Reading the New Testament in Light of the Old (Sermon Acts 4:5-12)

Who were the believers who wrote the Gospels? They were Jews—Jews who celebrated Passover, sacrificed in the temple, and lived by the Levitical laws. They had their own language and culture. Like all human beings, they did not live or write in a vacuum, but in a certain time and place in history. When we forget this reality, we are in danger of completely missing what they were saying in the New Testament.

In Acts 4, Luke tells us of Peter’s designation of Jesus as the stone. If read apart from other scripture, it might appear that Peter was saying that Jesus was strong and immovable, but when read in the light of the Old Testament that both Peter and the Sadducees were so familiar with, it becomes apparent that Peter was pointing to Jesus as God in the flesh, the Messiah. The stone was an image used to refer to God in the Old Testament (Psalm 18:2) and in Daniel (2:35) it was used to prophesy of the coming Messiah. Peter draws upon these images to forcefully proclaim to the Sadducees that the Jesus whom they had crucified was the Messiah.

Acts 4 is just one example of a phenomenon that saturates the New Testament. Most of the theology and many of the images of the New Testament are grounded in the Old Testament. Just one more reason New Testament Christians today should read the Old Testament.