An Introduction to The OLD TESTAMENT TEMPLATE - Landa Cope

Landa Cope has worked with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) for over 30 years, preparing young people to become missionaries: to communicate the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to disciple the nations. So it was rather a bombshell for her to discover around 10 years ago, that some of the most evangelized and Christianised nations of the world were now amongst the most corrupt, poorest, crime-ridden, war-torn, socially-deprived nations too. How could this happen? That was the question she sought to answer, and the outcome is expanded in this book, subtitled Rediscovering God’s principles for discipling all nations.

How she came to this realization and her extensive research around the globe sets the scene for the mandate revealed in Scripture that she is now passionate about all believers seeing, understanding and being part of its fulfillment. She explains how God revealed to her that “the devastation you see is the fruit of preaching salvation alone, without the rest of the biblical message.” (p19) and her quest took her to prominent church leaders, who were also coming to this realization but at the time no one had any real solutions to offer.

Landa, therefore decided to delve into Scripture to unearth the principles for herself. This has not been a ‘quick fix’ discovery, but a decade of life transforming revelation, renewing her thinking and sharing the strategies and principles she found and is still finding. She readily admits that this book is but an introduction to the topic and encourages her readers to explore for themselves, applying the principles to their own lives and searching for answers which will radically change the way we view every aspect of our lives

Her method was simple but ingenious: to colour-code passages, dealing with the eight domains of life that she discovered, starting with the Torah, or the books of Moses, the first five books of the Bible, then confirming her findings by studying what Jesus said about these domains in the New Testament. To date, she has completed the Old Testament, and found that the more she studies the Bible in this way, the more God confirms the truth that He has laid out a mandate for discipling any and every nation.

I was introduced to Landa’s message, when she came to speak at a local church in Cape Town. As a result I bought some DVD’s of her teaching YWAM students in 2000 and have recently read this book, detailing her journey up to 2006. It is compelling viewing and reading; each component complements the other, but each are complete in themselves.

This is not a book for those who are comfortable with their lives, or for those who are insecure about change. But it would provide a wealth of material for discussion starters, in almost any setting, the breadth of her findings cover every area of society. They are far reaching and provoking.

I would recommend this book to anyone involved in missions, anyone who runs a church, anyone involved in government, business or education, and anyone involved in communication, science or the arts. In fact everyone should read this, especially every Christian