7 Dec 2023
Recently, we have sermons and studies on two Old Testament books. It is undoubtedly true that it is not easy to preach and teach on OT books and apply the parallels and principles to ourselves in our current context.
Nevertheless, God teaches us about God in Scriptures, especially in the ‘prophets’ in the OT era.
At the heart of the response and application lies the knowledge of the character of God, which the prophets both reveal and confirm. The contemporary church needs the preaching and teaching of the “prophets” badly and why their absence in the pulpit and teaching ministry is so lamentable. It is true that preaching and teaching from the NT (particularly the epistles) are easier as far as exegesis and applications are concerned; the preaching and teaching from the OT require understanding of the historical context, the principles in the many narratives and the true original message of the prophets to the people and world in the OT,
When the ‘prophets’ are preached and taught, their analysis is often pressed into service to draw parallels to the state of our contemporary culture; their message is used to address the absent and unbelieving world and to confirm the saints in their distinctiveness.
We must realise that the bulk of the prophets’ message is directed to covenant people, as God warns them of the violation of their relationship with him and the impending consequences. It is because there is so little difference between Israel and the nations that they are heading for the same judgement destination.
For current preachers and teachers, this must mean that the major applications of the prophets will be to covenant people now. However, we must not use the prophets and the law they came to teach and apply as a big stick, with which to try to beat our congregations into being more holy. There are few more debilitating experiences than sitting under the preaching and teaching which substitute law for grace, threat for promise and which treats the whole congregation as though they they were all apostates.
It is the task of the pastor-teacher, as a physician of souls, to diagnose the spiritual life of his people from Scriptures so that the disease is recognised and accepted. Against that background, he then seeks to apply the remedies of grace to preach and teach for life-change, while recognising that this will be neither quick nor easy because the stubbornness of the human heart is so resistant to recognising its true spiritual state.
The exaltation of God’s holiness and the recognition of our deep sin are bound together as inseparable. Preaching and teaching OT book like Isaiah (one of the major prophets) will mean humbling ourselves in the dust before the exalted Holy One of Israel. It will demand the disappearance of our own idols – that is why the contemporary church is in desperate need of the preaching and teaching of the OT “prophets” besides those in the NT.