The Riches of Divine Wisdom

by David W. Gooding

The wisdom of God is revealed in both Old and New Testaments, but it is impossible to appreciate that wisdom fully if the two are read in isolation. Sometimes the New Testament quotes the Old as authoritative. Sometimes it cancels things that the Old says. At other times it indicates that the Old was a type that illustrates New Testament doctrine. How are we to understand and apply its teaching? Is the New Testament being arbitrary when it tells us how to understand the Old, or do its careful interpretations show us how the Old was meant to be understood? Could it be that the New Testament's many different ways of using some of its passages provide us with guidance for reading, studying and applying the whole of the Old Testament? Drawing upon many years of biblical research and teaching, Professor Gooding addresses these issues by expounding key New Testament passages that use the Old Testament. First he examines the importance of the general relationship of the two testaments. He then considers five major thought categories of the New Testament's interpretation that encompass the many insights that it employs as tools for harvesting the wealth of the Old. Finally he formulates guidelines for interpreting Old Testament narrative and illustrates them from three familiar passages. Taken together these insights provide invaluable help for appreciating the richness of God's multifaceted wisdom, which has come down to us as the revenue of all the ages.

Genres: Theology, Christian, Reference

458 pages, Hardcover

First published February 25, 2013

About the author

David W. Gooding is Professor Emeritus of Old Testament Greek at Queen's University, Belfast and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. His international teaching ministry is marked by fresh and careful expositions of both testaments. He has published scholarly studies on the Septuagint and Old Testament narratives, as well as expositions of Luke, John 13-17, Acts and Hebrews.

Reviews

[Frank Peters]

The books written by David Gooding were recommended to me by John Lennox. Prof. Lennox stated that the teaching of Gooding was significant for his understanding of how to read and understand the Bible. After reading this book, I can understand the recommendation. Reading this book felt like taking a seminary course. In this book, the author discusses different ways that we can read and understand the Old Testament in light of the New. Thus, I recommend the book to any Christian who is interested in learning more from their reading of the bible.

[PJ Wenzel]

Much good is done in this book - some very helpful tools, and very helpful approaches to scripture. I would have given this 5 stars, but the treatment on the Abrahamic Covenant was just a bit problematic. Gooding boxes himself into the terminology that has led many other scholars down an unhelpful road as well, namely that of labeling the covenant "unconditional" while arguing for God's fulfilling of its conditions - you can't have it both ways. More nuance (or more helpful terminology) is required here. He also mistakenly says there are two covenants (Gen. 15 vs. 17), when good recent exposition has been done to show this simply isn't he case (e.g. Kingdom Through Covenant, Gentry/Wellum et all). It weakened the case he was making.

However, on the whole, I think the book is very helpful for modern Christians who don't really have a clue as to how (or why) to read the Old Testament. Many read it with the eyes of someone only reading for historical facts - not realizing that Jesus, and the rest of the NT authors regarded the OT as "profitable" for more than simply historical filler, even in the New Covenant era.

[John]

This was a really, really good book and really necessary. The goal of the book is to explain how the New Testament uses the Old Testament. How do the NT authors come up with references to Christ, and do they take them out of context? How do the authors reference the Old Testament? Do they feel the need to quote it directly? refer to it? make allusions? Do they use allegory? How?

Mr. Gooding addresses all these questions and answers them quite well. His section on allegory is worth the price of the book alone. He lays out rules to use in understanding how we view the Old Testament in light of the New, and they are good rules and all taken from the text itself. I found the book very profitable.

My only criticism is sometimes Mr. Gooding could do a job of making his concepts simpler. I occasionally found myself finishing and then going back and saying, "Now, how did he resolve this? It seemed clear in the middle, but by the time I got to the end, it was a little muddled for me."

Sooner or later, if you're an avid student of Scripture, you're going to wonder how the New Testament writers understood and used the Old Testament. This is the best book I've reading to answer that question.

[John Hayward]

This is one of those books that would benefit from repeated study, particularly making use of the study guide questions provided for use after reading each chapter. The consideration of prototypes (pp.116-8 et al) helped me in seeing the relevance of the original ascension prototype (Ex 19:9, 24:16-18) when preaching (a couple of months ago) on Acts 1:6-14. Found the insight linking God's mercy on Rahab to that on the Gibeonites (ch.25) very helpful too.