Category: FJOT

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

Overflow

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(Book Installment)

Finding Jesus in the Old Testament

Chapter 1: Who First Found Jesus in the Old Testament?
(continued)

What the Apostles Did with Jesus’ Idea

The apostles fully embraced the idea Jesus gave them – the idea that Jesus could be found in the Old Testament. They not only proclaimed that idea, they demonstrated that it was a central aspect of their message. Consider the way Paul wrote of Jesus’ resurrection – the very foundation of the gospel.

1 Cor 15:1 Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand,
1 Cor 15:2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.
1 Cor 15:3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
1 Cor 15:4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
1 Cor 15:5 and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

Notice that there are two aspects to the apostles’ gospel: 1) the miracle, and 2) the documentation of it – the prior documentation! The resurrection of Jesus from the dead was never proclaimed as an isolated supernatural phenomenon. It was always proclaimed as a miracle God had been promising for a long time. Therefore, “According to the Scriptures” was as central to the gospel as “He was raised.”

What Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15 is fully consistent with the way he conducted his ministry. Consider how Luke described the apostle’s custom:

Acts 17:1 Now when they had traveled through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews.
Acts 17:2 And according to Paul’s custom, he went to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures,
Acts 17:3 explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ.”

Paul wasn’t reasoning from an autopsy report; he was reasoning from the Old Testament! (Of course, they weren’t calling it that back then; that naming would come when the New Testament was assembled after the apostles’ generation had passed away.)

The next city after Thessalonica where Paul went preaching was Berea. And there he followed the same pattern: 1) proclaiming the resurrection 2) according to the Scriptures.

Acts 17:10 The brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews.
Acts 17:11 Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.

Paul was by no means unique among the apostles in this focus. Consider how Peter was making the same point in his preaching. This excerpt comes from a message he preached in the earliest days of apostolic preaching:

Acts 3:22 “Moses said, ‘THE LORD GOD WILL RAISE UP FOR YOU A PROPHET LIKE ME FROM YOUR BRETHREN; TO HIM YOU SHALL GIVE HEED to everything He says to you.
Acts 3:23 ‘And it will be that every soul that does not heed that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.’
Acts 3:24 “And likewise, all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and his successors onward, also announced these days.
Acts 3:25 “It is you who are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘AND IN YOUR SEED ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH SHALL BE BLESSED.’
Acts 3:26 “For you first, God raised up His Servant and sent Him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways.”

When Peter references Moses and the Prophets, he is making the exact same point Paul was making when he said “according to the Scriptures.” 

Consider also what Peter wrote in his first letter:

1 Pet 1:10 As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries,
1 Pet 1:11 seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow.
1 Pet 1:12 It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven–things into which angels long to look.

The apostles spoke in their own personalities and sometimes used different words, but they were always making the same point. I could show you much more along these lines from the New Testament, but let the prime examples of Peter and Paul demonstrate to you clearly and emphatically how fully the apostles embraced Jesus’ teaching that finding Him in the Old Testament was not only possible, it was essential to understanding the good news (the gospel). That gospel was not just that God can do incredible things – but that He keeps His promises!

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

Overflow

***

(Book Installment)

The Biblical Case for
Finding Jesus in the Old Testament

Chapter 1: The Subject of This Book (continued)

Jesus Originated Finding Jesus in the Old Testament

Luke 24 is not the only place in the Bible that Jesus spoke this way about Himself and the Old Testament. (Of course, the term “Old Testament” wasn’t used in His day. Rather, He and His fellow Jews spoke of “the Scriptures,” or “the Law and the Prophets,” or “Moses and the Prophets,” or “the Prophets,” and so on.)

At the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said this:

Matt 5:17 “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.

Jesus saw His biography in the Old Testament – a biography written in advance for Him to follow. 

Israel’s Messiah had been prophesied in the Old Testament…in many different ways and by many different titles. So varied were these references that Jews found it hard to agree on the meaning of all these passages. They found it particularly difficult to reconcile the prophecies of suffering with the prophecies of glory – so much so, that many people thought the prophecies were referring to two different people. But as you saw in Luke 24, Jesus explained in straightforward terms that the sufferings came first, during His earthly life. Then, after His crucifixion and death, came the glory – beginning with His resurrection from the dead on the third day.

Another occasion when Jesus talked about the Old Testament’s witness to Him was a direct response to His opponents. They were publicly accusing Him of making Himself equal with God. Near the end of a long reply to them, He said:

John 5:39 “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me;
John 5:40 and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.

The kind of men to whom Jesus was speaking were more familiar with the content of the New Testament than anyone else in Israel was…and, for that matter, the world. And yet they were unwilling to acknowledge that the life Jesus was living in their presence was a life prophesied in the Scriptures they treasured. They didn’t lack documentation – they lacked the will to accept it as true even when what it documented was standing right in front of them.

Jesus went on to be even more explicit with them:

John 5:44 “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?
John 5:45 “Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope.
John 5:46 “For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me.
John 5:47 “But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”

Moses had written the first five books of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Jesus was telling His opponents that in those five books, they could find Moses’ testimony about Him. We can, too. But we have to have a willingness to live with the consequences of finding Him or else we’ll remain as blind as those men were. 

So, where did the New Testament authors get the idea that Jesus could be found in the Old Testament? From Jesus. Let’s see what they did with that idea.

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

Overflow

***

(Book Installment)

The Biblical Case for
Finding Jesus in the Old Testament

Chapter 1: The Subject of This Book (continued)

Why It’s Possible to Find Jesus in the Old Testament

It was the Sunday after Jesus had been crucified, but before His disciples became convinced of His resurrection. They weren’t even expecting Him to rise from the dead.

Luke 24:13 And behold, two of them were going that very day to a village named Emmaus, which was about seven miles from Jerusalem.
Luke 24:14 And they were talking with each other about all these things which had taken place.
Luke 24:15 While they were talking and discussing, Jesus Himself approached and began traveling with them.
Luke 24:16 But their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him.
Luke 24:17 And He said to them, “What are these words that you are exchanging with one another as you are walking?” And they stood still, looking sad.

They were shocked and depressed and had no hopeful answers.

Luke 24:18 One of them, named Cleopas, answered and said to Him, “Are You the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of the things which have happened here in these days?”
Luke 24:19 And He said to them, “What things?” And they said to Him, “The things about Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word in the sight of God and all the people,
Luke 24:20 and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to the sentence of death, and crucified Him.
Luke 24:21 “But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, it is the third day since these things happened.
Luke 24:22 “But also some women among us amazed us. When they were at the tomb early in the morning,
Luke 24:23 and did not find His body, they came, saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said that He was alive.
Luke 24:24 “Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just exactly as the women also had said; but Him they did not see.”

Jesus then consoles them…with a thoroughly educational rebuke.

Luke 24:25 And He said to them, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!
Luke 24:26 “Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?”
Luke 24:27 Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.

Later that day, with a larger group of His disciples, Jesus reinforced the point.

Luke 24:44 Now He said to them, “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”
Luke 24:45 Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,
Luke 24:46 and He said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day,
Luke 24:47 and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
Luke 24:48 “You are witnesses of these things.

Jesus would then spend another thirty-nine days conducting such Bible studies with His disciples before He ascended into heaven. What Jesus was teaching them – and us as well – was that the Old Testament was very much about Him…and that we should be able to find Him in it.

Yet, we should not expect it to be easy to find Him in it because it prophesied His resurrection, and He Himself made this point to His disciples repeatedly before He died, and yet they still weren’t expecting it! Just because finding Jesus in the Old Testament is possible, doesn’t mean it’s probable. It must be something we have to learn how to do.

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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

***

(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.

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

***

(Book Installment)

The Biblical Case for
Finding Jesus in the Old Testament

Chapter 1: The Subject of This Book

The title of a book should encapsulate its contents. Let me break this book’s title down for you so that you’ll have greater visibility into what the book holds in store for you.

“The Biblical Case for…”

When writing for the Lord – whether it’s a book, an article, or a simple note – I write based on something I’ve learned from the Bible. There’s nothing within me that’s worth writing; it’s only what I’ve learned from reading and studying the Bible that gives you any reason to read something I’ve written.

That said, I don’t begin every book, article, or note I write with the phrase “The Biblical Case for…” I reserve this phrase for books that focus on a biblical idea that is 1) big, 2) new, and 3) controversial.

Biblical or not, most big ideas deserve a book to explain them. An article or note would be insufficient. With a book, an author has the chance to fully describe the idea…and then examine it from various angles to make sure it can be fully understood by the reader. This is true whether the big idea is new or old.

A big idea that is new is even more deserving of book-length treatment. It would be unreasonable for writers to expect people to accept ideas that are big and new without sufficient explanation and examination. By the way, “new” doesn’t have to be “unheard of.” It just has to be something that isn’t commonly understood. Or it can be a new way of understanding an idea that has previously circulated and been rejected.

An idea that is not just big and new, but also likely to be controversial, is the most deserving of all to be presented in book format. People can’t make a quality decision about a big, new, controversial idea if they’re not fully informed about it.

If all this is true of ideas in general, how much more it is true of biblical  ideas that are new, big, and controversial. The Bible is the word of God. Therefore, by definition, its ideas are more important than human ideas. Not all ideas in the Bible are equally important. But even the least important biblical idea is going to be more important than any human idea. We were created by God and our every breath is sustained by God, so it would be impossible to overstate the importance of His ideas.

I have written two previous books whose titles begin with “The Biblical Case for…” – The Biblical Case for Everyone Going to Heaven and The Biblical Case for the Second Coming as Accomplished Fact. Whether you agree with these two ideas or not, you have to admit they’re big, new, and controversial. That is true of this book, too, even though it’s not as apparent in the title. 

The Biblical Case for Finding Jesus in the Old Testament does not at first glance suggest an idea that is new or controversial. But as the book unfolds, I think you’ll agree that those two adjectives apply. 

I do not seek to find or write about controversial ideas. What I do seek is to learn about Jesus. There is always something new to learn about Him and those new things are both big and small. The bigger they are the more controversial they are because Jesus has always polarized the world. It’s inevitable. He is the truth, and truth polarizes because of the human will. I don’t like controversy, but I love truth so much I’m willing to endure controversy to hold on to truth. 

A controversial biblical idea deserves not just a book, but it deserves a book that lays out the biblical case for that idea. No one should just take my word for it. I will show you chapter and verse so that you can make up your own mind on the subject. That will enable you to decide on which side of the polarization you’re going to stand…because as is so often true with Jesus and His ideas, there is no middle ground.

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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

***

Below is the fresh start on the new book. If you read the article I published here yesterday, you understand why this preface is shorter than the original one, and more helpful to the reader.

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(Book Installment)

The Biblical Case for
Finding Jesus in the Old Testament

Preface

I am not interested in wasting your time or my own. You should only read this book if you think there’s a reasonable chance it will help you. For that to be the case, a couple of things have to be true.

First, you must be familiar with Jesus in the New Testament. That is, you must either be a follower of His or, at the very least, be open to the possibility that His claims, as recorded in the New Testament, are true.

Second, you must be familiar with me. That is, you must either know me personally or else be familiar with my writing. If neither are true, I suggest you set this book aside for the time being and instead go to my website (www.jesuschristandthebible.info or http://www.mikegantt.com – both of these URLs lead to the same place). There you will find all my writing – books, articles, and notes. At the very least, I suggest that you read my shortest book, The Duty of a Man. You can read it online and complete it in an hour or less. If that book doesn’t whet your appetite for more, you can save yourself the longer period of time it would take to read this book.

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