How Jesus Unlocks the Old Testament

I’ve written a lot recently about the keys to understanding Jesus’s life and ministry, and his identity as the uncreated, eternal, and incarnated Son of God. But one piece I’ve not written about as much here is how the OT points to and is fulfilled by Jesus, though it’s obvious that he’s not afraid of his OT.

Later this year, however, Everett Berry (Professor of Theology at Criswell College) and I will be releasing a book from Rainer Publishing entitled, They Spoke of Me: How Jesus Unlocks the Old Testament. The book will also include a foreword by one of our personal and academic heroes, Thomas Schreiner of Southern Seminary, and endorsements from kind friends like Michael Bird, Tony Merida, and Liam Goligher.

Here’s a snippet from the introduction, which will help explain our heart behind the book:

The disciples who spoke with Jesus in Luke 24 have a wonderful testimony indeed. So much so, we believe it is a worthy endeavor to fan a flame of love for God and his Word today. That’s why we wrote this book. We want to give you a glimpse of the OT’s richness by seeing how Jesus Christ serves as its proper lens. We want to show that the NT consistently points to Jesus as the central interpretive key to understanding how the hopes of the OT were and will be fulfilled.

This is why this book is entitled They Spoke of Me. Jesus showed those disciples how various parts of the OT were written about himself. He revealed how he was the key to unlocking the complete meaning of the OT as God’s Word. Therefore, what we want to do is cover nine examples (of many!) that illustrate Jesus’s claim. Each individual chapter reveals how these subjects either foreshadow or describe assorted features about who Jesus is and/or what he has done. The focus here is not strictly on typology of Christ, nor is it meant to be exhaustive. Instead, we want to provide in a narrative format a few biblical portraits that will help readers see the centrality of Christ in all of Scripture.

We acknowledge at the outset that this book cannot match the wonderful experience that those two disciples had as they listened to the Teacher of Teachers riff on the OT. No doubt, it would have been great to eavesdrop on that conversation. But we pray that this book will at least help you see the beauty that would’ve resulted, and we hope it rekindles in you a passion for carefully reading all of God’s Word, seeing Jesus emerge off its pages. Only then would we consider this book a success.

We pray that it will help you think through how to read, study, and teach the full story of the Bible. This book can be read cover-to-cover, or each chapter can be read on its own. Either way, we pray you quickly move from the pages of this book to the pages of Scripture itself.

Also, to give you a picture of the book’s outline, below is the Table of Contents. More soon!

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