While at college I became convinced that reading the OT prophets carefully was absolutely necessary for understanding the Law and even Jesus. Not simply as a prediction of the sort that fore-tells the details about Jesus, either. But as the very deep, very patient, very graceful God communicating God's desires through these folks. That is, biblical prophets don't predict the future. They present -- in the language of my professor, Dr Mark Biddle, "they forth-tell" -- God's own analysis of things.
At seminary, I became even more convinced that (to use Walter Bruegemann's phrase) a prophetic imagination is essential to reading the Bible as a whole. And, as Dr Efird said in class, at the heart of that prophetic imagination is this: God's punishment is not opposed to God's grace.
Too many Christians try to bifurcate those things. We turn God's grace and God's punishment into an either/or.
As one example, look at the opening of Isaiah 40: "Comfort, comfort my people,
says your God. / Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, / and proclaim to her / that her hard service has been completed, / that her sin has been paid for, / that she has received from the LORD’s hand / double for all her sins". Preaching this text is hard in American pulpits. Here we see God's grace ("Comfort, comfort my people ... speak tenderly to Jerusalem") coming after Israel paying for her sins ("her hard service has been completed ... her sin has been paid for"), twice over ("she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins"). The bifurcated theology of many Christian churches just can't compute the connection here between grace and punishment. True, you occasionally hear Christians say that God "chastises those he loves" but that is a far shadow from anyone claiming that a Christian could "pay for their sins" by undergoing a term of "hard service". And yet, this is routine language for the prophets. God's grace and punishment are not mutually exclusive. Punishment produces salvation.
For us, salvation is rescue from punishment. Not the end accomplished through the means. Which makes our American theology abiblical.
Thing is, this idea isn't reserved just for the OT. Or for the Prophets.
Another text that's hard to preach is Romans 9-11. In Romans 9-11 Paul is trying to wrestle with God's promises to Israel in the wake of her rejection of Jesus. Are the Gentiles, now, going to be the sole beneficiaries of God's grace in Christ? If so, that's perverse. Israel produced the Christ and then was promptly damned. Thanks God, really nice way to treat the "Chosen Ones". But in Chapter 9 Paul initially says that Israel can't complain much. God is Sovereign, so if God prepared Israel to be an "object of wrath prepared for destruction" then so be it. That's just the way that cookie crumbled. And yet, in Chapter 11 Paul eventually concludes that this time of hardening for Israel is necessary for the "fullness of the Gentiles" to come into the Kingdom. Israel is hardened for our benefit. So shouldn't Israel be rewarded rather than damned for this service? Paul, in an odd reversal, says, yes, Israel will be blessed. After the fullness (all?) of the Gentiles comes in, in some mysterious way, "all Israel will be saved". Again, this seems like an odd reversal as it seems, given the bifurcated thinking of most Christians, that being an "object of wrath prepared for destruction" and "all Israel will be saved" are mutually exclusive. It's got to be one or the other. But not if you've been steeped in the prophetic imagination. If you read the prophets and texts like Isaiah 40 you see this reversal all the time. A time of "hard service" to "pay for sin" is always followed by the words "Comfort, comfort my people ..."
When folks ask me, "Where should I start reading, if I want to read the Bible?" My response is this, "The Prophets. You have to get those right to understand the rest". And I'm serious. Misunderstand the Prophets and you'll miss the rest.