Good Bible Handling Really Matters; Hebrews 1

The 11th of Jonathan Edwards' famous resolutions says: Resolved, when I think of any theorem in divinity to be solved, immediately to do what I can towards solving it, if circumstances don't hinder. To paraphrase: Bible understanding really matters. And good Bible handling really matters. Matters to the extent of spending time on bits I don't understand, staring at them, wrestling with them, finding out why the writers write what they do, the way they do. If I just pass over the difficult stuff it shows I don't really want God in the way God reveals himself.
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Jesus is the New Israel Part 2

Jesus Christ is the fulfilment of Old Testament Israel. He is the Israel of God because he is God. He is the King. Therefore we would expect to find in Jesus the fulfilment of all kinds of things the Old Testament pointed to. Obviously its easy to find examples of Jesus being the fulfilment of specific prophecies, but even more importantly we also discover lots and lots of examples in the New Testament of him being the fulfilment and goal of the biggest themes that run right through the Old Testament.
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What's the meaning: The Word of God with Authority

This isn't strictly just about the Old Testament, but I think the OT comes off worse in the Sunday School kind of Bible Teaching... John Walton on Hermeneutics and Childrens Curriculum, ht: Milton Stanley.

Walton observes five disturbing traits:

  1. Promotion of the Trivial
  2. Illegitimate extrapolation
  3. Reading Between the Lines
  4. Missing important nuance
  5. Focus on people rather than God
And concludes: If we are negligent of sound hermeneutics when we teach Bible to children, should it be any wonder that when they get into youth groups, Bible studies and become adults in the church, that they do not know how to derive the authoritative teaching from the text?Teaching the Old Testament seems to be tricky but surely the key is to let the text contrain us. We're only at liberty to teach what it says, in it's context, within the boundaries and rules that it sets out for us. Then, and only then, will we hear God speak with authority. An authority that will be unavoidable, piercing to the heart and leading to genuine transformation to Christlikeness, or to hardening of our hearts as we're confronted by God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who has all authority.