Having established the biblical foundation and description of what I’m calling “Olive Tree Theology,” we are concluding with some practical implications. My first observation was how this way of thinking positively impacts our view of God. My second point was that it affects the way we understand Jesus.

Here is my third point. When we take this olive tree theology to heart, it shapes how we view the authority and inspiration of the holy scriptures.

Who do we see with Jesus as he is filled with and radiates the glory of YHWH on the Mount of Transfiguration? Moses and Elijah. What a wonderful picture, Jesus in conversation with these pivotal personalities from our covenant history. There is connection and continuity, not contradiction and confusion, between the two Testaments. The first introduces and expounds the covenants, while the second renews the first, inaugurating the New Covenant. There is coherence: Messiah Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever (Heb 13:8).

The teachings of Jesus (Yeshua) are in continuity with the Law (Torah) represented by Moses, and the Prophets (Nevi’im) represented by Elijah.

Law and Prophets is a shorthand way of referring to the entire Old Testament: So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets (Matt 7:12). As disciples, we are to take the whole counsel of God seriously. The word scripture is used over fifty times in the New Testament. Every time, without exception, the word refers to the three-fold division of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh): the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.

It is regrettable that it later came to be labeled the “Old Testament.” I feel that more acutely the older I get [laughter]. There was nothing “old” about it to Jesus, to his earliest followers, or to Paul, the Jewish apostle to the Gentile world. Of the Tanakh, he says to his protégé Timothy: All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work (2 Tim 3:16-17).

They made you wise to salvation because these scriptures speak of the Messiah: And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself (Luke 24:27). This was the Word of God for Jesus. He loved it, and he lived it. Surely it should be an ongoing, vital part of our lives as well.

Paul invited people into the New Covenant, not into a new religion.

He is interested in you responding to a call to become a people, to join the covenant-shaped people of God. It doesn’t occur to us that in the first century, there wasn’t a church building on every corner. The Tanakh was the Bible of the apostolic Church in the Book of Acts, and every Saturday in the synagogue, they heard the Torah read. They would then gather from house to house to discuss the apostle’s teaching and receive the Lord’s Supper (Acts 2:42-47).

The Old and the New Testaments are joined together in Jesus. As such, they are inseparable and to us, invaluable. You may have heard it said that the second Testament fulfills the first. Although the new does fulfill the old in one sense, the analogy has serious limitations.

For many Christians, the default understanding of the Old Testament is like that of a product catalog. You saw the picture, placed an order, and when it arrived, the transaction was fulfilled. You got what was promised. So why do you need the catalog? It was merely a shadow of the reality. Though Jesus said he was not abolishing the Torah, if, in effect, he fulfilled it as in the product catalog analogy, then it is easy to cast aside.

Better than fulfilled is the idea that Jesus fills God’s Word full.

The entirety of Holy Scripture is inspired. Biblically speaking, that means they’re inspirited, God-breathed. And where the Spirit is, there is life. There are certainly guardrails that preserve the doctrines of infallibility and errancy, but we don’t get hung up on endless arguments and minutiae. We are looking for life. We are looking to receive the Spirit that brings dry bones to life again.

Are you receiving God’s Word as his breath? Does it give you life? Are you taking your relationship with him seriously, listening to his commands, corrections, and instructions for guidance and direction?

Olive Tree Theology delights in Scripture: And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates (Deut 6:6-9).

Jesus embodies sacred Scripture and shows us that love is not an emotion; it is an action.

“Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31)

I have a prophetic word for those of us living in the twenty-first century. I don’t think God cares how you feel because your feelings are going to be all over the place. But the Father cares for you, and he cares a lot about what you do.