The Bible Is Not About You!预览

The Right Way to Read the Bible

“We’ll need to do surgery to correct his vision,” the doctor said. My heart sank as I looked from the doctor to my wife, Jess, to Travis, our not-even-one-year-old son. Several thoughts swirled in a split second: Eye surgery? My baby son will be under anesthesia! He only has two eyes—what if something goes wrong? I think I’d rather lose any other part of my body than my eyes. But the doctor continued: “If we don’t do this the brain will stop registering impulses from this eye, and it will stop working.” Well, okay then.

So, after talking, praying, and following the doctor’s wisdom, Jess and I took our infant son in for eye surgery. The results were amazing — and immediate! There were stunningly few aftereffects. No more patches, no lasting surgical marks. And Travis did not seem to be in an iota of pain. It was as if no operation had taken place! More surprisingly, it was as if Travis had never had a lazy eye in the first place. Within a couple days of getting home, he was sitting up. We could see him able to focus on things—he could fully see for the first time.

Travis’ story is different than the man whose blindness Jesus healed. But similarly and suddenly, “he saw everything clearly.” Any of us with strong lens prescriptions can perhaps relate: we know the frustration and annoyance of a fuzzy and unclear world. The same is true when we read the Bible: to read it right, we need to see clearly.

Yesterday’s reading ended by seeing Jesus explain that the Bible is truly about HIM, not about us — “he interpreted to [some disciples] in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). Another way to say this is that the Bible is primarily about God! It’s about who God is, what God has done, is doing, and will do, in the whole world and throughout all history.

To rightly read the Bible, we must see the Bible as the story of God. And we must accept it as the dominant story, written by the one Author who alone has the authority to shape all of life. God tells His one unified story in the Bible in multiple verses, commands, and stories. These can be summarized in six “acts”:

• Act 1, Creation (Gen. 1–2): God created everything good, right, and beautiful. He lovingly made people to cultivate His creation alongside Him, at peace with Him, one another, and all creation.
• Act 2, Rebellion (Gen. 3–11): The first people decided God was holding back good things from them and wanted to decide for themselves what was right and wrong. The result was that human sin entered God’s good creation and all creation came under a curse. Everything was affected by this rebellion.
• Act 3, Promise (Gen. 12–Malachi): God did not leave His rebellious people without hope. He decided to rescue His creation by calling one man named Abram (later renamed Abraham) and making him into a great nation, Israel. Through Israel, God would bless all the other nations. But just like the first people, Israel rebelled too, over and over throughout the Old Testament.
• Act 4, Redemption (Gospels): When all seemed lost, God was faithful to His promise. Jesus was the promised deliverer who perfectly obeyed the Father. But God’s people rebelled against Jesus and put Him to death on a cross. When Jesus died, He took on the curse of creation and bore the burden of people’s sin. He then accomplished victory over evil through His resurrection. New creation was here, and Jesus was the true, risen King.
• Act 5, Church (Acts–Jude): The Spirit now empowers Jesus’ followers to demonstrate and declare the good news: God is restoring the world and Jesus is King! He alone can save and bring the peace we desperately desire. People are invited to give their allegiance to Jesus and live according to His story. Forgiveness, hope, and salvation are possible because of Jesus. This act of God's story started in the book of Acts, and it's we find ourselves in God's story today.
• Act 6, Restoration (Revelation): One day King Jesus will return to fully make the world the way it was supposed to be. He will bring justice, healing, and wholeness. There will be no more tears, pain, sickness, brokenness, or death. Those who have declared allegiance to Jesus as King and by faith depended on Him for salvation will forever enjoy His presence, but those who chose to rely on themselves and false saviors will be forever separated from His good reign.

That’s the Bible’s one story. There are many characters in that story—good and evil ones; human and spiritual beings. But from start to finish, there’s one main character: God. Within each of these acts, we see that one, history-long gospel story is also told, and over and over again we see God as powerful and good, mighty and caring, able and patient.

This summary of the Bible is admittedly general and brief. But it also gives the broad contours to help us rightly read the Bible: if we see the Bible as the story of God, we rightly approach the Scriptures primarily looking for ways God is telling His own story. That’s the right way to read the Bible: realizing that it’s primarily about God — it’s not about us!

Question:

• What changes about the Bible if we realize that it's first and foremost about God, and every verse, story, and command point to Him?