Some of the most brilliant people in the world do not bask in their own glory. E. Earle Ellis wrote commentaries and spent his life teaching the Bible. He taught me about how the New Testament writers used the Old Testament. When he explained the resurrection, Paul used the same preaching text in Pisidian Antioch that Peter used at Pentecost: Psalm 16:2. David wrote that God would not let his holy one see decay. About whom was David talking?
Remember Jesus used the Old Testament to explain his crucifixion and resurrection to the two travelers on the road to Emmaus. When the Apostles opened the Old Testament, they saw prophecies of Jesus everywhere. David decayed in his tomb, right there in Jerusalem. Not so with Jesus. God fulfilled Old Testament prophecies by raising Jesus from the dead. The crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus offered good news for Paul and his hearers.
When we read the Bible, we may get caught up in the individual stories. Instead of looking for ourselves in the stories (I am David fighting Goliath etc.), look for Jesus. Wonderfully, the gospel points us to God’s bigger story. The Bible is not finally about us, but about God’s plan to save his fallen creation. In the Old Testament, the New Testament is concealed. In the New Testament, the Old Testament is revealed. We may summarize the big “metanarrative” of the Bible in four words: good, bad, new, perfect. God created a good world. Sin corrupted the world for bad. Jesus’ death and resurrection began the new creation. At his return, Christ will make all things perfect. This news is just as good for twenty-first century people as it was for people in the first century.
