How many times have you heard an Old Testament sermon contain something to the extent of “We should strive to be more like Abraham/Joseph/Moses/David/etc.”? As well as something like this might “preach,” I don’t think that is the right way to apply or preach an Old Testament passage.
The reason I say that is because of the greatest fact of history, which happens to be the only reason I am a Christian: Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead. Because Christ rose from the dead, Christians are called to read the entire Old Testament (and, by extension, apply the entire Old Testament) in light of this historical fact.
As motivational and inspiring as it might be to read the stories of the Old Testament as great examples of faith, the stories of the Old Testament need to be read not in a moralistic fashion (i.e. “David faced Goliath so now I can face the giants in my life!”), but in a “Christotelic” fashion (i.e. seeing Christ as the end (Grk. telos) and culmination of the story of Israel). The resurrection of Christ does not only touch our lives in a spiritual sense (although it does do that), but also in a ‘hermeneutical’ sense. It does not only define how we relate to God in the present, but also defines how we read the Old Testament as Scripture.
Reading and applying the Old Testament in a moralistic fashion misses the gospel. There is no grace in saying, “Be like David” because we will all inevitably fail in doing so. The focal point of this type of reading is the story itself and not the story in light of the resurrection of Christ, which should be the controlling factor in a Christian reading of the Old Testament.
A Christotelic reading of the Old Testament sees the story of Christ, as the true Israel and the true human, as being its fulfillment. This means that a Christian reading of the Old Testament moves beyond the “grammatical-historical” method (which focuses on the text’s “original meaning” and the text’s “original audience”) into seeing Christ as the ultimate fulfillment towards which the Old Testament is pointing.
This does not mean reading Christ into ever point within the Old Testament (i.e. seeing Rahab’s scarlet cord as a precursor to the blood of Christ saving the world), but seeing Christ as the culmination and fulfillment of the story of Israel.
Peter Enns puts it well in his NIV Application Commentary on Exodus:
“What we call the Old Testament is rightly understood fully only in light of the resurrection of Christ. This is because the resurrection of Christ is the ultimate fulfillment of everything the Old Testament—God’s book, Holy Scripture—pointed toward in the first place. (p.28)
So the next time you read an Old Testament story, don’t apply it in a moralistic way asking something like, “How can I be more like Joseph/David/etc.” Rather read it in light of the resurrection of Christ and ask, “How does this story or this person point to Christ and the gospel?” Anything less than that is less than a Christian reading of the Old Testament.
28 January 2007 at 7.33 pm
Art,
Do you know of anyone besides Tim Keller who preaches like this and does it well?
28 January 2007 at 7.55 pm
I haven’t listened to too many preachers do that much work on the OT. I’ve been listening to Driscoll who is currently going through the book of Ruth. He’s given to a lot of anachronism (calling Boaz and Ruth ‘Christians’), but he does not resort to the moralistic reading at least; but I wouldn’t call his preaching ‘Christotelic.’
Does any one else know of any preachers who preach this way?
28 January 2007 at 8.03 pm
Most of the sermons at http://www.kerux.com are along these lines.
I think Wright also excels in reading the OT this way in his sermons. The problem: for Joe Schmoe who decides to preach through whole books of the OT. It’s easy for an article in a journal or a guy who doesn’t preach every week to pick those “softball” passages that are easy to crank out of the park. But what do you do if you’re preaching through Kings? “And so once again, this king was bad, but Jesus is our good king, etc. etc.” Art, I’m 100% down with what you’re saying, and I don’t think the solution to the difficulty I raise is to go moralistic on it, but I haven’t really heard a good way of getting through lots of these similar OT passages that show up in the longer narrative books. Any ideas?
28 January 2007 at 8.23 pm
That’s a great question Jason: How does one preach through Samuel or Kings Christotelically without being redundant?
I’ll have to think about that one for a while.
Anyone have any ideas?
29 January 2007 at 1.16 am
This question came up in my Gospel Communication class. Many of us felt that preaching Christotelically doesn’t mean you have to find Christ in every verse, but rather that you keep the congregation aware of the Christotellic trajectories that generally flow through books like Kings or Chronicles.
For this reason I am not as enthusiastic for the “preaching through verse-by-verse” approach so in vogue in many conservative circles. It risks losing the forest for the trees.
29 January 2007 at 4.58 am
Great post Art.
Coming from a church that preaches the “be like David” type of sermon, I can see that it also has an effect on the congregations view of the Christian life. Most of them have the view that Christianity is about having quiet times, tithing, not sinning and being heroic like your favorite bible character. I mean, can you only imagine the effects it has on a church that takes all verses pertaining to the OT Temple and applying it to the church as a building.
The problem I see is that the church that views the bible with no distinction within the covenants will start preaching this way. Could one say that this view of things affects one’s ultimate view of the Christian life.
I would say it does. Because then we start looking at Christ as one of the other “heroes” in our Bibles that we have to start modeling our lives around.
thoughts?