These are the final chapters of Old Testament history! You have made it through the Old Testament – every bit of it, including some obscure prophets that people may be tempted to feel justified in overlooking, those dull genealogies, and Leviticus! I hope and I have prayed that you have gained insight and found meaning in each book and will never give in to the temptation to skip over certain books or disdain the Old Testament as unimportant. I have also prayed and will continue mentioning my Bible readers in my prayers, that you will continue to read systematically through your Bibles beyond this year, expecting to grow in your understanding, depth of insight, and love for God’s word, and that your expectation will be rewarded.
I will not be posting daily as we read through the New Testament. The purpose of my writing has been to share some insights to help your understanding, and to cheer you on through some of the more difficult passages. None of that is needed in the New Testament, is it? This is easy reading that delights most of us. The relatively easy reading in the New Testament does not justify the strain of my writing virtually daily while working two jobs, in my opinion. At a minimum, I will give introductions to books to help you fit them into the bigger picture. I also want to provide coaching for you to finish this good work to the end, because I want you to have that victory. And of course I will be praying for you.
It’s interesting to me that the history of the Old Testament ends as it does, with Nehemiah’s reforms he found necessary to steer the wayward Jews back on the track of obedience to the covenant they had made with God in yesterday’s reading. Returning to Judah after an absence of “some time,” he found that they had strayed back into some of the very habits that had led to their forefathers’ downfall. Would those Old Testament people of God never get it right?
Nehemiah’s efforts at reform must have been something to witness, as he rebuked, called curses down on them, beat some, and pulled out their hair! And he expected God to remember him with favor for that! It must have gotten through to them, because the next time we see God’s Old Covenant people, in the Gospels four hundred years later, we will see them still keeping the Sabbath faithfully and refusing to intermarry with Gentiles. That’s a good thing, right? The problem is, we will see that they had gotten carried away in establishing rules for the Sabbath that made it a burden. Their Sabbath rules and inflexibility were a frequent source of friction between them and Jesus. They maintained such a distinction between themselves and Gentiles that they wouldn’t talk to some people whom they considered undesirable. Even when they obeyed God’s commands they couldn’t get it right! They lacked God’s heart! Clearly rules didn’t fulfill the need created by man’s sin; God’s Old Covenant plan was simply not effective at restoring man’s relationship with Him to what it was meant to be.
So rules didn’t fulfill the need created by man’s sin; the need was for transformation. That is the work God promised to do, the new work He spoke of in Isaiah, and new hearts He spoke about in Ezekiel. The Old Testament has established beyond a doubt man’s need for transformation, his inability to bring about that transformation himself, and his desperate need for Messiah, that son of Eve who God promised in Genesis 3:15 would crush Satan’s head. Bring Him on!