How can we know that the Bible is the true Word of God after so many interpretations?
The multiplicity and variety and even contradictory interpretations of Scripture really have little or nothing to do with the question of its origin. Let me give you an analogy.
We've seen all kinds of interpretations of the United States Constitution, but even though political parties and different judges have different views of what the Constitution says and means, and what it intended, none of that difference of opinion casts a shadow on the source of the Constitution. We know who wrote the Constitution. We know where it came from and what it is.
People get dismayed by the differences of opinion as to what the Bible teaches. If we establish that the Bible is the Word of God, only half the battle is over. The next thing we have to figure out is, What does it say? Can we agree on what it teaches? The assumption is, if I can convince you that what I think the Bible teaches is in fact what the Bible teaches, and you agree, then you will change your view because you believe that that is the Word of God.
Many people are troubled by the fact that the Bible has been interpreted in so many ways and, as a result, have fallen into a view of relativism, which completely destroys the real significance of Scripture. It may be extremely difficult for us to find the proper interpretation, and we may be discouraged by all the disagreement about it, but part of the reason we fight so much among ourselves on matters of biblical interpretation is that we all agree that it's crucial to understand the Word of God correctly.
What can a Christian learn from the Old Testament? Is it as pertinent to my growth as the New Testament?
The Scriptures are not a single book but a collection of books made up of sixty-six volumes in the particular library that we call the Bible. The New Testament covers a period of time in human history of about thirty-five years, and all but five of those years for the most part are covered in the first couple of chapters. So the bulk of the New Testament covers about a five-year period, in human history. It is the most important period in human history of God's dealing with the human race because it covers the earthly ministry of Jesus and the expansion of the early church.
The Old Testament, beginning around Genesis 11 and throughout the rest of the Old Testament, covers a period of about two thousand years of redemptive history. That is a wealth of information of how God has acted on behalf of his people and for the redemption of this world.
I don't think we can say that one is more pertinent than the other. There is a widespread feeling that a Christian is only to be concerned with the New Testament, that the Old Testament is antiquated, no longer truly relevant. In fact, there is more and more the feeling that there are two different Gods. There is the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. The God of the Old testament is a God of anger, wrath, justice, and holiness. The New Testament God focuses on love, mercy, and grace. That, of course, is a radical distortion. There is a continuity between the two Testaments. We can distinguish them, but we dare not separate them. The same God is revealed to us both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. Saint Augustine said, "The Old is in the New revealed; the New is in the Old concealed."
The Old Testament is preparation for the coming of the Messiah and the revelation that we receive in the New Testament. It's like asking, "Is the foundation of a house important? Is it pertinent to the house?" It's essential to the house. The structure stands upon that foundation and that's what the Old Testament does for our faith. There are many elements of Old Testament history that are not to be applied directly to the Christian life today, such as the sacrificial system, but even the dimension of the sacrificing of bulls and goats and the like that we find in the Old Testament reveals something that points to the coming of Christ and enriches our understanding of what was accomplished by Christ. About three-fourths of the information in the New Testament is either a quotation of, an allusion to, or a fulfillment of something that was already found in the Old Testament.