Christians, is the Old Testament obsolete?

Question

I've always been interested in this religious catergory on yahoo, but I have noticed that in the majority of Christian answers you refer to 'The Bible' and most of you clearly mean the New Testament and not the Old Testament.
Do you still have a use for the Old Testament, or do you think it is not the real truth?

Answer 1

Somehow the Christian religions had successfully diverted the attention to the new Testament and making the Old Testament somewhat obsolete. This is really what the deceiver wanted to happen. At anyrate, they cannot totally abandon the Old because they are afraid they may lose some of the claims why Jesus has to come down and save mankind for their sins. However, at the same time they are also afraid that should people be left to read the Old Testament from the very start completely without their guidance, people might find out that Jesus' death was not really needed to save man from their original sins. Specially if they Found out that God have already declared who shall be responsible for the sins of man. Deuteronomy 24:16; Ezekiel 18: 3-26 all of the verses written there speaks of God's declaration that those who sins shall suffer the consequence of his own sin and no one else will be held answerable for that. So how can God send someone to take the responsibility to save other mans' foolishness and much more to be so stupid to send His own Son (or Himself as a Son) for the sins of his own creation. Actually, I found many active Christians in my vicinity very ignorant of the Old teachings and they claimed they have only known the New Testament.

Answer 2

The Bible is the title of a collection of 66 smaller books. From the end of the last book of the Old Testament (or, Covenant) to the writing of the first of the New Testament books was a period of some 400+ years. Jewish writers continued to write during that period and some would say certain of their books are valid. They are often referred to as The Apocrypha. However, the Christian church finalised their selection of the 66 that we know today as The Bible.

If a Christian refers specifically to the New Testament, the reason might be to do with who he/she is addressing. If addressing a Jewish person, however, they might prefer to emphasise the Hebrew scriptures. But generally they just say 'The Bible' because they consider both parts to be equally valid as holy scripture.

The many (and fulsome!) answers show that Christians have plenty use for the O.T. In a nutshell, the N.T. wouldn't make any sense without the O.T. Both are needed to see how God has gradually revealed himself to humanity, culminating in the person of Christ, and how his Kingdom has developed to now be a blessing to all mankind.

Answer 3

notice what paul wrote of the O.T./ Rom 15:4 For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

christians do not see the O.T. as some thing that is of no use. the O.T. shows us that someone is coming (christ) the gospels show us that someone came (christ) and acts through revelation tells of some one to come again (christ).

the old law was done away with /Col 2:14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; .
this is the mosaic law.

all but one of the ten commandment are in the N.T.
1john 5:21 takes care of 1 &2
james 5:12 takes care of # 3
#4 omitted we do not keep the sabbath today, we worship on the first day of the week. acts 20:7 sun.
#5 eph 6:1-2
#6-10 rom 13:9

it has been said that the o.t. is the n.t. consealed and the n.t. is the o.t. revealed. they compliment each other.

we preach many many sermons from the o.t.

the o.t. is in the n.t. read heb.11.
read james
read acts
read the gospels
romans
galatians
peter
if we believe the o.t. to be obsolete then we might as well not read the n.t. either.

christians don't run to the o.t. when its conveinent.
yes lev. condemns homosexualality but so does gen ,rom, gal, rev.
why call a chriatian mean? just follow the bible. Gal 4:16 Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?

Answer 4

The "Old Testament" is a misleading term. "Old" makes it sound obsolete, but it's not. It should rightly be called the Hebrew/Aramaic scriptures as these were the languages that part of the Bible was written in. For short, you could call it the Hebrew Scriptures.

There are many prohecies, principles and guidelines that Christians can benefit from.

Proverbs is a great source of advice. The Psalms can lift you up spiritually and emotionally when you're down. The books of Moses shows you how it all started and the importance of keeping faith with the God of the whole Bible. Esther and Ruth show you how to conduct yourself in the situations they describe. The book of Joshua helps you to see the value of relying on God and learning as much about Him as you can. The 6 books (Samuel, Kings and Chronicles) show you the benefits of good conduct and proper worship and also what kind of worship and conduct God hates. The prophets encourage you to remember the things that God will yet do for mankind.

The Hebrew Scriptures has much of value to say to Christians (2 Tinothy 3 v16)

Answer 5

The Old Testament was (and is) the foreshadow of the New Testament. A lot of New Testament Teachings become clear and understandable only by knowing the Old Testament and around. The Old Testament is important for christians, because a lot of the Old Testament prophecies will come true in the future times.

Answer 6

Of course it is obsolete. It was obsolete when the New testament was published...

Each 'collation' of books was written by people of their time for people of their time.

Nonetheless, there are lessons to be drawn from it.

Frankly it is amazing how 21st century humans still fail to appreciate that God has been 'updating' his message through messengers over the centuries. The representation of His 'Word' - is the 'best' that Man could do in his day to convey what it was felt was needed for that time.

The World is a far different place than it was and it is about time more effort was put into getting people to understand that there are contemporary messages and interpretations that need to be applied today - and stop referring to obsolete 'references' to try and make a 'modern point'!

Having said all that...God's underlying and simple message that we should 'Love our neighbour' and 'Treat others as we ourselves would like to be treated' - remains the same...

It really doesn't matter which Creed you choose to follow, if you applied those two simple rules almost all of the World's problems would suddenly disappear...

So it's pretty 'strange', to say the least, that folks are 'using' Old Testament references to continue to promote divisive and self-evidently un-Godly behaviour...but such has ever been the folly of Man!

Answer 7

Of course not! Not if you truly intend to follow The Law and the teachings of Yeshua Messiah /Jesus the Christ who expounded on it during His public ministry. That would be the correct and proper interpretation of "being" a Christian, or a true follower of Christ.

If, on the other hand, you follow the doctrines of Saul/Paul as it is glaringly disclosed in the latter part of the New Testament where he plays a more important role than any of the other ACTUAL Apostles of Yeshua, then you should CONSIDER YOURSELF as a disciple or follower of Paul, and not of the Christ.

In other words, you should call yourself a "Paulinian" rather than a "Christian" as many of the faithful have been MISLED to believe they are the latter.

Remember that it was the compilers of the Bible, the early Roman Catholic Church, who decided which books/doctrines to include and which ones to exclude in the New Testament that would best suit their needs at the time... For instance, Paulinian doctrine does NOT allow women to play an important role in the church according to the scriptures, among several other discrepancies. Christ never said such things...

Get it?

Peace be with you.

Answer 8

Paul said it was wiped out and was taken out of the way. Colossians 2:14

Hebrews 1:1 say that in these last days God spoke to us through his son. Yes, the first century christians beleived they were living in the last days.

Hebrews 7:11,12 says that the priest hood was changed and thus there was a need for the law or the Old Testement to be changed to make room for Christ's law.

Hebrews 9: to end of chapter the writer goes into detail of the new covenant

Hebrews 10: 9 says God took away the first so that he may establish a second.

Answer 9

A book called 'The Bible that dethrones Christ and the Bible that doesn't' answers this question reasonably well by placing Christ on the throne again. http://www.lulu.com/dunamis

One of the biggest confusions in the post Christian era is a canon that mixes culture and Christ with disregard for Christ's pre-eminence. Yet as an authority it has caused wisespread confusion and division.

Culture did not teach Christ. Neither is the record of the ways of men recorded in Scripture necessary to verify, authenticate and approve the teachings of Christ because His teaching is pre-existent. The idea that when He pointed to Himself fulfilling certain Scripture spoken by God-fearing men He was also approving of all the other things that the same men said and did in other parts of their lives is wholly a Roman concoction and it really does insult God.

Read the book and be edified

Answer 10

The Old Testament is not obsolete! We have to learn what it is like to live under The Law, like the Jews did in the O.T. to appreciate living under Grace in the New Testament. There were rules for rules and it was just impossible to not sin according to the O.T. When you sinned then you had to have a sin offering to be absolved for the sin. Could you imagine what people would do if they had to slaughter an animal evertime they sinned?