The Bible

I love the Old Testament. It now is one of my most favorite books. But it wasn't early on in my life. Back then I thought it was nothing but boring accounts of the dusty travails of Moses' people. Page after page of Leviticus and Numbers used to bore me till I couldn't stand reading the Old Testament any more! I quit my effort.

That was, until I took a Mormon Institute class near my college. (Institute is a religion class offered for college kids.) One semester I decided to take an Old Testament class. To this day I'm not sure why.

I remember the first evening well. The Institute teacher stood before us and declared with absolute certainty that by the end of the semester he felt we'd love the Old Testament as much as he did.

I wanted to laugh. Not so, I thought. The Old Testament is a book of dusty stories and boring lists. Was I wrong!

Throughout that semester I learned that the Old Testament exists basically to testify of the Lord Jesus Christ, His sufferings, and His hope that we will accept of His offering for us.

Just imagine my astonishment as I read verses such as these below (from a volume of scripture I'd thought was dusty). My heart ached for Christ and His sufferings as I read them; the scripture was so powerful. The Old Testament apparently was a more important book than I'd thought:

"He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

"Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

"But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed...." (Isaiah 53:3-7)

To read these words were heart-wrenching for me. And it continued:

"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

"He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth..." (Isaiah 53:3-7).

I'll stop here. But there is more to this chapter describing the suffering that Jesus Christ went through ... for us! It is a chapter worth reading. And once I'd read that, I realized that the Old Testament is NOT a dry dusty old book that held nothing for me.

To the contrary, the Old Testament has led me to a deeper, clearer understanding of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and especially to an understanding of the sufferings of Jesus Christ went through for me.

[To read the free online Old Testament, click on the Old Testament link. To access free online study materials, click on the Old Testament seminary study link and the Old Testament institute study link A or B.]