Nor am I speaking about granddma’s Large Print Bible.

What I have in mind is what parts of your Bible are used and what parts are not.

“How can I tell?”

Easy to do—but not so easy to describe.

“Why not?”

Because we all know what the “spine” of a book is; but whad’ja call the opposite part? You know, the part that you flip with your fingers? For the sake of a better term, let’s call it the “anti-spine.” OK?

We’ll, here’s how you can tell—If you’ve had your Bible for any length of time (and, of course, have used it), you’ll notice that there are places on the anti-spine that are dirtier than others. If . . . What? What did you say?

No. I’m not insinuating anything about whether or not you wash you hands before eating—or reading.
But, as I was saying, here’s the rule: the dirtier a part of the anti-spine, the likelihood that’s where you concentrate your reading.

What? . . . . You don’t believe me? OK, then, go ahead and look at the anti-spine on your Bible.

Aha! So, I was right. Well, now what are you going to do about it?

Right—start dirtying up the rest!

Check out our online courses, including, Introduction to Nouthetic Counseling and  The Use of Scripture in Counseling, taught by Jay Adams!

Books related to counseling others:

1. Competent to Counsel by Jay Adams
2. The Christian Counselor’s Manual by Jay Adams
3. How to Help People Change by Jay Adams
4. The Use of Scripture in Counseling by Jay Adams
5. Sanctification and Counseling by Jay Adams
6. Critical Stages in Biblical Counseling by Jay Adams
7. Check out our Bookstore for all the best counseling books!

The Christian Counselor’s New Testament and Proverbs, translated by Jay Adams

Visit our online bookstore for all your biblical counseling resource needs.
For more biblical counseling training, check out our list of INS Online Courses.

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The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God has been proclaimed (Luke 16:18; HCSB).

The Old Testament era, otherwise called the period of the Law and the Prophets (as here), had come to an end.  As the writer to the Hebrews said,

By saying, a new covenant, He declared that the first is old. And what is old and aging is about to disappear (Hebrews 8:13 HCSB).

These, in similar words, make it plain that we live in a time very different from that of our Lord Jesus. He, and John, lived under the law and were subject to all of its ordinances. Now, however, the old, typical, sacrificial system was over. God even dispensed with the temple itself so that there could be no more of it. By one sacrifice, made once for all for the elect, Jesus Christ died in the place of those whose sins would be forgiven and who would live with Him forever. It is wrong, therefore, to attempt to continue—or insist that others continue—an aspect of that which was fulfilled in the coming of the Lord Jesus.

Nevertheless, there have always been those who insist on following dietary laws out of the Law and the Prophets, those who wish to keep fests and festivals, and those who would separate Jewish Christian congregations from mixed ones that Paul clearly identified as altogether new—so much new that they were like a new person as well (See Ephesians 2:15ff).

All tendencies to continue—or bring back the old—is an insult to the Savior Who, instead, came to replace it by His perfect life and death.

The fact that the Law and Prophets were until John means that he had a new message that would by new preaching produce a new era; let your preaching reflect that fact!

Check out our online courses, including, Introduction to Nouthetic Counseling and  The Use of Scripture in Counseling, taught by Jay Adams!

Books related to counseling others:

1. Competent to Counsel by Jay Adams
2. The Christian Counselor’s Manual by Jay Adams
3. How to Help People Change by Jay Adams
4. Check out our Bookstore for all the best counseling books!

The Christian Counselor’s New Testament and Proverbs, translated by Jay Adams

Visit our online bookstore for all your biblical counseling resource needs.
For more biblical counseling training, check out our list of INS Online Courses.

Follow INS on Social Media:
– Facebook: noutheticstudies
– Twitter: @noutheticstud
– Instagram: @noutheticstudies

The post Until John appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

“What are you talking about?”

If you don’t get it, I suppose I still have something to talk about. I was going to leave it there thinking my words would be perfectly clear. Oh, well, here it goes.

Ask yourself how the New Testament writers viewed and proclaimed the messages of the Old Testament Books of the Bible. They interpreted and preached the Old Testament through New Testament lenses. They did not, could not, would not be true to their calling if they didn’t. Things had happened since the Lord had come, died, risen, and ascended to heaven. How could they ever look at the Old Testament as they had before Pentecost?

The very passages that seemed to mean one thing beforehand, took on entirely meanings when they saw their fulfillment in Christ. The coming kingdom of Daniel that would crush the metallic image of kingdoms now had become a reality, and they discovered (to their utter amazement) that Jesus’ kingdom was a kingdom of truth, as He told Pilate. They learned that men now would worship in spirit and in truth, that the Gentiles bringing their wealth into Zion would mean Gentiles flooding into the church, that the clean/unclean system would vanish and be replaced by personal sanctification, that God’s people would be a spiritual Israel, a peculiar people, that . . . go ahead add some more, on you own—surely, you get the point.

Friend, if you are reading your Old Testament, and preaching it, as an Old Testament Jew would, you are not being true to your calling. Think again.

Sure, you want to understand every passage in its setting and context. Certainly, you want to understand passages that believing prophets and kings wondered about and would like to have seen better than they did—seeing, understanding only dimly, vaguely, indistinctly. But you should see more in those passages. You should see what they always were meant to teach. I’m not telling you to read your New Testament back into the Old, but to see in the light of the New what it was always intended to teach. In other words, you should interpret the Old, and preach the Old as the New Testament writers and preachers did.

The Christian Counselor’s New Testament and Proverbs, translated by Jay Adams

Visit our online bookstore for all your biblical counseling resource needs.
For biblical counseling training, check out our list of INS Online Courses.

Follow INS on Social Media:
– Facebook: noutheticstudies
– Twitter: @noutheticstud
– Instagram: @noutheticstudies

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