The Old Testament

Why would a Bible Study group want to study the Old Testament? It’s part of the Bible, of the canon of Sacred Scripture, so why wouldn’t it be an important study topic? It is the “Old” Testament, though. Is it still relevant to our faith journey? After all, we have the New Testament now. However, the New Testament tells us that “all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17, Gk. Text) (Vatican II, Dei verbum, 18 Nov. 1965, 757). Let’s explore the value of these ancient texts and some of the reasons the study of these can be vital to understanding our identity as Catholic Christians.

Believers understand Sacred Scripture to be the divine revelation of God – how He communicated to us through His words, the divinely inspired words of the prophets (Vatican II, Dei verbum, 18 Nov. 1965, 762), His deeds, events both natural and supernatural, and in His creation (Boadt 2). The Old Testament is a collection of books, 46 in Catholic editions (Boadt 1) which tell the story of God’s chosen people, Israel, and their relationship with Him. Understanding how God interacted with these people from the beginning of time will give us insight into who this one, true God is, what it is He wants to communicate to us, and what kind of relationship He wants to enter into with us. Perhaps we can then come to know God in ways we had not known Him previously.
A very common human desire is to want to know where we came from. As children, we enjoy hearing about our birth story – what was going on in our family, how big we were, were we early, late, or right on time, what we wore home from the hospital. As we mature, bigger questions begin to form – why am I here, where did our parents come from and their parents, and so on, why do we look and act differently from other families? We want to know where we fit in and where we’re supposed to go from here. We can’t understand our story without knowing the beginning. The Old Testament tells us about the beginning of our human story (Boadt 4).
By studying the books of the Old Testament, we can see in hindsight the big picture of our ancestors and our history.

Who were these people, this family, chosen and prepared by God to bring forth from their descendants His son, the living Word, God incarnate into the world? We read about their culture, what their daily lives were like, how they worshipped, how they grappled with the meaning of their lives (Boadt 1). We discover how they responded to being chosen and what the consequences of those responses were. We can begin to contemplate what we can learn about ourselves from their story.
The Old Testament writings, which span many centuries and lands, can be viewed as a garden from which our faith journey and relationship with God was planted and cultivated. It is here we find the beginnings of the hope for a Messiah (Boadt 462-464). Then we see some of the fruit come to bear in the early centuries after Christ, as the apostles traveled to the lands in the Roman empire where there were many Jewish communities. These communities were the receivers of the message of the Gospels which then began to take root and spread (Boadt

451)
Another aspect of wisdom we can glean from the Old Testament is deepening our understanding of our relationship with God. By studying and reflecting on the relationship of our ancestors with God, we see who we are with God. At the beginning of our relationship with God, we discover who He is, many times through our family’s influence and teaching. We then begin to know and obey Him, and we also learn what it means to be separated from God. The experience of and effects of sin that we read about in the Sacred Scriptures, like destruction, exile, alienation, can be experienced in our own lives (Boadt 3). The manifestations of these effects are different than what our ancestors experienced, but the effects are the same or very similar. When we separate or turn away from God, we can experience the destruction of relationships, exile from our homes and families, and alienation from our true selves.
We also learn that the God of Israel is forever faithful to his promises. He enters into a covenant with His chosen people and he remains faithful even when the Israelites lose faith and allow doubt and fear to creep back into their lives, even after witnessing and living through miraculous events. We witness the evolution of the chosen people’s relationship with God, their growing pains and their triumphs and joys. This covenant is the “Old Covenant which has never been revoked,” as spoken about by Pope John Paul II (Boadt 9). The New Covenant fulfills, completes, and makes perfect the Old Covenant (Vatican II, Dei Verbum 760).
We can also look to Jesus, his followers, the early Christians, and the Church fathers for examples and guidance on how they drew on the Old Testament. As Jews, Jesus and his followers referred to the Old Testament as part of their worship lives. The early Christians and Church fathers turned to the Old Testament for understanding and to help them explain Jesus and his mission. Jesus’ own preaching in the synagogues drew on the Old Testament texts (Boadt 451, 468).
Studying the Old Testament can be challenging. The people, places, customs, and lands are foreign to us. It takes a concerted effort to understand the context of the stories and to discern what the Holy Spirit is trying to communicate to us, these many centuries later. However, make no mistake that there is divine communication taking place. Excluding the Old Testament from any Scripture study or prayer group would leave a gaping hole in our further evolution as God’s chosen people.
Some of the reasons I hear from people about why they join a Bible study group and what they are looking for include: wanting to deepen their personal relationship with God, to understand the Bible which they have had difficulty doing on their own, to increase their Catholic identity, to refresh what they learned as children and now realize the value of, to become part of a faith community where they can express their questions, doubts, struggles and feel supported, rather than judged.

Once people feel accepted and comfortable in a small group, they are often likely to share their personal stories. We see some of our personal stories echoed in the pages of the Bible, both the Old and New Testament, and we realize the lessons and hope that are there for us. I feel it’s vital that we don’t miss any part of that

wisdom.