KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Midwestern Seminary is pleased to announce the release of Understanding and Applying Jesus’s Bible: The Old Testament for Christians, a new book written by Jason DeRouchie, research professor of Old Testament and biblical theology at Midwestern Seminary.
“Dr. DeRouchie’s new book serves as an excellent resource for helping the whole church read the Old Testament profitably,” said President Jason Allen. “As a model pastor-theologian, Dr. DeRouchie’s work will be a blessing to anyone regularly engaging with the riches of God’s Word. I am excited that this book will soon be in the hands of pastors, ministry leaders, and small group teachers.”
This book serves as a follow-up to Enjoying Jesus’s Bible: The Old Testament for Christians, which was released in 2025. Understanding and Applying Jesus’s Bible builds on that foundation by helping readers take the next step—not only valuing the Old Testament rightly, but also learning how to approach it carefully and apply its message faithfully today.
Together, the two books are designed to help Christians grow both in their appreciation for the Old Testament and in their ability to interpret it responsibly within the broader message of Scripture.
“God wants every Christian to know how to interpret God’s pure, perfect, true, and abiding Word,” DeRouchie said. “For only through it can people be reborn in Christ, empowered for holiness, sustained to glory, and satisfied always.”
This newest work is a condensed version of DeRouchie’s lengthier and more technical work, How to Understand and Apply the Old Testament, intended for all who desire to know God through His Word.
DeRouchie wrote this book to address a common challenge among many Christians today: Many believers struggle to read and understand the Old Testament with clarity and confidence. Whether because of the vast distance from the original historical setting or unfamiliar literary forms, the Old Testament can often feel inaccessible or unclear to contemporary readers.
Yet DeRouchie emphasized that this portion of Scripture remains essential for the life of the church today: “This book helps develop skill in reading the initial three-fourths of our Christian Scriptures effectively. It’s a guide to studying, practicing, and teaching the Old Testament for the Christian Scripture it is.”
As the foundation upon which the New Testament stands, it provides the storyline, promises, and theological framework that culminates in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Learning to read these Scriptures well, he argues, allows Christians to see more clearly how God’s redemptive purposes unfold throughout the whole Bible.
The title itself reflects his conviction that the Old Testament should and must be read through the lens of Christ. As reflected in the title, the Old Testament was the only Scripture that Jesus had during His earthly ministry, and it forms an essential part of the Christian canon.
Through the book’s structured approach, readers are guided step-by-step in learning how to carefully observe biblical texts, understand their context, identify their intended meaning, and apply their message faithfully today. The TCOMA framework DeRouchie follows—Text, Context, Observation, Meaning, and Application—provides a practical roadmap for approaching Old Testament passages with both confidence and care.
While the book follows a clear interpretive process, DeRouchie intentionally wrote it with accessibility in mind. Designed for believing high school students, young adults, and mature Christians alike, the book provides numerous illustrations and exercises to help readers practice each step of interpretation—all while celebrating the centrality of Jesus and the hope of the gospel.
“Overviewing one step per week makes this book an ideal resource for use in personal or family study, entry-level Bible interpretation classes in high school or college, and church classes or small groups,” he went on to say.
An important part of the book’s development was its use and development in both personal and church contexts. This book was not written in isolation, but he explained that he has already taken both his church and his three high schoolers through its content.
“My hope is that this resource will help believers observe carefully, understand rightly, evaluate fairly, feel appropriately, act wisely, and express faithfully God’s revealed Word,” he continued.
By equipping readers with practical tools and a Christ-centered framework, Understanding and Applying Jesus’s Bible aims to help Christians approach the Old Testament not as a distant or difficult part of Scripture, but as a living and essential witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Understanding and Applying Jesus’s Bible is now available for purchase.
By Jonathan Lumley
