Today's question is one I can certainly relate to myself. I read my Bible in the morning. I come across a promise or a text in the Old Testament. I write it out in a notebook. I take that text or that promise into my day. But later in the day when I return to the text, I'm left wondering if I lifted the verse out of context and maybe it doesn't really apply to my life like I first thought it did that morning.

Many texts to me feel more and more remote as the day goes on. Has that happened to you? Well, it certainly happened to me and it's happened to Maureen. She writes in to ask this, "Pastor John, thank you for the Ask Pastor John podcast. How do I know which Old Testament verses are for me as a Christian today?

Sometimes I select a verse that is meaningful to me from my Bible reading in the morning, but then later in the day as I later reflect on it, it feels like I lifted the verse out of context and misapplied it to myself. How, Pastor John, do I know which Old Testament promises are for me?" Well, I'm tempted to say, even though I know it's an oversimplification, all of it.

All of it is for you. All of the Old Testament is for Christians. Romans 15.4 says, "Whatever," underline that word, "Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through the endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures, we would have hope." All of it. 2 Corinthians 1.20, "All the promises of God find their yes in Christ." Jesus said in Matthew 5.17, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets.

I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished." So, even though it's an oversimplification, it's true. It's true. In a wonderful way that all of the Old Testament is for those who are in Christ Jesus.

He came. He came to confirm and fulfill all of it for his people. 2 Timothy 3.16, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable." That's important. It's all profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and training in righteousness, that the man of God may be completely equipped for every good work.

It's practical and profitable. But the reason it's an oversimplification to say that it's all for us is that, yes, some very profound changes in the way we use the Old Testament Scripture took place when Jesus came into the world, was rejected by Israel, established a new covenant by his blood, different from the old covenant, the Mosaic covenant, and said, "Now I will build my church." He did not say, "Now I will restore Israel." So, maybe what would be helpful for Maureen and for me, and maybe others too, I hope so, is to list the differences between the people of God, the church today, and the people of God, Israel, in the Old Testament, and how God relates differently to each.

These points can then function as a kind of filter. At least this is the way I function in reading the Old Testament. I have a filter, and I put things through this filter to know how I embrace them, how I apply them in my life. So that's what I hope will happen now as I walk through these points of difference between Israel and the church, because we're the church, and we need a filter to know what proper use to make of Old Testament teachings.

So, number one, Israel was an earthly political nation-state among other political nation-states, but the church is not. It is a people whose citizenship is in heaven, and who are sojourners and exiles here scattered among all the nation-states. Christians are not first citizens of earthly states, but only secondarily citizens of nation-states.

We are more closely related to Christians of other political countries than we are unbelieving fellow citizens in our own earthly country. Number two, Israel was an earthly government authorized by God as a theocracy to carry out God's punishments for those who broke his law, including capital punishment for idolatry and various other sins.

The church is not a civil government and is not authorized as a church to carry out God's punishments. Excommunication from the church through church discipline replaces execution through the judicial processes. Number three, Israel was basically one ethnicity, the Jewish people, but the church is made up of all ethnicities.

So the kinds of food laws and circumcision, for example, and other practices that were designed to separate Israel from the surrounding peoples, ethnicities, have been done away with as requirements for God's people. Number four, Israel had defined geographic borders and a geographic religious center where the tabernacle or the temple was.

The church has no geographic borders or religious center where the people of God are gathered in the name of Jesus. There is the center. There is Christ in the midst. Five, people were born into the Jewish people, but people are born again into the church. The new covenant is entered by the miracle of God's forgiving sins through faith and through God's writing the law on our hearts.

That's the new covenant. Six, the Old Testament religion was mainly a come-see religion, while the New Testament religion was mainly, is mainly, a go-tell religion. There was no great commission to go reach the nations in the Old Testament. God's focus was on blessing Israel among the nations so that the queen of the south came and had her breath taken away by Solomon's wealth.

But God never said to Solomon, "Use your wealth to evangelize the nations." But that is precisely what he says to us in the New Testament. Seven, the people of Israel maintained their fellowship with God by regular sacrifices, ministered by a select Levitical priesthood. But that entire system was done away with when Jesus fulfilled it by becoming the final sacrifice and by acting as the final high priest.

In the new covenant people, we get right with God and maintain our fellowship with God by trusting the substitutionary work of Christ and by depending on his daily intercession for us in heaven. And I think number eight is the last one. The people of God in the Old Testament did experience the working of the Spirit of God, but they did not experience or know the Spirit as the indwelling Spirit of the risen Christ.

Today we know the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Christ. He works in his church, therefore, in a way that he did not work in the Old Testament because the church is his body, the body of the risen Christ. So my hope for Maureen and all of us is that with this filter, these eight points, we can take any text in the Old Testament and make it our own by treating it as fulfilled in Christ with the necessary changes implied in those points.

For example, Psalm 51 ends like this. It's kind of a surprising end to a psalm that we love until we get to the last paragraph, which goes like this, "Do good to Zion in your good pleasure. Build up the walls of Jerusalem. Then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings.

Then bulls will be offered on your altar." We come to the end of Psalm 51, just exalting, "This is mine, this is mine." And then you read those words and say, "What? What am I supposed to do with that?" So how are we to embrace that text as ours?

Zion was the geographic center of God's people, standing for the presence of God among his people. And today, we would embrace that commitment to God, to his people, and say, "Do good to your church, O Lord. Wherever it is gathered in your holy name, build up the body of Christ and make your presence felt everywhere that your people are centered on you." And then we would come to the end and we would conclude with, "Oh, how I delight in the one great final sacrifice for sin that your Son offered.

We glory with you in that final fulfillment of every bull that was ever offered on your altar and we give ourselves to you as a living sacrifice for your glory." Very helpful grid here and helpful example as well. Thank you, Pastor John. I want to reiterate at the end the importance of those two texts that you mentioned at the very start, Romans 15.4 and 2 Corinthians 1.20.

Absolutely essential texts in framing this entire discussion. If you haven't spent time getting those two texts really clear in your own mind, I would recommend that you rehearse them, memorize them, get them deep into your mind and your heart and your soul. Romans 15.4 and 2 Corinthians 1.20. Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for joining us today.

If you want to ask Pastor John, email your question to us at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org. Next week we talk about joy. Joy. Is joy a choice we make or is joy a feeling that sometimes comes and goes? That's the question. Up next time, I'm your host, Tony Reinke. See you Monday.