The Key To Understanding Scripture

Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled." Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures...
Luke 24:44-45

Don't miss the implications of what Luke says in verse 45. It was only at that moment--after Jesus told His disciples that everything written about Him in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms (the Old Testament) must be fulfilled--that the disciples were able to understand the Scriptures. Before that moment, they didn't really understand the Scriptures (which at that point in time was only the Old Testament since there was no New Testament), even though they probably thought they did. They didn't understand the Old Testament because they didn't know that everything written in the Old Testament was about Jesus until Jesus told them so.

Similarly, we will never really understand the Old Testament (and in my experience, we will never remain motivated to read the Old Testament)--even though we may think we do--until we come to it as that which is meant to teach us about Jesus, to point us to Him and to prepare us for Him. The key to understanding Scripture is to know that, from beginning to end, it's all about Jesus (Colossians 1:16).

So if we were to pickup our Bibles for the first time having never read them before (or advise someone who has actually never read the Bible), the best place for us to start isn't in Genesis, but rather in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John (John might make the most sense since it starts the same way Genesis does). If we want to better understand the writings of Isaiah and Jeremiah, then perhaps what we need to do is gain a better understanding of the writings of Paul and Peter. Because, as one person so concisely put it, "the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed."

When we start with Christ in the gospel and go back from there into the Old Testament, we find that the Old Testament eventually leads us back again to Christ.
-Graeme Goldsworthy, "Gospel and Wisdom," in The Goldsworthy Trilogy, page 343.

In other words, in all things (and especially our understanding of Scripture), Jesus is the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end (Revelation 22:13).

HT: Christ Is Deeper Still