Why do Christians read the Old Testament in church?

The Old Testament belongs in Christian worship because Christians receive it as Scripture, and because the life, death and resurrection of Jesus are understood within the story it tells. In Luke 24, the risen Jesus opens the Scriptures to two disciples travelling to Emmaus, explaining what concerns him in Moses and the prophets.

That gives Christians a reason to return to these books. It also leaves us with the task of reading them carefully. Their poems, laws and narratives deserve attention to what they actually say.

Samuel and the message Eli must hear

Consider 1 Samuel 3. Samuel hears a voice at night and repeatedly goes to Eli, believing that the older priest has called him. Eli eventually recognises what is happening and helps Samuel respond to God.

This could become a reassuring story about learning to listen. But the chapter continues. The message Samuel receives concerns judgement against Eli’s household, and Samuel is afraid to tell it. The person who helped him recognise the call must now hear its painful content.

Eli helps Samuel hear God, yet Eli’s own household faces judgement. Those two facts belong together. The story asks us to consider responsibility and truth-telling within a relationship where wisdom and failure coexist.

Read in its setting, then look further

A Christian reading holds together the passage’s own setting and its place within the whole Bible. Luke’s account of Emmaus does not identify Samuel’s call as one of the passages Jesus discussed. We should not invent that connection or treat each detail of Samuel’s story as a code waiting to be decoded.

Article VII of the Anglican Articles of Religion affirms the continuity of the Old and New Testaments. It also distinguishes the ways different commandments apply to Christians. Receiving the Old Testament as Scripture does not mean treating every ancient civil or ceremonial rule as a direct instruction for life today.

These are also the sacred Scriptures of living Jewish communities. Christians should explain their own reading without describing Judaism as a faith that has been left behind, or assuming that all Jewish readers interpret a passage in the same way.

Try reading 1 Samuel 3:11–18 with Eli in view. Notice what Samuel fears, what Eli asks and how Eli receives the message. What would disappear if we reduced either person to a simple example to follow or avoid? Christ Church’s account of our faith sets out why both Testaments matter to our life and worship.