The Old Testament in 10 Minutes + the New Testament in 10 Minutes

Jason Derouchie (who teaches Old Testament at Bethlehem College & Seminary and is the editor of the highly praised What the Old Testament Authors Really Cared About: A Survey of Jesus’ Bible [Kregel, 2013]) and Andy Naselli (who teaches NT and theology at Bethlehem College & Seminary and is co-author with D. A. Carson and Doug Moo of Introducing the New Testament: A Short Guide to Its History and Message [Zondervan, 2010]) walk us through the whole Bible in 20 minutes:

Update: Here is the manuscript for Dr. Derouchie’s talk. See What the Old Testament Authors Really Cared About: A Survey of Jesus’ Bible for more details.

The Bible describes how God reigns, saves, and satisfies through covenant for his glory in Christ. The Old Testament provides foundation for this kingdom message, and the New Testament details the fulfillment. Jesus’ Bible was the Old Testament, which highlights through narrative and commentary how the Mosaic old covenant was established in the Law, enforced in the Prophets, and enjoyed in the Writings.

The Bible opens with the five narrative books of Moses, which together are called the Law. Here the old covenant is established.

Genesis introduces God’s universal kingdom program by highlighting the need for and provision of universal blessing. It also supplies the context for Israel’s global mission. Sin has resulted in world-wide curse, and Abraham and his offspring climaxing in a single, male, royal descendant in the line of Judah would be the means for the curse to be overcome by blessing.

The remaining four books of the Law then clarify how the promise of offspring and the hope of the promised land find initial fruition in the Mosaic old covenant, all in the anticipation of the royal redeemer.

Exodus highlights King Yahweh’s global purposes through Israel, stressing the centrality and necessity of his presence and detailing both Israel’s salvation and mission–they are to serve as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation in the context of the world.

In Leviticus, holy Yahweh calls his people to be holy and clarifies how their pursuit of God will be empowered by his sanctifying presence and promises of blessing and curse.

Numbers contrasts faithful Yahweh with unfaithful Israel and describes an extended season of discipline in the wilderness where Israel was supposed to learn to wait on and follow God.

Deuteronomy is Israel’s constitution and calls for lasting covenant relationship. It also clarifies, however, that God would not overcome Israel’s stubborn rebellion and enable love until the latter days after Israel would enter, lose, and be restored to the land. Then he would circumcise their hearts, enabling them to love God with all.

Next is the Prophets, which are to be read in light of the law of Moses and the hope of the coming royal deliverer. Here the old covenant is enforced, and the material is divided into two parts.

The Former Prophets provide a narrative history of what happened to Israel from the conquest of the promised land, through the rise of the united and divided monarchies, to the exile from the land. The grouping begins with Joshua, which highlights Yahweh’s covenant faithfulness in giving the land and calls for Israel’s covenant faithfulness. Will the people meditate on the law day and night, or will they go their own way? Judges answers by detailing Israel’s covenant faithlessness and highlights that their chaotic, sinful existence was partly due to the fact that there was no king in Israel.

1-2 Samuel then overviews the rise of kingship, stresses the Davidic kingdom hope, and clarifies the importance of honoring Yahweh above all else.

The narrative portion of Former Prophets ends with 1-2 Kings, which outlines Israel’s covenant failure and the kingdom’s division and destruction and also retains hope in a Davidic king whose throne would last forever.

At this point the Old Testament narrative pauses, and the Latter Prophets offer prophetic commentary on why Israel’s history resulted in exile.

Jeremiah stresses Israel’s lack of covenant loyalty and the eschatological promise of covenant loyalty in the age of the new covenant when the law would be written on the heart.

Ezekiel focuses on Israel’s loss of God’s presence from Jerusalem and the eschatological promise of his Spirit in the age of resurrection.

Isaiah unpacks Israel’s rejection of God’s kingship and the eschatological promise of his universal kingdom through the peace-establishing, justice-working Servant king, who would reign over transformed ethnic Israelites and Gentiles in the new creation.

The Twelve minor prophets–Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi–are united into a single volume in Jesus’ Bible. Through the themes of sin, judgment, and restoration, they detail Israel’s spiritual unfaithfulness and the eschatological promise of divine faithfulness. At this, the Prophets come to a close, and the focus on Israel’s sin now shifts to a focus on kingdom hope.

In the Writings, the old covenant is enjoyed. The Former Writings are principally poetic commentary on how the loyal remnant of Yahweh was to live in a context of darkness, maintaining their belief that Yahweh was still on the throne and would one day right all wrongs through his royal redeemer. This commentary portion opens with Ruth, a narrative prelude that affirms the kingdom hope of Yahweh’s redeeming grace through the line of David. Just as God used Boaz of Bethlehem to redeem king David’s ancestors, so also God would raise up another kinsman redeemer of Bethlehem to restore David’s descendants. Exile was not the final word, and this messianic hope provides the lens for reading Psalms and beyond.

The rest of the Former Writings detail specifically the type of lifestyle by which one gains real kingdom hope. Psalms stresses that there is hope for those delighting in and submitting to God’s kingship by walking, waiting, and worshipping in light of the Messiah. Through the five books of the Psalter, the messianic music moves from lament to praise and from kingdom crisis to kingdom consummation.

Job gives hope for those fearing God for who is he is and not for what he gives or takes away.

Proverbs then provides kingdom hope for those acting wisely, who fear God, turn from evil, and live in light of the future; in the process it details how the future royal deliverer would live.

Ecclesiastes details hope for those fearing and following God in pleasure and pain despite life’s enigmas.

And Song of Songs gives hope for those celebrating human sexuality in the context of marriage; only those who fan the flame of Yahweh in the proper context will enjoy the ultimate union of the groom of heaven with his bride.

Lamentations supplies hope for those remaining confident in God’s reign and faithfulness to his own. With the promise of fresh mercies at dawn, the laments of Lamentations end the commentary portion of the Old Testament and provide a bridge for the reader back into the context of exile, which is picked up in the four final narrative books.

In the Latter Writings, we gain tangible signs of kingdom hope. Daniel reiterates the promise of God’s universal kingdom: God reigns over every kingdom of the earth and will establish his kingdom over all through one like a son of man.

Esther details the preservation of God’s kingdom people through whom the Messiah would come; God would not let his kingdom promises die.

Ezra-Nehemiah stand as one book in Jesus’ Bible and together foreshadow the restoration of God’s kingdom people and land that was still to come.

Then, with a focus on the Davidic covenant, 1-2 Chronicles recaps in positive terms the purposes of God from Adam to Cyrus’ call for the Jews to return to Jerusalem, thus affirming Yahweh’s universal kingship and kingdom promises.

The Old Testament closes without all the promises having reached fulfillment and therefore the end demands a sequel–a sequel that ultimately comes in the New Testament. God’s reign over God’s people in God’s land. God will see his kingdom purposes accomplished. The old covenant is established in the Law, enforced in the Prophets, and enjoyed in the Writings. While the old covenant bore a ministry of condemnation, the Old Testament itself ends in hope and provides a foundation for the fulfillment found in Christ and the New Testament. In the whole, God reigns, saves, and satisfies through covenant for his glory in Christ.

Should We as Christians Celebrate the Jewish Feasts of the Old Testament?

Without question the most vexing challenge faced by the early church was understanding how believing Jews and believing Gentiles ought to relate to one another. The theme gets major play in Galatians, Hebrews, Acts, and is even the root of the issue that led to Paul’s stern and public rebuke of Peter. That so much time and attention was paid to this issue might incline us to believe it was settled. Or it just may prove how deep runs the temptation to botch this up.

Let’s start here—we have peace with God by trusting in the finished work of Christ alone. Add anything to that and you have fallen into a false gospel. You do not have peace with God by trusting in Christ and by being circumcised, or by trusting in Christ and keeping the Feast of Weeks. Add anything to the work of Christ, and you lose the work of Christ.

God gave the feasts to point our spiritual fathers toward Christ. They were shadows and He the real thing. The author of Hebrews warns his audience, professing believers who were tempted to go back to the Temple and the Old Covenant shadows, that to go back is to deny that Christ has come.

If we grasp that these were types, shadows that pointed to Christ, we will reach two conclusions. First, they were not bad things. Too often some treat the Old Covenant like it was flawed, something to be thrown aside. But God Himself ordained these feasts, for the good of His people. Second, however, Christ is greater than the shadows. We do not keep the feasts by keeping the feast. Instead we keep the feasts by clinging to Christ. He is our feast.

So should we celebrate these feasts? Not if by “should” we mean we have an obligation to do so. May we? Well, that certainly depends on where our hearts are. The Bible prescribes liberty, Paul telling us:

One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he who does not eat, to the Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks (Romans 14:5-6).

I have no quarrel with a person celebrating these feasts. Instead I have a caution. My concern about some who celebrate these feasts is that while they profess their dependence on the finished work of Christ alone, some seem to believe that feast keeping somehow elevates their Christian walk. All of our sub-culture convictions within the church carry this danger. Whether it be speaking in tongues, observing feasts, modesty, or reciting the prayer of Jabez we are inveterate second blessing seekers. We want to be superior Christians who have glommed on to the secret way. Then we go out with all the zeal of an Amway salesman trying to get our friends all on board.

Paul, however, is far more easy-going. He described his Hebrew roots as dung (Philippians 3:1-8). What matters is that we know Him, and the power of His resurrection.

9 Traces of the Doctrine of the Trinity in the Old Testament

In chapter 3 of his Reformed Dogmatics (vol. 1), Geerhardus Vos set out 9 “traces of the doctrine of the Trinity…in the Old Testament.” Among the most noteworthy observations are those concerning the “Angel of the LORD” and the personification of Wisdom in the Proverbs:

1. The distinction between the names Elohim and Yahweh. Elohim is God as He works among both Israel and the heathen by creation and providence. Yahweh is God as He has made Himself known by theocratic guidance and revelation. Compare Genesis 1:1 with 2:4. Where God reveals Himself, He therefore bears another name, that is, one knows Him in that respect not only more than elsewhere but also as another.

2. The plural form of this name Elohim (see Eloah).

Since Peter Lombard many have found a proof for the Trinity in this form. For example, Luther, but not Calvin. Elohim, however, is used of Father and Son (see Psa 45:8); the name also appears for people and idols (Exod. 22:8, 1 Sam 28:13). The plural is to be understood intensively, as “heavens,” “waters” are extensive. It points to the inexhaustible fullness of God, and is therefore a pluralis majestatis in the deeper sense of the word.

3. The concept of the angel of the Lord ???????? ???????.

Concerning this are the following hypotheses:

a. The Angel of the Lord is a finite spirit, a created angel. Thus Augustine, Jerome, and later Kurtz and Delitzsch. This Angel, they say, can speak as if He were God, as the messenger speaks ex persona for the one who has sent Him and is identified with Him. However, how could such a messenger receive religious honor for the one who sent Him? Judg 6:11, 18, 22–23.

b. The Angel of the Lord is the Logos, the second Person of the Trinity. Thus Irenaeus, Tertullian, and later, Lutheran and Reformed dogmaticians (Calvin hesitates at some places, yet seems to choose 1 above), Hengstenberg. Some assume that the Logos has personally united Himself for a time with a created being.

c. The Angel of the Lord is not a person but only an impersonal appearance of God, a momentary entering of God into the sphere of the visible. ???????? is to be understood as an abstract noun.

We accept the interpretation under 2 since only it does justice to all the givens. Additionally, however, we also note:

a. Those who shared in this appearance did not have a clear and distinct concept of the doctrine of the Trinity.

b. The Angel, the Messenger, was uncreated, the eternal Logos, but the visible form in which He revealed Himself was created, and the Logos was not personally united with it, as He was with the human nature assumed later.

The grounds for this interpretation are as follows:

a. The Angel speaks with God’s authority (Gen 16:13).

b. He is addressed as God (Gen 16:13).

c. He does divine works (Exod 23:20).

d. He has divine attributes (Gen 16:8).

e. He accepts divine honor (Josh 5:14).

f. He is distinguished from a created angel, Exodus 33, where the Angel of the Presence is distinguished from an ordinary angel (Isa 63:9; Deut 4:37).

g. His name alternates with the name Elohim (Zech 12:8).

h. The concept of Chokma, ???????, “wisdom,” as it appears in Proverbs 8:22 and following and Job 28:12–27. Here wisdom is personified, so that it becomes objective for God Himself and yet it stands in the closest relation to Him. It is the image of His thought, the perfect imprint of His inner existence—within Him and outside of Him at the same time. In the Prologue of the Gospel of John such things are said of the Logos.

4. To the word of God in the Old Testament are also ascribed divine attributes (e.g., Psa 33:4; Isa 40:8; Psa 119:105).

5. The doctrine of the Spirit of God in the Old Testament. The Spirit is the principle of the natural, rational, reasonable life of the world and thus represents the self-conscious immanence of God. He is also the Spirit of revelation. Finally, He is also the Spirit who lives with each believer (see Pss 51:13; 143:10). The Spirit acts as a person standing objectively vis-à-vis God (Isa 63:10; 48:16).

6. Old Testament passages in which God speaks of Himself in the plural. The church has always had a Trinitarian conception of these passages. The following are diverging sentiments:

a. It is a pluralis majestatis as the Oriental rulers used of themselves. There are no antecedents for this in Scripture. Only relatively late does something like this appear (Gen 20:15; cf. Ezra 6:8).

b. It is a pluralis communicationis by which God includes Himself together with the angels (cf. Isa 6:8); thus Philo, also the younger Delitzsch. However, in Gen 1:26 one cannot attribute an active part in creation to the angels.

c. It is a pluralis of self-generation, in which the subject considers and addresses Himself as object, so that the appearance of a plurality arises. See Hitzig. This is unproved, see Gen 2:18; Psa 12:5.

7. Old Testament passages where more than one person is expressly named; Pss 45:6–7; 110:1. Heb 1:8–9 shows that these passages must be understood in this way.

8. Passages that speak of three persons; Num 6:24–26; compare 2 Cor 13:14; Psa 33:6; Isa 61:1; 63:9–10.

Biblical Womanhood and the Problem of the Old Testament

As explained in my review of A Year of Biblical Womanhood, much of Rachel Held Evans’ book could be summed up, sadly, as an attempt to discount the validity of Scripture. I am hopeful that she does not intend for this to happen, but it is unfortunately what happens when she repeatedly speaks of the Bible as being outdated, useless in parts, and at times downright horrific — including at one point describing having a terrifying nightmare as she contemplated the texts (62). Tragically, that is her claim.

Evans is troubled by many things in the Old Testament, but especially by the harsh consequences in the law that follow from sexual sin — consequences that often required the death of men and women. In explaining why these same codes do not apply today — why adulterers are not stoned to death — she can only say, “Most Jews and Christians have long abandoned the practices associated with hard patriarchy” (51). But is it that simple — and that shallow?

She suggests this is because Jesus ignored certain Old Testament laws. He was a revolutionary who used “selective literalism” and who broke these anti-adultery laws when he urged compassion on the adulterous woman (53). But before we charge Jesus with breaking the law, we should give this question some serious thought.

Actually, we are faced with two questions. First, how should we handle the abuse of women recorded in the Old Testament? And second, how should we properly evaluate the ongoing value of the Old Testament law?

In one chapter, Evans sets out to find groups “committed to preserving as much of the patriarchal structure of Old Testament law as possible,” including polygamists. In polygamy, “the man’s consequent procreative prowess is listed by writers of Scripture as one of his most worthy virtues” (51, 58). That is a bold claim, but she provides no biblical citations to back it up.

In her thoughts on polygamy, Evans claims the Bible never condemns it. Yet monogamous marriage seems to be the norm in the Old Testament (Genesis 2:24, Malachi 2:13–15), and especially so in the New Testament (1 Timothy 3:12; Titus 1:6). Nowhere do we read the Bible sanctioning polygamy.

The abuse of women recorded in the Old Testament is one reason Evans reevaluated biblical womanhood and rejected complementary roles in marriage today. She notes that at one point she had confidence in the biblical view of submission. “When Dan and I got married back in 2003, we began our marriage with the assumption that I would submit to him because the Bible told me to, that while I had a voice in our decisions as a couple, Dan held the reins,” he writes. “Dan would bring home the bacon, and I would fry it” (204).

But during the early years of her marriage, Evans and her husband found that they needed to run two businesses, and as she put it “tasks tend to get assigned based on efficiency rather than gender” (204). As life continued to get busier, they realized that they functioned “best as a team of equal partners” (204). Why complementarian marriage cannot be defined as a team of equal partners (with differing roles), is not clear. In fact her chapter on submission (pages 201–220) leaves me with many unanswered questions. I’m sure other reviews will ask many of the same questions in the coming weeks.

Chillingly, Evans now claims that what she reads in the Bible is a nightmare of oppression for women. She calls upon Christian women to remember the dark stories.

Those who seek to glorify biblical womanhood have forgotten the dark stories. They have forgotten that the concubine of Bethlehem, the raped princess of David's house, the daughter of Jephthah, and the countless unnamed women who lived and died between the lines of Scripture exploited, neglected, ravaged, and crushed at the hand of patriarchy are as much a part of our shared narrative as Deborah, Esther, Rebekah, and Ruth. We may not have a ceremony through which to grieve them, but it is our responsibility as women of faith to guard the dark stories for our own daughters, and when they are old enough, to hold their faces between our hands and make them promise to remember. (66)

The sinful abuse of women in the Old Testament is troubling, but as troubling as it is, those sins are not determinative of new-covenant ethics for the church today, and they do not dismiss male headship either.

In writing this post, Tony Reinke passed along some helpful research suggestions as I processed what I was reading. On this point he sent the following quote from Margaret Köstenberger's book Jesus and the Feminists, where she writes:

It is true that the historical narrative books of the Hebrew Scriptures witness to numerous abuses of this abiding principle of male headship in the Old Testament period, such as arbitrary divorce (Deuteronomy 24:1–2), the intermittent practice of polygamy, adultery, rape, incest, and so on. Scripture does not condone these behaviors and attitudes. At the same time, the New Testament does not abrogate the principle of male headship even subsequent to redemption in Christ. Thus, Paul still can call Christian wives to submit to their husbands (Ephesians 5:22–24), and Peter similarly enjoins wives even of unbelieving husbands to submit to them (1 Peter 3:1–6). (34)

In fact, for all of her concerns about the Old Testament laws and polygamy and rape and abuse towards women in old-covenant times, Evans ultimately misses a fundamental truth. For Jesus and Paul and for the Church, sexual and marriage ethics (and biblical womanhood) are not based on the historical sins against women that are recorded in the Old Testament, but from the pre-fall monogamous union of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2. From reading Evans’ book, you would think this was not the case.

In the first marriage, in this pre-fall union, we find the norm for all human sexual ethics, for marriage, for male and female equality, and for the distinctives to biblical manhood and biblical womanhood. When Evans addresses Eve in particular (which is very early in the book, pages xx–xxii), she fails to notice that Eve was taken out of Adam and created, not to be a helper like him, but to be Adam’s perfectly adapted helper for him (Genesis 2:18, 1 Corinthians 11:8–10). By missing this foundational point — by missing the very genesis of biblical womanhood — the remainder of the book was certain to be unclear.

Which brings me to my second point. On top of polygamy, there is female slavery, the presence of concubines, death prescribed for sexual sins, separation from the community during a monthly cycle, widows forced to marry the brother of their late husbands, arranged marriages, pagan women slaughtered in battles, and so on (48–51). Without distinction, Evans blends what is prescribed in the law and what is described in narratives, making it all normative for “biblical womanhood.”

In her view, for womanhood to be considered biblical, everything in the Bible must be followed, what is prescribed and what is described. That isn’t possible, she says, therefore biblical womanhood is a myth (294). So we must select what we want to obey and what we don’t want to obey (a troubling theme of the book that I addressed in my original review).

Evans claims that this is what Jesus did, after all, when he refused to stone the adulterous woman (John 8:3–11). According to the law, adulterous women are to be stoned (Leviticus 20:10, Deuteronomy 22:22). Jesus refused to.

Evans writes:

Jesus once said that his mission was not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. And in this instance, fulfilling the law meant letting it go. It may serve as little comfort to those who have suffered abuse at the hand of Bible-wielding literalists, but the disturbing laws of Leviticus and Deuteronomy lose just a bit of their potency when God himself breaks them. (54)

Evans’ language for why Jesus did not stone the adulterous woman is confusing and misleading.

Jesus is sinless (Hebrews 4:15). It’s doubtful that breaking the law would be the best way to describe it. Ignoring the uncomfortable parts of the law certainly does not seem accurate either. Jesus does not abolish the law, not one little comma in it (Matthew 5:17).

The religious leaders sought to corner and discount Jesus’ entire mission (John 8:5–6). If Jesus would not stone the adulterer, then he must be a law-breaker — and Evans comes right out and says it.

In his commentary on the Gospel of John, D. A. Carson suggests that when Jesus says, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7), he was specifically referencing the sin of adultery in the accusing men themselves! The men bringing the accusation were also adulterers. “When it comes to sexual sins, the woman was much more likely to be in legal and social jeopardy than her paramour,” Carson writes. “The man could lead a ‘respectable’ life while masking the same sexual sins with a knowing wink. Jesus’ simple condition, without calling into question the Mosaic code, cuts through the double standard and drives hard to reach the conscience.”

In this story Jesus is not breaking the law or shrugging off the Old Testament law. Rather, Jesus is calling these men out on their double-standard, thinking the law applied more to adulterous woman than to adulterous men.

It is through the high standards of the Old Testament law that we see the beauty of our Savior shine, not in his ignoring of the law, but in his fulfillment of it, not in lessening of the holy demands of God, but in seeing them in all their divine righteousness.

Take these few examples:

In Leviticus 1:9, the offering of a whole sacrifice to God prefigures Christ’s giving of his whole self (Hebrews 10:5–14).
In Leviticus 6:13, the unceasing flame of the altar reveals the insufficiency of repeated sacrifices in contrast to the sufficiency of Christ’s once for all sacrifice (Hebrews 10:1–10).
In Leviticus 11:45, separation from uncleanness symbolizes separation from sin in order to be intimate with God. It prefigures Christ’s work bringing holiness (Hebrews 7:26, 10:16).
In Leviticus 18:5, we read that God requires perfect obedience that can only be found in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21). Sinners like us cannot keep the law (Romans 10:5, Galatians 3:12–14).

These few brief references barely scratch the surface for the number of references and parallels to Christ’s coming and sacrifice found in the Old Testament.

And so, yes, women can look to the Old Testament law passages to be reminded of God's holiness in texts like Leviticus 15:19–33. These texts may make women uneasy, but they also remind us that God is holy and majestic. He is separate from all sin — male and female. His ways are not our ways; they are perfect in every way, and we are hopeless without a perfect Substitute.

In passages like Leviticus 15:19–33, women today are reminded that “regulations for the body” were imposed only “until the time of reformation” (Hebrews 9:10). That is, the Old Testament purification codes point to the arrival of Christ, the “high priest of the good things that have come” (Hebrews 9:11).

Any woman who practices purity regulations with her body is revealing her theology. It is a sad missing of how our Savior fulfills these specific regulations in his substitutionary death. It is tragically easy for all of us to minimize the significance of our sinless Savior’s life, death and resurrection from the dead.

The gospel reminds us that the world is fallen and sinful. Men sin against women. Women sin against men. Women sin against women. Women are not innocent, but sinners. Male and female, we all are each part of the problem. When we read of sin in the Old Testament, we are reminded of the sin that resides in our own hearts.

But the gospel reminds us that we can look at the Old Testament law without horror or terror. There in the purity codes we see a glimpse of the beauty and sufficiency of our Savior. We see the law that he came to fulfill. And in him we are saved from the greatest terror of all — an eternity separated from God.

And yet when the gospel is clouded, things go terribly wrong in our theology. Unless the veil is lifted (2 Corinthians 3:12–18), we cannot make sense of the Old Testament law in God’s redemptive plan. We cannot understand the hope and joy of biblical womanhood. And biblical womanhood, divorced from the gospel, becomes a very dangerous thing.