I received an email a few days ago from someone who was wondering what I do with the Old Testament. More specifically, I think they were wondering how I can promote reading the Bible and obeying it when I obviously don’t obey all of the Old Testament (it’s been a while since my last animal sacrifice). Answer: When I encourage people to read and obey that includes understanding which scriptures apply in different situations. Maybe I should add in a middle step for clarity. 1) Read. 2) Understand. 3) Obey.

A great example of this is the dialogue between Jesus and Satan in Matthew 4:1-11. Satan quotes Psalm 91:11-12, but Jesus understood that the scriptures were being used incorrectly, and he in turn quoted Deuteronomy 6:16 to set the record straight. Both read the Bible. Both promoted obeying the Bible (in a weird kind of way). Only Jesus understood the Bible.

Back to the original question, what do I do with the Old Testament? I understand that Hebrews 8:13, and many other similar verses, apply in this situation. We live in a new covenant now and the old one is obsolete. When I canceled my T-Mobile contract and signed up with AT&T I was under no obligation to uphold the old agreement, for it had been canceled. (Side note: this doesn’t mean that we can’t learn from the Old Testament. Just read 1 Corinthians 10:6-11).