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    Reading the Old Testament with the Ancient Church (Evangelical Ressourcement): Exploring the Formation of Early Christian Thought
    Reading the Old Testament with the Ancient Church (Evangelical Ressourcement): Exploring the Formation of Early Christian Thought
    Reading the Old Testament with the Ancient Church (Evangelical Ressourcement): Exploring the Formation of Early Christian Thought
    Ebook303 pages4 hours

    Reading the Old Testament with the Ancient Church (Evangelical Ressourcement): Exploring the Formation of Early Christian Thought

    By Ronald E. Heine

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    The contemporary church dismisses Christianity's foundational Scriptures at its own peril. However, the teachings of the Old Testament are less and less at the center of congregational preaching and conversation. The early church fathers--visionaries such as Augustine, Origen, and Tertullian--embraced the Hebrew Scriptures, allowing the Old Testament to play a central role in the formation of their beliefs. As today's Christians struggle to relate to concepts such as the Jewish law and the prophets, pastors and laypersons benefit from looking through the lenses of these thoughtful pioneers. This latest volume in the Evangelical Ressourcement series helps the Old Covenant to come alive.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBaker Publishing Group
    Release dateSep 1, 2007
    ISBN9781441201539
    Reading the Old Testament with the Ancient Church (Evangelical Ressourcement): Exploring the Formation of Early Christian Thought
    Author

    Ronald E. Heine

    Ronald E. Heine is Professor Emeritus of Bible and Theology at Northwest Christian University in Eugene, Oregon. He is the author of several books on early Christian authors and subjects and translator of many of Origen’s exegetical and homiletical works, including The Commentary of Origen on the Gospel of St Matthew (2018), Origen: Commentary on the Gospel according to John (1989, 1993), and Origen: Homilies on Genesis and Exodus (1982).

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      Book preview

      Reading the Old Testament with the Ancient Church (Evangelical Ressourcement) - Ronald E. Heine

      110.

      1

      CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURE BEFORE

      THE NEW TESTAMENT

      And Philip . . . began from this Scripture and proclaimed Jesus to him.

      Acts 8:35

      THE CHURCH HAS never been without Scripture even though the Pauline epistles, the earliest writings that constitute our present New Testament, were not composed for two or more decades after the resurrection of Jesus. The remaining writings that make up our New Testament were written in the second half of the first century, some near the end of that century. It would be at least another century before most of these writings were placed together to constitute a recognized canon of Scripture in the church. Yet the writings we call the New Testament, which are our source of information about the beginnings of the Christian movement, indicate that the apostles and evangelists regularly appealed to Scripture to substantiate their teachings about Jesus of Nazareth and other subjects of vital importance to their faith. These references to Scripture are all to what we call the Old Testament, which the early church referred to simply as the Scriptures.1 This chapter will briefly examine these early Christian references to the Scriptures. In addition, it will survey the translations in which the early Christians read their Scripture.

      The Scripture of Christians in the First Century AD

      The very earliest Christians were Jews by birth. Their Scripture had always been what we call the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible. When they became Christians they continued to use these writings as their Scripture. They did not consider following Jesus to conflict with the faith they had learned from the Old Testament. Jesus was the fulfillment of the hopes they found expressed there.

      All references to Scripture in the New Testament are to the Old Testament. 2 When Paul says that Christ died on behalf of our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, he means in accordance with what the Old Testament Scriptures say about the Messiah (1 Cor. 15:3–4).3 When Luke says that Paul entered the synagogue in Thessalonica and reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and declaring that the Christ must suffer and rise from the dead, he means that Paul reasoned from the Old Testament Scriptures (Acts 17:2–3). The same is true in Luke’s report that Apollos refuted the Jews in Achaia by demonstrating from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ (Acts 18:28). And when Paul reminds Timothy that he has known from childhood the sacred writings that can instruct him for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus and then adds, All Scripture is inspired of God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, he is talking about the Old Testament (2 Tim. 3:15–16).

      The phrase it is written, which appears so often throughout the New Testament to introduce Scripture, always introduces statements from the Old Testament. It appears frequently in the four Gospels to show the connection between particular aspects of Jesus’s ministry and words found in the Old Testament. These connections range from statements regarding the place of Jesus’s birth, through specific deeds during his ministry, to his final suffering on the cross. Luke uses the phrase to introduce a statement from the Psalms justifying the choosing of an apostolic replacement for Judas after the latter’s suicide (Acts 1:20). Luke indicates that Paul used the phrase to connect the second Psalm with the resurrection of Jesus in his sermon at Antioch of Pisidia (Acts 13:33). Paul grounds many of his most characteristic doctrines in Old Testament Scripture joined with his understanding of God’s action in Christ. These doctrines include the bondage of all humanity to sin (Rom. 3:10–20), the importance of faith in salvation (Rom. 1:17), justification through faith (Romans 4), the stumbling of the Jews and the salvation of the Gentiles (Rom. 9:33; 10:15–21), and his doctrine of the two Adams (1 Cor. 15:45). Paul thought that the events narrated in the Old Testament were recorded to instruct and encourage Christians (Rom. 15:4; 1 Cor.

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