Spiritual Sunday: The Old Testament

So I went to a class the other night put on by our ward and taught by Gerald Lund (author of Work and the Glory).  It is held once a month and Jordan and I have been trying to make it for years and we finally had an opportunity to go the other night.  Brother Lund focused the lesson on the Old Testament and it was great to hear his thoughts.  The class started with questions like, "what comes to mind when you think about the Old Testament", and "What parts of the Old Testament bother you".  The introduction to the class was basically all about how the Old Testament is difficult to read, hard to believe, and how it is kind of being pushed aside by some religions these days for its controversial nature.  I agreed with all of these things, I've only read through the Old Testament once and it was when I was in high school and I wasn't all that invested.  Brother Lund went on to teach about how the Old Testament is actually a beautiful book.  He explained how Jehovah, or Jesus Christ, is the God of the Old Testament and how it is therefore an amazing testament of Christ. Jehovah is actually referred to 5500 times!  He then went on to teach that we may not be so appreciative of it now but that it was important enough to kill for and it is a foundational scripture. He then went on to explain why this is.  So the children of Israel were given the law of Egypt until their exodus, at which time the Lord revealed to them the Law of Christ.  Unfortunately the children of Israel were not so successful at living this law and that is when the Lord revealed the Law of Moses (something along these lines).

By looking at this diagram we can understand that the leap from the Law of Egypt to the Law of Christ was a HUGE one, and this is why the Children of Israel were not successful at living it.  We can also see that the Law of Moses is just one step above the Law of Egypt.  The children of Israel were spiritually young and needed a law as straight forward as the law of Moses.  Brother Lund compared this to parenting, with the idea that you give young children straightforward laws such as "don't go in the street".  Because if you were to tell them "its important to protect yourself and be aware of their surroundings" they wouldn't be able to make the connection that they shouldn't walk into the street.  And this is why the Law of Moses and the harshness of God in the Old Testament may seem ridiculous to us, because we have so much more spiritual knowledge then the people of the Old Testament.  God knows this and so we have the Law of Christ which allows us to exercise our free agency and become more independent.  This explanation does not do Brother Lund's lesson justice but hopefully it will spark a curiosity in you to study the Old Testament with a different outlook.  If you want to know more about what Brother Lund has to say about the Old Testament THIS is a good talk to read.  You can also navigate around his website, he has lots of great books and talks on other subjects.