Old and New Testaments

I think it’s interesting the way we have often used the Old Testament. When we find something we like “back there” in the Old Covenant, then it provides an illustration for us. After all, “everything that was written in the past was written to teach us” (Rom 15:4). But when we come across something back there we don’t like so much, we dismiss it with one of those “but that is just the Old Testament.” So Noah’s gopher wood and the “strange fire” of Nabab and Abihu apply to us. But Nehemiah’s restoration of Israel’s worship in song (today’s reading in Nehemiah 12) through instruments and choirs doesn’t apply to us because it is just the Old Testament. In fact, for many of us Nehemiah’s instruments and choirs ARE gopher wood and strange fire. (I bet if I looked hard enough through my old sermons, I’d find that point in there somewhere.)

Our reading today does illustrate one huge difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament, and it has nothing to do with worship styles. In our Old Testament reading from Nehemiah 13, Nehemiah’s final reforms focus on the removal of Gentile influence from Jewish life. Gentiles had intermarried with Jews and Gentiles were even using storeroom in the Temple itself. In fact, the biggest Gentile enemies of Jewish restoration (Sanballat and Tobiah) are mentioned here. Jewish religion had to remain pure from pagan influences, and this demanded that Jews separated themselves from Gentiles.

In our New Testament reading from Acts 13, Paul is preaching for the second time in the synagogue of Antioch in Pisidia. The is an organized opposition from the Jews there, and Paul ends his sermon by saying, “We had to speak the word of God to you [the Jews] first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles” (Acts 13:46). Paul applies the prophecy of Isaiah to himself, “I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 13:47).

For Nehemiah, faithfulness meant excluding Gentiles. For Paul, faithfulness meant including the Gentiles. Paul says that the cross tore down the dividing wall that the Law (a covenant between God and Israel) had created (see Eph 2:14-16). The difference between the Old and New Laws is not really about worship forms and formats; Paul was perfectly comfortable with Jews carrying over many of those forms and formats from the Old Testament to the New... as long as they didn't bind them on Gentiles. The real difference is that now as we are brought to God through Jesus, we are also brought together as one people, one church.