Why Should Christians Read the Old Testament?
Despite how we know we should feel, even Christians who deeply love the Bible often feel a bit less than enthused if the preacher uses an obscure portion of the Old Testament as his sermon text. Some Old Testament books seem so foreign to us, or at least so incomprehensible, that we struggle to know what to do with them. How might we reinvigorate our reading of the whole of God’s Word? The best way to energize our explorations of what God revealed to His people before Christ’s first coming is to recognize how deeply the Old Testament Scriptures are about Christ. The covenant of grace is God’s one plan to bring all His people to salvation, describing how God distributes His grace to believers. Reformed Christians readily affirm that the whole Bible tells the one story that culminates in Christ. Still, they may not as thoroughly realize that Christ is not simply the climax of the story but also the major character even before He explicitly appears by name. Christ’s role in this sense is