Why the Old Testament ROCKS

People often find it strange when I say, I LOVE the Old Testament. They say, but isn’t the God of the Old Testament scary and violent? Isn’t it better to concentrate on Jesus? Or they say, the Old Testament is just a bit strange, I don’t know what to do with it.

Well, isn’t the world a bit strange and scary? Isn’t the world full of violence? The Old Testament doesn’t sugarcoat its picture of the human condition. The world is a mess. There is pain, trauma, and violence. But there is also beauty, and joy, and celebration. I love the Old Testament because it feels so true to life. It’s messy, there are frayed edges, and no neat answers. It’s varied and full of stories, poems, songs, philosophy… Yes, it does feel alien at times: it was written a very long time ago! But the people of the text are not that alien: I can see people keen to follow God but scared about the future, leaders who love power too much, people tempted by money, sex, and power; power-hungry kings and heads of state who think nothing of putting other people’s lives at risk. I see women longing for children, women taking up leadership in a world made for, and by men, women abused and violated, women celebrating the joys of daily life and the love they feel. I see men in love, men who cry for the hardness of life, men who celebrate friendship, men who get it wrong and suffer the consequences.

The Old Testament has a song for every mood, and a song for every day. It is full of rage and hope: rage at the way the world is, compared to what it should be. There is no tacit acceptance of oppression there. The Psalms of lament and the complaints of the people before God, speak of the wrong of injustice and oppression, and they speak of the hope of those with faith in God: their faith gives them an imagination that is bigger than that of the world around them, an imagination that can lead them to believe that God can set them free, even before the might of Egypt, its king and its chariots.

To read the Old Testament is to be invited to lay our lives alongside those of the people of the text and see how the story begs us to ask different questions of ourselves.

One of my favourite stories is that of Jacob wrestling with… someone. Is it his brother, whom he has cheated and is afraid of? Is it an angel, a representative of God? Is it God? Or is he really wrestling with himself and his own failings and frailties? They wrestle in the dark, until daybreak. It isn’t quite clear who the stranger is, and ultimately Jacob is changed by the encounter. He is blessed, but the blessing is strange and unexpected. He gets a new name, and a permanent limp. He will go forward to meet life in a different posture: no longer strong and assured, seeking to gain for himself everything he believes he deserves – whether he does or not; instead, he will go forward blessed, and limping, more fragile, more vulnerable, yet somehow wiser and stronger.

I often think that reading the Old Testament is a bit similar: we wrestle with the text, and sometimes it helps us wrestle with ourselves, with those around us, with God. And if we are open to meeting with God in the wrestling, we walk away changed. But the God of the Old Testament is not a tame God. God is a God of power, of freedom, and ferocious with love for his people. Meeting this God is bound to be unnerving, challenging. If it isn’t, then maybe we have simply tried to tame God’s presence. But like Jacob, when we dare to meet with God, we walk away transformed. Not always in the ways we had anticipated, or wished for – but always blessed.

So don’t be afraid of the Old Testament (even the bits we never read in church!) and if you want to grow in confidence, we have plenty of courses here at Ridley to help you!

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