Your Spiritual Ancestors

Acts 13:16-23

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In one of his missionary journeys, Paul found himself preaching in a synagogue, and here’s what he had to say to the listeners. We read from Acts chapter 13,

“Men of Israel and you who fear God, listen. The God of this people Israel chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with uplifted arm he led them out of it. And for about forty years he put up with[a] them in the wilderness. And after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance. All this took about 450 years. And after that he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. Then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years. And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’ Of this man’s offspring God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised. (Acts 13:16-23 ESV)

Man, what’s fascinating about Paul’s preaching here is that in just several verses, he covers this wide swath of Israel’s history. Now Paul shows himself again and again to be just a master rhetorician. He’s able to construct a compelling argument to drive his audience to think and feel in a certain way, and ultimately in his preaching, to get them to behold with the greatest clarity: Christ.

So when he’s talking about all these Old Testament figures and events, we shouldn’t think the listeners are sitting there saying, blah, blah, blah, blah. We’ve heard all this before. No, these were the people and events, chiefly the works of God, that gave them and their entire culture meaning. The Old Testament was their story of salvation, where God was working through them not only to be a blessing, but to ultimately deliver the Messiah, the Savior of the world. So all of the meaning of their lives comes rushing forward as Paul recounts these events and these people. And where does Paul say this mountain of God’s work leads to? It leads to Jesus. Man, what an impact. What a place to land for him.

Now, you may be a little intimidated by the Old Testament. You may hear some of those names and not really know what they’re associated with. But we are the true continuation of the Old Testament people of Israel. We are God’s people, the New Testament church. The Old Testament really is a cliffhanger. It doesn’t find its completion. The promised Messiah has not come. The final atonement for sin, that all those animal sacrifices depicted has not been made. The king who had ruled over David’s house forever, over God’s people, has not yet taken his seat on his throne. All of this was waiting for Jesus. Now the Old Testament believers were just like us. They had faith in a Savior who would come. Just as we have faith in the Savior who has come. But they trusted in him in his blood and his righteousness no less than we do.

So, dear friends, these are your spiritual ancestors. If you’re a Christian like me who doesn’t ethnically come from the Jewish people. These are your heroes of faith. These are proof that as God was faithful to them, he will be faithful to you. That as God could use people, then as sinful and weak as they were to accomplish his great purposes so he can work through sinful and weak people just like us. And let me end with a very practical tip. If you’re new to the faith, unfamiliar with the Bible, maybe you’ve been a lifelong Christian, but the Old Testament seems difficult because it’s so long and complex and the history is unfamiliar. Get yourself a Bible written for children, or maybe teenagers. Something that kind of boils the stories down, still gets the substance across, and introduces you to all the main characters and events, but get one with pictures. I’ve gone through a lot of education, read a lot of dense material. Sometimes I love nothing more than sitting down with like, an illustrated atlas and looking at the pictures as I read the captions. There’s no shame in using a book with pictures.

And let this be your gateway into the Old Testament, that when you hear these names and think about how God has orchestrated all things for your salvation and for the salvation of the world, that you also would be swept up in this history, swept up in this meaning and purpose, and that it would land you as it landed Paul’s hearers right at the feet of Jesus.