How to Study the Old Testament: A Beginner's Guide

Most Christians Are Working With 27% of Their Bible

The New Testament contains 260 chapters. The Old Testament contains 929. If you only read the New Testament, you are engaging with roughly 22% of the Scripture God gave his church. You're reading Paul's letters without knowing the covenant Paul is constantly referencing. You're reading Jesus's sermon on the mount without knowing the Torah he's fulfilling. You're reading Revelation without the prophetic tradition that gives its imagery meaning.

The Old Testament is not the prequel Christians can skip because they've seen the sequel. It is the vast, rich, complex foundation on which everything in the New Testament stands. Jesus himself said he came not to abolish the Law and the Prophets but to fulfill them (Matthew 5:17). You cannot fully understand what he fulfilled without knowing what he was fulfilling.

This guide is for Christians who want to engage seriously with the Old Testament for the first time — or who have tried before and gotten lost.

Why the Old Testament Feels Hard (And Why That's Worth Pushing Through)

The Old Testament is difficult for several reasons that are worth naming honestly:

• It's ancient. The world of the Old Testament is separated from us by 2,500–3,500 years of cultural, linguistic, and historical distance. Things that were obvious to ancient Israelite readers require explanation for modern Western ones.
• It's long and varied. It contains genealogies, love poetry, detailed building instructions, prophetic oracles, battle accounts, wisdom sayings, and lament psalms. No other book in your life demands you shift literary gears this dramatically this often.
• It includes things that are morally uncomfortable. The violence, the commanded genocide of Canaanites, the treatment of women in certain narratives, the imprecatory psalms — these are real challenges that deserve serious engagement, not quick dismissal.
• It's been underemphasized in most church traditions. If your entire Christian life has been spent in churches that focus almost exclusively on the New Testament, the Old Testament genuinely feels foreign because it is — you haven't been formed in its world.

None of these difficulties are reasons to avoid the Old Testament. They are reasons to approach it with the right tools and realistic expectations.

Understanding the Genres

The single most important skill for Old Testament reading is genre awareness — knowing what kind of literature you're reading and what interpretive rules apply to it. The Old Testament contains at least five major genres, and each demands a different approach.

Narrative (History and Story)

Books like Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles are narrative — they tell the story of God's dealings with Israel through characters, plot, conflict, and resolution. Narrative should be read as story: Who are the characters? What is the conflict? What does the resolution reveal about God?

Key principle: Not everything described in biblical narrative is prescribed. David's polygamy is described; it is not endorsed. The narrative includes the consequences of decisions, and those consequences are often the author's commentary.

Law (Torah)

The first five books of the Bible (Genesis through Deuteronomy) constitute the Torah, which includes the legal codes given to Israel at Sinai. Leviticus, Numbers, and significant portions of Deuteronomy contain laws governing worship, purity, social life, and criminal justice in ancient Israel.

Key principle: Christians are not under the Mosaic covenant as Israel was. But the Law is not irrelevant — it reveals God's character, exposes human sin, and points forward to Christ, who is described in Hebrews as the fulfillment of everything the sacrificial system was pointing toward. Read the Law to understand what God was teaching Israel and what it reveals about the holiness he requires.

Poetry and Wisdom

The Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon are wisdom and poetic literature. They operate by different rules than narrative or law. Parallelism, metaphor, hyperbole, and lament are the primary tools.

Key principle: The Proverbs are general principles, not absolute guarantees. "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it" (Proverbs 22:6) is a wise observation about probabilities, not a promise that faithful parenting prevents every child from straying. Wisdom literature requires pastoral and experiential sensitivity, not mechanical application.

Prophecy

Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the twelve minor prophets are prophetic books. They contain oracles, laments, visions, and proclamations delivered to specific historical audiences in specific crises. Most prophecy has an immediate historical referent and a longer-range fulfillment in Christ or the eschaton.

Key principle: Read the prophets in their historical context first. What was happening when this was written? Who was the audience? What was the prophet's immediate message? Once you understand the historical referent, the longer-range fulfillments become much clearer.

Key Themes That Point to Christ

The New Testament authors — especially Paul and the writer of Hebrews — consistently read the Old Testament as pointing forward to Jesus. Here are the major threads to watch:

• The covenant promises to Abraham (Genesis 12, 15, 17) — the promise of a people, a land, and a blessing to all nations. Paul argues in Galatians 3 that Jesus is the ultimate seed of Abraham in whom these promises are fulfilled.
• The Passover and the Exodus — the foundational redemption event of the Old Testament, which Paul explicitly calls a type of Christ (1 Corinthians 5:7): "Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed."
• The Davidic covenant (2 Samuel 7) — God's promise to David of an eternal throne and a son who would be called God's son. The New Testament's constant emphasis on Jesus as "son of David" is a fulfillment claim.
• The suffering servant of Isaiah (especially Isaiah 52–53) — one of the most explicit Old Testament anticipations of the crucifixion and its meaning.
• The sacrificial system — the entire Levitical sacrificial system is interpreted in Hebrews as a shadow of Christ's once-for-all atoning sacrifice.

Watching for these threads transforms Old Testament reading from archaeology into a living encounter with the same God who sent his Son.

Where to Start (Not Genesis)

Counterintuitively, starting at Genesis 1 is not always the best entry point into Old Testament study. The problem is that the narrative momentum drops sharply when you hit Exodus 20 and the legal codes begin. Many readers who started well in the creation and patriarchal narratives of Genesis lose momentum by Leviticus and never recover.

Instead, consider these starting points:

• The Psalms: Begin with Psalm 1, then read one Psalm a day alongside whatever else you're studying. The Psalms model honest prayer, theological reflection, and raw emotion — they're an excellent introduction to the Old Testament's emotional register.
• Ruth: Four chapters. A complete narrative of loyalty, redemption, and grace that introduces key theological themes in an accessible story.
• 1 Samuel through 2 Kings: The historical narrative of Israel's monarchy is compelling, morally complex, and theologically rich. You'll meet David, Elijah, Isaiah, and the slow tragedy of the divided kingdom.
• Isaiah: Start with chapters 1–12 and 40–55. These are the most explicitly Christ-pointing sections of the prophetic literature and are referenced more frequently in the New Testament than any other prophetic book.

For a structured approach that helps you navigate the Old Testament with historical context, the HolyJot chronological reading plan is an excellent guide. It places each book in its historical setting and provides the context that makes the Old Testament legible.

Tools That Help

• A good study Bible. The ESV Study Bible and NIV Study Bible both have extensive introductions to each Old Testament book covering historical background, authorship, genre, and major themes.
• An Old Testament survey book. Tremper Longman III's An Introduction to the Old Testament is accessible and thorough. John Walton's work on the cultural context of the Old Testament is invaluable for understanding the ancient Near Eastern world.
• A journal. Writing down questions, observations, and connections as you read is the single best tool for building comprehension over time. The HolyJot guide to Bible journaling explains how to build this habit.

The Old Testament rewards the effort you put in. There is no richer library of human experience with God available anywhere — suffering and praise, failure and restoration, judgment and mercy, exile and return. Every note in that library resolves in Christ. Start your free HolyJot account and bring your Old Testament reading to life with journaling and reflection tools built for serious seekers.