Is The Bible Good For Women?Намуна

The Bible tells a long story, and it helps us understand the hard parts, particularly those involving women, if we read them in context of the long story of Jesus throughout its pages. Follow the scarlet thread, the poetic trickle of blood through the early stories of Scripture that points to Christ's sacrifice in the gospels, and you too will recognize Jesus as their fulfillment as Zechariah did in our passage today. This trail of blood helps us connect harsh stories that, when stood by themselves, seem inconsistent with a good God.

The trail of blood began in Genesis with an allusion to Satan’s defeat and the first animal sacrifice. It continued through Abel’s death and the blood sacrifice at the covenant between God and Abraham. With the bloody Passover and then the institution of the Old Testament sacrificial system, the allusions to Christ took off. When Jesus held up the cup and proclaimed, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28), the scarlet thread was knotted and secured into the garment of God’s story.

At this point in Scripture, the allusions to the future shedding of blood end. With Christ the shedding of blood was over once and for all. Yet, in some sense, the thread continues today for those of us who practice Communion, though we use wine instead of animal blood to reflect it. The symbols of bread representing Christ’s body and wine representing His blood remind us that even today Jesus’s blood shed for us so long ago cleanses us from our sin.

The scarlet thread of blood sacrifice and the familial thread of the sons of Abraham through which this Savior was promised to come are major themes throughout the Old Testament pointing to the good news of Jesus Christ. Follow these threads and you will understand much of God’s Word to us through the Old Testament.

In today's passage, John the Baptist’s father, Zechariah, recognized the significance of both John’s birth and Jesus’s imminent one because he knew the trail of blood from the Old Testament that pointed to Christ in the New. Like Zechariah, when we understand the significance of these Old Testament stories about the coming Messiah, we are able to recognize Jesus as their fulfillment.

As Jesus taught His disciples in Luke 24, we then better understand both the Old Testament through Jesus and Jesus through the Old Testament. When we dig deeper together in troubling Old Testament passages, their connectedness to Jesus is key to making sense of them and discovering how God is good through them for men and women.