The Old Testement is Not Dead

Hello everyone and thank you all for being here tonight to share the experience of my first sermon with me. I am excited to share with you all how God has been working in my life during my first 4 semesters at Vanguard College.

What I want to talk to you all tonight about is a modern Christian perspective on the Old Testement. This modern viewpoint that makes its way around the church is that, because Jesus fulfilled the old covenant, and that we are in the new, that the old testement is not as important, and we should focus on the new.

I would challange this viewpoint. Without the old, how can we fully apreciate the new? I would argue that the OT is equally as important for todays modern Christian community. In the old testement we see how God moves through His chosen people and even though they make mistakes along the way, God shows amazing love, grace, patients, forgiveness, and His almighty power .With that said, tonight im going to talk to you about a story most of you are farmilier with. Exodus chapter 32: verse 1-6 (the golden calf).

I chose these verses because in my studies, I worked on a exegesis paper on the selected verses. And one of the questions that I struggled with in my paper was ‘what is the meaning of this pasage? And as I pondered, my mind went to ‘what is the meaning that my proffessor would be looking for?’ I struggled with this because how God spoke to me through the assignment did not seem to fit the more common interpretation that Idolitry is bad. But I then through more study, there can and is more then one Biblically sound interpretation behind these 6 virses. So lets walk through the passages together and I want to challange you all to open your hearts to what the 6 verses says, and what God wants to say to you through them. We will begin with some quick Hermeneutical skills, which arecrutial for properly reading, interpreting, and applying scripture

Pause - Observation

What does it say?

Who, what, where, when, how?

Rewind - Interpretation

What does it mean?

What is the purpose of this scripture?

What do the words mean?

What does the immediate context suggest?

What does it say about hummanity?

Fastforward - Application

What is the truth for today?

What is the lasting truth that continues to this day?

What do I need to learn?

Where/why have I fallen short?

What do I need to do about that?

How can I train with this principle?

Play - What will I do with this truth?

Identify and state spacific action steps.

Intentially pray about these action steps.

Not only hear, but doing the work.

So now that we have identifies what we will be focusing on during the scriptural reading lets start with the first step of reading the Bible at face value.

(1)

English Standard Version (Chapter 32)

(1)When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”

(2) So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” (3) So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron.

(4) And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” (5) When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD.”

(6) And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.

There is a lot to unpack here in just 6 verses, so lets do it together.

What does it say?

Who - Moses, Aaron, the people of Israel

What -

The people gathered around Aaron for him to make them gods

Aaron told the people to take off their rings of Gold, melted it down, and fashioned it with a tool into the shape of a calf.

The people declared the calf the gods that brought them out of Egypt.

Aaron built an alter before it and made a proclemation and said there would be a feast to the LORD.

On the next day, the people burnt offerings and brought peace offerings.

The people then rose up to play

Where

Mount Siani

When

After Moses had been gone for 40 days

placed in the middle of the tabernacle instruction section

How?

Aaron failed in his leadership to stick up for God, who he knew was the real one true God.

2. Rewind - Interpretation

What did it mean? (to the origional audience)

Stand strong in your faith and trust in God

What is the purpose of this scripture?

To remain faithful in times of struggle and when God feels distant

What do the words mean?

English Standard Version (Chapter 32)

(1)When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”

(2) So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” (3) So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron.

(4) And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” (5) When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD.”

(6) And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.

Here I have picked out four that I will go over for sake of time, but there are a lot more within the text that help us understand the context.

Delayed

nothing there or elsewhere in the narrative indicates that either he or any other Israelite knew in advance how long he would be gone.

Together to

Looking at Stuarts work this implies that Aaron was fearful for his safety from the people; suggesting that they were acting in hostility towards Aaron.

Golden Calf

Two gods that Egypt worshiped specifically were, Hapi and Hathor, they were thought of as a bull and a heifer. Also, the Canaanites worshiped Baal, “thought of as a bull and a symbol of fertility and power

Play

Alan Cole states “sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. Eat and drink could be innocent enough, after a ‘peace offering,’ but the verb translated play suggests sex-play in Hebrew (see Gen. 26:8) and therefore we are to understand drunken orgies

What does the immediate context suggest?

That no one is innocent, not the israelites and certainly not Aaron

What does it say about hummanity?

We are all flawed, even those in positions of leadership

So the next two steps Fast forward (Application), and Play (Integration) I leave up to you. You have the hand out and I want you, given more context of what happened all those years ago , to take time to reflect, and I encourage you to take this sheet home and reflect on it.

What is the truth for today?

What is the lasting truth that continues to this day?

What do I need to learn?

Where/why have I fallen short?

What do I need to do about that?

How can I train with this principle?

Play - What will I do with this truth?

Identify and state spacific action steps.

Intentially pray about these action steps.

Not only hear, but doing the work.

And in closing, I want to ask you a few questions.

Do we still need the Old Testement?

Is the Old testament not worth your time?

Bibliography

Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus, vol. 2, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2006), 661.

R. Alan Cole, Exodus: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 2, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973).

Enns, Peter. The NIV Application Commentary: Exodus. Zondervan, 2000)