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In my last post, we looked at what the main point of the Old Testament<\/a> is. A good time was had by all and lives were changed, I\u2019m sure.<\/p>\n Remember, I am not saying that land is \u201cthe center\u201d of the Old Testament, but, boy oh boy, it is important. Think about it: where in the Old Testament is Israel not,<\/p>\n Land makes the Old Testament story tick.<\/p>\n They were given laws<\/strong> that mark them off as a separate (i.e., \u201choly\u201d) people from the \u201cnations\u201d\u2013laws of what they can eat and not eat, touch and not touch, what to sacrifice and when, keeping the Sabbath, the feasts, male circumcision, etc..<\/p>\n None of these laws, these distinguishing marks, were given an expiration date.\u00a0Keeping those laws would ensure that they retained possession of the land.<\/em><\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the\u00a0sanctuary<\/strong>\u2013first the tabernacle in the wilderness and then their permanent structure in the land<\/em>, the temple built by Solomon. This temple was decreed as the only place<\/em> where God was to be worshiped and where sacrifice to atone for sin could happen.<\/p>\n Temple requires land<\/em>, hence, the exile posed a huge problem. God\u2019s dwelling place was leveled to the ground and the exiled Jews couldn\u2019t continue as is in some other structure on foreign soil. Rebuilding the temple once the Israelites returned was top priority.<\/p>\n In what sense, without these things, how can we speak of \u201cIsrael\u201d at all?<\/strong> This was the dilemma the Israelites first had to deal with while in exile in Babylon: how to be an Israelite when their entire religious system is predicated upon land, temple, and the laws that need to be kept there?<\/p>\n Beginning with\u00a0the\u00a0exile, Israelites had to think creatively about how to \u201cbe Jewish\u201d\u2013i.e., how to remain tied to a God and a Scripture that assumed as a premise the possession of the land and a functioning religious system therein<\/em>. It\u2019s a bit reductionistic, but one reason synagogues developed was as a response to that challenge: study of Torah became a means of connecting with God when the land-and-temple-locked means of connection were not available. \u00a0But I digress.<\/p>\n Now think about these core elements of Israel\u2019s story and what becomes of them in the New Testament.<\/p>\n Tie this to the kind of \u201cmessiah\u201d Jesus was.<\/p>\n An expectation of a messiah in Jesus\u2019 day\u2013at least for those Jews who thought of such a figure\u2013was sort of a military holy man<\/strong>. As N. T. Wright puts it, \u201cwith a sword in one hand and Torah in the other.\u201d His job was to re-establish Jewish\u00a0independence\u00a0from Rome in order to bring back the glory days of Israel and usher in a new age, where Israel, in the land, with its temple, and its king on the throne, embodied the very presence of God. Israel would be what it was meant to be: the center of the world.<\/p>\n Jesus, as we all know, had other ideas\u2013a \u201ckingdom of God\u201d that was not marked by military might or\u00a0political\u00a0power, but by inner transformation and love and service toward others. And nothing in the Old Testament prepared the Jews for a messiah who would arrive on the scene and, instead of winning, be executed by the very people he was supposed to defeat\u2013and then rise from the dead shortly thereafter.<\/p>\n So, here\u2013finally\u2013is my point for today:<\/p>\n Tying together Israel\u2019s story and the Gospel has been the grand challenge of the church since the very beginning.\u00a0The\u00a0two don\u2019t fit together easily, and it takes creative energy to bring them together.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n What we see in the New Testament is the early followers of Jesus,\u00a0like\u00a0the\u00a0Gospel writers and Paul, taking up that challenge. They are doing the work of connecting Israel\u2019s story\u2013with its focus on land, temple, gentile exclusion, holiness laws, etc\u2013to the Jesus story\u2013where those elements were no longer central, and where Messiah Jesus didn\u2019t meet expectations.<\/p>\n To bring those stories together, the Old Testament could no longer be followed, but had to be transformed<\/em> beyond its original intentions. <\/strong><\/p>\n The New Testament writers\u00a0<\/strong>were assigned this task of explaining how the Gospel, which goes so far beyond the confines of Israel\u2019s story, is still connected to Israel\u2019s story. The center point of that transformation was Jesus.<\/a><\/p>\n I don\u2019t want to overstate, but accepting this \u201chermeneutical\u00a0challenge\u201d has been the church\u2019s task ever since. When that transformational\u00a0dimension\u00a0is retained, I think this is where the\u00a0hermeneutical\u00a0challenge is being met well. Whenever the Old Testament is seen as either an independently valid source of theology rather than in need of the transformation modeled by the New Testament, I feel that\u00a0hermeneutical\u00a0ball has been dropped.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
Israel\u2019s\u00a0entire\u00a0existence is predicated upon possession of the land\u2013their inheritance, their gift from God.<\/h2>\n
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