Is it spiritually necessary for a Christian to read the whole Old Testament?

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I'm reading the Bible "cover to cover," as it were, right now, and I'm currently in the Book of Judges (long way to go). I had started reading it largely out of literary interest (for those of you who were smart enough not to major in English in college, the Bible is also a collection of literary masterpieces), but as I began inclining towards Christianity, I found myself looking for Christian spiritual value in the Judeo-Christian text.

So my question is, while the later books of the Old Testament do contain important Christian prophecies, and while all Christians have an understanding of the Genesis narrative, and while it's good to know something about the relationship between God and humankind before Christ, is it of religious value to the Christian to go through the Old Testament word-for-word (perhaps even including Leviticus– not recommended!), to really go through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation without skipping anything?
 
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oi_antz

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I'm reading the Bible "cover to cover," as it were, right now, and I'm currently in the Book of Judges (long way to go). I had started reading it largely out of literary interest (for those of you who were smart enough not to major in English in college, the Bible is also a collection of literary masterpieces), but as I began inclining towards Christianity, I found myself looking for Christian spiritual value in the Judeo-Christian text.

So my question is, while the later books of the Old Testament do contain important Christian prophecies, and while all Christians have an understanding of the Genesis narrative, and while it's good to know something about the relationship between God and humankind before Christ, is it of religious value to the Christian to go through the Old Testament word-for-word (perhaps even including Leviticus– not recommended!), to really go through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation without skipping anything?
Yes! All of that knowledge is then available to you in memory, as you operate in service to God. The more you study it, the more you will know the value that it has to your service.
 
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fat wee robin

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:angry::angry:
I'm reading the Bible "cover to cover," as it were, right now, and I'm currently in the Book of Judges (long way to go). I had started reading it largely out of literary interest (for those of you who were smart enough not to major in English in college, the Bible is also a collection of literary masterpieces), but as I began inclining towards Christianity, I found myself looking for Christian spiritual value in the Judeo-Christian text.

So my question is, while the later books of the Old Testament do contain important Christian prophecies, and while all Christians have an understanding of the Genesis narrative, and while it's good to know something about the relationship between God and humankind before Christ, is it of religious value to the Christian to go through the Old Testament word-for-word (perhaps even including Leviticus– not recommended!), to really go through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation without skipping anything?
No it is not neccessary and there are millions of saints who probably read nothing of the Old Testament ,but I would recommend that you read what you discern as good for you
in your walk with god .He will guide you if you ask . Many people who knew the bible very well will be in 'hell' .:angry: :smiley:
 
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Job8

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Yes. But not merely "read". If you fail to study the Bible you will gain little from a mere reading. Please go to 2 Timothy 3:15-17 and grasp what is stated there. The Bible is an organic whole, not just bits and pieces to be picked or discarded. And all of it is THE WORD OF GOD.
 
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seashale76

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Noting that there have been times when literacy wasn't a widespread thing and books were considered expensive luxuries. The Church has 'readers/chanters' and a liturgical cycle, so a lot of scripture is read in the Church throughout the year. Also noting that the Church was up and running for a while before the NT was compiled as we have it today too.
 
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mmksparbud

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Seeing as that is the only thing that the newest Christians studied that lead them to accepting Christ as the Messiah, I would say, yes.
(2Ti 2:15) Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
This was talking about the OT. The New was not really yet put together, but there were letters that the disciples sent out.

The study of the Levitical priesthood, the whole sanctuary service, all point to the salvation of Christ. Without the OT there is no basis for even knowing about God and creation and the coming Messiah. It provides the basics for the understanding of the NT.
 
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Aino

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Well reading any part of the Bible is not a salvation issue. You can be a christian without being able to read or without an access to a Bible. After all, as someone above stated, not so long ago books in general were too expensive for almost anyone, and there's still countries where having a Bible is not acceptable, ethnic groups of people who don't have a Bible in their language etc. And it's not obvious that everyone can read (and understand) the text! And Jesus still is there for them too. It's possible for them to learn about God and be saved just as for anyone else too.

That being said, all of the Scriptures are useful for the christian to read too. Of course, the New testament is easier to understand, and parts of the Old testament are more easily understood then others. But everything is in the Bible for a reason and it's possible to find some spiritual meaning from it. The Holy Spirit is there to guide us when we study the scriptures. Also, there's some good tools for connecting passages to other passages in the Bible to open up the context more. And some passages maybe need more background study then others to fully comprehend what it means and what possible meanings it has to a christian. Commentaries etc. are also useful for complete understanding of the Bible.

But in the end the one good part about the Bible I like the most is that it is kind of like an onion: You read it once and then see the first layer and it's perfect the way it is. The next time you maybe get to the next layer and see a totally different side of it and that's perfect too. There's endless ways of looking at different Bible passages and that way you can always achieve a deeper, different understanding of scriptures, but never become perfect so that you'd have to stop studying. :)
 
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jbearnolimits

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One of the most devastating things Christians tend to do is separate the Old from the New Testament. What I mean by that is that they want to throw away the Old and just go with the New, but the New is only the Old Testament now in the hearts of believers.

The Bible says God never changes, yet too often we think He is not the same in the New Testament that He was in the Old. We forget that it was He who gave the laws in Leviticus and He never changed His view of what was right and wrong. Read http://onthelineministries.com/old-testament-vs-new-testament/ to understand how the Old and New work together.
 
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ViaCrucis

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I'm reading the Bible "cover to cover," as it were, right now, and I'm currently in the Book of Judges (long way to go). I had started reading it largely out of literary interest (for those of you who were smart enough not to major in English in college, the Bible is also a collection of literary masterpieces), but as I began inclining towards Christianity, I found myself looking for Christian spiritual value in the Judeo-Christian text.

So my question is, while the later books of the Old Testament do contain important Christian prophecies, and while all Christians have an understanding of the Genesis narrative, and while it's good to know something about the relationship between God and humankind before Christ, is it of religious value to the Christian to go through the Old Testament word-for-word (perhaps even including Leviticus– not recommended!), to really go through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation without skipping anything?

In answering this question I really ended up talking more broadly about the Bible than what you explicitly asked, as I think it is helpful to have a fairly thorough grasp on what the Bible even is.

For most of Christian history the Bible wasn't a "book" that one could simply go pick up at the market, take home and have a nice read. Books were meticulously hand-copied and very often preserved in libraries or, in the case of Biblical codices, in monasteries and churches. The way the vast majority of Christians encountered the Scriptures was because Scripture was read out loud during worship. In fact that's how the Bible came to be in the first place; nobody got together and asked the question, "What books are inspired and what books are not inspired" and then just made a Bible; the question was, "What books do we read in worship?" The concept of a Canon--a standard--of Scripture arose out of discussions about which books were fitting for use in Christian worship and which books were not.

Now this isn't to say that there was this very large pool of books and people just plucked a few; there already existed in the time of the earliest Christians a kind of Jewish proto-canon, what is often called the "Law and the Prophets" in the writings of the New Testament. The Law corresponds to the Torah, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy--this was the central text of Judaism. In addition there was "The Prophets", known today as the Major and Minor Prophets, the separate books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and the 12 Minor Prophets as a single book (Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Zechariah, etc). There was also a third category, the Writings of which the Psalms were the most important. But then there were other books which were not clearly accepted or rejected, such as the book of Daniel, or Esther, etc. When Christianity began Judaism had no firmly established Biblical Canon, and the Jewish Tanakh evolved in parallel and independently of the Christian Canon.

There did exist the Septuagint, however, a translation made several centuries before Christ of Jewish sacred writings into Greek; as a readily available collection of Scripture this was very widely used by the early Christians who were preaching their message primarily in Greek and to a Greek-speaking empire (the Roman Empire). Indeed quotations from what we call the Old Testament in Gospels and letters of Paul are very often quoted verbatim from the Septuagint. And so the Septuagint provided something of an easily accessible "Bible" for the earliest Christians. Though there remained questions in regard to some books, for example Esther, and books often called Deuterocanonical or more confusingly "Apocrypha" today.

The development of the New Testament runs a bit differently. Very early on, by the 2nd century, Christians had begun to incorporate readings from the Four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and the letters of St. Paul in addition to readings from the Septuagint as part of regular Christian worship. To that end there existed very early a nucleus of a New Testament, the four Gospels and the thirteen epistles of Paul. Other undisputed writings (called homolegoumena, the accepted writings) included the Acts of the Apostles, the first epistle of John (1 John) and the first epistle of Peter (1 Peter). There did however remain a collection of disputed writings, called antilegomena,; the antilegomena includes well known books currently accepted such as 2 and 3 John, 2 Peter, the epistle of James, the epistle of Jude, the epistle to the Hebrews, and the Revelation (Apocalypse) of John. The antilegomena also includes less well known works: the epistle of Clement, the epistle of Barnabas, the Didache, the Apocalypse (or Revelation) of Peter, and the Shepherd of Hermas. We have biblical codices as late as the 5th century which includes (for example) Clement and the Shepherd, but does not include the Revelation of John. This small collection of antilegomena were the only books which were of significant difference and debate among ancient Christians; books that some have incorrectly called "lost books of the Bible" were never taken seriously, such as the infancy gospels, or the Gnostic gospels, or the various "acts" such as the Acts of John, the Acts of Thomas, or the Acts of Peter. Such works were universally panned as either heretical or as works of pious fiction which may be interesting but not worth taking seriously.

And the evolution of the Bible in this way came about through the Scriptures being read as part of Christian worship. I think the history of the Canon is important as it helps us inform how we ought to read the Bible.

So directly: No it is not essential that a Christian read the entire Old Testament, in the history of Christianity such a thing would have been near impossible for the vast majority of Christians prior to the invention of the movable type printing press.

What really matters is not so much that you read it all, but that when you read or hear what it says you understand what it's saying. In Christianity, historically, the Bible is not about you, or me, or us; the Bible is about Jesus. That includes the Old Testament. The entire Bible is read Christocentrically.

And what can be absolutely disastrous when reading the Bible is to imagine one is the first to "get it", or to think we can read it all by ourselves without any help, or think that somehow God will magically beam down the right understanding directly into our brains. Here's a pretty good video I recently saw someone else post in another thread:


The Bible does not magically make us more spiritual or more wise to Christian truth; but the Bible properly read and in the context of the Christian Church, does feed us the nourishing life-giving Word of God, as it points us to Jesus, it feeds us Jesus.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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dcalling

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Thanks ViaCruics, always a interest read.

And to Directory, the OT (judges, kings) are very interesting, when I was atheist, I love the read those (Lev and Numbers/Prophets are boring). The problem is some part of it is hard to understand without the history/culture context.

The NT is sort of boring to non-believers (except Acts), but the core is in Luke 10:27 or Mark 12:30-31, short but powerful.
 
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graceandpeace

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Seashale76 & ViaCrucis gave important answers for the OP.

The only thing I could add that I think was already touched upon is that everything in the Bible should be read in light of Jesus Christ - His teachings, His example, etc. For Christians, the Old Testament finds its fulfillment in the New, & knowing about Jesus really helps everything come full circle.
 
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ViaCrucis

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After re-reading my post I thought I'd try and clear up any potential confusion. I don't think anyone took it this way, but just in case: I don't want to give the impression that I think one shouldn't read as much of the Bible as possible. I think it is absolutely invaluable to be a regular Bible reader. For us Christians it's an absolute privilege that we are able, due to modern technology, to have such an ease of access to the Bible and in our own language.

What I caution against is private Scripture reading over and against corporate Bible reading; that is, going lone wolf with Scripture rather than reading and hearing Scripture as part of the historic Christian community. The Bible isn't my book, or your book, it's the Church's "book" (though calling it a book at all is misleading as it is a library of books). So when we, as individuals, read the Scriptures it should still be with the idea that we are part of the larger Christian community. If our understanding of this or that part or passage of the Bible differs radically from the way Christians have, throughout time and all over the world, understood it we should consider carefully the real possibility that we're getting it wrong because we are bringing a host of our own 21st century Western prejudices (remembering that the writers did not speak our language, live the sorts of lives we live, or even think the way we typically think) and so listening to that "great cloud of witnesses" is absolutely indispensable in our own reading of the Bible.

So we should tread wisely and cautiously that we do not abuse the privilege we have as modern Bible readers by the misuse and abuse of Scripture, which is a very real temptation and reality--many have used the Scriptures to advocate their own heresy, or to lead people to very real--even physical--danger; there have been not a few dangerous cults who claiming the authority of Scripture as a means of control have led people to their very real harm and even death. The Bible is not a weapon to be wielded, it is the received holy Scripture that, in our fellowship together in the Church, lifts up Christ before us that we might believe in Him and confess Him before one another and the world. Because Christ is the object of our faith, not the Bible, the Bible points us to Christ, He's what matters.

This is the chief difference between the way Islam looks at their scriptures, the Qur'an, and the way Christians look at theirs, the Bible. In Islam the Word of God in a sense became text, in the revelation given to Muhammad and written down as the Qur'an; in Christianity however the Word of God became flesh, became a human person, Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ is the chief revelation of God to the world, the very Word of God Incarnate. The Bible isn't the chief revelation of God, Jesus is; the Bible lifts up and points us to Jesus.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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Soyeong

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Ecclesiastes 1:9 What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.

This is my rabbi's favorite verse and I think it speaks powerfully about how we should understand the Bible. The OT is full of themes and types that are shadows of the Messiah and instruct about him. If you read the OT and don't see the Messiah, then you've missed the whole point because it's all about him. The OT is foundational to Christianity and the NT authors quoted or alluded to the OT thousands of times to give authority to what they were saying and to show that they have not deviated from it.
 
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jbearnolimits

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I think if Christianity is a personal relationship with Christ then we need to have a personal relationship with His word. As a result I believe it is not the best idea to do anything BUT go "lone wolf" if the need arises. Because if the rest of the pack is sick we need at least one of us willing to stand against it. I am reminded of the many many MANY times when the pack have been wrong. In fact, often that is when the lone preacher would begin to speak out against what was commonly taught. Often they were killed or told not to go against the "church."

And considering how few were saved from the flood it only makes sense that we NEED that personal relationship with the word of God in case the rest of the world is getting ready to go swimming. Will others tell that lone preacher he is doing wrong? Yes. Will they tell him he isn't being reasonable? Yes. Will they try to explain to him about all the great men who believed everything was going to be fine and ask him if he thought he was better than them? Yes....and then one day the flood will come.
 
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Jeremy J

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The Old Testament provides us with plenty of historical examples of God's loving and just character. The more we study his word, the stronger our relationship with him becomes.
 
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ToBeLoved

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I never recommend to a new believer or someone seeking Jesus Christ to start with the Old Testament.

First and foremost because the Old Testament contains the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant was a specific covenant made with a specific people, the Hebrews. The Old Covenant can be thought of as the 10 commandments for simplicity's sake. However, with the Old Covenant if you broke one commandment, you broke all of them. That was the issue before Jesus Christ came and died for all sin. So Jesus could conquer sin and then forgive us our sins. Give us His righteousness.

So, the Old Testament and the New Testament are very different.

I would recommend ALWAYS starting in the New Testament because this gives us a clear understanding of who we are NOW in Jesus Christ. Because it is a huge difference.

To put the New Testament in some perspective, this is the shortened overview:

* Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the gospels that are about Jesus life and death.
* Acts is an overview of what the apostles did after Jesus death
* The Pauline Epistles written by Paul were to the churches he started, after he left when there were issues that arose, these were the letters he wrote to them.

Romans to the church at Rome
1 & 2 Corinthians to the church at Corinth
Phillipians to the church at Phillipi
Galatians to the church of Galatia
Ephesians the church at Ephesus
Colossians to the church at Colossae
1 & 2 Thessalonians to the church at Thessalonica

* There are three other Epistles that are called Pastoral Epistles

1 & 2 Timothy
Titus

* General Epistles

Hebrews
James
1 & 2 Peter
1 & 2 & 3 John
Jude

* Revelation is a book about the future that was written by John. Very hard to understand.

I recommend reading starting with the Gospels, then Acts, then the Pauline Epistles, followed by the Pastoral Epistles, then the General Epistles.

Then I would read the Old Testament.
 
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ToBeLoved

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Well, I've been hearing "be like Christ" thing a lot. Well, he was a Torah observant Jew- or so they say. The answer is simple, is it not? :)
Not at all.

Because we are not to be a Jew. Nor are we to follow the Law. We are to be Gentiles. Jesus came for the Jew AND the Gentile. To bring a New Covenant. A NEW and EVERLASTING Covenant. The Old Covenant was always temporary. It was temporary atonement through the blood of animals. Now we have the Lamb of God.
So, yes the answer is simple. We are not called to be torah observant jews. :)

We are called to be Jesus believing Christians. :D
 
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