For too many evangelical pastors, the Old Testament is a “foreign book” that is better left alone or used only as background knowledge, lamented prominent theologian Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr. on Tuesday. But preachers who neglect the Old Testament do so at the risk of “robbing” their congregation of fully understanding Jesus Christ.
“I’ve actually heard some preachers state as a matter of principle that they preach from the New Testament because it is the Christian book,” said Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., during the first plenary session of The Gospel Coalition’s national conference in Chicago. “How they are robbing their people of the knowledge of Christ from the scriptures. How impoverished is that preaching. How undernourished are those congregations.”
Mohler, whose session was titled “Studying the Scriptures and Finding Jesus,” contends that Jesus and the gospel are found throughout the Old Testament and therefore not teaching from those books would be failing to tell the full story of Jesus.
“You cannot read the law without reading me (Jesus). You cannot read the history without reading me. You cannot read the psalms without reading me. You cannot read the prophets without reading me. These are they that testify of me,” said Mohler, paraphrasing John 5:39, in which Jesus says that the scriptures in the Old Testament testify about him.
“And we also should look to the Old Testament and find a constant, continual, cumulative, consistent testimony of Christ,” he stated. “We do not look back to the Old Testament merely to find the background of Christ and his ministry, nor merely for reference and anticipation of Christ. We are to look to the Old Testament and find Christ. Not here and there, [but] everywhere.”
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