Christ does not replace or erase the history of the Old Testament. He brings it to its fullness. The historical fulfillments demonstrate God's faithfulness in their own time and also bear witness to the greater fulfillment accomplished in Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is the Ark of the New Covenant. He is our place of atonement, our mercy seat. He puts a lid on the righteousness that might otherwise condemn us by offering his very self in our stead on the cross.
Because the biblical story unfolds in real places among real people, archaeology helps us understand the world in which God's saving work took place and, in turn, enriches our reading of Scripture.

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It was happening again. I sat across from my dear friend at one of our favorite restaurants. We were finishing our glass of wine and eating the end of the sushi when the waitress approached.
My life will be unwritten, erased by the hand of mortality. And fool that I am, I stand here threatening to snuff out the life of a woman caught in the act which I have acted out in my heart with a thousand women.
“Now, a certain man was sick...” Rick was kind. He knew my name before I knew his. The few times we talked, I felt like I should get to know this guy. I had actually planned to strike up a conversation the next time I saw him at church.
The entire life of believers is one of repentance.
I’ve come to realize at the tender age of 47 that sometimes church doesn’t work.
For it is His law I have broken, His office in which I have failed, His people against whom I have sinned. All is from Him, so all I have taken, I have taken from Him. All others against whom I have sinned, I have sinned because they are of Him.
I was angry at heaven, at earth, and everything in between, for my life and my love and my hopes had all gone wrong, terribly, irreversibly, wrong.
The wine of communion is a gift from God and the blood of Christ we receive at the rail an inebriant that encourages and frees us.
I sin more in thirty minutes than those of the “victorious Christian life” supposedly sin in thirty years.
Leviticus, far from being an esoteric relic from Israel's past, is a Gospel book of the church. It teaches of God's holiness, His love, His sacraments, His worship. It is a book we desperately need to recover. But, yes, it is hard to understand, especially why there is all this focus on sacrifice.
The thing is, not only is fixing our past impossible; who’s to say we wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes? In fact, who’s to say we wouldn’t make matters even worse?
Waits wants to pen the songs with beautiful melodies and lyrics dark as sin. Whatever his church background, he sings “the big print giveth, and the small print taketh away."