The Old Testament Template Book: Part 2, Introduction

How Do We Get Started?

In Part II we begin to look at what the Bible teaches us about the various domains of society and the principles that are to guide us in our involvement in these arenas. It is important to remember that this first volume of the “Old Testament Template” is an introduction to the concepts and ideas. It is in no way exhaustive of what the Bible has to say about each domain. In future works we hope to look at each domain more completely from all of scripture. But that study and research is still in process and will come later. Here we are trying to learn how to study and rethink what scripture has to say about these areas. In reordering our thinking to match the mind of Christ it is important for us to rethink carefully and methodically, laying down precept after precept, digesting them, incorporating them into our lives in obedience to truth and His Lordship, and then ask the Holy Spirit to lead us to the next level of understanding. I am trying to follow this radical obedience in my own life and mind, resisting the temptation to run off with a lot of easy and premature conclusions. People ask me every time I teach to draw conclusions and applications to current events that I am simply not prepared to make yet. God is renewing my mind. God is taking my thinking captive. It is a process and the most destructive thing we can do is to get ahead of Him, thinking we know more of what the Word of God says than we actually do. Lord, help us in our temptations.

In this section we will look at examples of what the Bible, primarily Deuteronomy, teaches us about each domain and how to track those principles through the rest of scripture. There are many principles on many different levels in every domain. We will only look at a few. The primary point is to begin changing how we read and think about scripture in ways that move us toward an integrated view of God and all of life. We have used Deuteronomy as the basis of most of the introduction because the Jewish scholars accepted it as the foundation book of what Moses was teaching in all his writings. All future scholarship, including that of Jesus and Paul, will reference back to Moses and the teachings imparted by God through him as the foundation stones of biblical thinking.

Each domain reveals attributes of God’s character and nature. Each domain reveals truths about His Kingdom and how it functions. When we study these areas we are studying about God. Not only what He does but who He is! It is essential that we keep this our focus and our passion. If we study with strategy and action as our primary motive we will miss the heart of the message. God’s primary objective is not to get us to fulfill a job for Him, even one as important as reaching and discipling the nations. God’s primary desire for you and me is to reveal Himself to us. He wants us to know Him! This humbles my heart. This humbles my mind. What kind of God is this that cares so much for you and me that He desires to know and to be known with such intimacy? This truth of God’s priorities must supersede all other motives in our search for a relevant gospel to the issues of the 21st Century.

It is not, first and foremost, about us and what we are to do. It is about Him!

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