The Old Testament Witness to Christ and His Kingdom, Mentor's Guide, MG09

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T H E O L D T E S T A M E N T W I T N E S S T O C H R I S T A N D H I S K I N G D O M

disciplined and restrained , all based on our unqualified allegiance to only what can be shown to be true from the text itself . This is why the unity of the Bible is so important. The unity between the two guarantees us against the kind of wild, zany, and unbiblical speculations that are usually associated with these approaches. Our intent here is to think the thoughts of the Lord through the connections and words of Christ and the apostles . Their reading of the text will govern and provide a boundary for our reflection upon it. Help your students to approach the text with an open but committed mind, in much the same way as was spoken of the Bereans (Acts 17.11). All the assumptions about the linkages between Christ and the history of Israel ought to be carefully verified by firsthand study, and nothing is to be taken without critical and careful verification. Remind the students that the Spirit through Luke called the Bereans’ verification of Paul and Silas’ message noble . Indeed, encouraging a deep love for the Scriptures lies at the heart of this course. Please notice again in the objectives that these truths are clearly stated. As usual, your responsibility as Mentor is to emphasize these concepts throughout the lesson, especially during the discussions and interaction with the students. The more you can highlight the objectives throughout the class period, the better the chances are that they will understand and grasp the magnitude of these objectives. This devotion focuses on the use of the OT to understand Christ and our relationship to him today as believers in him. As spoken in our last note, it is important to recognize the kind of controversy back-and-forth between interpreters of the Bible on this approach. For some, reflecting on the history of Israel for linkages between Messiah and that experience is a risky business, not one that is easily overcome through the scientific-critical approaches of the last several hundred years of biblical criticism. For others, the fact that the Spirit of God through Jesus and the apostles identified real linkages suggests that they exist, they are real, and that they did not, in fact, just arbitrarily make them up. The ground of our confidence that the OT has direct testimony in its images, institutions, characters, and events to the Lord Jesus as Messiah, is rooted in the texts’ testimony 2 Page 55 Devotion