Some teachers claim the Old Testament is no longer relevant. Is this true?
That the Old Testament is no longer relevant is a really dangerous position to take. The Old Testament is so full of wisdom. We in the Reformed tradition, particularly, ought to stand against this kind of position, and I think we do.
Those of us in the Reformed tradition have always valued greatly the singing of psalms because they bring us to God’s own inspired spirituality. If you held to that kind of position that the Old Testament is no longer relevant, you couldn’t sing psalms.
I think one of the great tragedies of the church today is the loss of Sunday as a Christian Sabbath. I think, from a historical point of view, we’ll look back on this as one of the great losses of the church in the last fifty years. Where the church doesn’t take time for God, God may begin to stop taking time for the church. The Old Testament helps us to see clearly that the Sabbath is grounded in creation and that it is a responsibility for us to continue to honor and understand.
So, the Old Testament is so important for us that it’s terribly dangerous to go down the path of saying it’s irrelevant or passé.
This transcript is from a live Ask Ligonier event with W. Robert Godfrey and has been lightly edited for readability. To ask Ligonier a biblical or theological question, email ask@ligonier.org or message us on Facebook or Twitter.