Old Testament?

[Dee5543]

Good Afternoon all,

I’m just wondering…what do we, as Catholics, take from the Old Testament? And before anyone says it, I know we take the Commandments, and the prophecies about the coming of of the Lord. I’m a little confused as to why we look to the Old Testament for answers when Christ has already fufilled them. Also, do we worship the same God as the Muslims and Jews? Because the God of the Old Testament seems to be a angry and wrathful God; not the God of love that Christ teaches us about.

Any thoughts are welcomed!

God Bless!

 

[jmcrae]

The God of the Old Testament is Jesus Christ (the Second Person of the Trinity) before He became Man - there are not different gods for each of the sections of the Bible, but only one God - Jesus Christ is the Word (self-expression) of God by which the message of both the Old and the New Testaments come to us, along with all of the oral traditions, etc.

If you read both the Old Testament and the New Testament very carefully and thoroughly, you will find that God hasn’t changed His personality at all - the God of the Old Testament (which is Jesus) is not any more demanding, nor any less loving, than Jesus in the New Testament.

 

[Deacon_Joseph]

The Muslims have as there Patriarch Abraham. Abraham had intercourse with his maid servant Hagar, at his wife’s Sarah’s request because she couldn’t have children, she thought. Hagar’s son is Ishmael. This is the line where Muslims are said to come from. Abraham and Sarah later had a son, Isaac, he had a son, Jacob. Jacob had 12 sons(which is where the 12 tribes of Israel come from) Check it out in Genesis Chapters 15 thru 23. Keep reading to the end if you want to know more about Jacob, Joseph and the 12 tribes.

The Old Testament has major covenants Between God and His people. They continue like a good story that leads you to Jesus Christ of the New Testament. The covenant with Jesus breaks the covenants with the Old Testaments. The five major people you should read about is Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. The Old Testament gives us the covenants of marriage, the Sabbath and others.

God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are at work through the entire Bible, read Gen 1:26, read the verse carefully.

One example of God’s mercy where you didn’t expect to see it is in Exodus 4:22-23. God basicly says he will kill Pharaoh’s first born son. But if you read the whole book of Exodus you notice that God gave Pharaoh 9 chances, with the first 9 plagues of Egypt BEFORE He finally killed the first borns of Egypt in the 10th plague, because Pharaoh was so stubborn.

God of the Old and New Testament is the same, so is the message if you look close enough.

 

[richardeekw]

To gety a good grasp of Scriptures I recommend this excellent text by Dr. Scott Hahn.

UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES - THE DIDACHE SERIES
A Complete Course on Bible Study, by Dr. Scott Hahn. Includes full color art masterpieces and photographs, maps, charts, timelines and an attached ribbon bookmark. Hardcover (9" x 11"). 548 pages.

Price: $45.00
Item # BK BIB 07474
Available at EWTN Religious catalogue

ewtnreligiouscatalogue.com/shop.axd/Search?keywords=Understanding+the+Scriptures

 

[Fidelis]

Here is what the Church teaches about the Old Testament:

1. In carefully planning and preparing the salvation of the whole human race the God of infinite love, by a special dispensation, chose for Himself a people to whom He would entrust His promises. First He entered into a covenant with Abraham (see Gen. 15:18) and, through Moses, with the people of Israel (see Ex. 24:8). To this people which He had acquired for Himself, He so manifested Himself through words and deeds as the one true and living God that Israel came to know by experience the ways of God with men. Then too, when God Himself spoke to them through the mouth of the prophets, Israel daily gained a deeper and clearer understanding of His ways and made them more widely known among the nations (see Ps. 21:29; 95:1-3; Is. 2:1-5; Jer. 3:17). The plan of salvation foretold by the sacred authors, recounted and explained by them, is found as the true word of God in the books of the Old Testament: these books, therefore, written under divine inspiration, remain permanently valuable. “For all that was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Rom. 15:4).

1. The principal purpose to which the plan of the old covenant was directed was to prepare for the coming of Christ, the redeemer of all and of the messianic kingdom, to announce this coming by prophecy (see Luke 24:44; John 5:39; 1 Peter 1:10), and to indicate its meaning through various types (see 1 Cor. 10:12). Now the books of the Old Testament, in accordance with the state of mankind before the time of salvation established by Christ, reveal to all men the knowledge of God and of man and the ways in which God, just and merciful, deals with men. These books, though they also contain some things which are incomplete and temporary, nevertheless show us true divine pedagogy. (1) These same books, then, give expression to a lively sense of God, contain a store of sublime teachings about God, sound wisdom about human life, and a wonderful treasury of prayers, and in them the mystery of our salvation is present in a hidden way. Christians should receive them with reverence.

1. God, the inspirer and author of both Testaments, wisely arranged that the New Testament be hidden in the Old and the Old be made manifest in the New. (2) For, though Christ established the new covenant in His blood (see Luke 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25), still the books of the Old Testament with all their parts, caught up into the proclamation of the Gospel, (3) acquire and show forth their full meaning in the New Testament (see Matt. 5:17; Luke 24:27; Rom. 16:25-26; 2 Cor. 14:16) and in turn shed light on it and explain it.

Dei Verbum, Chapter IV
vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html

In practical terms, as far as the Old Covenant goes for us, when Christ established the New Covenant in his Blood, he put an end to the **ritual **and legal laws of the Old Covenant. The destruction of the Jerusalem temple some 40 years later was verification of this. However, the **moral prescriptions **of the Law (like the 10 commandments) are still in effect, as they were not tied to the other two types of law, but are based on the natural moral law which is binding on everyone at all times.

 

[cristian84]

Dee5543, good question. First I would like to say something which you probably already know but needs to be said to start. First and foremost we are followers of Christ, and the Sacred Scripture as a whole make up the revealed word of God. The Old and New are both alive and dynamic books through which God speaks to us. As you said the Old Testament gives us the Commandments and the prophecies about Christ. However it is so much more, it is a testament of the love of God for man, and in it we read part of God’s plan of salvation which He ordained from the beginning. When Adam and Eve sinned God promised to send a redeemer, when the Israelites sinned against God by worshiping the Golden Calf, He did not destroy them but showed mercy, when the Israelites constantly sinned and turned from God during the time of the Judges God showed mercy, exct. exct. exct… And there are many examples of his love, mercy kindness, judgment and wrath through out both the New and Old Testament. Hopefully this helps some. God Bless.

 

[stanmaxkolbe]

This is from the Catechism:

The unity of the Old and New Testaments
129The Church, as early as apostolic times,104 and then constantly in her Tradition, has illuminated the unity of the divine plan in the two Testaments through typology, which discerns in God’s works of the Old Covenant prefigurations of what he accomplished in the fullness of time in the person of his incarnate Son.
129Christians therefore read the Old Testament in the light of Christ crucified and risen. Such typological reading discloses the inexhaustible content of the Old Testament; but it must not make us forget that the Old Testament retains its own intrinsic value as Revelation reaffirmed by our Lord himself.105 Besides, the New Testament has to be read in the light of the Old. Early Christian catechesis made constant use of the Old Testament.106 As an old saying put it, the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New.107
130 Typology indicates the dynamic movement toward the fulfillment of the divine plan when "God [will] be everything to everyone."108 Nor do the calling of the patriarchs and the exodus from Egypt, for example, lose their own value in God’s plan, from the mere fact that they were intermediate stages.

When I started reading the Bible through typology it really opened up for me.:bible1: