Show Notes
In this episode, Derek Vreeland discusses the importance of gratitude and finding Jesus in the Old Testament. He shares his personal journey of overcoming a disinterest in the Old Testament and highlights how it serves as a vital backstory to the New Testament and the life of Jesus. Derek emphasizes the communal aspect of scripture and encourages listeners to seek Jesus throughout the Old Testament, drawing on insights from early church fathers and his own experiences with scripture.
Scriptures mentioned in this episode:
Romans 16:16
Luke 24:27
1 Corinthians 10:1-4
Matthew 12:40-41
Isaiah 40:3-11
John 1:1
Books mentioned in this podcast:
Daily Office Lectionary edited by Derek Vreeland
Surprised by Jesus Again by Jason Byassee
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Transcript
Narrator: Welcome to Peaceable and Kind, the podcast where we explore the transformation. Each week your host, Derek Vreeland, will delve into the stories, scriptures, and practical steps that help us embody these essential Christian virtues.
Derek Vreeland: Welcome back to another episode of Peaceable and Kind. I’m your host, Derek Vreeland, and I’m glad that you have joined me. for this episode and if you haven’t already could I ask a favor would you mind leaving a rating or a review. I just spoke to someone yesterday who was listening to the podcast and I should have mentioned to him, I was saying thank you for listening. I should have mentioned, hey. If you enjoy the podcast, leave some kind of review, give it a rating. That helps us grow this podcast. So if you’re enjoying Christian content like this, If you would subscribe and leave a rating and review that helps. And I hope you’re having a good day today. And if it isn’t the best day, I hope you can find something. to be grateful for. Right now for me, today, I am grateful for the service company who installed a new furnace in our home. I’m recording this in January during the winter months in northwest Missouri and our furnace died. We were without central heat for seven days for a full week. Temperatures were getting down into the single digits, well below freezing. And we did have space heaters. We had some, and we borrowed some space heaters from friends. Luckily, we had space heaters that had thermostats on them. so that we could set a temperature and the space heater would shut off at a certain time. But it got so cold that the main space heater we were using in our living room would hardly ever shut off. We also have a fireplace, a wood-burning fireplace, a traditional fireplace. And so in the evenings I was able to get a fire going, but I’ll be honest, I had a hard time sleeping at night. I was plenty warm. We threw an extra blanket on the bed. I was warm, but I was so nervous because our boys had space heaters running. uh through the night in their rooms. I was nervous about electrical fires. We were keeping our faucet dripping and I was so nervous that We could have a water pipe break. And so I had the hardest time sleeping. But last night was the first night after we got our new furnace and I slept so good. I’m finally at peace. And so I’m grateful that we have heat again in our house. So grateful for uh the guys who installed that new furnace. And you know, this is the way life is. Uh life often throws us curveballs. There are the proverbial mountains and valleys. And when things get tough, when things look dark, when things are challenging, we have to find that glimmer of hope. We have to find that thing That we are grateful for to find those hidden blessings in life. Because gratitude is a certain kind of attitude, Gratitude is a certain kind of perspective. And so I don’t know what kind of day you’re having today, but I hope you can look Through the challenges and the struggles to find something to give God thanks for, that is a good habit. Today, I want to talk about finding Jesus in the Old Testament. I am a Bible reader I’m a Bible lover. If you’ve been listening to previous episodes, you know I’m a Bible nerd Currently, I am writing a three-book Bible study series. And I’ve been reading the Bible since I was a teenager, and I absolutely love it. I never get Tired, at least these days. Um I never get uninterested. I have just started uh a new translation. I’m reading through the new living translation, which I did four or five years ago. So I’m really returning. It’s a it’s a newer modern translation. It’s not necessarily new to me Because I did spend two years reading through it. But after finishing two years reading through the message translation, I have a new Bible. And it’s the new living translation, and I’m enjoying it. I look forward uh to my Bible reading in the morning. And, you know, there are days that I uh get busy, uh the heat’s not working in my house and I have to attend to other things and so there are days that I that I’m that I don’t read. Um, but you know, I don’t feel guilty um on those days I miss my Bible reading, but I do miss it. Uh I do long to to get back. And so, as you know, I follow the Daily Office lectionary, which is a two-year reading cycle. And if I do miss a day the the following day, I’ll go back and make sure I read what I missed. Even though it’s the same scriptures, it’s the same stories, it’s the same Bible verses that I have been reading for 35 years, it is such a delight for me But I do have a confession. If I can pull back the curtain and be vulnerable for just a moment, I Have to confess that I went a long time without reading the Old Testament I found the Old Testament at a season in my life. I found it to be boring. I found it weird. I found it completely unrelatable. You know, I’m reading about, you know, activities and stories that are happening among tribal groups and in cities in an ancient world that just seem to have nothing to do with my life. It wasn’t relatable. And then there’s the bloodshed in the Old Testament I mean, sheesh, there is a lot of fighting and killing and wars and conquering in the Old Testament. And at times the God of Israel even commands that fighting and killing. So for a long time, I simply just skipped over the Old Testament and I would only read the New Testament. During that season I was particularly pouring over uh the letters of Paul, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, uh, you know, all the pastoral letters of Paul, 1st and 2 Timothy, Thessalonians, things like that. And I am confessing this to you because I felt guilty in not reading the Old Testament. I felt guilty about my attitude. I felt guilty that I was somewhat judging the Old Testament for being weird and unrelatable. I believed then, and I still believe, that all scripture is inspired by God and profitable But during this season in my life, I didn’t see the value of reading the Old Testament. Now, I’m confessing that now because all of those feelings have dissipated. I read the Old Testament every day, and my entire perspective. on the Old Testament has changed and I wanted to share with you why. I want to share a little bit of that journey of coming to embrace love and delight in reading the Old Testament. First, the Old Testament is somewhat otherworldly. It is an ancient culture. It is centered around a Jewish culture, which is very foreign to the culture I’ve grown up in in North America, in Western civilization in the late 20th, now early 21st century. The Old Testament’s world is so different from the world that I live in. But in reading the Old Testament, it has become a reminder to me that I belong to an ancient people. I belong to an ancient culture So I’m a gentile. I am not ethnically Jewish. That’s not my ethnic roots But as a Gentile, through faith in Jesus, I have been grafted into the vine of Israel. So I belong to these ancient people And a part of recognizing the strangeness of the culture of the Old Testament and recognizing this is the people I belong to, I also had this stunning revelation years ago in beginning to read the Old Testament again that the Bible isn’t about me. I think for a lot of Christians, they go to the Bible to read, to receive daily inspiration. to find some verses that they can commit to memory, verses that perhaps contain promises, that they can stick up on their refrigerator. And that was my orientation for a long time. I was reading the Bible for me, reading the Bible assuming the Bible is about me. And I had this paradigm shift when I recognized the Bible isn’t about me at all. Ultimately, the Bible is about God. As told through the stories of the people of God. So the Bible isn’t about me as an individual, the Bible is about us as a community. of those who believe in God, follow God, acknowledge Jesus is Lord. And so that began to change things. So I began to read the Old Testament as this is our heritage as a people. It’s not necessarily about me. Secondly, I discovered the Psalms as a wonderful resource for prayer. I read in the Old Testament every day, but that doesn’t include the Psalms. The Psalms are not a part of my daily Bible reading plan. Rather, I pray a psalm every day. And our church has a local tradition here where we pray what we call the psalm for the day. The psalm for the day aligns itself with the day of the year. Which is easy in the month of January because if it’s January 23rd, we’re praying the 23rd Psalm. Now, when you get to February, you gotta start doing a little bit of math. Because February 1st would be Psalm 32. And so there’s ways to keep up with that, but this has been a habit now for more than 10 years. of praying the psalm for the day. So I don’t read the psalms, I vocalize them out loud, one psalm per day as a prayer. And some of the psalms are strange. Some of the psalms are not even words spoken to God. They’re words from God spoken to God’s people. But I have found the language of prayer in the Psalms that has done just great things for me. And of course, that’s in the Old Testament. So as I begin to see that the Bible isn’t really about me, it’s for me, but not about me. It’s really given to us as a community. I stopped looking for verses to apply to my life. This is a popular habit of some. Going through the Bible and asking, how can I apply this to my life? Well, there is plenty of portions of Scripture that are not intended for you to apply to your life. For example, in Romans 1616, Paul, writing to the Church of Rome, says to greet one another with a holy kiss So what are we to make of this verse? Greet one another with a holy kiss? Is this something that we are to literally apply to our lives? And I would assume in certain cultural settings, maybe in Europe, maybe in Hispanic settings, kissing on the cheek is culturally acceptable. But for me, I’ve never been to a church in the United States where people apply Romans 16, 16 literally to their lives and they go around kissing people. Right. In churches that I’ve been a part of, normally there’s a time of passing the piece or greeting your neighbors. And normally we do that with a handshake. So there was this paradigm shift where I began to no longer read the Bible for personal application. Instead, I began to read the Bible as a story. as a big overarching story, the story of redemption. And in beginning to read The Old Testament as a story, I was able to look over some of the strangeness, some of the hyper-violent sections. And realize, okay, this is the early part of the story. This story is heading somewhere. Because yes, there is the flood and Noah’s Ark. There are the plagues in Egypt. There’s the slaughter of the Canaanites. There’s the competing warlords in the book of Judges. There’s the violence of King David and all of his conquest. But that’s not the end of the story. And the last thing I want to say about my love now for the Old Testament, is when I framed the Old Testament in terms of the big story the Bible is telling, I recognized that the Old Testament is the backstory that gets us to the main character who is Jesus. When I started first, recognizing that, okay, the story has a trajectory, the story has an arc, and the main character of the story isn’t Joshua and his conquest of the Canaanites. The main character of the story isn’t King David or Solomon. The main character of the story is Jesus. And in recognizing that, I began to look back into the Old Testament and find Jesus So when I recognize the Old Testament as the backstory, I still believe it is sacred. I believe it is inspired. I believe it is God-breathed and God-given. It is authoritative in the sense that is the authoritative backstory to the main character who is Jesus. I’m wondering, are you a Star Wars fan? If you understand the Star Wars universe, I think I can make a helpful analogy So the Star Wars saga is a story about Luke Skywalker. So the original Star Wars film that was released in 1977 Star Wars A New Hope is actually Episode 4. And then in the early 80s, episodes five and six were released, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi And the main character of those original trilogy films in the Star Wars universe is Luke Skywalker. Then in the early 2000s, director and writer George Lucas decided to create the three prequel films, Episode I, II, and III These prequel films tell the backstory that gets us to Luke Skywalker Now, I enjoyed the prequel films. I was so excited when I heard that they were under development that when The screenplay was turned into a novel. I bought hardback copies of each of the novels based on the screenplays of episode one, two, and three, and I read the books before the movies came out. I was excited. I enjoyed them then. I enjoy them now. But I recognize not all Star Wars fans like the prequel films. There is a lot of CGI, the acting is not the best, and if you’re a Star Wars fan, you know, nobody likes Jar Jar Binks. I mean, we get the lovable Chewbacca in the original trilogy and then these prequel films come out and Jar Jar is just so annoying. I I do not like that character. So there are things about the prequel films I don’t like, but I overlook some of that because I enjoy that backstory. That gets us to the main character, to the protagonist, to our hero, who is Luke Skywalker So the Old Testament is a little bit like the prequel films in the Star Wars universe. Yes, they can be a little weird, a little stilted, there’s things and details we don’t like about it. But it’s the necessary backstory that gets us to Jesus, our Luke Skywalker. So these days, I I love reading the Old Testament. And I appreciate that the lectionary gives us an Old Testament reading every day. I’ve mentioned on previous podcast episodes that I have edited a daily office lectionary, a two-year Bible reading plan. Where you can get readings from the Old Testament, from the epistles, and from the Gospels every day. It’s a two-year cycle, and we’re in year one, which just started with Advent. We’re now in the season of Epiphany. And you can still get a copy and you can jump in and get started. We’ll leave a link to the Daily Office lectionary in the show notes. But I appreciate that it gives me Old Testament readings every day because it has helped to solidify that habit within me. Of reading the Old Testament every day. And now, with that, looking for Jesus in the Old Testament has brought such delight to my Old Testament reading. A good book on this topic is Jason Biases Surprised by Jesus Again Reading the Bible in communion with the Saints. If you listened to the episode where I talked about my favorite books from 2024, Biasy’s book, Surprised by Jesus Again, was on that list. Now, it wasn’t written in 2024. Biasy wrote it in 2019, but it was introduced to me in 2024. I read it, our staff actually read it together and discussed it. And it is a very, very helpful book in understanding why it’s important to go looking for Jesus in the Old Testament. This is how many of the very ancient Christians read the Old Testament The very earliest Christians, I’m thinking of Christians in the first three to four hundred years, particularly early Christian leaders, whom we call church fathers, many of them. Recognized that Jesus is hidden all throughout the Old Testament. That Jesus is the revelation of God. Scripture in the Old Testament is Scripture, is the inspired text. It is the inspired written word of God, but its purpose is to lead us to the living word of God, who is Jesus The early church fathers recognized that, and so they would be re-reading the Old Testament to try to find Jesus there. So here’s a couple of examples from the Church Fathers describing this process. Irenaeus from the second century wrote If any one, therefore, reads the Scriptures with attention, he will find in them an account of Christ, and a foreshadowing of the new calling. For Christ is the treasure which was hid in the field. Irenaeus here is playing with the kingdom parable. that Jesus tells when he speaks of the kingdom as a treasure that is hidden in a field, and a man sold everything he had, bought that field so he could find that treasure. So Jesus is the treasure hidden in the field of the Old Testament. Augustine in the fourth century wrote, Everything in the Scriptures speaks of Christ, but only to him who has ears. He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and so we should pray that He will open ours too. So if we have ears to hear and eyes to see, God the Holy Spirit can help us as we go into the Old Testament looking for Jesus. Now, Augustine said that Jesus opened their minds to understand the scriptures. This is a reference to what Jesus did on the road to Emmaus. So Jesus appears on the road after his resurrection, and there’s two disciples walking along the way, and they’re having this conversation, and Jesus Saddles up next to them and they don’t recognize it’s Jesus. Again, he has died. There are these whispers that he was resurrected from the dead, but they were not so sure. So Jesus enters into a dialogue with them, but they don’t know it’s Jesus. And then in Luke 24, 27, it says Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the scriptures the things concerning himself. So when Augustine says that everything in Scripture speaks about Jesus, this was Augustine’s reference to Luke 24, when Jesus opened up. The Old Testament scriptures to show these two disciples the things concerning himself. And so the Apostle Paul read the Old Testament this way. In 1 Corinthians 10, verses 1 through 4, this is what Paul writes: I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud. and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate of the same spiritual food And all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ This is a reference to the rock in the wilderness where God says, Moses, if you speak to the rock, water will flow. Water flows from this rock. And Paul sees that rock in the Old Testament and says, that rock is Jesus And it’s interesting to me that Jesus himself read the Old Testament this way. Jesus was reading and commenting on the Old Testament. and revealing how things in the Old Testament point to Jesus. In Matthew 12, verse 40 and 41, Jesus says For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth. The people of Nineveh will rise up at judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see something greater than Jonah is here So even Jesus in looking back at the Jonah story, Jonah in the belly of the of the sea monster, of the great fish He was in the belly of the fish for three days. Jesus says, this is forecasting. What’s going to happen? I will die, but on the third day I will rise again. So now when I’m reading the Old Testament, I look for Jesus And I’ve developed these habits, so it’s now rather instinctual. And recently I was reading in Isaiah 40, and this happened again. I was reading a passage and I just saw Jesus leaping off the page. So I’ll start and kind of walk you through these verses in Isaiah 40 to show you how this works. So I’m going to start with Isaiah 40 and verse 3. Listen, it’s the voice of someone shouting, Clear the way through the wilderness for the Lord, make a straight highway through the wasteland for our God. Fill in the valleys and level the hills and mountains. Straighten the curves and smooth out the rough places Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together, the Lord has spoken. That was Isaiah 40, verses 3, 4, and 5. John the Baptist is quoting these verses describing his own ministry as the one who’s crying out in the wilderness to prepare the way of the Lord. But when I was reading this and I came across that phrase in Isaiah 40, verse 5, then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, I thought. I know who the glory of the Lord is. The glory of the Lord is Jesus. Then I kept reading. Verse six. A voice said, Shout. I asked, What should I shout? Shout that people are like the grass their beauty fades as quickly as the flowers in a field. The grass withers and the flowers fade beneath the breath of the Lord, and so it is with the people The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever. Now that’s verse 8, Isaiah verse 8. And so when I read that, the word of our God stands forever. I thought, the word. That reminded me of John chapter one. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word. Was God. Who is the word of our God? Well, that’s Jesus. Jesus is the word of God, the word made flesh, according to John’s gospel. So then I just kept reading. Isaiah 40, verse 9. O Zion, messenger of good news, shout from the mountaintops, shout it louder, O Jerusalem, shout and do not be afraid. Tell the towns of Judah your God is coming. And who is this God who is coming? This is Jesus. This is the announcement of the gospel that Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. God come to be with us. Let’s keep reading. Isaiah forty, verse ten. Yes, the sovereign Lord is coming in power. He will rule with a powerful arm. See, he brings his reward with him as he comes. Jesus is the sovereign Lord coming in power. Isaiah 40 verse 11, he will feed his flock like a shepherd. Jesus is our great shepherd. He will carry the lambs in his arms, holding them close to his heart. He will gently lead the mother sheep with their young. It’s a picture of Jesus our shepherd. So this is just a quick little overview, Isaiah 40, verses 3 through 11. But again, when I was reading this, I wasn’t reading it As a Bible study, I wasn’t preparing for anything. This is just the reading that happens in my morning prayer time, and I saw Jesus leap off of the page in multiple places. So I’ll encourage you. To continue your Bible reading and don’t be like me from years ago. Read the Old Testament. And when you do, look for Jesus. Look for Jesus in the Old Testament as a treasure buried in the field. And if you go into the Old Testament looking for Jesus, you won’t be disappointed. Well, that’s all we have for today. Thank you for joining me for this episode. Go in peace and be kind.
This transcript was generated with AI and may contain errors.