The New Testament page – almost every Bible includes one, right? We need to know when the old stuff stopped and the new stuff began so we can be sure not to taint ourselves with the old, and reserve those only as children’s stories. Am I right?
This page doesn’t exist in many of my Bibles at home. It’s a page inserted by man, not by God. It doesn’t contain the words of God, or the teachings of Yeshua, and it’s not a letter written by the Apostles. It’s there to cause division based on the paradigm of those who put it together.
Imagine for a moment if that page wasn’t there. Imagine if we all just read the Bible as one complete set of books. Imagine if you started reading the Bible at the beginning, like all other books, and not at Matthew. I’m not saying it’s a necessity to read the Bible like all other books, but so many of us have forgotten the details of the first half, so when we get to the second half, we begin to misinterpret things based on our own paradigm. And we know that the Bible is written in different styles, some apocalyptic, some historical, some poetry, so we need to know what type of literature we’re reading in order to interpret it correctly.
But God is good. He must of anticipated this because check out what He does! In the last chapter of the very last book of the old testament, the prophet Malachi, these words are written… almost as a warning for humanity.
Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.
Malachi 4:4 (KJV)
Remember the law of Moses which God Himself gave to him. Now keep reading the book… but don’t forsake the law. Fascinating!
And how does the new testament begin? What are the first words of the book of Matthew? It’s the genealogy of Yeshua. These very first words take us directly back to the old stuff, from where Yeshua’s life and example came. It’s as if God is reminding us to go back… go back and read the history therein. It’s your history too.
I know we like to think of Yeshua as instituting a new religion called Christianity, or as if He taught us new things, but I’d like to make a bold statement here. Yeshua never taught anything new. I can trace every teaching of Yeshua found in the new testament back to a similar teaching in the old testament. They go hand in hand. There’s a saying that goes like this: “The old testament is the new concealed. The new testament is the old revealed.” Think about it. It’s a powerful collection of books. Don’t forget to go back and read the first half – it will amaze you.
Leave a Reply