “what Jesus really meant”.

However, if you take the approach on the right, most of the those questions go away. When Jesus is being tempted, you can see that Satan is quoting Psalms to try and tempt him, while Jesus is quoting the Torah, specifically Deuteronomy. When Jesus teaches, you can find the basis of those teachings in the Torah. When the disciples and Paul speak on things, you can find their foundation in the OT.

I posted a chart someone had made to Facebook several months ago (https://www.chrisharrison.net/index.php/Visualizations/BibleViz). Through this chart you can see all the cross references in the Bible. You can easily see that most of the of those references go back to the first books of the Old Testament. Even when we get into the NT, the Letters reference to OT more than they do the Gospels.

This also begs the question for those that say they are “New Testament churches”: What did the first New Testament churches have? I watched a video the other day that said something on this that made me chuckle: “There are two things the New Testament churches didn’t have: The New Testament or a church.” These letters in the NT were written to new believers and others shortly after Jesus ascended (dating puts them starting at 5-20 years after). Why though? Going back to what I was saying before, Jesus teachings can be found in the OT. He wasn’t teaching something new. He even tells us that his words weren’t his own but the Father’s. Where do we find the Father’s words? In the OT. Anywhere it says “and God said…”.

The NT writers weren’t looking to write something to believers who had no knowledge of the OT or who wouldn’t go and read it first, they were writing to people who already knew it and were trying to apply it to their life. Romans 15:4 Paul says the Scriptures (which would be the OT) were written for our instruction. To Timothy he writes that all Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching (again, which would be the OT). The Bereans who went and checked what Paul was teaching went back to the Scriptures to validate in Acts 26 (the OT).

If you don’t read to understand the first part of the Bible first, you’re not going to have a correct understanding of the last part of the Bible.