1. God’s Grace in the Old Testament (Study 1 in a series of 7) Is there a key to it?

2. Can you remember when you first learned a verse or story from the Old Testament? What was the story? What did you find so interesting?

3. Read Gal 3:10-14, 24 What is the purpose of the Law (Old Testament)?

4. Read Romans 6:8-14. Paul says in Romans 6:14 “We are not under law, but under grace”. What is the difference between law and grace here?

5. If we Christians follow the life and teachings of Christ and his apostles (which are found in the New Testament), why do we need to bother about the Old Testament at all (given that it was written by the Jews for the Jews)?

6. If the Old Testament was Jesus’ only Bible, shouldn’t we value it like Jesus did?

7. If we Christians want to value the Old Testament as God’s Word, how do we deal with the bits that do not fit with our Christian understanding of the Bible?

8. There are lots of different methods that have been put forward to understand the Bible. The best way for evangelical Christians is to look for and value finding the centre, or key, or inner unity of the Bible, from the Bible itself.

9. If there is no key or inner unity of the Bible, biblical theology is in crisis. But if there is a key or inner unity, then the biblical authors must have been aware of it as they wrote.

10. Walter Kaiser (Toward an Old Testament Theology, Zondervan 1991) has found a key that comes out of the Bible text, which encompasses God’s premeditated plan throughout the ages.

11. He argues that the concept of “promise” can be found in every book of the Bible, in every age, and it encompasses every doctrine. Furthermore, the concept of promise is not too big as to become meaningless.

12. Have you made any promises lately that you can share? Or perhaps a promise someone has made to you, that you believe (s)he will keep.

13. In these coming six studies we will examine different aspects of the concept of promise in the Old Testament. They include topics such as ‘blessing’, ‘covenant’, ‘God’s steadfast love’, prophetic predictions, God’s eternal plan, and Messianic hope.

14. The key to understanding the grace of God in the Old Testament comes when we understand the biblical concept of promise. It is because of God’s covenant love for us that he promises to save and protect us. This is a demonstration of his grace.

15. Next time we hope to look at the concept of ‘blessing’ as a symbol of grace in the Old Testament.

16. (c) 23 rd August 2011, K. Sarlow