If we will follow Jesus, we will follow Him in the attitude and response toward Scripture that He taught while He was on this earth.
Jesus expected his Jewish hearers to have read or heard the Scriptures. To the chief priests and elders, for example, he said, “Did you never read in the Scriptures?” (Matthew 21:42). To His disciples He said, “You have heard that it was said to those of old” (Matthew 5:21). The Old Testament Scriptures for the Jew were to have been heard by the Jews. We ought to read and hear all Scripture with an emphasis of course upon New Testament Scripture wherein is the gospel.
Jesus expected His Jewish hearers to recognize that the Scriptures had been written to them, for their application and discernment. In a challenge from the Sadducees, He said, “But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying,…” (Matthew 22:31). The Sadducees’ names were not personally written in Old Testament Scripture, but Jesus expected them to receive Scripture not as an interesting story but as God speaking to them. And they were written for our learning too (Romans 15:4; 1 Corinthians 10:11). While the New Testament Scriptures include writings to churches and individuals, they are written to us too so that we will make the appropriate application of the truths.
Jesus expected His Jewish hearers to not only hear the Scriptures written to them long before but also to ponder them in order to really know them. The Sadducees failed in this: “Jesus answered and said to them, ‘You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God’” (Matthew 22:29). They may have read what was written, but did they know the Scriptures? In this case Jesus finds fault for them failing to make the necessary conclusion from what was spoken in Exodus 3:6 (cf. Matthew 22:32). We need to not only hear the Scriptures spoken to us, but we need to know them through careful and devoted examination, contemplating their meaning and application.
Jesus expected His hearers to have done something else with the Scriptures: He expected them to have believed them and obeyed the commandments. To some unbelieving Jews in Jerusalem He said, “For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me” (John 5:46-47). He expected them to have believed what was written in Old Testament Scripture. But He also expected them to do what was commanded in Scripture: “Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:19). We likewise must not only hear the Scriptures but believe and obey them.
Many people talk big about following Jesus but they soft-pedal when it comes to giving careful attention to knowing and doing what is written in the Scriptures. Jesus taught the utmost respect for what is written – Scripture – and if we will follow Jesus, we will be concerned with hearing, knowing, believing, and doing what is spoken to us by God in Scripture. That calls us to give continued, earnest effort in Bible study. -Larry Jones