Proclaimer Blog
The New Testament use of the Old (2)
2. Illustrative example
Sometimes the New Testament uses the Old Testament as an illustrative source book. This is often prefaced with the words “just as…” The Old Testament story (in particular) illustrates the point being made. A good example is Jesus’ reference to the widow of Zarephath (Luke 4.24-26 using 1 Kings 17.8-16).
We need to be careful here, though. Just because the story is referenced in the New Testament, does that narrow its interpretation to only this line? I think that depends very much on the context. Take the following illustration from Luke 4.
And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed, only Namaan the Syiran.
If you go back to that story (2 Kings 5.1-14) I think careful study will reveal that the heart of the passage is Namaan’s confession “Now I know there is no God in all the world except in Israel. So please accept a gift from your servant.”
This is a story about the gospel going to all nations and nations being brought in, fulfilling the promise to Abraham. However, the widow story in 1 Kings 17 is about the word of the Lord through the prophet not failing.
Yet both are used by our Lord to illustrate that a prophet is not accepted in his home town. If you were to preach those 1 or 2 Kings passages, you would not want to make (I would suggest) the Luke 4 line your main thrust. Jesus is using those passages illustratively. (And therein lies an interesting aside. Why not take more of your illustrations from Bible stories?)
However, there is a different kind of example, which I will consider tomorrow.