At The Post Covid Church
When megachurch pastor Andy Stanley told his parishioners that the apostles unhitched from the Old Testament, so they should to, it was as if a hand grenade were tossed into the tent.
Here goes a well know pastor/writer playing right into the hands of the new atheists saying, "How could Christians possibly worship or defend a faith with a God who sanctioned such violence?"
Rather than teaching the flock more of the Bible and the proper way to understand it, he said the Old Testament was too hard for the faithful to know and explain. “Too often we try to defend and incorporate the Old Testament into Christian faith, and we simply don’t need to do that today,” he wrote in Irresistible.
On the latest The Post Covid Church: What Now? podcast, I speak with one of the world’s foremost experts on the ancient book, Dr. John Oswalt. He’s authored or edited 16 books, including 3 commentaries on Isaiah and one on Exodus.
At 82 years old, Dr. Oswalt is still teaching and writing; his commentary on Kings will be published soon, and he’s working on commentaries on Amos and Ezekiel. He can’t disagree more with those wanting to downplay or even ignore the Old Testament. Without a proper understanding of the ancient texts, says Dr. Oswalt, our understanding of the New Testament is short circuited.
Listen to Andy Stanley’s reasoning for unhitching from the Old Testament and Dr. Oswalt’s robust defense of the 70% of the Bible too few Christians today have bothered to truly understand.