What's so NEW about the NEW Covenant?

[brYce]

This topic is meant to review a teaching seminar contrasting the old and new covenants by Tim Hegg that you can find on my iDisk (linked in my signature below). Once you get to my iDisk, the file path you must take to find the teachings is:

brycehenderson's Public Folder > FFOZ > Video > What's so NEW about the NEW Covenant?

To download the teachings you just need to select them and then press the far right circular button with the downward-pointing arrow in it. To view the video files you need iTunes or some other player that can handle .mp4 files. To download iTunes for free click HERE.

Please, consider taking time to watch the teachings so you are able to participate in the discussion and know what's going on. I'd like to keep this discussion focussed on the points covered in the video seminars, so please don't be upset if I don't follow you down a trail that leads away from the subject matter.

IMPORTANT: When you want to reference something that Hegg said you simply need to mention the title of the lecture and the time in the lecture he said it. For example, "Session One - Words Have Power, 03:23". That tells us that the material you're referencing is at 3:23 into that lecture. If we do this it will be easy for people to see exactly what you're trying to comment on and make this conversation go a lot smoother.

I'd like to try to take this discussion one session at a time. As you will see from going to my iDisk, the three sessions are:

• Session One - Words Have Power
  Session Two - 2 Corinthians 3
  Session Three - Hebrews 8

There is also a Question and Answer session that we can discuss.

I've gone over these sessions many times in my studies and, I can tell you, it makes most sense to start with "Session One - Words Have Power", where Hegg defines terms and helps us to establish a foundational understanding of what the new covenant is. So, let's start there!


Shalom

 

[brYce]

I'm going over Session One again right now and making some notes. I'll post them when I'm done and hopefully we can discuss the points. Shalom.

 

[brYce]

Session One - Words Have Power

Here are some notes on the first part of "Session One - Words Have Power":

Our terminology has great power. We take conclusions and put them into a word, we seal those conclusions into that word, and we can continue to use that word without testing the conclusions.

What does "Old Testament" mean? Many think that it is the first part of their Bible, but it actually means Old Covenant.
What does "New Testament" mean? Many think that it is the second part of their Bible, but it means New Covenant.

A covenant is not a collection of books.

Our Bibles are bifurcated into Old and New Testaments. The early church fathers of the emerging Christian church made those distinctions.

Ancient People = Jews
New People = Christians

Old Testament = Old Covenant
The Bible of the Ancient People

New Testament = New Covenant
Bible of the New People

"Old Testament" is the Law, Prophets, and Writings, or Tanach.

"New Testament" is the Apostolic Scriptures, or writings of the Apostles.

As early Christian theology developed the gap between the "Ancient People" and the "New People" grew. With that growing chasm the Christians began to see the "New Testament" as their Bible and the "Old Testament" as the Bible of the Jews.