My childhood was spent in Sunday school classrooms on the second floor of an annex. Off the side of the church, above the parish hall, the annex held a hallway that on Sundays became full of life. 

Every child from first to fifth grade was seated in their classroom well before the service started. They were dressed to the nines or, in my case, a smock and eager to see the pictures in the children’s Bible. I remember the often-repeated stories well: Joseph and the coat of many colors, David and Goliath, Jonah and the whale, and Jesus’s many miracles, to name a few. 

When I graduated from the hallway and moved to a youth group a few years later, the lessons became more “practical” or “topical.” They almost solely revolved around the canon that follows the conclusion of John’s Gospel.

Growing up, we very rarely learn the Old Testament outside of the fun Sunday school stories. It’s far more difficult to talk to children about the prophecies of Jeremiah or the condemnation of Ezekiel. While I agree that certain material is not appropriate for a certain age (like the story of the Levite and his concubine in Judges 19), there is an issue in contemporary Christian culture that needs to be addressed. 

I was blind to this issue until a friend, who loves Jesus deeply, referred to her church as a “New Testament church”— and not in the way that points to Acts and the apostles. She meant her church solely focused on the New Testament, and she preferred it that way.

However, God is not only in the New Testament. We do not only receive direction on how to live from the gospels and epistles. If we want to know God, the first 929 chapters of the Bible are as important as the next 260. 

When I explained my concern to a friend last week, she said she’d heard that some view the Old Testament as irrelevant. Her reasons included Jesus’ absence and the observation that it doesn’t seem like the same God. 

First and foremost, it would require far more work than this to fully explain why the God of the Old Testament is the exact same as the God of the New Testament. Succinctly, there is only one God because that is God’s character. 

In Hebrews 3:18, the author states, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” The doctrine of the Trinity is the Christian belief that God is one being and essence but three distinct persons. Consequently, God and Jesus share the same characteristics.

However, for those who argue the former point about Jesus’s absence in the Old Testament, there are two potential explanations to address their point.

First, Jesus fulfilled over 300 prophecies concerning him in the Old Testament. Even if he was not physically present in the canon, he was most certainly discussed. 

Second, the appeal of Jesus, most often, is his gentleness and mercy toward sinners. The picture of God often painted in the Old Testament is that of an angry judge.

But the scriptures provide numerous examples to contradict this as seen in Joel 2:13, Numbers 14:18, Nehemiah 9:17, and Psalm 86:5. Even God, when in conversation with Moses in Exodus 34:6-7, describes the Divine as “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin.” 

If this is true, how should we read the Old Testament in a setting where youth are present?

It is important to utilize all aspects of scripture because each book and chapter can reveal something about the Lord’s character or our own. If the only part of Jonah’s narrative we ever teach is his experience in the fish, we miss the Lord’s pursuit of Jonah and God’s sovereignty over Jonah’s ministry in Nineveh. 

David is a complex character who is entirely underrepresented if his story is limited to the encounter with Goliath. In Hosea, Nahum, Jonah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah and many of the other prophets, readers receive a close look at the Lord’s anger over sin and God’s abundant love for people. 

Without a true view of Israel’s mistakes, it is hard to reckon with our own. Without a full look at God’s love when there had been no justification, we only further understand our deep need for grace and our mission to love those around us, regardless of who they are.