From the editor

For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.—John 1:17 (KJV)

This is a most unfortunate translation of one of my favorite verses. Since the King James Version was used for so many generations, this translation framed the way English-speaking Christians have understood the two testaments. This translation implies something quite different from the original Greek meaning. It pits the Old Testament against the New Testament. It suggests there is no grace and truth in the Old Testament. It depreciates the law.

But here is the way my Greek-English interlinear Bible translates it: “Because the law through Moses was given, the grace and the truth through Jesus Christ became.”

This rather wooden translation reveals the organic relationship between the old and new testaments. The grace and truth that came to us through Jesus Christ is the fruit of the law given to Israel by God through Moses. Grace and truth is the law’s legacy, its posterity.

So during this “Year of the Bible,” as Mennonite Church USA leaders have named it, I hope congregations will include the Old Testament in whatever plans are made to participate.

Why? I remember one of my seminary professors saying it’s not really possible to understand the New Testament without understanding the Old. This is because many things in the New Testament “became” because of the law. The easiest way to see the relationship between the two testaments is to look for trajectories.

Here is one example: In Genesis 4, Lamech boasts to his wives, “I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold.”

Generations after Cain murdered Abel, wanton violence is Cain’s legacy. But the Old Testament law begins to moderate such excesses. So in Exodus 21, the law says, “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”

In Old Testament Hebrew, emphasis was shown by repeating a point with different words. In this case, repeating the point with seven examples demonstrates, with as much emphasis as possible, the limitations placed on vengeance.

So between Genesis and Exodus we see the beginnings of a shift. Then Jesus completes the trajectory with his commandment in Matthew 5: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer.

But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.”

This is grace, and this is truth. Both “became” because God gave the law through Moses.

The Bible is not “flat” in the sense that every passage is equally important. The most important passages are those recounting Jesus’ life, ministry, death and resurrection.

Further, the Sermon on the Mount is one of the most important of Jesus’ teachings.

But Jesus and his disciples did not have the New Testament. Scrolls full of the law, the prophets, psalms and wisdom literature (what we call the Old Testament) was their Bible. To fully understand how the disciples were faithful, we need to know the same Bible they did.