Why have Christians abandoned the Old Testament?

Many Christians believe that the Old Testament has no application to the church today--except, of course, to use Biblical characters as moral role models (but shhh, don't tell the children that David had an adulterous affair or that Moses and David were both murderers or that Noah got trashed and ran around naked!). I believe that many Christians have made the Old Testament a second-class citizen because many fail to see the overarching story that God has been writing since the beginning of time--a story that is incomplete without the Old Testament.

But rest assured, God has not changed and His purposes have not changed. And so the Old Testament is still relevant to Christians and the church today. Sure, with the coming of Jesus God's story has progressed and some things of old are no longer practiced--at least in the same form--like animal sacrifice. But this does not mean that the sacrificial system and the covenants of old are meaningless to Christians! But what about those wars in the Old Testament? Why did God have the Israelites kill innocent children along with the adult inhabitants of those evil nations? This violence can't apply to the Christian today, can it? Doesn't this just show that God was mean and violent in the Old Testament and that the coming of Jesus showed that God found his better side and has now become a cosmic teddy bear? This is what you might conclude if you don't understand the storyline of the Bible. So let me explain how the wars and such reflect what God was trying to accomplish on this earth...and how they relate to the New Testament.

So when Adam and Eve rebelled against God by eating from the 'tree of the experience of good and bad' (my translation), bad came into the world in the form of curses. The story tells us that after this, mankind's evil increased and began polluting God's world. So God reveals his plan for removing evil and restoring good back to this world (Genesis 12). God was going to 1.) Grow a nation numerically that would reflect His GOOD design for life to the surrounding nations, 2.) Plant this nation in a protected land 3.) Make this nation famous and appealing to the surrounding nations as they lived out God's GOOD design for life, and 4.) Bless those surrounding nations that make God their king by connecting themselves to God's GOOD design for life.

So what is God supposed to do with those nations that refuse to abandon their evil and make God their king? Well, once the sin of these nations reaches a point of no return (i.e., the point of utter defiance), God has to wipe these people off the earth. Why? Because God's plan is to cleanse this earth of evil using His chosen nation. This type of treatment was not reserved for other nations alone. The book of Deuteronomy makes it clear that God took the same measures to keep His chosen nation free from evil corruption. How? Well, those who did not fear God and lived in defiant, high-handed sin were to be purged from among their people (Deut. 13:5; 17:12; 19:19; 21:21; 22:21, 22, 24; 24:7)! Ouch! The principle we draw from this is that God was in the process of reestablishing His GOOD rule on this earth in the Old Testament--by overcoming evil with His GOOD in this world! And He is still in the process of doing this today (although in different way!). In fact, Jesus' slogan was, "Repent! The Kingdom of God is at hand!" Jesus was about the business of reclaiming this world for God by inviting people to embrace God's rule in their lives!

So how does this principle apply to the church today? Well, 1 Peter 2:9-10 gives us a hint when it says, "You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." Notice how Peter takes Old Testament concepts and applies them to the church today.

First, when Peter talks about us being CALLED out of DARKNESS and into His wonderful LIGHT, he is picking up on the creation theme of Genesis when God CALLED LIGHT out of the DARKNESS. And so in essence, God RECREATES people through the regenerating work and power of the Holy Spirit when they decide to follow Jesus (see 1 Peter 1:2). This is how people are called out of the darkness and into the light! And God wants us to display our new Spirit empowered identity to the surrounding world through our good deeds (1 Peter 2:11-12). So does this mean that God wants us to be good for the sake of being good? Not really. God wants us to be good, at this point, for the sake of drawing people to His kingship (see 2:12; see also Deut. 4:6-8)! This explains the next two points.

Second, we are a holy nation. The word 'holy' means 'set apart' or 'separate'. Our lives are to be lived DIFFERENTLY from the lives of the surrounding world. Our values, pursuits, character, motives, goals, and decisions should be God-centered (not American dream-centered). While the world pursues fame and fortune, we are to pursue God and His purpose for our existence. While the world pursues sinful pleasure, we are to pursue pleasing God. The church is to be a reflection of God to the surrounding world. And so just like God was insistent on keeping His nation free from evil (for His name's sake) by purging the evil people, we too, through church discipline, need to keep the church free from evil (and I'm not just talking about people involved in sexual sins here...how about people who give the church a bad name by displaying greed, un-love, divisiveness, pride etc.?). But does this mean that Christians must disengage from the world for the sake of being separate from the world. NOPE!!!! But how do I know this?

Well, third, we are to be a royal priesthood (i.e., the king's priests). The priests in the Old Testament helped to connect people back to God. People who sinned would bring their sacrifices to the priests and the priests would reestablish that person's relationship with God. In a similar way, the church is to be about the business of connecting people back to God. But how can we connect people back to God if we never rub shoulders with people who are far from God? We need to 'go' out into the world and engage people with Jesus' message. But not only this. Our church communities need to give validity to the fact that we represent God's kingdom. Who will believe Jesus' message if we contradict it in the life of our community?

And so, today God is still working out his plan to grow His kingdom (by overcoming evil with HIS GOOD in this world) and make His rule appealing to the world so that people want to be a part of it. Through our lives and our church community, we either make God's kingdom appealing or a turnoff to people. JUST LIKE JESUS...May we be priests to the world around us and as people see our holy lives may they be drawn back to God, the King of the Universe!