David Pawson - Old Testament Overview

Copyright “This David Pawson video is the copyright of ©David Pawson Teaching Trust 2020 and is streamed with the permission of the David Pawson Teaching Trust. For a full library of David’s teaching resources please visit www.davidpawson.org”

THOUGHTFUL THOUGHTS 24.7.26  BY JOHN DUNNING.

BIBLE INTRODUCTION

1). PROLOGUE

“Read the Bible Through” - A poem by Amos R. Wells

1). 

I supposed I knew my Bible,
Reading piecemeal, hit or miss,
Now a bit of John or Matthew,
Now a snatch of Genesis,
Certain chapters of Isaiah,
Certain Psalms (the 23rd),
Twelfth of Romans, first of Proverbs
Yes, I thought I knew the Word!
But I found that thorough reading
Was a different thing to do,
And the way was unfamiliar
When I read the Bible through.

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2). 

You who like to play at Bible,
Dip and dabble, here and there,
Just before you kneel a-weary,
Yawning through a hurried prayer;
You who treat the crown of writings
As you treat no other book –
Just a paragraph disjointed,
Just a crude impatient look –
Try a worthier procedure,
Try a broad and steady view;
You will kneel in very rapture
When you read the Bible through!

- Amos R. Wells.

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2). INTRODUCTION

Jesus said;- “Salvation is from the Jews”. (John 14:23). 

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British journalist W.N. Ewer wrote: 

1). “How odd of God to choose the Jews” 

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Cecil Brown added;-

2). But not so odd as those who choose a Jewish God, yet spurn the Jews.

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Jews read through the law every year in the synagogue, as they know that God loves those who obey Him… BUT of course what they miss is that we are also told that Jesus said “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6).

If only Jews read on, they would read that God said He has a Son, which we covered last time. 

When Jesus said “It is finished”, the Temple curtain was torn in two from top to bottom by God. That way of getting right with God was finished with. 

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Now, as for the New Covenant, John quoted Jesus as saying to a religious leader, “You must be born again”, so how may we be born again?

i). The way we get right with God now is through the cross in the sense of it being portrayed by John Bunyan in Pilgrim’s Progress, where Christian falls down in repentance at the foot of the cross, confessing his sin.

ii). We are also told that disciples of Jesus become temples for the Holy Spirit.

iii). Jesus said that those who love Him will obey Him…

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3). A JEWISH BOOK

What we call the “Old Testament”, Jews call the “Tanakh”, which is made up of 24 books. (The church divided those 24 books into 39, but we’ve yet to come to that.)

Jews divide the 24 books into; 

(a) “The Law”, (read by Jews straight through from beginning to end each year);

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(b) “The Prophets”, (dividing up the Prophets into the ‘latter’ prophets and “the Twelve”, which is made up of all the other prophets);

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(c) and “The Writings”.

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Many books in the Jewish Scriptures have a different order to our Bible, because the church naughtily shuffled them about, but at least the list of books in the Jewish Scriptures tells us exactly what books form the Scriptures. (So any books added to the Old Testament that cannot be found in the Jewish Scriptures are NOT part of the Old Testament section of the Word of God. Therefore Bibles with additions should not be used as such.) 

1). About God. (ie Who God is, and what He is like.)

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2). About us. (ie How we got here, and how we arrived at the state we find ourselves in, and of our need for God's help in returning to a relationship with Him.)

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3). About Relationships. (ie Our relationship with God and how to re-establish it).

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4). About Covenants. 

4a). That God provided covenants by which we may relate to Him after we disobeyed Him. Firstly there were more than one Covenant in the Old Testament, but then there was the New Covenant in the New Testament.

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4b). Some covenants were conditional or time limited. For example the Mosaic covenant was completed in Jesus Christ. The book of Hebrews tells us the former covenants were ‘shadows’ of the real thing, until the real covenant replaced the old one, permanently. 

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4c). Some covenants were unconditional. Because of that, they STILL apply as they were made unconditionally. (ie Examples are the covenant God gave of the rainbow, and also of the one given to Abraham of land given to his descendants “forever”, specifically through Abraham’s descendents of Isaac and Jacob.

We can get into a pickle understanding the whole of the Old Testament, if we don’t sort out which covenant is finished with and which continues on.

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5). About God’s plan.

The Old Testament also tells us about God’s plan, which as we now know was fulfilled in the “New” Testament. The Bible is God’s inspired Word going back nearly 4,000 years. The Jewish “Old” Testament was authored over a period of about 1,400 years.

How do we know all this?

5a).  The first “Old Testament” book to be written 

Jews say Job lived at the time of Abraham. So, when was Abraham around? The “Jewish Virtual Library” dates Abraham as being born about 1838 BC.

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5b).  The last “Old Testament” book to be written.

The “Jewish Encyclopedia” dates Malachi as being written between 432 BC – 424 BC.

What this means is that we are reading “HIS-story”! It is both a history and the story of God’s inter-action with us. It is based in time, and not man’s philosophy. 

Jesus quoted the “Old” Testament (or "Covenant"), regularly, confirming the reality of the people in it. Job lived before Moses, and as Moses wrote the first 5 books, the first book authored was not Moses’ books.

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4). EPILOGUE

John tells us that Jesus said that God loves those who obey Him…

“Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.  Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me”. (John 14:23ff.)

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There is so much to learn from the Old Testament about God, and His inter-action with us and His plans, that Christians should still include the “Old” Testament, (or “Former Covenant”) in their reading of the Bible.

God used yet more Jewish disciples to author the “New Testament”, (or “New Covenant”). 

(Except just one book in the Old Testament and one in the New… There was just “Ruth” in the Old and Luke in the “New”, involving Gentiles in compiling a book, as if God is saying that Gentiles may join in the plan of restoration too. The Jews were given the job of being a light to the Gentiles. Although Jewish leaders usually failed at that, Jesus did say that “salvation is from the Jews”, (John 14:23). There were enough faithful prophets to author the Scriptures so that we can see God’s plans. 

This series will help God's people understand the Bible better… for example, the Bible should not be read by taking verses out of context as if to prove some point. We should learn from the Jews reading the Scriptures section by section, rather than plucking verses out of context.

Handle’s Messiah could not have become the oratorio it is without the minister knowing the Old Testament so well, that he could author a compilation of texts that he did.

This is the reaction of some Christians receiving Bibles for the first time, many years ago… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTEE-q-Oecc

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Do share this study with your friends…

This is John Dunning signing off from “Thoughtful Thoughts” for another week.

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PS. To help pray for the ‘suffering church’ see;- https://barnabasfund.org/nz/pray/daily-prayer/#previous-dates

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If you would like to know how to find peace with God, listen to the podcasts at this link…

https://www.inspirational.org.nz/pages/johns-devotionals-podcast

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For a message on Hearing God, called “The Cost of Discipleship”, 

visit this podcast link https://share.transistor.fm/s/1263bbab

Click the link below to Subscribe to John’s Bible Study.

https://mailchi.mp/da3871118955/subscribe-to-johns-blogs

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