Does the Old Testament matter?
Read Matthew 5:17-20 and journal your thoughts.
I know most of us read that opening question and say of course it matters, it’s in the Bible it has to matter, but as we seriously take a look at our lives and how we read the Scriptures, does it? The problem is for most of us in our culture we don’t treat the Old Testament like it really matters. In fact look at the phrase “Old Testament”, for most of us the word “old” implies that it doesn’t matter anymore, because there is a new one. (Note: if you are ever discussing the “Old Testament” with a Jew don’t call it the “Old Testament” that’s insulting for this very reason. Call it the “Tanakh”.)
Jesus uses two words here that we need to focus in on “abolish” and “fulfill”. In their culture if a rabbi asked a disciple to interpret a piece of Scripture and this disciple just butchered it, the rabbi would say that they “abolished Torah” (Ouch!). On the other hand, if the disciple correctly interprets the Scripture the rabbi would say that he has “fulfilled Torah”.
So what does Jesus mean here? Notice that Jesus says this just before the he hits the bulk of the Sermon on the Mount. This means the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus interpretation of Torah. Essentially, Jesus is saying that he is making the Old Testament a central part of our lives.
Today may you see the importance of the Tanakh (Old Testament) as well as the New Testament.
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