The Story of Scripture

Scripture is a library of writings, both divine and human, that tells a unified story leading us to Jesus. But are the words in this strange, ancient library still relevant? Do they still mean anything to us today?

Central to the biblical writers is the assumption that we can actually know what is true, and that we can have answers to our deepest longings: who are we, why are we are, what is wrong in the world, is their any hope, what does the future hold?

The Bible is vast and complicated, and can feel really difficult to understand.  And so this resource breaks the big story of the Bible into six movements.  As you read through this resource, may you become aware of the larger story Scripture is telling, and begin to find your story in its story.

What is the story the Bible is telling?

01 Creation and the Royal task

In the beginning was love. God, in His desire to share His life and love with others, confronts chaos and out of it creates a wonderful, ordered world full of beauty and potential. He then appoints humans to oversee this world and multiply and create new communities. This opening story offers an ideal vision of the vocation of humans. Humans are to take this good world and develop all of its potential while living in harmony with God and each other.

02 Rebellion and the Fallout

As the humans go about this task they’ve been given, they’re faced with choices about what is good and evil. Will they trust God’s wisdom, or will they seize autonomy and define good and evil for themselves? Here a dark, mysterious character enters the story. A rebel spiritual being.  It represents evil at its source, and it entices the humans to doubt God’s generosity and rebel. This leads to disaster; there’s rebellion on earth and in the heavens; humanity’s relationship with God is fractured, and their relationships with themselves, their families, and the earth breakdown. As humanity grows, this all leads to the rise of cities/ nations (called Babylon) where pride and violence reign.  Where Humans + rebel spiritual beings work together to oppose God.

03 God’s Covenant with Israel

The tension between the just and generous creator God and the rebellious nations who have given into evil develops the plot conflict that drives the storyline of the entire Bible. God’s response sets in motion a plan to restore divine blessing to the whole world. He will do this by giving the nations over to be ruled by the spiritual beings in opposition to God, but God will choose one family from among the nations, the people of Abraham, who later become Israel.

The story of God and Israel is the first main subplot of the Biblical story. It has three main movements:

  • Movement 01 (Genesis 12 - Deuteronomy): God Chooses Israel to Bless the Nations. Because it was through Israel that He would put the world back together through Israel.  Through humans.  That was the design from the beginning was ruling the earth alongside humans.

  • Movement 02 (Joshua - 2 Kings): Israel’s Royal Failure. They begin worshiping the gods of the nations around them, leading to corruption and injustice. All of the nations have continued with their rebellion, ruining God’s good world. Even God’s own chosen people are doing the same!  Israel ends up conquered and captive in a foreign land, away from their own.  Away from the place God promised to bless the world through them.

  • Movement 03 (Major and Minor Prophets): Israel’s Exile and the Prophetic Hope.  Despite Israel’s sin, downfall, and exile, God had promised to restore divine blessing to the world through this family, and even Israel’s rebellion wouldn’t stop him. Their hope was that after the exile God would return to live among his people once again and a great leader would come and lead Israel in faithfulness to their God. Moreover, it would be through this very leader that God would rescue the world.

04 Jesus and the Kingdom of God (Matthew - John)

Enter Jesus of Nazareth who is sometimes called Immanuel, meaning God with us. The four Gospels in the New Testament present him as the resolution to all of the conflict of the Old Testament. They claimed he was the very love of God become human and the embodiment of divine mercy. They claimed Jesus was the kind of human we were all made to be, but perpetually fail to be. Furthermore, they claimed Jesus was the faithful Israelite who would fulfill God’s promise to return divine blessing to all of the nations through Abraham.

Here’s how he’d do it. Humanity and Israel’s embrace of evil had created a world of violence and death, but Jesus was a man of compassionate power. He proclaimed that he was bringing God’s kingdom back over the earth and he would confront the tragic effects of evil. But Jesus’ plan to defeat humanity’s evil and sin was to let it defeat him. After dying for the sins of the world, his resurrection from death sealed his victory over all of our evil and death.  The cross was his enthronement as the King of Israel, and the King of the world.

He now offers up his own righteous life as a gift to those who would follow him.  He invites everyone to “repent and believe”, which just means to rethink everything you think you know about who God is, who you are, and what the good life you crave actually is, and put your trust and confidence in Jesus.  To Heal You.  Save You.  Free You.  And lead you to the life you ache for.”

••••

Because we need to be saved.  And not just have our sins forgiven so we can go to heaven when we die.  No the deepest parts of you and the deepest parts of me have been wrecked by the cancer and virus of human autonomy and glory robbing of God and we have suffered ever since.  But the good news of the Kingdom is through allegiance to Jesus and the power of His Spirit, we can be transformed from the inside out, to partner with Him to put the world to rights, and usher in the Kingdom fully to come.

05 The Spreading People of the Kingdom (Acts - Jude)

The Jesus movement has spread.  New life is bursting forth even now.  Heaven is invading earth even now.  And the Spirit is creating new multi-ethnic communities where we eat together.  Worship king Jesus together.  Challenge each other to follow His teachings.  To practice His way.  And in doing so, more and more of Heaven invades earth.  Until one day…

06 The Return of the King (Revelation)

Jesus returns to completely redeem our world and set all things right. On that day, he will return to fully confront and deal with evil in all of its manifestations, removing it completely from his good world.  He is on mission to get Hell out of His good world and out of you.  He will make all things new, and people from all nations who submit to his love and justice will be invited into this new creation. And we will recover our original design, ruling alongside King Jesus to steward the earth and carry the human project forward.

This is the story of the Bible.  It’s a story for all of us.

The Good News is that the one true God has now taken charge of the world, in and through Jesus and his death and resurrection. The ancient hopes have indeed been fulfilled, but in a way nobody imagined. God‘s plan to put the world right has finally been launched… the ancient sickness that had crippled the whole world, and humans with it, has been cured at last, so that new life can rise up in its place. Life has come to life and is pouring out like a mighty river into the world, in the form of a new power, the power of love. The good news was, and is, that all this has happened in and through Jesus; that one day it will happen, completely, and utterly to all creation; and that we humans, every single one of us, whoever we are, can be caught up in that transformation here and now. This is the Christian gospel. Do not allow yourself to be fobbed off with anything less.

— N.T. Wright