It seems that most Christians spend most of their time in the New Testament, except perhaps for the Psalms.  But I much prefer the Old Testament.  Why?  The short answer is that the Old Testament is so much more emotional, heartfelt, passionate, and personal.  I feel God’s heart for us in the Old Testament.  The New Testament seems so dry and lifeless by comparison.  While it does have a few different formats--gospel, letter, apocalyptic--the vast majority of it is letters, which are mostly instructions on how to do things and explanations of theology.

That’s the short answer.  I’ll explain more later.  But first, let me tell you how I got here.

Discovering the Old Testament

My first introduction to the Old Testament was through a musical duo called Lamb, back in the 1970s.  At this time, contemporary Christian music was so new that there were only a handful of musicians, and the genre was still called Jesus Music, a name left over from its hippie (Jesus Freak) beginnings.  Big names at the time included Second Chapter Of Acts, Phil Keaggy, Barry McGuire, and Love Song.  My favorite artists were Larry Norman, JC Power Outlet, Petra, and Lamb. 

Lamb consisted of two guys, Joel Chernoff and Rick “Levi” Coghill, who were Messianic Jews from Cincinnati, Ohio.  Their first album came out in 1973; Lamb II came out in 1974, and Lamb III in 1976.  Each of these albums contained some songs sung partially in Hebrew, and many of the songs had Old Testament scripture references.  I would look up these references to learn more about the context from the surrounding verses.

But the album that really got me digging into the Old Testament was their third one.  Their first two albums had 9 or 10 songs, and only a couple of them had Bible verses from places unfamiliar to me (i.e. Psalms).  Their third album, however, had 12 songs and most of them where taken from somewhere in the Prophets.  Even more, though, was that on this third album, the songs were not as easy to understand.  I would read the lyrics and wonder, “Why did they make a song out of these Bible verses?  These do not seem like something to make a song about.  What does it mean to them?”  And as I would contemplate this while studying the Scriptures they came from, over time I began to understand what was going on.  I don’t mean this in an intellectual way; immediately I could understand what the Bible verses referred to.  I mean this in an emotional way.  Music is emotional; when you write a song, it’s rarely merely to perpetrate facts...a song is made to express feelings of the heart.  And it’s those feelings that became unveiled to me as I studied the lyrics of Lamb and the corresponding Bible verses.

I began to see the Old Testament with new eyes.  Ever since 12 years old, every night I would read one chapter of the Old Testament and one chapter of the New, but after listening to Lamb and studying these Bible verses, I began to see in the Old Testament God expressing his love and passion for his people, his longing to interact, the warmth of his heart.  The more I read with these new eyes, the more I began to love the Old Testament. 

I’ve included some specific examples from Lamb songs to the left of this column.  Now I’d like to go on to the second influence in discovering the Old Testament.

The Rise of the Scripture Song

I was raised in a church where they mostly sang hymns, which bored me to no end with their slow tempos and archaic language.  When I was 15, I went to a charismatic church for the first time (see my story about this experience in my Churches I’ve Visited section).  I was struck by the modern music, the beautiful worship, and was shown by my cousin (I was visiting her church) that the songs were taken from Scripture.

When I went to college, my first two years I attended a full-scale charismatic church, and in subsequent years attended a church that had charismatic influences.  Both of these churches featured Scripture songs, the majority of which came from the Old Testament.  Once again, I’d be curious about the context of the songs and read the surrounding verses.  This, along with my experience in my high school years of listening to Lamb, further brought me into an appreciation of the Old Testament, and cemented in my mind the association of songs of joy and other deeply felt emotions with the words found in the Old Testament.

So, starting with Lamb, and continuing with the Scripture songs of the late 1970s and early 1980s, I learned to love the Old Testament through music.

What I See In The Old Testament Now

I love to read the Old Testament.  I usually read it in this manner:  I start with Genesis and read all the way through II Kings.  This is basically one continuous story, with a few detours in Leviticus and parts of Exodus and Numbers where instructions for worship or census figures are given.   (I read those too.)  By reading the Old Testament this way, you get the picture of God interacting with his people.  You see how we humans are...yes, it’s like looking in the mirror, all of our proud moments of spirituality mixed in with failures of sinning.  Abraham, Noah, and David are the most well-known examples, but there are many more.  In these stories, you see how God lets us be human, yet doesn’t give up on us.  I see this so much more clearly through these stories than through the explanatory theology of the New Testament--which is like the New Covenant version of Leviticus.

By the time you finish II Kings, you get a sense of the long period of time that God endured repeated rejection by his people.  He’d help them, they’d be happy, but then soon they would go back to doing their own thing and ignoring him.  This went on for hundreds of years.  Once you get that perspective, then when you read the Prophets, they have an entirely different meaning than if you just dive into them from the New Testament with no context.

And that’s what I usually do--after finishing II Kings, then I go read the Prophets for awhile.  (My Bible has a timeline in the back so that I can see which prophet was around during which king, so that helps the understanding.)  Then when you read God’s prophecies of doom, you see that God is saying, “I don’t want to do this to you, I really want you to turn to me, but after hundreds of years of being continually rebuffed even though everything you have is because I’ve given it to you, I’m ready to say enough is enough.  But if you heed my words now and repent, we’ll start anew.”

In other words, what I see in God now through reading the Old Testament is his incredible patience, forgiveness, and longing to have fellowship with us.  I see in the narratives in how he interacted with some of the big names in history; I see it in the prophets in the way he opens his heart and pleads with his people, “Come to me...I love you!”

In addition to the narrative and the prophets, what I also like in the Old Testament are some other explorations that have no counterparts in the New Testament.  In Job, four friends contemplate  how God operates; in Ecclesiastes, the author contemplates the meaning of life...when he's quite depressed!  In many Psalms, and intensely in Lamentations, there is raw emotion of anguish.  In Song of Songs, there is powerful emotion of romantic passion.  You just don't get this stuff in the New Testament.  The New Testament is sorely lacking in emotion.  It is so dry.

What I See In The New Testament Now

Although I get much more out of the Old Testament, I don't ignore the New Testament.  It has its place.  For one thing, as a Christian, it's important for me to read the gospels to get an idea of what Jesus did and said, and to read the letters to understand the New Covenant.  I also like Revelation, which gives a sense of God's ultimate justice and salvation for us in a picturesque way.

So it's not like I ignore the New Testament.  As I've done since I was 12 years old, I read a chapter from each of the testaments every day.  In the Old Testament, I get the emotion and heart of God; in the New Testament I get the instructions on living.

Some Christians' Views Of The Testaments

I don't understand some Christians' views of the Old Testament.  Many people act like it's a different God in the Old Testament; in fact, I remember reading somewhere that early in church history there were some factions pondering (or perhaps they even determined) that the God of the Old Testament must be a different God altogether from the New Testament!  Whaa??? 

The more I read the Bible, the more I see the common theme throughout both testaments.  I don't see two different Gods.  Some people act like the God of the Old Testament is all about destruction and killing, while the God of the New Testament is all about love and forgiveness.  They must not be reading very closely.  I see the same God in both: as it says in one verse in the New Testament, "Behold the kindness and severity of our God." You get both aspects in both testaments.

Invitation

So I invite you, if you feel like the God of the Old Testament is too different from the God of the New, try my method of reading the Old Testament.  Get a picture of how God interacts with us where we are, as we are.  Get an understanding of how God emphasizes different aspects of himself in different times, but all aspects are there always.  Get a feel for how long God pleaded with his people to turn to him, but was rejected time after time before he finally said "Enough!" 

Conversely, I invite you to open your eyes to what you see in the New Testament too.  Don't gloss over those passages that highlight God's sharpness.  It’s in the New Testament, Hebrews 10:31, where it says, “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God!”   "Be perfect and holy because I am perfect and holy" is in both testaments.  Pronouncements of destruction for people who reject God are found in both testaments.  People often remark that Jesus' only words of condemnation were to religious leaders.  If you think that way, read those gospels again and open your eyes.  There are plenty of hard words to swallow for the average person.

Conclusion

The Old Testament is a joy to me.  I love the poetic expression of the Old Testament, the stories, the raw emotion.  I get so much more out of it than I do the New Testament.  When I read the Old Testament, I feel God's love and heart for us much more than when I read the New Testament.  I've written about this on my website in hopes you will discover the joys of the Old Testament too.

(Written December 2008)