ArticleBlog | Preaching inside the mansion of the Old Testament
Preaching inside the mansion of the Old Testament
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 19.12.21
To many Christians, preachers included, reading the Old Testament feels like stepping over the threshold into an ancient mansion. Wander down the halls and peer into each of the rooms. They’re both bizarre and eerily delightful. There’s the foreboding den of Judges, splashed with darkness, where the creed of ‘Do whatever you think is right’ reigns supreme. The tiny but fierce coat closet of Obadiah. The vast music room of the Psalms, where hallelujahs dance across the floor and lamentations limp to the corner. And, lest we forget, there’s the combination kitchen and fridge of Leviticus, where we’re never quite sure if we’re experiencing a BBQ or a liturgy.
Welcome to the wild and beautiful Hebrew textual mansion. It occupies about the first three-quarters of the Christian Bible. I decided one time to lug a couple of suitcases into this edifice and spend a day or two exploring its rooms, attic, and basement. Thirty years later, here I still am. I can’t leave. I don’t want to leave. Why? Besides the obvious (it’s God’s word to his church), what’s kept me rooted in these stories is that every day I unearth something new about myself, my world, my God, and the salvation he gives us in Jesus. Millennia may separate us from Jacob, for instance, but I have yet to meet a more ‘modern man’ than this ambitious and egotistical character. Whether he’s fighting with his brother in utero, engaging in the first recorded episode of identity theft, or rolling in the mud one night w ith God’s mysterious messenger, what matters most to Jacob is, well, Jacob. He has to win. He was born with a Hebrew name meaning ‘heel’ but he wants to be head of everything. In this highly unlikable character, I spy all the highly unlikable character flaws that I, too, possess. Jacob shows me, me. But he also shows me – and all of us – that the grace of God does not go scouting for people worthy of divine love. The Lord loves because the Lord is love. He loves even Jacob, as he loves all of us flawed and broken people still today.
