Bible Reading Plans
- Plan One: New Testament Only
- Plan Two: New Testament + Psalms
- Plan Three: New Testament + History
- Plan Four: The Entire Bible – Year 1 of 3, Year 2 of 3, Year 3 of 3
Don’t know which plan? Go to A Christ-Centered Bible Reading Plan: Quick Start.
Extras
Verse of the Day, Audio Capsule, and Video Minute
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(Book Installment)
The Biblical Case for
Finding Jesus in the Old Testament
Chapter 1: The Subject of This Book (continued)
“…Finding Jesus in the Old Testament”
“Wait a minute – Isn’t Jesus found in the New Testament?” Absolutely! In fact, this is one of the very first things we learn about the Bible when we first become exposed to it. Adam and Eve, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Solomon, and many more individuals are all Old Testament characters. Jesus is not explicitly mentioned in the Bible until we get to the New Testament.
Once we get to the New Testament, we find that Jesus is not merely mentioned in it – He dominates it! From its first page to its last, the New Testament is talking about and explaining Jesus. By reading and studying it, we learn how important He is to all of us – collectively and individually. In fact, finding Jesus is so important, and there’s so much to learn about Him in the New Testament, one might wonder why we should ever divert any of our attention to the Old Testament.
Many people are actually distracted by the Old Testament and never get to Jesus at all. That is, they begin their reading of the Bible with Genesis, get bogged down in the last half of Exodus, and die a lonely reader’s death in the jungles of Leviticus. By following this route do many New Year’s resolutions to read the Bible die an early death.
The Bible is a book, but it is also a library of books. You read a book left to right, but you don’t read the books in a library left to right. Rather, you go to the section of the library that most interests you. Anyone who has read the Bible and understood it knows that because Jesus Christ is the Bible’s most important subject, the New Testament should be read first. In other words, read the Bible right to left. (But don’t read the New Testament right to left or else Revelation will grind you down just like Leviticus does.)
Not only should we focus on finding Jesus in the New Testament before we seek to find Him in the Old, finding Jesus in the New Testament is what will enable us to find Him in the Old. The 27 writings that comprise the New Testament were written in the 1st century – and that’s when the Old Testament was effectively the only Bible they had. They found Jesus in the Old Testament because it was the only Bible they had to look for Him! Of course, they were experiencing Jesus in the flesh so they had more than the Bible to go on. Nonetheless, they found the Jesus they experienced in the Old Testament – over and over again.
When we read the New Testament, we are able to see example after example of its authors finding references to Jesus in the Old Testament. One of the reasons I primarily use the New American Standard Bible 1995 is that it puts into small/all caps every quotation of the Old Testament that a New Testament author makes. Most other English translations put them in quotation marks, but don’t take the extra step the NASB 1995 takes to make them stand out from all other quotation marks.
The Duty of a Man 