I don't know where you're coming from or what your backgrounds are, but a lot of Americans, millions don't even have a category for authority in their minds, let alone a category of written authority, let alone a category of religious written authority to which they're going

to bow every day. That way of thinking is just foreign. Whereas for Jesus, it was absolutely central.

So how did Jesus view the scriptures and what did they mean for his mission? In this episode of light and truth,

John Piper shows how the Old Testament was central to Jesus' life and teaching, from affirming

its authority to fulfilling its prophecies to relying on it in his battle against temptation.

This seminar was originally given at Bethlehem

Baptist Church in September 2001. What does the Bible claim for itself? Jesus' view of the Old

Testament. I'm going to read my note, what I just wrote to myself this morning.

Let me tell you what I'm going to skip here that I could do.

I'm going to skip the big section I have on the Old Testament's testimony to itself,

all the places where the Old Testament claims to be the Word of God speaking. It would just consume so much of our time, and I think we really need to get to step five,

that you can track those down with your concordance.

And I'm going to skip the Apostles' self-claims, because we did so much of that last night arguing that Paul argued

that he was speaking by the spirit and said measure your words by my words and we've said

enough about that to know that it's there what I want to look at now is Jesus' view of Scripture, in particular, his

scriptures, the Old Testament. And the reason for this is because if Jesus wins your trust,

and that's why you'll become a Christian, if you're a real Christian,

is that the person Jesus Christ, as he's revealed through the scriptures, wins your trust in himself as a person, as a friend, as a king, as a savior, as a wise counselor, he wins your trust.

You know him, you know him, and you trust him.

Just like you trust your spouse or your friend or your mother or your father. You trust him

because he's won you. He's a person. Now, once that happens, what he thinks about everything

changes everything. And what he thinks about everything changes everything.

...