Welcome to Day 1494 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to WisdomBible Study – Understand What Your Bible Is – Meditation MondayWisdom - the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. This is Day 1494 of our Trek, and it is time for Meditation Monday. Taking time to relax, refocus, and reprioritize our lives is crucial in order to create a living legacy. For you, it may just be time alone for quiet reflection. You may utilize structured meditation practices. In my life, Meditation includes reading and reflecting on God’s Word and in prayer. It is a time to renew my mind, refocus on what is most important, and making sure that I am nurturing my soul, mind, and body. As you come along with me on our trek each Meditation Monday, it is my hope and prayer that you, too, will experience a time for reflection and renewing of your mind.
 We are continuing our series this week on Meditation Monday as we focus on Mastering Bible Study through a series of brief insights from Hebrew Scholar, Dr. Michael S. Heiser. Our current insights are focusing on what the Bible is. Today let us meditate on:
Bible Study – Understand What Your Bible Is·      Insight Twenty-Seven: The Old Testament Came before the New Testament
I know what you’re thinking. How profound. Talk about having a firm grasp on the obvious. Fair enough. But some of the essential keys for Bible study are hidden in plain sight. This thought is utterly crucial, and one most Bible students miss despite its transparency. There are few things more critical for biblical theology than having this fact invade your mind and establish a permanent beachhead.
Even someone who’s never read the Bible can discover that the Old Testament came before the New Testament. That is the purpose of the Table of Contents. Yet even seasoned Christians read and study the Bible as if that observation is more a trivia point than a vital clue to competent Bible study. I know of preachers who don’t consider the Old Testament worthy of pulpit time. I’ve had many sincere Christians tell me they can’t recall the last time their pastor went through an Old Testament book. The average person in the church has been conditioned to equate the word “Bible” with “Jesus” or “the Gospels” or “the book of Revelation.” Don’t believe me? Ask a dozen people in your church this question, and see what answers you get: “What’s the Bible about?” Most answers will sound like you asked what the New Testament was about.

Ignorance of the Old Testament is a severe issue. I’d call it a hermeneutical crime. Since it came before the New Testament, it was the Bible of Jesus, the apostles, and the first Christians. The Old Testament is three-quarters of your Bible. The New Testament books quote from it for a simple reason: New Testament theology is tethered to Old Testament theology. Since it came first, it has “coherence priority’’—it is essential for understanding what follows. There isn’t a page of the New Testament that doesn’t reference the Old Testament somehow. Every New Testament doctrine has its roots in the Old Testament.
We like to say that Scripture must be interpreted in context. The Old Testament is the primary context for the New Testament. Without a grasp of the Old Testament’s purpose and theology, any commitment to context forfeits its authenticity.
·      Insight Twenty-Eight: Read the Preface to Your Bible Translation
Most nonfiction books have a preface. Whoever wrote that did so intending to...