I want to tell you something that might surprise some believers today: when the apostle Paul wrote to Timothy and said, *"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness"* (2 Timothy 3:16), he wasn't talking about the New Testament.
He was talking about the Old Testament — because that's all they had.
The letters we now call the New Testament were still being written, still being circulated from church to church. When Paul said "all Scripture," he meant the Hebrew Scriptures — what we call the Old Testament today.
The Jesus They Knew
Here's what strikes me when I read the book of Acts: those early believers didn't have a New Testament to study. They had the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings. And yet they understood Jesus perfectly well.
When Philip encountered the Ethiopian eunuch reading from Isaiah 53, he didn't hand him a gospel tract. He started right there in Isaiah and *"preached Jesus to him"* (Acts 8:35). The Old Testament was enough. It was more than enough — it was the very soil from which the gospel grew.
The apostles didn't abandon the Old Testament when they met Jesus. They understood Him *because of* the Old Testament. Every time Jesus said, "It is written," He was quoting from those ancient Hebrew scrolls.
A House Built on Sand
I've watched something troubling happen in my years of ministry. We've become a New Testament-only church. We quote John 3:16, we love the Sermon on the Mount, we preach from Romans and Ephesians. But ask the average believer what Leviticus teaches about Jesus, and you'll get a blank stare.
We're trying to understand the second half of a story without reading the first half.
Jesus Himself said it plainly: *"Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill"* (Matthew 5:17). You can't understand what He fulfilled if you don't know what was written.
Every Shadow Points Somewhere
When I began studying the Old Testament seriously — really digging into Leviticus, into the feasts, into the tabernacle — something remarkable happened. I started seeing Jesus everywhere.
The Passover lamb? Jesus. The scapegoat on the Day of Atonement? Jesus. The manna in the wilderness? Jesus said it Himself: *"I am the bread which came down from heaven"* (John 6:41).
The Old Testament isn't just history. It's prophecy written in story form. Every sacrifice, every feast day, every detail of the tabernacle — they're all shadows cast by something real. And that something is Christ.
Paul put it this way: *"So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ"* (Colossians 2:16-17).
Shadows tell you something real is coming. The Old Testament is God preparing His people — preparing us — to recognize Jesus when He arrived.
The Same God, The Same Voice
I meet people sometimes who talk about the "Old Testament God" and the "New Testament God" as if they were two different beings. The God of judgment versus the God of grace.
But that's not what Scripture shows us. The God who spoke tenderly to Israel in Hosea — *"I drew them with gentle cords, with bands of love"* (Hosea 11:4) — is the same God who came to us in Christ.
The God who provided a ram for Abraham on Mount Moriah is the same God who provided His own Son on a cross.
When you read the Old Testament, you're learning the character, the voice, the heart of the God who later wrapped Himself in human flesh and walked among us. You can't know Jesus fully without knowing the Father He came to reveal — and the Father reveals Himself throughout the Old Testament.
Where We Start
So where do you begin? If the Old Testament feels overwhelming, let me give you a simple suggestion.
Start with the Gospel of Matthew. But this time, when Jesus quotes the Old Testament — and He does it constantly — go back and read those passages for yourself. Let Jesus be your guide into the Hebrew Scriptures.