Today, as I continue to write on “How do I read the Bible,” I want to explore this important aspect about Bible reading: Discover the Big Picture Story.
The Story of the Bible is the awfulness of sin and the loving plan of God to reconcile sinners to himself through his Son, Jesus Christ.
In the beginning man sinned, and sin separated man from God. God promised to send One who could rescue mankind from the terrible curse of sin, death, & hell. And the rest of the Bible is the story of God’s keeping his great promise. At the opening of the New Testament, the Messiah appears on the scene (Messiah / Christ means PROMISED ONE!). The Messiah is God himself, Jesus. At the cross, Jesus died in our place for our sin; he was buried; and he rose again 3 days later. For all who come to Jesus, believing in him for rescue from sin, God will forgive their sin and give them eternal life. And someday? God will make all things right; for us who have trusted in God through Jesus, we will spend eternity with him in heaven.
While I’m quite the inadequate story-teller, those are some basics to The Story. And we’re always reading and learning to discover the beauty of Jesus in the Big Picture Story.
I heard Pastor Alistair Begg say, “If you keep your eyes on Jesus you’ll be able to find your way around the Bible.” And that’s true, because The Story of the Bible is all about Jesus Christ, isn’t it?
But there’s a caution for our embrace of the Big Story, too, I’ve learned. While we can’t accurately understand Scripture apart from the Big Story, there is a danger of making the Big Story our catch-all apart from careful study and application of all of Scripture.
Every verse in the Bible is not some hidden, secret reference to Jesus. While The Story is about Jesus, God has provided unlimited riches to mine from his word that take a lot of time and work to understand, and a general answer of, “It’s all about Jesus!” is only a jumping off place, not the extent of our pursuit of him in Scripture.
So, we read the Bible in the context of The Story within its pages, and then we work to understand and obey each word God has given us there. But how can we UNDERSTAND the Bible? It’s a big book with some hard-to-understand parts! Until next time..!
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