3 Reasons I (Finally) Love the Old Testament

3 Reasons I (Finally) Love the Old Testament

Growing up, my understanding of the Bible was this: the Old Testament told the story of a mean God, and the New Testament told the story of a kind and loving God. Over the past few years, I continued to struggle with finding a loving God in the Old Testament. However, I recently finished reading the Old Testament as a part of my goal to read the Bible in sixty days and I am happy to share that I finally love the Old Testament! Below are three reasons why.

The Old Testament points to God’s unfailing love, faithfulness, power, and holiness.

When I was about a third of the way through the Old Testament, I was hit with a fresh wave of understanding: every. single. verse. is revealing how incredible God is and His future plan to save humanity. And the only thing He ever destroyed was wickedness, evil, and sin. Because He is Love, He poured out His wrath on anything that kept His people in darkness and apart from Him.

The Old Testament reveals humanity’s desperate need for a Savior.

When I was a child, I imagined the Israelites to be holy, almost mythical, people. The stories I heard over and over were of people like Joseph, David, Daniel, and Esther. When I finally began to read the Old Testament for myself, I realized how not holy the Israelites were.

No matter what God did to keep Israel on a righteous path, they fell into sin over and over again. The only way humans can live righteously is by grace through faith in Jesus and what He accomplished on the cross, and by receiving the gift of His Holy Spirit who empowers us to overcome sin.

The Old Testament provides an incredible foundation for understanding the New Testament.

The New Testament is essentially a fulfillment of everything that was prophesied in the Old Testament. After reading the Old Testament in just six weeks, I got goosebumps when I began reading the Gospels with the Old Testament fresh in my mind. The gratitude I now feel for what Jesus did on the cross is so much deeper. If I had lived before the cross, I would have been no better than the Israelites.

I can now confidently say I have read the entire Bible and every verse reveals God’s unfailing love and faithfulness.

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