The Bible often speaks of the scribes and their role. Jesus once described scribes who obeyed the gospel with these words: “Therefore every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a head of a household, who brings out of his treasure things new and old” (Matt 13:52). Scribes, of course, were experts at the Law of Moses. They knew its details intimately. Like many other Jews of Jesus' day, however, they did not see the true significance of what they had read in the Law. When they came to believe in Jesus they became enlightened and could then see that the Scriptures with which they were so familiar were speaking about Jesus, the one who fulfilled them. They could read familiar texts and now see new things in them, things that had been hidden from them before because of their unwillingness to believe in Jesus.

Jesus presented Himself as the key to understanding the Old Testament. Without that key one cannot see its real point. The mistake the Jews made, as a whole, was that they tended to read their Bible in a straightforward way that hindered them from seeing its true significance. Yes, there were laws, statutes and ordinances to be obeyed. There were sacrifices and rites to be done and there were moral warnings and lessons from ages past. But this was by no means all there was to it. Those laws, rituals, and lessons all had a higher purpose than simply to regulate conduct or record history. They served a noble cause, namely to prepare the Jews for the coming of their Messiah.

Now in all fairness, the Jews had read their Bibles correctly to the point that they knew their Messiah was coming and that God was going to establish His kingdom. Jesus fulfilled those expectations, but in ways that were quite unexpected. What Jesus did was unexpected not because the Bible was silent about what He would do, but because the Jews had not understood all the pointers and clues. They had developed their own agenda and believed the Bible supported them in it. It is not surprising, therefore, that some of Jesus' fiercest debates with the Jews were over how to handle the Scriptures. He rebuked them for not recognizing that the events they witnessed in Jesus were the fulfillment of Scripture, and He scolded them for not being receptive to Him because of their failure to read Moses and the prophets correctly (John 5:46; 7:23). We need to learn a lesson from all of this. If we are not careful, we will make the same mistake in handling the New Testament as the Jews did with the Old Testament.

The New Testament contains doctrines, rules for conduct, and a record of the earliest Christians. Why? What is the point? It all has to do with being Christ-like, it has to do with discipleship to Jesus, it all has to do with life in the kingdom of Christ. Every moral, every fact, every command is rooted right there. The New Testament is a collection of documents that together describe what life in God's kingdom ought to be. If you are going to enter into God's kingdom, you must conform to the pattern and image of God's Son that is contained in the New Testament.

This is what made the Bereans (Acts 17:10ff) so commendable. These Jews were willing to restudy the scriptures. They were willing to subject their beliefs to a further and more accurate investigation of God's word. I'm sure they had beliefs and convictions, but they were willing to subject those beliefs to examination and to modify their beliefs if the word of God demanded it. Like the scribes of whom Jesus spoke, when they read the Old Testament in the light of Jesus they were able to see things in it they had never seen before, and brought new things out of an old treasure chest. Let the work begin!

Johnny Oxendine
San Mateo, Ca.