The Bible Story
The previous entry touched on the importance of reading the entire Bible in a logical order. Many long time believers have never actually done that, and some might not even understand the purpose of doing it. While it's true that lessons can be gained from reading the Bible piecemeal, if that’s the only way a believer encounters the Bible, it may lead to that believer missing the overall story that the Bible is trying to tell.
We all know that the Bible is a collection of different books, which in most cases tell completely different stories. It can be easy to see why people may not put a premium on reading everything in a prescribed order. After all, the stories of Adam and Eve, Moses, and David all stand on their own just fine. Still, there is an underlying theme that runs from one cover to the other cover and as you read the Bible in that fashion, the theme becomes clear in a way it might not otherwise. Yes, the Bible tells a group of different stories, but it also tells one big story.
That major story is about God’s trials and tribulations with humanity and the enduring love he has for us despite all the ups and downs. When we fail to recognize the central narrative, we may come away with questions that we believe the Bible doesn’t address. Many might find it amazing how clearly the Bible addresses some of those questions when looked at with the proper perspective.
Why are we born in sin? Why would God punish us for Adam and Eve’s disobedience? Those questions seem valid, particularly when you miss the main story the Bible is trying to tell. However, when you see the underlying narrative, you understand how misguided those questions are. Adam and Eve didn’t doom us to lives of sin with their actions. They just exposed the truth about what is in us all - a tendency to turn away from God. God isn’t angry at people today for what our progenitors did. God simply understands that everyone who is born will disobey just like Adam and Eve did. We’re never punished for their mistakes, only for our own actions.
How do we know that mankind can’t rise above sin without God’s intervention? That question may come up when one reads the stories of Adam and Eve and Noah, but not when we are familiar with what comes in between to connect the two stories. The Bible makes it clear that hundreds of years passed between those two events, and during that time God largely left humanity to its own devices. He let us be fruitful and multiply and live as we saw fit in the world. What was the result?
How do we know that mankind can’t rise above sin without God’s intervention? That question may come up when one reads the stories of Adam and Eve and Noah, but not when we are familiar with what comes in between to connect the two stories. The Bible makes it clear that hundreds of years passed between those two events, and during that time God largely left humanity to its own devices. He let us be fruitful and multiply and live as we saw fit in the world. What was the result?
The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. - Genesis 6:5Left to its own devices, humanity became so bad that God was tempted to wipe us away completely, but he didn’t. He simply hit the reset button so to speak.
So the next question might be “If God knew humans were flawed, why didn’t he just help us be better?” Well, the Bible spends much of the Old Testament answering that question. You see God selected a group of people to use like a case study. He cared for them. He guided them. He gave them freedom when they craved it. He reigned them in when they needed it. He elevated them above all others to demonstrate how they would behave when they were at the top. He put them under the feet of their enemies to show what they would be like when they were at the bottom. He tried interacting directly with them through signs and symbols that all could see. He tried limiting his interaction to select prophets who would then interact with the people. He tried letting the people live without any earthly authority other than those that pushed the Law. He tried giving those people earthly authority in the form of kings. The Bible shows us that when it came to His chosen people, God did everything He could to get the people to act not just according to His desires but also in their own best interest, and time and time again they failed and instead chose to march towards destruction.
So why didn’t God just let humanity doom itself? Well we get the direct answer later in the story. Most everyone has heard it in the form of John 3:16 - “For God so loved the world…” He loves us, but he doesn’t just love us. He wants us to choose Him, and the main idea of Act 1 of the story is that, when left to our own devices, we just weren’t capable of choosing Him in any lasting manner.
As with any good story, the Bible doesn’t just change things up on us out of nowhere. God had a plan and the hints for it were there from the start whether in the form of the many Christophanies spread throughout the Old Testament or the prophecies like those from Isaiah. Someone might ask “If God knew that we were broken in our susceptibility to sin, why didn’t he just fix us?” The second act of the story is all about the move God made to fix us, and if you understand the first act, you know that the Bible had already set up the reason for why God’s particular fix was necessary.
Again, God wanted us to choose Him, so He took on human form and interacted with us in a more tangible and personal way than He ever had before. Not only that, but he exposed himself to our weaknesses, our struggles, our pain, and even our death. Act 2 is the story of Jesus, God in human form, and how Jesus was the solution to the problems introduced in act 1 of the story. In his life, Jesus showed the people the flaws in their understanding of God’s desires. He let the people know the qualities God really wanted from us - faith and love. He sacrificed himself just so that everyone could see how much God truly loves us and how far He was willing to go to show that love. Most importantly, Jesus opened up a way for us to choose God and do it in a lasting way.
We choose Him by believing in His son and accepting His spirit and through that choice we can rise above everything that plagued humanity earlier on in the story. Act 2 also ended the case study. The story was no longer about the select group that God was using to make his point. It became about all of humanity and the salvation that God offers us all. That’s shown to us through the stories and the words of the brave individuals in Act 2 who did everything they could to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
So, in the end, will God force us all to choose him? No because that’s not a true choice, and God knows that. Some people will still reject Him. We get confirmation of that in Revelation, and we also see what exactly will happen to those that reject God. They will face the destruction that humanity has been marching towards since the very beginning. However, for those that can understand the Bible’s story, there is hope and there is a happy ending. Maybe that is reason enough to not only read the story for yourself, but to share it with others just as God wants.
So why didn’t God just let humanity doom itself? Well we get the direct answer later in the story. Most everyone has heard it in the form of John 3:16 - “For God so loved the world…” He loves us, but he doesn’t just love us. He wants us to choose Him, and the main idea of Act 1 of the story is that, when left to our own devices, we just weren’t capable of choosing Him in any lasting manner.
As with any good story, the Bible doesn’t just change things up on us out of nowhere. God had a plan and the hints for it were there from the start whether in the form of the many Christophanies spread throughout the Old Testament or the prophecies like those from Isaiah. Someone might ask “If God knew that we were broken in our susceptibility to sin, why didn’t he just fix us?” The second act of the story is all about the move God made to fix us, and if you understand the first act, you know that the Bible had already set up the reason for why God’s particular fix was necessary.
Again, God wanted us to choose Him, so He took on human form and interacted with us in a more tangible and personal way than He ever had before. Not only that, but he exposed himself to our weaknesses, our struggles, our pain, and even our death. Act 2 is the story of Jesus, God in human form, and how Jesus was the solution to the problems introduced in act 1 of the story. In his life, Jesus showed the people the flaws in their understanding of God’s desires. He let the people know the qualities God really wanted from us - faith and love. He sacrificed himself just so that everyone could see how much God truly loves us and how far He was willing to go to show that love. Most importantly, Jesus opened up a way for us to choose God and do it in a lasting way.
We choose Him by believing in His son and accepting His spirit and through that choice we can rise above everything that plagued humanity earlier on in the story. Act 2 also ended the case study. The story was no longer about the select group that God was using to make his point. It became about all of humanity and the salvation that God offers us all. That’s shown to us through the stories and the words of the brave individuals in Act 2 who did everything they could to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
So, in the end, will God force us all to choose him? No because that’s not a true choice, and God knows that. Some people will still reject Him. We get confirmation of that in Revelation, and we also see what exactly will happen to those that reject God. They will face the destruction that humanity has been marching towards since the very beginning. However, for those that can understand the Bible’s story, there is hope and there is a happy ending. Maybe that is reason enough to not only read the story for yourself, but to share it with others just as God wants.
Chris Lawyer
Image Courtesy of crosswalk.com
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