Jesus Himself affirms the usefulness, practicality, and relevancy of the Old Testament. When tempted in the wilderness, Jesus quotes from
Deuteronomy 8:3,
Deuteronomy 6:16,
Deuteronomy 10:20, and or
Deuteronomy 6:13 to resist Satan. This should be enough to send us scurrying to the promises of old for the words of life.
But, just in case that one snap shot isn't convincing, I ran across another quite convincing reason, based on the example of Christ, that we should become familiar with the Old Testament.
Luke 24:22-27 picks up on the Emmaus Road, where the resurrected Christ walks alongside of two men discussing the events of the crucifixion and the reports that the women had given saying that they saw angels and an empty tomb. Picking up in verse 22:
22) Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, 23) and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. 24) Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.” 25) And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26) Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27) And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
This truly floored me. It's obvious, but I never paid much attention. Here is Jesus, resurrected, glorious as the conquerer of all sin and death, able to appear and disappear, walk through walls, able to do anything to convince that He was indeed the Messiah, their hope, and encourage and strengthen their faith. Yet, what does He say? After a sharp and loving rebuke, in verse 25 it says he appealed to their ignorance of the prophets. You know, those old guys, Jeremiah, Hosea, Ezekiel, Amos, and the like. He says, "those guys spoke all about me, you still don't believe as you should - you are foolish for missing it!" Then, still as amazing, He doesn't perform a miracle, in fact, they don't even recognize Him as Jesus or anything special, but in verse 27, He goes all the way back to Moses and continues with all the other prophets and
interprets the Scriptures in all things concerning Himself. If the resurrected Jesus, of all the tools and miracles and methods He could have used with these two men, undoubtably some of the first to come into contact with the Messiah, uses the Old Testament from Moses to all the prophets to encourage and convince of His true identity - and not only that, but rebukes Satan as well from the Pentateuch, perhaps, just maybe, it wouldn't hurt for us to begin to dig into and pray for understanding and enlightenment of the Old Testament.
Not only that, but if we can effectively preach Christ from the Old Testament, what does that say about the power available in the New Testament, which provides further and final (for now) revelation of our Savior?
So, how did the story of the two on the Emmaus Road end? What was their response to the ancient texts that Jesus explained to them concerning Himself? Well, after opening their eyes to His identity and vanishing they say in verse
32, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road,
while he opened to us the Scriptures?” Jesus has given us the Holy Spirit, the mind of Christ is available to us - so Lord, grant to us an understanding of Your Word, both Old and New Testaments, that we may open the Scriptures to others, so that by the power of Your Spirit others hearts would burn in repentance and faith in the Redeemer.
