How many of us try to read through the Bible and end up feeling lost by the time we hit Leviticus (or the end of Genesis!)? Have you tried the “read through the Bible in a year” and still don’t have a better grasp of what God is trying to do throughout all these different types of books, stories, poems, laws, parables, gospels and letters?! Michael Horton’s Introducing Covenant Theology provides a clear framework that gets us past these frustrations to trusting in the wonderful ways God creates and saves His people throughout history.
Many Christians today fall into two camps: they either see the Old Testament as the time when God was angry, unloving and the people were evil (unlike us now!); or, they try to appreciate the Old Testament as the Word of God, but can’t understand what God was up to for all those years with Israel, the Temple and all those crazy laws! Horton masterfully shows why both groups will miss the purpose of Jesus’ mission, how God was always moving toward salvation in Christ throughout the Old Testament, and how the Church can best submit itself to the dynamic and wide world of Scripture. We need to take seriously Jesus’ statement that He fulfills all the Law and the Prophets, and this book helps us do that.
Having used this book as the guide for a Bible Study, I can attest that it opens people’s eyes to how the Bible is held together through God’s one purpose of redemption and why that matters for our own lives. We can be confident that God had a specific purpose from Genesis to Revelation and accomplished that purpose through clear redemptive-historical periods. Horton also shows how understanding the intentions of God transforms the life of the Church and what God is doing through us rag-tagged group of believers.
One great example of this is the David and Goliath story. How are Christians today meant to read this story? Is it simply meant to inspire us to fight our own Goliaths – as a kind of battle cry? Or, when we understand that David foreshadows Christ, are we meant to see shadows of Christ’s battle on our behalf and the kingdom that David inherits as ultimately fulfilled in Christ?
This book will challenge and enlighten how you understand God’s Word and how we ought to faithfully obey the God who speaks through it.
