What Is the Old Testament? A Simple Guide to Understanding the Whole Story

I’ll confess something that might surprise you given my background. I grew up as a pastor’s kid. I attended a Bible college. I earned a Master of Divinity from one of the largest evangelical seminaries in the world. Brilliant men and women taught me God’s Word for years.

And for most of that time, I never really understood the flow of the Old Testament.

I’d take a cool story here — Adam and Eve. A wild story there — Jonah and the fish. A verse from Judges: “Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” I had bits and pieces but nobody had ever zoomed out and said, here’s the whole backdrop. Here’s the story behind all the stories.

I asked a friend with a law degree from one of the top law schools in America if any professor ever walked them through the big picture flow of how law began and developed. He said no. I asked someone who went to medical school the same question. Same answer.

We’ve fallen into the same trap when it comes to the Bible. And I want to fix that today.

The Bible is His story

Think about your phone camera. The Old Testament is like your unedited photos — raw, shadowy, the colors not quite vivid. The New Testament is those same images fully edited: shadows lifted, colors sharp, everything clear. But here’s the thing — you need both. You can’t fully appreciate the edited image without seeing what the original captured.

The Old Testament is not just background material for the New Testament. It is the foundation of everything in it. When Jesus referred to “the Scriptures,” he meant the Old Testament. When Paul wrote that “all Scripture is God-breathed,” he was talking about the Old Testament. Every New Testament doctrine has its roots there.

Here’s what I’ve come to understand: the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed. The New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. Once you see that, everything changes.

10 stops through the Old Testament

Thirty-nine books. Twenty-eight authors. Two thousand years of history. Here’s how to hold it all together.

1. Creation — God made something from nothing. He made us in his image. He gave us a free will. The first man and woman chose their own way over God’s way, sinned, and were separated from him. And right there — in the first pages of the Bible — God begins to reveal his plan. He didn’t abandon us. He killed an innocent animal, covered Adam and Eve with its skin. It’s the first shadow of what was coming: an innocent substitute, blood shed, a covering for sin. God always initiates. That pattern never changes.

2. The Franchise Players — Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. These are the men God chose to father a great nation. They weren’t perfect. They were crooked in plenty of ways. But God hits straight licks with crooked sticks. Because I’m a crooked stick, and so are you. God promised Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the sand on the seashore, and he delivered on that promise.

3. Egypt and Joseph — Jacob’s son Joseph was sold into Egyptian slavery by his own brothers. They told their father he was dead. And yet God used Joseph to become one of the most powerful leaders in all of Egypt. When a famine hit, Jacob’s family came to Egypt for food — and stayed. Generation after generation, the Israelites multiplied. Eventually, a new Pharaoh arose who felt threatened by them and enslaved the entire nation. Four hundred years in bondage.

4. The Exodus — Moses. The man said he couldn’t speak well, couldn’t lead, wasn’t the right person. And God said go. He always picks unlikely people to do impossible things. Moses led two million Israelites out of Egyptian slavery. Don’t miss the shadow here: God’s people in bondage, freed by a deliverer. Moses is a picture of Christ. We are in bondage to sin. God sends a rescuer.

At Mount Sinai, God gives Moses the 10 Commandments and the blueprint for the tabernacle — a portable dwelling place for the presence of God. The journey to the Promised Land was supposed to be short. It took 40 years. Why? Disobedience. When we’re obedient, blessings flow. When we’re disobedient, we wander.

5. Conquest — Joshua leads the new generation into the Promised Land. God’s instruction was clear: remove every ungodly influence from the land. They almost did. And here’s what I’ve learned: partial obedience is disobedience. If we don’t deal with the sin in our lives it comes back and bites us. It did for God’s people.

6. The Judges — Because the people kept messing up, God sent judges. Samson, Gideon, Samuel. And you see the spin cycle of the Old Testament emerge: forgetting God → falling → failure → forgiveness. Over and over. That cycle is ancient but it’s not foreign — most of us have lived it personally.

7. The Kings — God’s people looked at the surrounding nations and said: we want a king too. God said fine — and gave them Saul. Handsome, charismatic, everything they asked for. And he was eaten up with envy and jealousy. Then David — a man after God’s own heart — who also stumbled badly. Then Solomon. All of them eventually pointing to the same conclusion: human kings will always fall short.

8. The Division — The 12 tribes split. Israel in the north. Judah in the south. This is where the prophets come in — Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Malachi. They’re not randomly scattered across the Old Testament. They’re concentrated in this zone, during the division, the exile, and the return. They’re God’s mouthpieces calling his people back.

9. Exile and Return — Because the people kept choosing their own way, the consequences came. Assyria took the 10 northern tribes — and they were never heard from again. Babylon took Judah captive. Then Persia conquered Babylon and allowed some Jews to return to Jerusalem. Nehemiah rebuilt the walls. Ezra restored worship. And Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, ends with the people still under a curse.

They started in Genesis under a curse. They ended in Malachi under a curse. The whole Old Testament is a sideways movement of history — God revealing more and more of himself, people choosing less and less of him.

10. Four hundred years of silence — Then nothing. God goes quiet for 400 years. You thought it was just a blank page between the Testaments in your Bible. It’s 400 years. The Pharisees rise. The Romans arrive. The world fills with noise and chaos. And then — a baby born in Bethlehem.

The whole thing is about one person

Here’s what changes everything once you see it: the Old Testament is a Him-book. Every page, every story, every character points to Jesus.

In Genesis he’s our Creator. In Exodus he’s our Passover Lamb. In Leviticus he’s our High Priest. In Numbers he’s our Cloud by day and Fire by night. In Deuteronomy he’s our Promise-keeping God. In Joshua he’s the Captain of our salvation. In Judges he’s our Law-giver. In Ruth he’s our Kinsman Redeemer. In Samuel he’s our Prophet. In Kings and Chronicles he’s our reigning King. In Ezra he’s our Worship. In Nehemiah he’s our Wall-builder. In Esther he’s our Mordecai. In Job he’s our Healer. In Psalms he’s our Good Shepherd. In Proverbs he’s our Wisdom. In Isaiah he’s our Prince of Peace. In Jeremiah he’s our Potter. In Daniel he’s the fourth Man in the fiery furnace. In Hosea he’s our faithful Husband. In Malachi he’s our Tithe.

Every single book. If you don’t see Jesus when you read the Old Testament, you’re not reading it right.

The Old Testament ends under a curse, waiting, silent for 400 years. The New Testament opens with an angel’s announcement. The waiting is over. The Word became flesh. Everything the Old Testament pointed toward had arrived.

His story became our story.