Hear me out. I’m a fairly new Christian so I may be somewhat off the mark but please bear with me…I have a point. I believe that Jesus Christ was the Messiah placed on Earth to save all sinnners that believe in him…OK? I also believe that this was the new covenant that God made with mankind…as in Jesus’s spilled blood washes all sinners who believe in him clean…and because we believe that he did this for us, died and arose again, we are no longer considered sinners. He took our place. So far so good?
My question is…if this is the new covenant with man…is any of the Old Testament relevant to Christians today? I know there are many, many stories in there that tell of God’s power prior to Jesus’s birth (Noah, Moses, Jonah and so on) but there is so much emphasis on the old covenant of God’s law (10 commandents, animal sacrifice, fasting) that it seems contradictory and outdated to the teachings of Jesus’s time and today. I realize the importance of understanding the prophecies of the Messiah and that Jesus fufilled them but outside of that…they just don’t seem to be very relevant today. At least since Jesus came to Earth. In my opinion, all you need to do is read in the KJV what Christ taught and you’ll never go wrong. Christ shows us in so many ways what to do as Christians. However if you applied ALL the various teachings of the Old Testament and the lessons from Christ…you just end up overwhelmed and confused.
What do you say?
Please, if you’re a non-believer or a staunch Aetheist and just want to hammer away about the fallacy of the Bible and Christianity…do me a favor and resist. I welcome your thoughts but ask that you be considerate and respectful to those of us who believe. Cool?
Whew. I’m not sure there’s a short answer for this, other than to say something like, “Jesus came to fulfill the Law as laid out in the O.T., and once He fulfilled the Law, it was no longer necessary, all that sacrificing and stuff. Now we live under grace.”
Allow me to give you a link to the Pizza Parlor, where there are lots more people much more qualified than I am to answer this. And no, it’s not just a lot of Fundies sittin’ around comparing notes on heresies, there’s actually quite a wide spectrum of Christians that post there.
Well, if you’re going to claim that Jesus is the messiah that the Jews were waiting for, you need the Hebrew Bible to back those claims up, don’t you? If the hebew Bible claims that the messiah will do X, and the Christian Bible says that Jesus did X, you need both to establish your claim. As such, it should have value to you at least in the sense of validating for you that Jesus is the messiah that the Jews were waiting for. (Of course, I have a different opinion on the matter, but I’ll refrain from going there at the OP’s request.)
The Old Testament is largely important for a sense of understanding of where the Church and salvation history came from. Echoing some of zev’s statements, you need it to the extent that salvation history doesn’t make sense if you don’t understand how the fall happened, or how mankind can’t get by without the law alone. (I’d liken it to the Star Wars trilogy, with the OT being the prequels…except, of course, you can watch SW IV-VI without the prequels and be fine.)
Plus, a lot of our modern theology comes from the Old Testament. The Pope’s encyclicals, for example, rely heavily on the creation story to explain male and female relationships and sexuality, and on the story of Cain & Able to explain his objections to limiting the death penalty.
Your biggest point of contention, I assume, is the Mosaic law: i.e., “am I still forbidden to eat pork?” You have to figure, however, that God didn’t create the Mosaic law arbitrarily, but used it to give the Jews an ordered society with a purpose. (Much of the ritual laws, for example, existed for disciplinary reason.) You might try measuring an OT statute against Christ’s general commandment (Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself) and see if it achieves that purpose. “Thou shalt not kill” still shows love for God by respecting his creation, and shows love for your neighbor because nobody likes being stoned to death. “Thou shalt not eat pork” probably doesn’t fit either of those.
If Jesus came to “Fulfill the law, not destroy it,” then at minimum we need to understand what it is that he fulfilled to understand what he did for us and what the implications are for Christian life.
Cholo, I wonder if you want to know how relevant should the Hebrew Scripture be to you, in particular. Maybe you even mean in your day to day life?
Zev has made a very good point and I would agree that in order to fully understand Christianity, you need to examine the Hebrew Scripture as well. Since you stated that one could simply go by the teachings of Jesus in the Christian Scripture and be okay, I’m assuming you want to know what kind of guidance the Hebrew Scripture could provide for you.
I’m going to make an analogy here of two people listening to …let’s say Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings - a very moving, beautiful piece of music. Person A has had a great deal of training in music and can play many instruments. Person B has no musical knowledge at all (can’t read music, etc.). They are listening to the exact same piece of music but they perhaps have different appreciations of it. Person A hears triplets done beautifully and is amazed at the range of the french horns and the fantastic tone of the violin. This isn’t to say that Person B doesn’t appreciate it and love it - it just isn’t the same way as Person A.
So I’m going to say that the Christian Scripture is a little like this piece of music and Person A is someone who has knowledge of the Hebrew scripture which gives Person A a deeper understanding and appreciation for the Christian Scripture. Does it change the music at all? Nope. Does that mean it is pointless? Certainly not.
The Hebrew Scripture can be appreciated on many, many levels. It truly may not change your day to day behavior like the Christian Scripture may be doing for you now - but it will enhance your understanding of Christ and God’s people, I would imagine, that will give you greater understanding of Christ’s message.
No, that’s what I said. The Pope’s theory, if I’m recalling correctly, is that the death penalty can no longer be used for vengeful purposes, but only to protect society from this particular killer under very specific circumstances. A number of Catholics object to this, of course; and notably, encyclicals are only theoretical teaching documents and aren’t necessarily binding church law. (I.e., it’s settled that abortion is a sin or that Mary was assumed into heaven; it’s not settled if the Pope is being too restrictive, although him being the [earthly] head of the church, he should probably be followed.)
