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 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,
John 5:39 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/jhn.5.39.ESV

Jesus didn't flatter the religious people who rejected Him. They prided themselves on their knowledge of the Jewish Scriptures, the Old Testament of the Bible. Yet Jesus claimed they couldn't see the wood for the trees.

Jesus asserted that the Old Testament is ultimately about Him. So if we claim to follow the Old Testament but reject Jesus, we've read it wrong. Sadly, many of the religious leaders of Jesus's day failed to acknowledge Him as their Lord and Messiah.

We don't get eternal life by reading a book. Yet insofar as the good book points to Jesus, it can tell us the way of life. We don't worship a book, we worship the One the Bible testifies of.

Some people assume the Old Testament is just a list of do's and don'ts. There is an element of that, but that aspect is fulfilled in Jesus, the perfect fulfilment of the law. We're not saved by law-keeping but by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

'Sovereign Lord, please help us to understand that the way of life is in You, not in a book. May we follow You for eternity. In Christ's name, amen'

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