Yesterday, we began to list reasons why we might want to continue reading the Old Testament even when it appears tedious or boring:

• “All scripture” is inspired and profitable
• Paul preached “the whole counsel of God”
• Some of the New Testament doesn’t make sense without it

Here are a few more reasons:

• There are lessons embedded there and nowhere else, and we never know where they are going to turn up! For example, how many times have I raced through Exodus 24 without making the connection that Aaron saw God right before he made the golden calf? Also, I’m not the only one to do a series on leadership lessons from Nehemiah.
• Paul told the Corinthians (I mentioned them yesterday – Paul had apparently taught the Corinthians A LOT about the Old Testament):

For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things took place as examples for us,

• that we might not desire evil as they did.
• Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.”
• We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day.
• We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents,
• nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer.

Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. (1 Corinthians 10.1 – 11, ESV, emphasis mine, bulleted for clarity – and all those events are in our Exodus – Numbers readings for this year!)

Enough for today. I have one more, very important, reason coming tomorrow – see you then!