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CURRENTLY IN BOOKS
Filling in the blanks of a New Testament God

Gilbert G. Brandt

The Bible Jesus Read
Philip Yancey. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1999.

Philip Yancey continues to provide us with new perspectives on familiar topics. Books on the Old Testament abound in home and institutional libraries. Books about Jesus also abound. However, melding these two into one brings us a whole new look at the Old Testament.

As I read Yancey’s treatise, I was reminded of a fallacy in today’s thinking. Modern society frequently imposes today’s knowledge and concepts on yesterday’s acts. Today’s “politically correctness” cannot be imposed on yesterday’s ideas and actions. Yet, too frequently, we see history being rewritten in order that nothing politically incorrect will show. How can we understand the truths about history and learn from them if we do not endeavour to grasp the times in which the events took place?

This is the basic thrust of Yancey’s book. We sometimes assume the disciples, Jesus and Paul had the benefit of the entire New Testament from which to draw instruction and inspiration. We look back from our vantage point and wonder why people in the New Testament could not understand the way we do. Yancey reminds us that the people of Jesus’ day (including Jesus) knew God only as the God of the Old Testament.

Because Yancey recognizes the vastness of the Old Testament, he probes several key books (Job, Deuteronomy, Psalms, Ecclesiastes and “the prophets”) that are the “companions for my pilgrimage”. Writing from a personal and subjective perspective, he shows an analytical grasp of Scripture and provides new insights. Yancey, like many Christians, avoided reading the Old Testament. However, as he began an in-depth study into the Old Testament, he found the Scriptures alive, portraying a relationship between God and people that help fill in the blanks of knowing only a New Testament God.

However, Yancey focuses on the various Old Testament passages without bringing these to Jesus and His era. Was this a marketing ploy to pique the interest of evangelical readers? Why not connect each Old Testament book with the sayings and life of Jesus? I would have found such a connection worthwhile. In any case, Yancey’s new appreciation and love for the Old Testament shows through clearly in the pages of this very readable book.

“Advance Echoes of a Final Answer” offers this insight: “As I think back over the Old Testament . . . three questions keep resurfacing in different forms – the same three questions that attract most of my own doubts. I return again and again to the Old Testament because it faces head-on these very questions: ‘Do I matter?’; ‘Does God care?’; ‘Why doesn’t God act?’ These are the watershed of my faith. If Jesus is the answer for me, then he must somehow speak to these questions.”

By looking again into the Bible Jesus read, we gain a greater understanding of Jesus, and through Him, answers to these questions. Yancey reminds us that God does speak through the Old Testament.

Gilbert G. Brandt is a member of River East MB Church in Winnipeg.

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Last modified November 7, 2000.

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