Just before serving in Vietnam in the ’60s, Normie Rowe made his name as a rising Australian pop singer. One of his biggest hits of the time, taken from Gershwin’s musical Porgy and Bess, had the title It ain’t necessarily so! The song was essentially having a go at traditional Christian beliefs. He sang, over and over, “the things that you’re li’ble to read in the Bible ain’t necessarily so!”

The ’60s was a time for questioning traditional beliefs and practices. Since many of the examples in Rowe’s song came from the Old Testament, the song tended to reinforce the widely held view that the Old Testament is irrelevant to modern life.

Sadly, however, not only the secular world takes this view. Many churchgoers seldom read the Old Testament, finding little relevance for the Old Testament in their daily lives. This is exacerbated by the fact that few preachers expound the Old Testament.

We do hear from time to time charac­ter studies of some of the great men and women of the Old Testament. We also occasionally hear sermons that launch out from a favourite Old Testament text of the preacher. But such preachers seldom explain the context of these Old Testament texts, with a result that the person in the pew does not appreciate the intended theological thrust of the text.

We hardly hear the Old Testament referred to as a guide for daily living despite the unmistakable fact that virtu­ally every human emotion and experience is referred to somewhere in the Old Testament. Even many devotional aids have only superficial reading in the Old Testament.

Why this should be a cause for concern is the clear picture in the Gospels that the Old Testament was the Bible of our Lord Jesus, not to mention the Apostle Paul.

From his early youth our Lord dili­gently studied the Old Testament Scriptures to see what they said about his role as the promised Messiah of Israel. Tempted by the devil at the start of his public ministry, he counteracted the devil’s deliberate misuse of Scripture by a right understanding and application of Scripture (Mt. 4:1-11).

In his interaction with the disciples of John the Baptist as well as the religious leaders of the day, Jesus demonstrated that his earthly ministry was underpinned by the Old Testament (Mt. 11:1-6; 5:17­-20). After his resurrection, he walked with two of his followers to the village of Emmaus, patiently explaining how the Old Testament Scriptures pointed to him and his suffering (Luke 24:27, 44-48).

In many ways, the Book of Hebrews is a pivotal book of the Bible as it fleshes out for us the biblical and theological context of the person and work of Christ. Hebrews links the two Testaments of the Bible as it helps us to understand who Jesus is and what Jesus achieved on the cross. It explains how the ritual of the Old Testament (especially the priesthood and the Day of Atonement) is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

There are as many as 38 quotations from the Old Testament and some 55 indirect references to the Old Testament in Hebrews. When the New Testament quotes from the Old Testament, the quo­tation is often introduced by the words “as it is written” or “as it is written in ­ the prophet”.

Hebrews also uses these introductory formulae, but what is striking is that Hebrews frequently employs such intro­ductions as “He (ie God) says” (Heb. 1:6 — see also 1:7,8,10; 2:13; 4:5; 5:6), “as the Holy Spirit says” (Hebrews 3:7 — see also 10:5) and “the word of encouragement that addresses you as sons” (Hebrews 12:5). In each of these introductory for­mulae the verb is in the present tense. This is Hebrews’ emphatic way of underscor­ing the fact that God continues to speak to his people through the Old Testament Scriptures.

Therefore, we should be aware of the danger of having what might be termed a two-tiered system of viewing Scripture. Such a system would view the Old Testament as on a lower level to the New Testament. If we are not careful, we can easily adopt such a two-tiered system of Scripture, either consciously of unconsciously.

One mistake that was not uncommon among Christians of an earlier generation was to consider that the Old Testament is characterised by law whereas the New Testament is characterised by grace. These days Christians are apt to think incor­rectly that “the New Testament is more the Word of God than the Old Testament is because it teaches us what to believe and how to live”. If we get to grips with the message of Hebrews we will not fall into such error.

It is not just what we say we believe about the Old Testament that counts but also how we actually read and apply the Old Testament. A famous international Bible expositor led a preaching seminar attended by hundreds of keen preachers. The seminar was truly inspiring as the participants were challenged and equipped to become workmen who “correctly handle the Word of God” (2 Tim. 2:15).

But what was intriguing was that he declared that it was his practice to encourage those starting a preaching ministry to concentrate almost exclusively on preach­ing from the New Testament. Although he would almost certainly be opposed to such a thought, he was unwittingly rein­forcing a two-tiered system of viewing Scripture.

What he should have pointed out is that it is more challenging and more difficult to preach from the Old Testament than the New, so those starting a preach­ing ministry should bear this in mind as they expound both Testaments to pro­claim the whole counsel of God to their congregation.

The key theme of the Book of Hebrews is the theme of the New Covenant. Indeed, the phrase “the New Covenant” occurs far more often in Hebrews than in the rest of the New Testament. The New Covenant is, in fact, the focus of Hebrews 8-10.

To understand the New Covenant we must understand the Old. Hebrews helps us appreciate the elements of continuity and discontinuity between the covenants. The New Covenant is continuous with the Old as it is the same God who initiates both, and as the Old Covenant is a “shadow” or “type” of the New Covenant which it anticipates. The New Covenant is “new” because it is a new expression or a new dimension of God’s covenant with men and women. On the other hand, Hebrews points out that the New Covenant is discontinuous with the Old because the Old Covenant is termed “obsolete” (Heb. 8:13).

Our Church’s tradition over the cen­turies has been to emphasise God’s covenant with men and women. Our unmistakable affirmation that both the Old Testament and the New Testament are the inspired Word of God which continues to be our final authority in all mat­ters of faith and conduct is clearly reflected in our Church’s Subordinate Standard. Further, our understanding of the sacraments (in particular, infant bap­tism) indicates our understanding of the continuity between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.

We must be faithful in proclaiming the message of the whole Bible to a generation which is spiritually lost.

When was the last time your minister expounded the Old Testament from the pulpit? When was the last time your Home Bible Study Group did serious study of a portion of the Old Testament?