Wheat and Chaff

The modern Christian often approaches his Christianity as a set of premises to accept or reject.  Christianity does certainly contain many premises.  But Christianity is also fundamentally about a story, and when all we know about that story is what Jesus did, we’re coming in about three-quarters of the way through.  The whole story begins with creation, goes through the lives of Noah, the patriarchs, Moses, Israel and David.  The story does not end until eternity, when the promised fellowship is finally fully restored.  Jesus’ life, death and resurrection is certainly the pinnacle and most crucial part of the story.  But we need the Old Testament to truly see the whole scope of God’s redemptive plan, the story that unfolds through all of human history.  We need the Old Testament to see ourselves properly within the sweep of that whole tale.  The story of redemptive history is so big and grand that we all come into it somewhere in the middle; no new believer has the perspective to start at the beginning and see the whole thing all at once.  So we have to start somewhere, and the ministry of Jesus is a very good place to start, the place where most Christians have always started.  But to deepen and broaden our understanding of the story of salvation, we need the Old Testament.  The book of Ezekiel captures a big piece of the story, a summary of God’s dealings with Israel and how that chapter of the story ends, and a new one begins.

-Excerpt from The Lord is There: Studies in the book of Ezekiel.