Word Within the Word Conference

Not much has been going on here at Union other than school. We are coming down to the final weeks of the semester, and there is lots to do homework wise. But this weekend, I was able to take a small break from the homework load as I attended our annual Ryan Center Conference here on campus. Our Ryan Center (which is a Christian Studies library run by Dr. Van Neste) hosts a conference each year, I think this is the third one. This year it was the Word within the Word Conference. Dr. D. A. Carson came to campus last night and today to talk about the New Testament's use of the Old Testament, which is also a commentary that he put together.

The New Testament is filled with direct quotations and allusions to Old Testament passages. And many times we skip over these connections and miss out on the truth that is behind them. Also, many of our churches today have become so focused on the New Testament that we neglect to look at the Old Testament, which is still part of the Bible. So why is it that we ignore it, especially if the New Testament depends on it? Just something to think about.

Dr. Carson looked at three specific passages out of the book of Hebrews to help illustrate this point. We looked at Hebrews 1:5, Hebrews 3-4, and Hebrews 7. Respectively, these passages deal with the term "son," the idea of "rest," and Christ as our Priest King. I cannot go into all the detail that Dr. Carson went into at the conference, but I can give you a few quick thoughts on these passages.

By looking at 2 Samuel 7:14, Psalm 2, Psalm 95, and Psalm 110, we can derive the meaning of some of the words, topics, and issues that the original authors meant. For instance, "son" was sometimes a family turn and sometimes a vocation. The idea of "rest" referred to God's rest at Creation and was also used to describe the Israelites' arrival in the Promised Land. Saul was not allowed to be a Priest and King at the same time under the Levitcal Law, but David was informed and prophesied that there was a Priest King to come. When these Old Testament passages are studied in their original context and then connected to the New Testament, we can see how the New Testament writers interpreted these passages. We can follow the logic through the Old Testament and into the New Testament.

There is a lot of technical terms and issues I could go into about these passages, but instead of explaining some of that I want to skip ahead to an application, something I picked up on this weekend. As I said earlier, I feel like we neglect the Old Testament today. We do not give it justice in our studies. We skip over the "hard" sections because we do not understand the text and do not want to understand the text. But just by looking at these examples this weekend, I have been reminded of the unity of Scripture. It is all tied and weaved together by God. He has made it flow, and when we sit down and really study, we can begin to see some of these connections in the text. This weekend was an encouragement for me to really learn to study the Bible more and more, searching the Word for God's truth. We can learn something new each time we open the Word and study. We do not need to take it lightly and just "do our devotion" for the day. There is a lot to be found in Scripture if we will just look and study.

It really was a great weekend, but now it is time to get back to studying and finish out this semester.

Matt