Old Testament: EPISODE 1 (2026) – Introduction to the Old Testament – Part 2
John Bytheway: 00:01 Welcome back to part two with Dr. Joshua Sears, Introduction to the Old Testament.
Dr. Joshua Sears: 00:07 The manual also suggests to talk about the relationship between the Bible and the Book of Mormon and other Restoration scripture that we read 2 Nephi chapter 3:12, which is the prophecy of the Lord to Joseph of Egypt and says, “Wherefore, the fruit of thy loins shall write and the fruit of the loins of Judah shall write.” Now we have our Bible and our Book of Mormon from Joseph and Judah. That which shall be written by the fruit of thy Ioins. Also, that which shall be written by the fruit of the loins of Judah shall grow together unto the confounding of false doctrines and laying down of contentions and establishing peace among the fruit of thy loins and bringing them to the knowledge of their fathers in the latter days, and also to the knowledge of my covenants, saith the Lord. I really love this verse as a description of how ancient biblical scripture is gonna work hand in hand with modern revelation, that they’re designed to grow together.
01:02 They’re together, but they grow, which suggests to me a process of time that as we read them more and more, we’re gonna see more and more how intertwined they are. Hank, you mentioned earlier that as we go through the Come, Follow Me curriculum, when you go through one year, it helps you appreciate the other years. We’re constantly improving our ability to understand all books of scripture as we continually cycle through these books. You’re just describing what I think is going on here, that the more we read the Bible, it grows to help us understand the Book of Mormon. And the more we read the Book of Mormon, it grows to help us understand the Bible. These are really meant to work together. I do wanna suggest, though, one kind of caution here, so to turn our whole discussion on its head, we’ve been talking about how restoration scripture teaches us how to read the Old Testament and understand it better.
01:50 Sometimes the fact that we have all this restoration scripture, if we’re not careful, can keep us from understanding everything that the Old Testament has to teach us. Here’s what I mean by that, and there’s a few ways that this might play out. One is just the practical challenge that we have way more books of scripture than most Christians do. They have the Old Testament and the New Testament, and they get to focus on those, whereas we have so many more books of scripture as a practical challenge, it means that we’re not rotating through as often as we might. And I thought it was interesting several years ago when Elder M. Russell Ballard gave a talk on the miracle of the Holy Bible in the April 2007 general conference. He was talking about how important the Bible is, and then said, we tend to love the scriptures that we spend time with.
02:36 We may need to balance our study in order to love and understand all scripture. In context there, I think it’s pretty clear he was saying, we might be reading the Book of Mormon a lot, which is great, but we gotta be sure that we don’t leave the other scriptures out of the picture. That’s one practical challenge, and it’s just the burden of having a wealth of scriptural treasures available to us. It’s a good burden to have. But another way that restoration scripture may sometimes keep us from fully appreciating all that the Old Testament has to offer is in how the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants teach is sometimes not the way the Old Testament teaches. And if we’re so used to one, we might struggle with the other. And here’s what I’m, I’ll break that down, what I mean by that.
03:20 The Book of Mormon is many things, but it’s not subtle. It’s very clear. Nephi lets you know in the family who’s on the right side of things and who’s on the wrong side of things. Mormon, when he tells a story, he’s famous for those and thus we see quotes at the end where he gives you the moral of the story. And that doesn’t mean that you can’t dig those stories deeper and find other interpretations, but Mormon doesn’t want us left with nothing to work with. He wants to give us an initial meaning. He wants to hold our hand and let us know what he thought was important in this story. And the Doctrine and Covenants is the same way. It’s not very ambiguous. It’s the Lord speaking in most sections, and when the Lord’s speaking, you don’t question the authority of the narrative voice or any of that things.
04:05 You just accept what he’s teaching and he tells you straight up what he wants you to know. Sometimes we get so used to that unambiguous, straightforward clarity that is the hallmark of restoration scripture. Then we go to the Old Testament and we struggle because many of the books don’t function that way. Rather than providing straightforward answers, the Old Testament is often better at raising questions and then letting us wrestle with complicated, difficult, interpretive decisions. Sometimes we struggle with that, I think, because we’re just like, I want King Benjamin to teach me the doctrine, and I want Mormon to tell me about faith, hope, and charity in a straightforward way. We struggle with the lack of that doctrinal clarity in the Old Testament. Maybe some examples we’ll get at what I’m talking about. I’ll take one passage, Psalm 88. If we’re going to the scriptures looking for answers, Psalm 88 challenges us because it’s a poem by an anonymous author who just is having a hard time.
05:13 He’s going through maybe the most excruciating thing ever, doesn’t say what it is, and I’ll just read some of the verses here. It’s a prayer to God. Oh Lord God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee. Let my prayer come before thee. Incline thine ear unto my cry. For my soul is full of troubles and my life draweth nigh unto the grave. Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit in darkness, in the deeps. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Thou hast put away mine acquaintances far from me. Thou hast made me an abomination unto them. I am shut up and I cannot escape. Mine eye morneth by reason of affliction. Lord, I have called daily upon thee. I have stretched out my hands unto thee. Lord, why casteth thou off my soul?
06:10 Why hidest thou thy face from me? I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up. While I suffer thy terrors, I am desperate. Thy fierce wrath goeth over me. Thy terrors have cut me off. They came round about me daily like water. They compassed me about together. Lover and friend hast thou put far from me and mine acquaintance into darkness.
06:40 And that’s the end. Now, if we’re looking for a King Benjamin style doctrinal discourse that says, here are the doctrines, here are the answers. We can wrestle with this because there are no answers to be had. What is a text like this doing? I don’t think it’s trying to give us answers. It’s just inviting us into the space of this person who is hurting and it’s asking us to sit a few minutes with them in that pain. That’s a different kind of learning than we’re gonna get from Alma teaching the people of Ammonihah or the Lord giving amazing doctrinal expositions in a section of the Doctrine and Covenants. It’s a different kind of teaching, but I think it’s also very important. We don’t wanna miss out on this. This is inviting us into a space just to wrestle. We might wonder what is going on with this poor guy.
07:36 Why does he feel like God is actually the cause of all his problems? Why does he feel like he has no friends and that God is not answering his prayers? Have I in my life ever felt like that too? I can think of people, for example, who’ve had depression since their teenage years. They could relate to this line that I’m ready to die from my youth up. It’s just an expression of pain and there’s no resolution at the end. There’s no way that this is fixed and I don’t think it’s designed to do that. It’s just intended to draw us into this experience of pain and let us sit there and wrestle with this. There’s a lot of places in the Old Testament like that where it’s not designed to give answers, but to really kind of complicate our life. For example, someone might say, why should I wrestle with the book of Jeremiah?
08:27 I know the plan of salvation. I know about the premortal life and the spirit world and the three kingdoms of glory. I have all these answers. I have all this clarity. Why should I put in the effort to read Jeremiah and struggle to understand his cultural metaphors and his symbols and the history just to at the end of the book arrive at the answers that I already know? It’s a good question. And I would just suggest that when we get out of this mindset of I’m always looking for the answers I already know, sometimes the wrestle itself is the journey and the destination, just the struggle that it brings up. So for example, in Jeremiah, years ago I was visiting my wife’s parents in Hong Kong. I don’t remember why, but I was reading Jeremiah on the couch one morning. I was in Jeremiah chapter four.
09:11 God tells Jeremiah that the Babylonians are gonna come destroy Jerusalem. So verse seven, the lion has come up from his thicket and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way. He has gone forth from his place to make thy land desolate, and thy city shall be laid waste without inhabitant. That’s hard stuff. And in verse 19 you can see Jeremiah’s emotional state reacting to this. My bowels, my bowels. I am pained at my very heart. My heart maketh a noise in me. I cannot hold my peace because thou hast heard, oh my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. Jeremiah’s upset, and I’m reading through this, and then I notice a verse in the middle of verse 10 that startled me. Jeremiah says to God, then said I, ah! Lord God, surely thou hast greatly deceived this people in Jerusalem saying, you shall have peace. Whereas, the sword reacheth unto the soul.
10:08 But to put that in more modern English, he’s saying, Oh Jehovah, you lied. You have greatly lied. You deceived this people saying you shall have peace. When in reality, the sword reaches to the soul, there’s a sword right up at our neck, we’re about to die. It’s hard to say what he’s responding to. There was a common assumption in Jerusalem at the time that Jerusalem could never be destroyed and that God would always swoop in and protect His temple at the last day. There’s prophets that had predicted such things. Maybe that was his understanding before that, no, we won’t actually get destroyed, but now that that reality is staring him in the face, he’s so upset he accuses God of being a liar, of having promised them protection before and now destruction is coming. And that startled me because one does not on a typical day call God a liar.
Hank Smith: 10:57 Typically.
Dr. Joshua Sears: 10:58 And it made me really stop. This isn’t providing answers about the plan of salvation I didn’t know before, but it’s raising new questions for me. I’m thinking, what led Jeremiah to think God has lied to him? And I thought to myself, have I ever questioned God’s integrity like that or his promises? I thought of people I’ve talked to who struggle because their patriarchal blessing promises something very specific that either has not happened yet or seems impossible to happen at least in this life. They wonder, did the Lord through the patriarch promise me something that he never intended to fulfill? In essence, did he lie to me? That’s a hard question. The story in Jeremiah while not providing me new insights about the plan of salvation and the ultimate big picture answers that I didn’t know before raises those kind of questions and does it in a provocative way that makes me ask that.
11:51 It made me want to read the rest of the book of Jeremiah to see how did he resolve this? Did he come to resolve this tension? And what does Jeremiah do? I was suddenly excited to keep going in the book because I had this burning question. The text provoked me with something startling. And I think we have to allow the Old Testament to challenge us like that and not be dismissive because I already know the answers, but to let it ask us new questions and really let us wrestle. We see this in narrative stories too. In the Book of Mormon, again, there are heroes and there are villains, but it’s very hard to find any shades of gray in Book of Mormon characters. Even people who like Alma change and go through a conversion process, they go from all bad to all good. But you don’t find a lot of moral ambiguity in Book of Mormon characters.
12:39 And I think that’s an important teaching tool that the Book of Mormon uses. But in the Old Testament, that’s not the teaching style. Most of the heroes have deep character flaws. It’s often unclear how we’re supposed to read something because the Old Testament doesn’t tell us. One more example, there’s a character called Jephthah in Judges chapter 11. The Israelites in this story are under attack, and he makes this oath to Jehovah saying, if you rescue us and deliver us from our enemies, when I get home, I will offer as a sacrifice to you the first thing that comes running out of my house. Since he has a farm, he’s probably expecting that an animal’s gonna run out because that’s typically what happens is there’s animals running everywhere. Lo and behold, after Jehovah delivers them, he gets home and it’s his daughter, his only child who runs out of the house first to greet him.
13:30 Then he mourns and laments because of the oath that he had made. What happens next? Sometimes people try to interpret it as anything other than he sacrificed his daughter, but the plain sense of the text is that’s what he did. We’ll just assume that for the moment. So he sacrifices her so as not to violate the oath. Now, is what he did praiseworthy because he was true to his covenant promise no matter the personal cost or is this a horrific act of violence because he murdered his child? You might have an instinctive response to that, but my point here is that the Old Testament doesn’t say. It just stops the story and leaves it to you, dear reader, to come up with what you think the answer is. If we say, well, that’s a simple answer. I know what the answer is. Well, that story can start to challenge, what about other cases where it’s a little less black and white?
14:22 Should you stick true to your covenants no matter what the practical on the ground reality is looking like? It raises maybe more questions than Judges 11 is equipped to answer. That’s where the Old Testament is challenging for us and also where maybe some of its richness lies because when the stories more often than not don’t provide a simple answer, but instead raise challenging questions, there’s a lot to wrestle on and chew on and think about and maybe other people will come to different answers than we do, but that is, I think, where some of the beauty lies in this book of scripture and that it’s so open-ended that it invites us to really wrestle and the wrestling is maybe where we’re gonna find the Holy Ghost and we’re gonna find personal revelation. Rather than being given an answer, the struggle is how we get there.
Hank Smith: 15:17 That’s really great. The scriptures can become a place where we meet God, learn about God, and stretch, stretch our understanding, stretch our soul. I love it when I read scripture and I come out with more questions. I thought I was supposed to get answers in here, but I think I’m being stretched.
Dr. Joshua Sears: 15:35 Yeah. Some people wrestle with the scriptures when it’s not providing clear answers every time. Sometimes we expect the scriptures to be a handbook or a manual. Turn to section 3.4.2.1 and there’s the answer. That’s how handbooks and manuals work, but the scriptures are inspired literature. These narratives and these poems and these reflections are designed not to just be plop, here’s the answer, although they do that sometimes, but just as much, here’s three new questions to your question. It’s gonna be messy and it’s gonna be complicated, but really that is where the beauty of it lies.
John Bytheway: 16:11 If I go out and throw the ball over and over and over, my arm gets sore, but it gets stronger. If I run, my legs get sore, but they get stronger. If I wrestle, everything gets stronger. Why would God put you through a wrestle? ‘Cause you’ll get stronger. I think of the brother of Jared. Hank, I know you love this story. I love it too. How do we get air? I mean, he has those three problems. Can’t breathe, can’t see, can’t steer. The Lord answers the first one, make a hole in the top, make a hole in the bottom. The second one, he says, What will you that I should do for you? I just love that because, I mean, the brother of Jared could have said, listen, one day you’re gonna have this scripture that says, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask. I’m asking, you’re supposed to tell me. He doesn’t. He says, go wrestle with it, and he figures it out. There’s some fun footnotes of maybe he went to the record of Noah to see what Noah did, but he figured it out. The wrestle was a good part of that process.
Dr. Joshua Sears: 17:13 So the bottom line here to bring this section all together, we have the amazing blessing of having the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price and the teachings of modern prophets. Latter-day Saints, we should be reading the Old Testament through the lens of the doctrines that they teach and the things that they point out are important and what they comment on and say about the Old Testament. So we should be using that constantly this year. Then at the same time, it provides us a challenge that with so many other books of scripture, we wanna be able to still give our attention to the poor Bible, not let it get left behind with all these fun new toys we have, and that we don’t wanna let the relatively straightforward clarity of teachings that we find in restoration scripture get us frustrated when we go to the Bible and find that there’s so much gray characterization, moral ambiguity, open-ended questions and unresolved, messy things. That I think is a design feature. It’s how the Bible’s always been. We want to appreciate both teaching methods. I love it when I get a passage that just gives me the doctrine straight and tells me the way things are. I’ve also learned to appreciate passages that asked me to really think and lets me know that I’m gonna have a lot of work to put in here, but that the insights I can get about myself and about God at the end of that process are very much worth it.
Hank Smith: 18:27 Beautiful. Wonderful.
John Bytheway: 18:30 I remember Dr. Robert Millet talking about this wonderful thing that happens at the end of third Nephi where it says Jesus expounded all the scriptures in one. That’s what I keep thinking of with what you’re teaching us, Josh, is that, no, don’t just focus on this. Look at all of these together and see this broad, beautiful picture with what each of them has to offer. It doesn’t say Jesus expounded their scriptures, all of them. That’s what I’m taking away from this.
Dr. Joshua Sears: 19:02 The final point in this lesson says the Old Testament helps me understand my covenant relationship with God. The Old Testament is the story of God seeking to make us his peculiar treasure by covenant. For that reason, a good way to prepare to read the Old Testament is to learn about covenants. Specifically, the everlasting covenant God offered to ancient prophets like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their posterity. A great way to learn about covenants is to study President Russell M. Nelson’s message, The Everlasting Covenant, from the October 2022 Liahona Magazine. If I can make a suggestion to all our listeners, since, again, there is no scripture block for this week and no one made you read 10 chapters of Genesis or whatever it is. This is about as a specific of a reading assignment as this lesson gives, and I would highly encourage people to go back, even if you’ve read it already, to the Liahona from October 2022 and read President Nelson’s message on the everlasting covenant.
19:59 I’ve been, as all of you, a little sad to see President Nelson go recently. I’m so excited for President Oaks. I sustain him and love him as our new President of The Church. I’ve also been taking stock of the years that we had President Nelson as our president and all that I’ve learned from him. I’ve got to say, I didn’t think when he became president that at this point in my life, having already served a mission and teaching in religious education at this point in my life, that I would have learned so much that would so fundamentally improve and enrich how I understand the doctrines of the gospel. I really love President Nelson and all that he has taught me. This message is a great place to start so that we can learn about covenants, and I really love this suggestion in the manual that the better we understand covenants and covenant relationships, the better we’re going to understand the Old Testament itself.
20:51 One of the things that President Nelson stressed that I think has changed how we talk about this in the church is understanding the purpose of a covenant. Often our way of explaining covenants, traditionally when I was growing up, and for example, when I turned eight and was getting baptized, what I memorized as a definition is that a covenant is a two-way promise. I think that’s accurate and that’s totally great and wonderful, but that definition focuses on the mechanics of how you make a covenant by promising each other and may fall short of explaining what is the ultimate aim of the covenant. It’s not just to make promises, that’s the tool you’re using, but the aim of covenant making is to build and establish and maintain relationships. If we can take that one idea that President Nelson taught so often, I think it will go so far in helping us better appreciate so many points in the scriptures and the doctrines of the gospel.
21:50 From that article, The Everlasting Covenant from President Nelson, I’ll just quote a few lines here as an example. President Nelson explained that when you and I enter the covenant path, we have a new way of life. We thereby create a relationship with God that allows him to bless and change us. The covenant path leads us back to Him. If we let God prevail in our lives, that covenant will lead us closer and closer to Him. All covenants are intended to be binding. They create a relationship with everlasting ties. He emphasized this frequently. You can find it in other places where he talked about this and as people have been quoting him in general conference, I’d love to see other people have picked this up and talked about it a lot. Sister Emily Belle Freeman in her general conference address from October 2023, Walking in Covenant Relationship with Christ said this, we call this walking the covenant path, a path that begins with the covenant of baptism and leads to the deeper covenants we make in the temple. Perhaps you hear those words and think of checkboxes.
22:52 Maybe all you see is a path of requirements. A closer look reveals something more compelling. A covenant is not only about a contract, although that is important, it’s about a relationship. When we understand that covenants are about relationships, it helps us reframe the gospel of Jesus Christ. We understand that baptism is that initial ordinance where we bind ourselves to God and establish a covenant relationship with Him. We see faith in Jesus Christ as an expression of trust in this person we have a relationship with. We see repentance as relationship repair. We’ve done something that’s created a wedge in the relationship and we go say, I’m sorry, I wanna do this better. Can we be close again? And we hug it out and we come close to God. We see the sacrament as like a weekly date with God where we spend time with him and we make promises to each other again and we become closer through that act.
23:45 We see enduring to the end as walking a path where we’re trying to get closer and closer and learn more about each other and we delight in each other’s company. We’re going through whatever it takes to be able to be as close as possible to our heavenly Father. President Nelson, again, I’m just gushing about him because I miss him dearly, really helped me re-see all those things, not as checkboxes and not as a list of dos and don’ts that I have to complete, but the entire gospel, everything I do every day as strengthening or weakening my relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. And that’s helped me get over a checkbox mentality and find new joy in the things that I do.
John Bytheway: 24:25 I love it. When we talk about a two-way agreement, it sounds like that could be a contract. A contract, you sign it, it’s kind of an event, and you put it on the shelf. But a relationship is an ongoing process and loyalty is involved. If I thought of my marriage just as, okay, we said that vow thing, now we’re married, but didn’t think of it as a relationship with an ongoing commitment and loyalty every single day. That’s why I love that talk. I love what President Freeman said. It’s a relationship and that changes everything. Thanks for emphasizing that.
Dr. Joshua Sears: 25:00 And President Nelson teaches that while we make a series of individual covenants and ordinances along our covenant path, that you can describe this relationship that God wants to build with us, this exalting relationship where he’s gonna help us become like Him. In the scriptures, that relationship goes by a title called The Everlasting Covenant, or sometimes the New and Everlasting Covenant. The Everlasting Covenant, President Nelson says in his article consists of all the covenants and ordinances that we enter into. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the plan of salvation. This is a very broad, big picture term. Each title emphasizes something different about it. Calling it the gospel of Jesus Christ dresses the good news that Jesus made these relationships and its exalting power possible. Calling it the plan of salvation emphasizes that there’s a system to this, there’s a plan and it leads to our salvation. Calling it the everlasting covenant I love because by bringing that word covenant in there emphasizes the relational aspects.
John Bytheway: 25:59 Everlasting relationship, yeah.
Dr. Joshua Sears: 26:02 We have different titles for these broad ideas, but they’re all getting at the same idea that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have made it possible for us to bind ourselves to them, overcome all our weaknesses and sins and mistakes and mortal infirmities to be exalted with them and experience the joy and richness of the life that they enjoy. In the Old Testament, how does this play out? Well, President Nelson teaches some things that are not super clear from the Genesis account of Adam and Eve, but that are more clear from the book of Moses, which is that Adam and Eve entered into the everlasting covenant. From the very beginning of human history, God wanted to bind himself to us and invited his children to participate in ordinances that would do that. Adam and Eve were baptized, they entered the covenant path, and thereby initiated themselves into the new and everlasting covenant.
26:53 Joseph Smith’s revelations help us then trace that everlasting covenant being given to those that come after. For example, Joseph Smith’s new translation of the Bible explains that Enoch received the same covenant that was given to Adam and Eve. The Joseph Smith translation also says that Noah received the same covenant that was offered to Enoch. In the book of Abraham, it says that Abraham sought for the same blessings that were given to Noah, so we can see there’s a little chain that Joseph is building, establishing that these aren’t separate groups of people that are all doing their own thing, that God is offering the new and everlasting covenant to his children consistently from Adam and Eve all the way to Abraham and Sarah. It’s at that point where the Old Testament really picks up the story, right, because we sweep past these characters quickly in the first dozen chapters, but starting in Genesis 12, we get Abraham and Sarah and God offers covenants to them.
27:44 I’m gonna read Genesis chapter 12, verses one through three. Now the Lord had said unto Abraham, get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father’s house into a land that I will show thee. I will make of thee a great nation and I will bless thee and make thy name great. Thou shalt be a blessing. I will bless them that bless thee and curse them that curseth thee, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. I wanna stay big picture here because I’m sure we’ll cover this in more detail in a few weeks. The covenant being offered to them, we call this the Abrahamic covenant, but what’s important to recognize from a Latter-day Saint doctrinal framework is that this is still essentially the new and everlasting covenant. In his article, President Nelson says, the new and everlasting covenant and the Abrahamic covenant are essentially the same.
28:33 Two ways of phrasing the covenant God made with mortal men and women at different times. There are some differences that are introduced with the covenant at this point in history. With Abraham, we create this new covenant family, Israel, Abraham and Sarah’s descendants. It’s gonna be a covenant people, a covenant family called Israel. From this point forward in history, those that want to bind themselves to God in the new and everlasting covenant also need to be born into or adopted into this covenant family of Israel. At its heart, the Abrahamic Covenant is still aiming for the same blessings that God offered to Adam and Eve and to Enoch and to Noah and to all his kids. Now we have this new program with the creation of this covenant people, and we’re gonna watch these people for the rest of the Old Testament history. Israel’s told here, in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
29:26 I really think this is one of the most important scriptures that we have in all the standard works. And I have Numbers on my side for this. It’s one of the only scriptures quoted in the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. That emphasis tells us something. This program by which Israel’s gonna receive the everlasting covenant and all its blessings, then take that to all the other families of the world is God’s missionary program for the rest of human history. That’s why it’s so significant.
Hank Smith: 29:54 Someone might say, wait, I thought God loved all of his children. Why would he have a chosen people, it’s because he loves all of his children, that he has a chosen people because they are under covenant responsibility to go share and work.
John Bytheway: 30:09 Chosen to mow the lawn. Does it mean chosen to sit on a throne and be admired? No, it’s chosen to, to get to work.
Hank Smith: 30:17 Yeah, chosen to share. We could change the song from called to serve to chosen to share.
Dr. Joshua Sears: 30:24 Certainly you see in the Old Testament that the history of the house of Israel, it wasn’t easy for them. They go through a lot of difficult things, but what defines their experience is their relationship to Jehovah. The fact that he has bound himself to them by covenant and that he won’t forget that. Like in the Exodus story, it opens up talking about how the Israelites are slaves and their cries go up to Jehovah. What does it say? That he remembered the covenant that he made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That’s the rationale for why he’s going to redeem them by taking them out of Egyptian slavery. It’s because he’s family. He’s bound himself to them. When God binds himself to us by covenant, he doesn’t forget that relationship. He’s determined to be the best partner in this relationship that he can possibly be. Even in cases where the Israelites choose to turn away and break their covenant promises and effectively sever the relationship, he’s always inviting them to come back, to repent, to renew, to restore the relationship to the wholeness that it used to have. That’s the consistent message you see that no matter how often they are scattered, that there are promises of gathering and renewal on the far side of that.
Hank Smith: 31:33 Despite giving him every reason to, God does not give up on this family. By the end of Genesis, you’re thinking, get a new family. This is not gonna work. Choose someone else, but he won’t. He’s bound himself to them. I love that, Josh.
John Bytheway: 31:48 It’s a relationship where loyalty is involved. And I also love what you’re talking about because if I have a contract relationship with my wife, hey, we signed the document, we’re married. But if I have a covenant relationship where she’s strong and I’m weak, I have access to her strength in areas. If we have a covenant relationship with God where he’s strong and we are weak, thank heavens we have a covenant where he can help us where we’re weak. And that’s a relationship. No wonder we wanna feel loyal to him, not just we made a contract with him, but we’re loyal to him because we rely on his strengths when we’re weak.
Dr. Joshua Sears: 32:28 Yeah. The title of this section in the manual was the Old Testament helps me understand my covenant relationship with God. One way that people struggle is that the Old Testament is mostly about a big group of people, the children of Israel. It can feel hard for some readers to take stories that are about a large group of people and think about what does that mean for me as an individual. The Book of Mormon is in some ways better with this because we have lots of cool stories about individual conversion, like say Alma the Younger, where we get to look into his heart and what Alma was experiencing and see that mighty change that occurred for him. But when you’re looking at a large group of people in the Old Testament, that can feel a little more distant. The manual’s promising, right? We can learn about my covenant relationship.
33:15 What I would invite people to consider is that you do have to practice looking at how Jehovah interacts with the Israelites as a whole, and then you have to learn to translate that to you as an individual, if that’s what you’re wanting to focus on. The key to doing that is to remember what’s consistent about this, despite the situational differences between a large group of people and myself. It’s the same God who has the covenant relationship, regardless of it’s with an entire people or with one person. It’s the same God, it’s the same everlasting covenant. The blessings of the covenant and the obligations of the covenant are essentially the same, that God is consistent in his nature and he’s gonna work similarly because he’s got these goals in mind that are the same for individuals and groups by and large. Sometimes we overthink the differences and we don’t recognize the fundamental similarities that are there as God works with the children of Israel as a group of people and me. When the manual promises that the Old Testament can help me understand my covenant relationship, I really think that’s true. But it does require that we look at passages where he speaks to a large group of people, and then we learn how to translate that to, what does that mean for me? We’ll find that very often there’s so much that we can learn from the statements he makes to these large groups.
Hank Smith: 34:38 Beautiful. There’s times where Josh, it seems like, and I wanna be careful here, but it seems like he has to allow them. I don’t wanna say he has to hurt them, but he has to allow them to go through really hard lessons in order to be who they want to be and who He wants them to be. There’s an important lesson for us there. You wanna be careful saying, well, look, every difficulty you go through in life is a result of you not being who you’re supposed to be. That’s not the case.
Dr. Joshua Sears: 35:08 I don’t think we can say every difficulty is because God’s putting you through a hard time, but we can say every difficulty could be a little better if I were close to the Lord and relying on his aid.
Hank Smith: 35:19 Right. The currant bush, the allegory of the olive tree, he’s gonna scatter it in order to save it. He knows when to prune.
Dr. Joshua Sears: 35:30 Yeah. We can look at the people of Israel as they’re going through these stories and again, see what lessons it teaches us about our own personal journey. One example, compare and contrast the Israelites when they’re enslaved to Egypt and Babylon, which are your two big House of Israel enslavement stories that you get. What I find interesting is that it’s not their fault that they’re enslaved in Egypt. They’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. A new Pharoah arose who knew not Joseph and he was suspicious of these people, he enslaves them, and it’s not recorded that they did anything wrong, but they’re slaves and Jehovah came and through his mighty arm, redeemed them, brought them out of captivity. Now, by contrast, when you get to the Babylonian captivity, there it’s expressly their fault.
Hank Smith: 36:14 Right.
Dr. Joshua Sears: 36:14 Jeremiah and other prophets had been warning them and warning them that they’re being grossly wicked and that they don’t repent, then Babylon’s gonna destroy Jerusalem and they’re gonna be carried off. They were warned and they rejected the prophets and they stoned them. All the bad things that they were doing and Babylon takes them. This is very much a consequence of their actions. When they repent and turn to Jehovah, he gets them out of there. He uses the Persians to conquer Babylon. He has the Persians help the Jews return home and they rebuild Jerusalem and they’re redeemed there as well. I find it fascinating to compare these to say, sometimes our problems are our own fault because we made bad choices and we’re experiencing the consequences. Other times, it’s just life. It’s just mortality. You get sick, you get fired, you’ve done your best, but life is just rough that way sometimes.
37:03 Regardless, as we turn to the Lord for aid, he will help us. He will come to our aid. He will be there with us in our afflictions. We see that consistent in both cases, regardless of how they got into the mess that they’re in. That’s a big national story, but what we gotta do is then make that personal. Think about times in our life where we’ve made bad choices and caused our own problems, or times in our life where life has just hit us hard through no fault of our own. Maybe it’s the actions of other people or germs or something has bad happened in their life. Regardless, we can trust in the Lord to be there with us.
Hank Smith: 37:40 Absolutely. And we’re gonna see that over and over and over. Josh, doesn’t Nephi use the skills you’ve been talking to us about today? He knows that all of Isaiah isn’t specifically about him, but they are of the house of Israel, and Isaiah’s speaking to the house of Israel, so I’m going to liken the scriptures unto us.
Dr. Joshua Sears: 38:01 Nephi is fantastic at this. In some ways, he’s kind of a guide to tell us, here’s how you can read the Old Testament and make it relevant to you. First Nephi chapter 19, verse 23, Nephi says, I did read many things unto my brothers, which were written in the books of Moses; but that I might more fully persuade them to believe in the Lord their Redeemer I did read unto them that which was written by the prophet Isaiah; For I did liken all scriptures unto us that it might be for our profit and learning. This idea of likening, as you two know, is so powerful. Sometimes people simplify it to the idea of I’m just applying it to myself. I think we can get a little more clarity about what Nephi’s up to here. When you liken something, what the verb means is that you’re taking two different things and you’re comparing them to highlight how are they like each other or how are they similar to each other.
38:56 For example, I can’t liken an apple to an apple because in every way they are exactly the same, there’s no way in which they are similar. They’re exactly the same. But I can liken an apple to an orange. I can say, how are these like each other? They’re both round, they’re both juicy, they’re both nutritious, et cetera, but those similarities only have meaning because apples and oranges are different. When Nephi says I’m likening scripture, what he’s acknowledging implicitly is that when I’m reading the prophecies of Isaiah, what I’m gonna say it means is not what it means. He’s saying there’s a difference between the original context of Isaiah and the application that I’m gonna give it, but what I wanna do is point out how are these stories similar? How are these like each other? That’s a powerful method for looking at a story that at first doesn’t look like it has anything to do with us and finding that there are ways in which this has everything to do with us, despite the differences.
39:56 For example, Nephi goes on in chapters 20 and 21 to quote Isaiah chapters 48 and 49. In their original context, these chapters are about the redemption of the Jews from Babylon, where the Jews have been captured by these mean Gentiles, the Babylonians, and they’ve been scattered and smitten, and these nice Gentiles show up, the Persians, who beat up the Babylonians and help out the Jews. That’s what these chapters essentially are about. Then in 1 Nephi 22, Nephi likens those chapters to the future history of his people, these Latter-day Lamanites. To make this brief, since this is Old Testament day and not Book of Mormon days, much as we love it, Nephi has the story about Latter-day Lamanites, that they are gonna go into apostasy and that they’re gonna be scattered by these mean European Gentiles who show up and beat them up and scatter them.
40:51 But then these nice Gentiles are gonna show up, Latter-day LDS missionaries who have the Book of Mormon. They’re gonna give the Book of Mormon to these Latter-day Lamanites and bring them back into the covenant. The story where mean Gentiles have hurt the remnant of Israel and then nice Gentiles show up and help them out is repeated in the last days. That’s how the two stories are like each other, even though they’re very different. There’s a difference between Jews and Babylon in the sixth century versus Latter-day Lamanites in the Western hemisphere in the latter days. They’re different stories, but Nephi says they’re similar, they’re like each other. By pointing out how they’re like each other, we can find great meaning and application for these passages. We gotta be like Nephi. We all struggle with that big block of Isaiah chapters that starts in 2 Nephi 12, but I love that in 2 Nephi 11, right before the big block, Nephi makes us this invitation.
41:44 Now I write some of the words of Isaiah that whoso of my people shall see these words may lift up their hearts and rejoice for all men. Now, these are the words, and dear reader, you may liken them unto you and unto all men. It’s like he’s saying, I’ve modeled how to do this with my chapters, and I quoted Jacob’s speech where he does the same thing, but you look at the Old Testament and then you liken them unto you. Ask yourself, okay, I’m in a different situation from you, ancient Israelites, but how are our situations like each other? And when we ask that question, that’s a powerful tool for learning the principles and the application and the doctrinal points and all the amazing morals and lessons that we can glean out of that ancient story and realize this is just as relevant for me in my different circumstances.
John Bytheway: 42:34 ‘Cause yeah, how would it help ancient Nephites or Lamanites to know how the Assyrians were gonna attack? Something that happened in the past. Well, they’re gonna draw from that. How’s God gonna deal with us then? How’s Jehovah gonna deal with us? I love how you’ve helped me see that. I’ve said to my classes, well, watch Jesus. Watch how he treats people. Watch how he treats people that can’t do him any good. Now I need to expand that. Watch how Jesus and how Jehovah deals with people.
Hank Smith: 43:06 Yeah. Hmm. As Jehovah, yeah. Doesn’t Nephi say that, Josh, that he’s connecting Jehovah to the Redeemer, that I might more fully persuade them to believe in the Lord, their Redeemer. There he is Jehovah, the Messiah, Jesus. I did read unto them that which was written by the prophet, Isaiah. He did exactly what you’re telling us to do is see Jehovah as Jesus see and learn from him, not from the prophecies about his mortal life, but him as the Lord God of the Old Testament. Josh Sears and Nephi, probably the exact same category.
Dr. Joshua Sears: 43:43 Well, as we wrap up today, I did feel that one disadvantage today is that we did not have a scripture block where we got to dive deep into a lot of verses. We’ve talked about a lot of scattered verses, but maybe one way we can close is to let the Old Testament speak for itself. Maybe I can go through some passages in the prophetic books where Jehovah’s speaking or the prophets are describing him and just give us a little preview and a taste straight from the scriptures themselves about the promises that he offers that when we make a mistake or when we stray or when life is hard, that he will not forget us or forsake us. I’ll just read a few passages without commentary. Isaiah 1:18 Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
44:38 Isaiah 44:21-22. Remember these, O Jacob and Israel; for thou art my servant: I have formed thee; thou art my servant: O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me. I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee. Isaiah 54:7-8 For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. Jeremiah 3:21-22 A voice was heard upon the high places, weeping and supplications of the children of Israel: for they have perverted their way, and they have forgotten the Lord their God. Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the Lord our God. Ezekiel 37:23 Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwellingplaces, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God. Hosea 2:23 And I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God. Zechariah 1:16-17. Therefore, thus saith the Lord, I am returned with mercies. The Lord shall yet comfort Zion and shall yet choose Jerusalem. And Micah 7:18-19 Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy. He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old.
47:14 I just wanted to read a few passages to give us a preview of what’s coming and remind us that the central message of the Old Testament is redemption through a God who has bound himself to us by covenant. A few months ago, I was talking to a Latter-day Saint. It was a very tearful conversation where his life has not gone at all the way that he had hoped or planned. It seems like really that in years, nothing has gone right. The pain that he experiences on a daily basis really is excruciating. I don’t have all the answers to give in a situation like that. I cannot explain why some people seem to have a life that goes pretty great and other people just have a life that’s nothing but toil and pain. But what the Old Testament and the rest of our scriptural canon invites us to do is to trust in Jehovah, Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, and our Father in heaven to trust in their love and to trust in the promises they have made for us.
48:22 The Old Testament is a story of redemption that no matter what kind of pickles the Israelites find themselves in, that somehow God has a way of getting them out of it. When the Jews were in captivity in Babylon, it must have seemed like the greatest superpower the world has ever known has us under their thumb. There’s no way we’re getting out of this, yet he’s a God of miracles. Overnight, the Babylonian empire is overthrown, a friendly new government moves in, and they’re able to not only go back home and rebuild, but they’re given funds and temple treasures and assistance to do so. That was a miracle. It’s the miracles like that recorded in the Old Testament that are meant to remind us constantly that we believe in a God of miracles and that because of the atonement of Jesus Christ, no matter what challenges we face and no matter how great the obstacles seem, that healing and hope are possible in the midst of the trials that we face. He has promised to gather His children home one by one. That includes us when we sin. It includes our loved ones when they stray. It includes everyone whose life has taken a detour that doesn’t seem like it can ever get back on track.
49:35 And I want to testify and promise that these blessings that are promised in the scriptures are true, that inasmuch as God has bound himself to us by covenant, he will never forget nor forsake us. Somehow, He is going to make good on every promise that He has ever made for us. As we trust in the Savior Jesus Christ, we can have assurance that this life or the next, somehow or another, every promised blessing will be realized. I just want to say to everyone, read your scriptures, learn these stories, wrestle with all the challenges that are there, then trust in the goodness of God.
Hank Smith: 50:11 Thanks, Josh. There’s a single sentence here in the manual. As you read the Old Testament this year, be watching for things God wants to teach you about your covenant relationship with him. Josh set us up perfectly to do that.
John Bytheway: 50:28 If anyone was not sure if they were excited about the Old Testament this year, they’re excited now, and I am. Beautiful introduction. Thank you so much.
Hank Smith: 50:39 Absolutely. Josh frequently helps me find relevancy in antiquity, I think Elder Maxwell called it. Josh is my main man for that. He doesn’t know it, but we’re best friends. One more time, John, I just wanna mention this. Josh did not ask us to do this. A Modern Guide to an Old Testament, Joshua M. Sears. I hope everyone will go pick this up.
John Bytheway: 51:01 If you heard Josh today, you know, this is gonna be something that’ll bless you. Same spirit.
Hank Smith: 51:07 And we’re gonna challenge everybody, John, to stay with us the entire year. We have so many excited listeners. They’re so excited. We’re gonna do this, and then it slowly tapers off. Stay with us the entire year, all the way through Malachi. Let’s go the distance. We will see all that Josh has promised us here, has shown us. Thank Alice and the kids for us for letting us steal you away.
Dr. Joshua Sears: 51:30 Will do.
Hank Smith: 51:31 Yeah, you got it. We are Josh Sears fans here at followHIM. With that, episode one for the Old Testament year 2026 is in the books. We wanna thank our executive producer, Shannon Sorensen, our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen. And here we are starting a new year. He would love it. He would love that we’re still doing this, John. Our founder, Steve Sorensen. Join us next week. We are jumping into Moses chapter one on followHIM.
52:04 As a thank you to our wonderful listeners, we’d love to gift you the digital version of our book, Finding Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. It offers short, meaningful insights drawn from our past Old Testament episodes. Visit followhim.co, that’s followhim.co to download your free copy today, and you’ll also find the link to purchase the print edition. Thank you for being part of our followHIM family. Of course, none of this could happen without our incredible production crew. David Perry, Lisa Spice, Will Stoughton, Krystal Roberts, Ariel Cuadra, Heather Barlow, Amelia Kabwika, Sydney Smith, and Annabelle Sorensen.