The Old Testament has a lot to say to these questions. When we read these ancient scriptures we find a variety of stories, poems, prophecies and proverbs that express the theologies of our ancestors in the faith. It’s important to hear that there are different voices of faith in the Old Testament, different ways of looking at God, the world and human beings. The Old Testament is really a library of books, documents that speak as distinctive witnesses. Especially since that ‘library’ took over 1,000 years to create, it contains different ways to express what’s important because the circumstances and contexts of the writings varied during those centuries. Being able to hear these different voices, the different theologies of the Old Testament, will increase our understanding of God’s word. This will also help us to read the New Testament better, because the New Testament writers turned to these Old Testament theologies to express who Jesus was and what his life, death and resurrection meant.
COVENANT THEOLOGY
Read: Deuteronomy 10:12 – 13, 15, 17 – 19
Let’s start by looking at covenant theology, one of the most familiar because it’s so common in the Old Testament. Who is God? How do humans know God? “The Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome.” Typical of covenant theology, this passage (Deuteronomy 10) expresses that God is sovereign and powerful, the Lord of history and the Creator of the cosmos. Creation is God’s handiwork and also the realm of nature and human history where God’s reality is made real.
However, covenant theology said even more about God. Israel had experienced a God who was on the side of the oppressed and in fact saved them from the power of their oppressors when they were delivered from state slavery in Egypt. God is one “who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers.” The only God for Israel was a God who was a gracious, merciful deliverer for God’s people in their weakness and whose characteristic act was gracious salvation. By experiencing and remembering God’s merciful actions for them in the past they learned of God’s nature, God’s faithfulness and His love for them.
What about human nature? For covenantal theology, humans are a pretty mixed bunch—we’re not perfect, but we’re also not all bad. Humans certainly can be good; we can be obedient, faithful, compassionate and helpful. However, we can also be evil; we can be disobedient, arrogant, oppressive and hurtful of others.
So how then are we to live? Based on God’s sovereignty and gracious actions in saving the people, humans in return are to make decisions as if that revelation is how we in fact should also live. Here’s the heart of the covenant: as God has been faithful to God’s people, so we should be faithful to God by keeping God’s commandments. As God has been gracious and merciful with humans, so we must be gracious and merciful with each other.
The laws or commands of the covenant are the way the people of God embody who God has been for them and what God expects of people. Law is not empty or niggling legalisms cooked up by small – minded scribes to control people. Living the covenant, being faithful to God and God’s ways, honouring and praising God, these are the ways of life and fullness and wellbeing. When humans keep covenant, they remember that they were once slaves and that God was gracious to them, so they ought faithfully to live a life and create a society that in the same way is gracious and giving toward everyone, especially the weak and desperate.
But remember the other part of human nature—that we can also be disobedient, arrogant, and hurtful? Here covenantal theology is equally clear. When we behave like this, we turn away from God’s ways and fail to live out the blessing and grace God intended. Our lives are mean, and greed and arrogance determine our actions. For such people, covenantal theology warns that they will lose their connection with God and God’s blessings for life. But the covenantal approach also offers forgiveness—we can turn back to God and God will graciously pardon us and restore us to covenant life. This is echoed in another phrase that rings throughout the OT—”God’s steadfast love endures forever”—which is a way of saying that God’s covenant love and faithfulness endure forever.
Covenant theology is convinced that humanity finds wellbeing in obedience to God’s covenant that creates wellbeing for the whole of creation and humankind. In this, humans live out the grace and faithful love of God, the one who says, “I will be your God and you will be my people.”
PRIESTLY THEOLOGY
Read: Leviticus 19:1 – 3, 11 – 12; 20:24b – 26
A distinctly different belief is found in books like Leviticus, Numbers, Ezekiel, and Chronicles—priestly theology. “I am the Lord your God; I have separated you from the peoples. You shall therefore make a distinction between the clean animal and the unclean. You shall be holy to me; for I the Lord am holy.” (Leviticus 20) Here, the priests of ancient Israel were making an important theological statement. Holiness is central to God, and thus to creation that God made and humanity that God formed.
But what is holiness? For ancient Israel, the basic concept behind the idea of holiness is “that which is set apart,” (Leviticus 19) or, in other words, holiness pertains to actions, places, objects, time and people when they are set apart from common or ordinary reality. Holiness thus is based on the separation of all of reality into distinct spheres of holiness or lack of holiness. Such a theology thus distinguishes purity from impurity, life from death, clean from unclean, order from chaos, and wholeness from partiality or mixture.
So priestly theology expressed the conviction that God is totally other than any human or limited reality. God is set apart, distinct in God’s power, sovereignty, and wholeness or perfection. The basic conviction of a faith stance centred on holiness is that God created the universe to be an ordered, living, and holy cosmos. Disorder, chaos and impurity threaten order, stability and holiness. Thus, the cosmos and all actions within the cosmos are to participate in the order of holiness and to avoid impurity and disorder. Life in this way can be a blessed reflection of God’s holiness in the beauty, abundance and harmony of creation.
However, holiness can also be a dangerous power that breaks out against anything or anyone if it comes in contact with something not pure. This idea comes from the ancients’ understanding that chaos and disorder are threatening to life. So that which is unholy, unclean, partial, or of a mixed type not according to its “kind” is the opposite of holy and cannot be in contact with the holy. Likewise, if a person or object came in contact with something impure, then they had to be either purified through a ritual or destroyed.
For priestly theology, holiness in the human realm required a social system that expresses and protects this ordering of the cosmos. This means that the human order is meant to mirror the order and stability of God’s creation. Thus, the priests saw the human task to order all human life strictly according to everything that is clean, pure, whole and life – giving.
The laws about what God’s people can eat and not eat seem petty to us, but for the ancients, when a person ate something that was not declared “clean” by God, they were “out of order” and defiled themselves by not living according to the distinctions and separations God created. For the ancient Israelites these laws were a beautiful expression of living in harmony with God’s created order.
So also with the social order. Humans must carry out holiness by such actions as revering their elders, keeping Sabbath, taking care of the poor and vulnerable, being honest and fair in all actions. These social, political and economic instructions are not neutral or optional guidelines; rather, they are the stuff of a holy way of life that reflects the order, goodness and blessedness of the creation and the Creator.
Priestly theology is convinced that through maintaining holiness and order, humanity can live in harmony with God’s ways. This leads to wellbeing for the whole of creation and humankind. In this, humans live out the holiness of God, the one who says, “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”
WISDOM THEOLOGY
Read: Proverbs 8
Proverbs 8 begins with a startling image: a woman stands in the street and calls out, inviting passersby to accept her invitation. This sounds like we’re veering into inappropriate territory, but the woman is not of a questionable profession, but rather is a picture of wisdom. She invites her hearers to live with insight, intelligence and prudence and she extols the virtues of wisdom. Wisdom theology is well represented in the books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job and in numerous psalms. Wisdom forms, like proverbs and parables, are scattered throughout the stories and prophecies of the Old Testament.
In some ways, wisdom is the most distinct voice in the Old Testament because it is founded on a unique understanding of how we know God. Covenant and priestly theologies are founded on the conviction that God’s ways are known to humans by revelation. God was revealed to human beings through specific awesome actions, particularly in the foundational events of the escape from Egypt and the giving of the law at Mount Sinai. In God’s presence and words, the people learned about God’s power and also heard the covenant or priestly laws by which they were to live.
But wisdom is different. At the beginning of Ecclesiastes, the sage talks about his method of learning: “I, the Teacher, applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven.” And in Proverbs 24, we read, “I passed by the field of one who was lazy, and see, it was all overgrown with weeds and its wall was broken down. Then I saw and considered it, I looked and received instruction. A little sleep, a little slumber and poverty will come upon you like a robber.”
Do you see the source of knowledge in these passages? The attentive human being learns about the world through careful observation and consideration of actions and consequences. Knowledge about the world is available freely to humans through their own powers of intelligence and examination. No special revelations are needed. For wisdom theology, God created the world and God is the author of life, and humans can understand much about the world and how to live in it by observing God’s order in the world.
Wisdom puts confidence in the human being and our abilities to learn, make choices, and shape our lives well. Prosperity, honour and long life all come from making wise choices and living with intelligence and discretion. However, wisdom also teaches about how to avoid an evil or miserable life by avoiding the pitfalls of foolishness like hasty words, greed and laziness. Wisdom teaches that actions have consequences—if you work well, you will be rewarded, if you’re lazy or hasty, you’ll come to a bad end.
Except of course, when things don’t turn out that way. The ancients were observant enough to see that sometimes bad things happen to good people and sometimes the wicked become successful. The ancients pondered long on this difficult problem so that it became a major theme in the wisdom approach. Both the books of Job and Ecclesiastes are extended meditations on the problems of innocent suffering. There is no good answer, even in Job, to the questions. In the end, Job seems to be a long reflection on one of wisdom’s most basic assertions, that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” When we realize we are not God, that we cannot control our life in the world, then we are beginning to be wise because we lose our arrogance and admit our humanity. That is wisdom.
Wisdom theology is convinced that we can know a lot by observing the created world and we can make good choices about life through diligence and learning. However, wisdom also recognizes that suffering happens to all of us and sometimes life cannot be explained. Finally, only God is Lord, so “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
PROPHETIC THEOLOGY
Read: Amos 5
“I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.”
The prophet Amos is not easy to listen to. We don’t like to think about God being angry and judgmental—we much prefer grace – filled messages of comfort. However, prophetic theology holds the conviction that God both judges those who perpetrate wrongdoing, especially oppression against the vulnerable, and offers grace that abounds. In prophecy, God is communicating in the voice of the prophet who is the spokesperson for God. Prophecy takes us from words of piercing indictment, like Jeremiah’s “Your ways and your doings have brought this (disaster) upon you. This is your doom!” to Isaiah’s beautiful words of hope, “Comfort, comfort my people, speak tenderly to Jerusalem …”
Each prophetic book in the Old Testament developed over time throughout the history of ancient Israel, so it is important to understand the context and audience of prophecy. For example, Amos addressed a specific group—the ones who were trampling the poor, building fine houses and pleasant vineyards, taking bribes and pushing aside the needy in the local law courts. In other words, Amos addressed and talked about the powerful and affluent of his time who thought they deserved God’s blessing. In a society where there were wide disparities of wealth and power, these were the elite who had land, political influence, and wealth.
It is pretty clear that these people are getting bad news about the consequences of their behaviour. God has judged them for their transgressions against justice and compassion, for their greed and arrogance, for their misplaced religious efforts that miss the mark of true worship. Their attitudes and actions have rightfully earned God’s punishment in the form of the destruction of their fortresses, fine houses and vineyards, exile and death that lead to wailing and lamentation in the streets, fields and vineyards.
But Amos has another audience besides the rich and powerful. “Seek the Lord and live, seek good and not evil, hate evil and love good and establish justice.” These words addressed everyone, a general call for seeking the highest good in all human relations. This positive and lofty message offers a new opportunity to hear God and do righteousness instead of the same old transgressions. Note that the content of the message is the same: justice and compassion are the standards by which human life should be shaped. However, the tone is different: appealing, persuading, offering God’s abundant mercy to those who have gone astray.
While it is obvious that the message in Amos is about justice, another look reveals an underlying theme. The Lord God is either the speaker or is spoken about in almost every verse of the book. The Lord is the God of hosts, Creator of the heavens and earth, and powerful enough to punish wrongdoers. God requires justice and righteousness. The Lord does not delight in empty worship, endless offerings, or solemn assemblies. Rather, God calls, persuades, pleads with people to turn to the good, the just and the right, and offers mercy for those who seek to turn back to righteousness.
And now we can hear what is distinctive about prophetic theology—the insistence that God is deeply and irrevocably involved in human life and in setting values for human decision – making. Prophetic theology is adamant that God knows and cares about people, and how they live and how they treat each other and creation. Prophets bring a word of judgment for the arrogant who have pursued their own well – being at the expense of the marginalized; a word of hope to those caught in a hopeless situation of oppression or warfare; a word of comfort to those suffering the ravages of political fortune or oppression by the powerful.
Prophetic theology is convinced that God offers a way to live by embracing all of life in God’s love, justice and mercy. Humans are called to find their hope in God and in response to “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever – flowing stream.”
We have listened to four distinct witnesses to the faith of our ancestors, written in their lives and words. You can hear common themes in these four theologies, especially that God is sovereign Lord, creator and sustainer of life, who remains involved with humanity. All these theologies also see God’s expectations for how humans respond to God and treat each other. However, here the theologies express distinct themes. Covenant theology remembers God’s gracious, faithful salvation that calls us to love and act with compassion toward each other. Priestly theology is adamant that God’s holiness in the created order means we should live within standards of holiness and purity. Wisdom reflects that God’s creation opens us to learning and wise living while humbly recognizing the limits of our understanding. Prophetic words maintain God’s constant judgment and mercy which cry out for us to respond with righteousness if we have done wrong, and to respond with hope if we need a word of comfort.
These theological truths echo throughout the Old Testament, woven into the texts developed over the centuries. These truths were the foundation of practice and faith for the first Christians and so they are also woven through New Testament witnesses to Jesus’ life, death and resurrection and the life of the early church. From there, these theologies have informed and shaped centuries of Christianity in its wide diversity and finally, they come to inform and shape our lives and faith today.
