It's In The Text

This is just another example of how IT’S IN THE TEXT!!!!!! Here is an interesting quote from Walter Kaiser, Jr., who was the academic dean at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. His works have probably affected modern church doctrines and theologies of the Evangelical movement as much as anyone currently alive. I show you this, because it must be realized just how foundational the Torah is to the entire Bible, and how we understand who God is.

 “…in order to make up for the hiatus of instruction on all sorts of practical questions about how to deal with everyday problems such as “youth conflicts” and the like, Evangelicals flock by the thousands in every major metropolitan area to special seminars as an open testimony to their hunger for true biblical instruction on matters that were (actually) dealt with in the OT law. To be sure, most of these seminars on youth problems, marriage enrichment, and business management techniques drew heavily on the Biblical Wisdom Books of the OT (especially Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon). But what few have realized, and what still remains as one of the best kept secrets to this very day, is that these same Wisdom Books have as their fountainhead the Law of Moses [Torah]. One need only take a marginally competent reference Bible and notice how frequently the text of Proverbs, for example, directly quotes or alludes to the books of Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy in its popularized “bumper sticker” way of theologizing. Just these few examples should be enough to warn the contemporary pastor and teacher. We must overcome our inherited prejudice against the OT, especially as concerns the Law. We must immediately move to balance the spiritual diet of God’s people. Few people today would espouse a junk-food nutritional plan as a regular plan of good eating; but how many Christians prefer to eat only the “desert” as found in the NT?  In order to address this imbalance…we (must) begin to use the OT in a more balanced and holistic teaching ministry.”