Sept-Nov 2016

It is the ongoing experience of Christians that God speaks to us through the written word of the Old and New Testaments. It is, however, a common experience that some Old Testament passages speak more to us than others. This can give rise to the question of how the Old Testament should be read in the light of the New Testament. One way of answering this question is to look at how the New Testament writers refer to the Old Testament. It is comforting to find that the writers of the New Testament books seem to dwell on some Old Testament books more than others: three quarters of the reference to the Old Testament come from only five books: Isaiah, Psalms, Deuteronomy, Exodus and Genesis. Furthermore, the passages within these books that are referenced are also highly selective. Because, out of the five top referenced Old Testament books, we have used Deuteronomy least in our Sunday morning readings I have decided to look at how the New Testament writers make reference to the book of Deuteronomy. From the 28 such references I have selected 9 main passages and will make reference to as many of the other 19 as there is time for. Date Theme New Testament Deuteronomy 11-Sep God is a consuming fire Hebrews 12:18-29 4,9 18-Sep Treasure in heaven Luke 18:18-30 5 25-Sep Sharing the harvest Deut 24:17-22 24 02-Oct Not dismissing people Matt 5:21-26 5 09-Oct Countering temptation Matt 4:1-11 6,8,10 16-Oct God has no favourites Eph 6:5-9 10 23-Oct Not far from the kingdom Mark 12:28-34 6 30-Oct Overcome evil with good Matt 5:38-42 19 06-Nov Christ a curse for us Galatians 3:10-14 21,27 13-Nov Rooting out sin 1 Corinth 5:1-13 22 20/27-Nov (Thanksgiving / Christingle)

4-dec God raised Jesus Acts 3:17-4:4 18 I hope by doing this we will be able to hear what God has to say to us through the ancient words of the Old Testament. If you have the time to do so, you might find it helpful to read through the whole of Deuteronomy during the Autumn, so that you can understand for yourself the way in which the New Testament writers hear God speaking to them through this important book.