Welcome to Theology Thursday! Theology is the study of God, his relation to the world, and our relation to him; it is "faith seeking understanding." I hope these newsletters help enhance your faith and deepen your love for God and his people, the church.
Today's question:
How do we respond to the gospel?
Pastor Brady's thoughts:
One of the more common questions Christians ask about the Bible is: If the Old Testament is God’s Word, why don’t Christians obey all of its laws?
The question gets uncomfortable pretty quickly. Exodus gives laws about sacrificial offerings. Leviticus tells Israel what they can eat. Deuteronomy regulates everything from agriculture to clothing to property disputes. Circumcision was commanded. Certain festivals were required. Priests served in a particular way. Animals were sacrificed at the temple.
Yet Christians don’t practice these things.
We eat bacon. We don’t bring lambs to Jerusalem. Most of us have never observed Passover according to the regulations given to the Israelites. And we certainly don’t believe that a person must be circumcised in order to belong to God.
So are Christians just picking and choosing which parts of the Bible we like?
Not exactly. The Old Testament laws - found in the first five books of the Bible - were given to Israel under the old covenant, and Jesus has established the new covenant. That distinction is crucial.
God didn’t give the law to humanity in the abstract. He gave the law to Israel as part of his covenant relationship with them. The law shaped Israel into a distinct people. It governed their worship, their sacrifices, their priesthood, their calendar, their diet, and even aspects of their civil life. These laws weren't random rules God expected every nation and every believer in every generation to follow, they were covenant commands given to a particular people at a particular point in God's redemptive plan. And that redemptive plan was always moving somewhere.
It was moving toward Jesus.
This is why Jesus can say, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17). Notice that Jesus doesn’t say, “The Old Testament was wrong.” He says he came to fulfill it. (Read more about what Jesus meant by saying this HERE.)
That word is important because fulfillment is different from cancellation.
Think about a blueprint. Once the building is standing, you don't keep constructing the building according to the blueprint. You look at the finished building and understand that the blueprint has accomplished its purpose. That is part of what happens with the Old Testament law.
Consider the sacrificial system, for example. God commanded Israel to offer animals for sin. But Christians don't offer animals because Jesus is the sacrifice those offerings were pointing toward. The book of Hebrews says that Christ offered himself “once for all.” The repeated sacrifices of the Old Testament were never meant to be the final answer to sin. They anticipated the final sacrifice.
The same is true of circumcision. Circumcision was not a bad thing; God himself commanded it. It was an important sign of God's covenant with Abraham and his descendants. But in Galatians, Paul strongly opposes the idea that Gentile Christians need to be circumcised in order to belong to God's people.
Why would Paul object to something God had commanded? Because, post resurrection, the question had changed. The issue wasn't whether circumcision had once been commanded. it was whether circumcision was now necessary for someone who trusted in Christ.
And Paul's answer was emphatically no.
The Gentiles did not need to become Jews before they could become Christians. They didn't need to take on the Mosaic law as a condition of belonging to God's people. Christ had accomplished what the law and covenant signs had anticipated.
The scene in Acts 15 is instructive here. The early church had a major problem on its hands. Gentiles were believing the gospel in large numbers, but some Jewish Christians believed these Gentiles needed to be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses. The apostles gathered to address the question, and their conclusion was incredibly significant: Gentile believers did not need to become Jewish in order to belong to the family of God - not anymore.
That doesn't mean the Old Testament was being thrown away, it means the people of God were no longer defined by the markers that had distinguished Israel under the Mosaic covenant. Their identity was now found in Christ.
Ok, maybe that’s good enough for the Old Testament commands that seem bizarre to us - clothing can’t be made with more than one kind of fabric; no eating shellfish - but what about the so-called “moral” laws? Surely the “thou shalt nots” are still intact for us today, right?
Even committed Christians and Bible-readers can admit this is all a bit confusing. I’d like to suggest that the better question to ask is: What did this particular command mean within God's covenant with Israel, and how is that truth carried forward now that Christ has come. Sometimes the answer is that the command continues directly. The command against murder, for example, reflects God's enduring concern for human life. The command to love our neighbor isn't something Jesus invented in the New Testament. It comes from Leviticus 19:18.
But even here, Jesus doesn't simply tell us to copy Israel's law book. He takes the command and reveals its deeper purpose: Love your neighbor. Love your enemies. Forgive. Pursue holiness. Love God with everything you have.
The New Testament doesn't make obedience less important, it actually takes us deeper into the heart behind God's commands. So sometimes the command is universal - it applied then and it applies now - and sometimes the command points us toward something Christ has already fulfilled.
The dietary laws are a good example. Israel was given specific food restrictions that helped distinguish them as God's holy people. Those restrictions had a real purpose within the old covenant. But Jesus teaches that what defiles a person is not ultimately what goes into his stomach but what comes out of his heart. The boundaries that once marked out God's covenant people have been transformed in the new covenant.
So the Christian doesn't read Leviticus and conclude, “None of this matters anymore.” We read it and ask, “What does this reveal about who God is and what his purpose is for his people?” When we read the Old Testament law books, we see some things that have always been true: we see that God is holy, we see that sin is serious, we see that reconciling with a holy God requires atonement, we see that God's people are called to be different from the world, we see that God cares about justice, mercy, worship, sexuality, honesty, generosity, and the way his people treat one another, and then we see how Jesus brings all of those themes to their fulfillment.
That is why we should be careful when someone says, “Christians don't have to follow the Old Testament anymore.” That's not quite right. Christians don't live under the Mosaic covenant, but Christians absolutely live under the authority of the God who gave the Mosaic covenant. That is not a distinction without a difference.
We aren't free to ignore everything in the Old Testament simply because Jesus has come. At the same time, we aren't supposed to pretend that the church is ancient Israel and that every command given to Israel has been transferred directly to us.
We belong to the new covenant. And the new covenant doesn't merely give us a new list of rules. It gives us something far better: Christ.
This is why adding Old Testament law to the gospel can actually become spiritually dangerous. If we believe we need Jesus plus circumcision, Jesus plus dietary restrictions, Jesus plus Jewish festivals, or Jesus plus some other requirement from the Mosaic covenant (or, maybe more likely in our context: Jesus plus our accomplishments), we have misunderstood what Jesus accomplished.
The gospel is not that Jesus did most of the work and now we finish the job by becoming better law-keepers. The gospel is that Jesus fulfilled what we could never fulfill.
He lived the righteous life we failed to live. He bore the judgment our sin deserved. He died as the once-for-all sacrifice. He rose from the dead. And he brought his people into a new covenant based not on our ability to perfectly keep God's law, but on his finished work.
Of course, that doesn't mean grace gives us permission to sin. Paul actually spends much of Romans explaining why that's impossible. Grace changes what obedience is. We aren't obeying in order to become God's people, we obey because, in Christ, God has already made us his people. That's a radically different motivation.
The Christian doesn't wake up thinking, “If I obey well enough today, maybe God will accept me.” The Christian wakes up saying, “Because God has accepted me in Christ, I want to live like someone who belongs to him.”
And so, while we are a New Testament/Covenant people, the Old Testament still has plenty to say to us. Read it as a Christian.
Read the sacrifices and see Christ.
Read the priesthood and see Christ.
Read the promises and see Christ.
Read the law and see God's holiness, humanity's sin, and our need for redemption.
And when you come across a command that no longer applies to Christians in the same covenantal way, don't conclude that the Bible has become irrelevant. Instead, ask what that command reveals about God's purposes and how those purposes find their fulfillment in Jesus.
The Old Testament isn't an archaic, irrelevant part of God's Word, it is the story that leads us to Jesus. As I like to say in sermons from time to time: all roads of scripture lead to Christ! And when we finally see Christ as the fulfillment of the law, we don't have less reason to love God's word, we have more.
From Genesis to Malachi, the Scriptures are telling us the same basic story: God is holy. We are sinners. God provides a way for sinners to approach him. That way is Jesus.
TO KNOW GOD AND TO MAKE HIM KNOWN!
- Pastor Brady
Have a question for Theology Thursday? Send an email to office@minierchristian.org and we'll respond, or we'll include in a future Theology Thursday Buffet.
Today's question:
How do we respond to the gospel?
Pastor Brady's thoughts:
One of the more common questions Christians ask about the Bible is: If the Old Testament is God’s Word, why don’t Christians obey all of its laws?
The question gets uncomfortable pretty quickly. Exodus gives laws about sacrificial offerings. Leviticus tells Israel what they can eat. Deuteronomy regulates everything from agriculture to clothing to property disputes. Circumcision was commanded. Certain festivals were required. Priests served in a particular way. Animals were sacrificed at the temple.
Yet Christians don’t practice these things.
We eat bacon. We don’t bring lambs to Jerusalem. Most of us have never observed Passover according to the regulations given to the Israelites. And we certainly don’t believe that a person must be circumcised in order to belong to God.
So are Christians just picking and choosing which parts of the Bible we like?
Not exactly. The Old Testament laws - found in the first five books of the Bible - were given to Israel under the old covenant, and Jesus has established the new covenant. That distinction is crucial.
God didn’t give the law to humanity in the abstract. He gave the law to Israel as part of his covenant relationship with them. The law shaped Israel into a distinct people. It governed their worship, their sacrifices, their priesthood, their calendar, their diet, and even aspects of their civil life. These laws weren't random rules God expected every nation and every believer in every generation to follow, they were covenant commands given to a particular people at a particular point in God's redemptive plan. And that redemptive plan was always moving somewhere.
It was moving toward Jesus.
This is why Jesus can say, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17). Notice that Jesus doesn’t say, “The Old Testament was wrong.” He says he came to fulfill it. (Read more about what Jesus meant by saying this HERE.)
That word is important because fulfillment is different from cancellation.
Think about a blueprint. Once the building is standing, you don't keep constructing the building according to the blueprint. You look at the finished building and understand that the blueprint has accomplished its purpose. That is part of what happens with the Old Testament law.
Consider the sacrificial system, for example. God commanded Israel to offer animals for sin. But Christians don't offer animals because Jesus is the sacrifice those offerings were pointing toward. The book of Hebrews says that Christ offered himself “once for all.” The repeated sacrifices of the Old Testament were never meant to be the final answer to sin. They anticipated the final sacrifice.
The same is true of circumcision. Circumcision was not a bad thing; God himself commanded it. It was an important sign of God's covenant with Abraham and his descendants. But in Galatians, Paul strongly opposes the idea that Gentile Christians need to be circumcised in order to belong to God's people.
Why would Paul object to something God had commanded? Because, post resurrection, the question had changed. The issue wasn't whether circumcision had once been commanded. it was whether circumcision was now necessary for someone who trusted in Christ.
And Paul's answer was emphatically no.
The Gentiles did not need to become Jews before they could become Christians. They didn't need to take on the Mosaic law as a condition of belonging to God's people. Christ had accomplished what the law and covenant signs had anticipated.
The scene in Acts 15 is instructive here. The early church had a major problem on its hands. Gentiles were believing the gospel in large numbers, but some Jewish Christians believed these Gentiles needed to be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses. The apostles gathered to address the question, and their conclusion was incredibly significant: Gentile believers did not need to become Jewish in order to belong to the family of God - not anymore.
That doesn't mean the Old Testament was being thrown away, it means the people of God were no longer defined by the markers that had distinguished Israel under the Mosaic covenant. Their identity was now found in Christ.
Ok, maybe that’s good enough for the Old Testament commands that seem bizarre to us - clothing can’t be made with more than one kind of fabric; no eating shellfish - but what about the so-called “moral” laws? Surely the “thou shalt nots” are still intact for us today, right?
Even committed Christians and Bible-readers can admit this is all a bit confusing. I’d like to suggest that the better question to ask is: What did this particular command mean within God's covenant with Israel, and how is that truth carried forward now that Christ has come. Sometimes the answer is that the command continues directly. The command against murder, for example, reflects God's enduring concern for human life. The command to love our neighbor isn't something Jesus invented in the New Testament. It comes from Leviticus 19:18.
But even here, Jesus doesn't simply tell us to copy Israel's law book. He takes the command and reveals its deeper purpose: Love your neighbor. Love your enemies. Forgive. Pursue holiness. Love God with everything you have.
The New Testament doesn't make obedience less important, it actually takes us deeper into the heart behind God's commands. So sometimes the command is universal - it applied then and it applies now - and sometimes the command points us toward something Christ has already fulfilled.
The dietary laws are a good example. Israel was given specific food restrictions that helped distinguish them as God's holy people. Those restrictions had a real purpose within the old covenant. But Jesus teaches that what defiles a person is not ultimately what goes into his stomach but what comes out of his heart. The boundaries that once marked out God's covenant people have been transformed in the new covenant.
So the Christian doesn't read Leviticus and conclude, “None of this matters anymore.” We read it and ask, “What does this reveal about who God is and what his purpose is for his people?” When we read the Old Testament law books, we see some things that have always been true: we see that God is holy, we see that sin is serious, we see that reconciling with a holy God requires atonement, we see that God's people are called to be different from the world, we see that God cares about justice, mercy, worship, sexuality, honesty, generosity, and the way his people treat one another, and then we see how Jesus brings all of those themes to their fulfillment.
That is why we should be careful when someone says, “Christians don't have to follow the Old Testament anymore.” That's not quite right. Christians don't live under the Mosaic covenant, but Christians absolutely live under the authority of the God who gave the Mosaic covenant. That is not a distinction without a difference.
We aren't free to ignore everything in the Old Testament simply because Jesus has come. At the same time, we aren't supposed to pretend that the church is ancient Israel and that every command given to Israel has been transferred directly to us.
We belong to the new covenant. And the new covenant doesn't merely give us a new list of rules. It gives us something far better: Christ.
This is why adding Old Testament law to the gospel can actually become spiritually dangerous. If we believe we need Jesus plus circumcision, Jesus plus dietary restrictions, Jesus plus Jewish festivals, or Jesus plus some other requirement from the Mosaic covenant (or, maybe more likely in our context: Jesus plus our accomplishments), we have misunderstood what Jesus accomplished.
The gospel is not that Jesus did most of the work and now we finish the job by becoming better law-keepers. The gospel is that Jesus fulfilled what we could never fulfill.
He lived the righteous life we failed to live. He bore the judgment our sin deserved. He died as the once-for-all sacrifice. He rose from the dead. And he brought his people into a new covenant based not on our ability to perfectly keep God's law, but on his finished work.
Of course, that doesn't mean grace gives us permission to sin. Paul actually spends much of Romans explaining why that's impossible. Grace changes what obedience is. We aren't obeying in order to become God's people, we obey because, in Christ, God has already made us his people. That's a radically different motivation.
The Christian doesn't wake up thinking, “If I obey well enough today, maybe God will accept me.” The Christian wakes up saying, “Because God has accepted me in Christ, I want to live like someone who belongs to him.”
And so, while we are a New Testament/Covenant people, the Old Testament still has plenty to say to us. Read it as a Christian.
Read the sacrifices and see Christ.
Read the priesthood and see Christ.
Read the promises and see Christ.
Read the law and see God's holiness, humanity's sin, and our need for redemption.
And when you come across a command that no longer applies to Christians in the same covenantal way, don't conclude that the Bible has become irrelevant. Instead, ask what that command reveals about God's purposes and how those purposes find their fulfillment in Jesus.
The Old Testament isn't an archaic, irrelevant part of God's Word, it is the story that leads us to Jesus. As I like to say in sermons from time to time: all roads of scripture lead to Christ! And when we finally see Christ as the fulfillment of the law, we don't have less reason to love God's word, we have more.
From Genesis to Malachi, the Scriptures are telling us the same basic story: God is holy. We are sinners. God provides a way for sinners to approach him. That way is Jesus.
TO KNOW GOD AND TO MAKE HIM KNOWN!
- Pastor Brady
Have a question for Theology Thursday? Send an email to office@minierchristian.org and we'll respond, or we'll include in a future Theology Thursday Buffet.
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2026
January
Teaching Tuesday: In His Image - Genesis 1:1-2:3Theology Thursday: The Christlike CreedTeaching Tuesday: Right Relationship - Genesis 2:7-9, 15-25Theology Thursday: Stop Reading the NewsTeaching Tuesday: The Fall - Genesis 3Theology Thursday: Is eternal conscious torment biblical? Teaching Tuesday: First Family Feud - Genesis 4Theology Thursday: Praying for the persecuted church
February
Teaching Tuesday: First Family Feud - Genesis 4 CopyTheology Thursday: Does James 2:24 contradict justification by faith?Teaching Tuesday: The Promise - Genesis 9:8-17Theology Thursday: Her desire will be for her husband?Theology Thursday: What's the deal with speaking in tongues?Theology Thursday: Buffet 5
March
April
Theology Thursday: Why do Christians oppose abortion?Theology Thursday: What's this about revival?Theology Thursday: Would you consider coming back to church?Theology Thursday: How should Christians think about gambling?Theology Thursday: What’s the difference between “conservative” and “progressive” theology?
May
September
2025
January
Theology Thursday: What is the purpose of Scripture?Teaching Tuesday: What Are We Doing Here? - God's BlessingTheology Thursday: Son of God, Son of ManTeaching Tuesday: What Are We Doing Here? - Knowing GodTheology Thursday: Buffet 2Teaching Tuesday: What Are We Doing Here? - Alive in ChristTheology Thursday: Murder is wrong, but...Teaching Tuesday: What Are We Doing Here? - Unity in ChristTheology Thursday: God and "Natural" Disasters
February
Teaching Tuesday: What Are We Doing Here? - Church MembershipTheology Thursday: Evil and SufferingTeaching Tuesday: What Are We Doing Here? - Experiencing God's LoveTheology Thursday: God Is Into the Details (Exodus 25-30)Teaching Tuesday: What Are We Doing Here? - Church GrowthTheology Thursday: About those Jesus adsTeaching Tuesday: What Are We Doing Here? - Christian Living
March
Teaching Tuesday: What Are We Doing Here? - Christ-centered RelationshipsTheology Thursday: Where We Come FromTeaching Tuesday: What Are We Doing Here? - Spiritual ConflictTheology Thursday: In essentials, unity...and so onTeaching Tuesday: Dying Breaths - Forsaken?Theology Thursday: Christians Only, but Not the Only ChristiansTheology Thursday: Where Scripture speaks...
April
Theology Thursday: No Creed but ChristTeaching Tuesday: Dying Breaths - Mission AccomplishedTheology Thursday: MCC Member ExpectationsTeaching Tuesday: Dying Breaths - Hosanna to the Humble KingTheology Thursday: This is our homecomingTeaching Tuesday: Easter 2025 - The Ragman Theology Thursday: Are all sins the same?Teaching Tuesday: Beyond Belief - "Come, follow me."
May
Theology Thursday: The state of the churchTeaching Tuesday: Beyond Belief - PrayerTeaching Tuesday: ScriptureTheology Thursday: What's wrong with health and wealth?Teaching Tuesday: Beyond Belief - SolitudeTheology Thursday: What's the point of the Old Testament?Teaching Tuesday: Beyond Belief - FastingTheology Thursday: Idols of the Heart
June
Teaching Tuesday: Beyond Belief - ServiceTheology Thursday: Why did the Jews reject Jesus?Teaching Tuesday: Beyond Belief - GenerosityTheology Thursday: Christians have to give...do we have to tithe?Teaching Tuesday: Beyond Belief - SabbathTheology Thursday: Buffet 3Teaching Tuesday: Beyond Belief - CommunityTheology Thursday: Can everyone understand scripture?
July
Teaching Tuesday: Beyond Belief - WitnessTheology Thursday: 5 QuestionsTeaching Tuesday: Bible Stories - JosephTheology Thursday: Who/what were the Nephilim?Teaching Tuesday: Bible Stories - Moses and the burning bushTheology Thursday: The oldest Christian church?Teaching Tuesday: Bible Stories - Joshua, Rahab, and JerichoTheology Thursday: Mike Humphries' TestimonyTeaching Tuesday: Bible Stories - Noami, Ruth, and BoazTheology Thursday: Church Membership - What, Why, Who
August
Teaching Tuesday: Bible Stories - David and GoliathTheology Thursday: The Biblical Support for Church MembershipTeaching Tuesday: Bible Stories - Elijah and BaalTheology Thursday: Church Discipline and ExcommunicationTeaching Tuesday: Bible Stories - Jonah and the Big FishTheology Thursday: MCC's Membership PolicyTeaching Tuesday: Bible Stories - Daniel and the Lions' DenTheology Thursday: Buffet 4