Tell the Story
“What is the Bible?”
So begins every class I teach. Although there are many right (and wrong!) answers, I primarily focus on one—the Bible is the story of God making all things new.
I don’t have space here to unpack fully why I focus on this particular answer, but I could start with a comparison of Genesis 1–2 with Revelation 21–22. When we compare the first two chapters of the Bible with the final two chapters, we find similarities and differences that show movement from creation to a new creation. We can see that from the very beginning God has been working toward a new creation. And we can see that everything between Genesis 1 and Revelation 22 tells the complex and beautiful story of how he gets us there.
I believe the biblical authors, as well as Jesus himself, interpret Scripture this way. And they place Jesus at the center, as the one in whom the story holds together. Let’s first look at how Jesus interprets Scripture.
On the day that Jesus rose from the dead, he meets two people walking from Jerusalem to the nearby town of Emmaus (Luke 24:13). The two were discussing extraordinary events that involved a prophet who was mighty in word and deed.
They told Jesus that they had hoped that this prophet would redeem Israel, but he had been captured and crucified by the governing authorities. Their hopes had seemingly been buried with the prophet’s body. Of course, they didn’t realize that the one who had died was alive. So they didn’t understand that the one they were talking about was the one they were walking with.
Jesus rebukes their misunderstanding and seeks to restore hope in God’s plan of redemption. He does this by connecting himself to the Old Testament story. As Luke writes it, Jesus told them everything about himself, beginning with Moses and all the Prophets (Luke 24:35). Jesus retells the biblical story with himself at the center. The resurrected Messiah is the one through whom God is making all things new.
“Jesus retells the biblical story with himself at the center. The resurrected Messiah is the one through whom God is making all things new. ”
Along with Jesus, we see evidence that Jesus’s followers walk the same interpretive path. We can see this most clearly in the Gospel writers as they tell the good news about Jesus beginning with the Old Testament Scriptures.
John takes his readers back to the very first words of the Bible, “In the beginning...” (John 1:1), painting Jesus as the one who made all things and is making all things new.
Luke, after a litany of Old Testament references in his first couple of chapters, records a genealogy that begins with Jesus and runs all the way back to the first man, Adam. Just before the beginning of Jesus’s public ministry, Luke wants his readers to know that Jesus is “the son of Adam, the Son of God” (Luke 3:38). Jesus will be the faithful Adam, the one who will defeat the serpent.
Matthew connects Jesus with Abraham and David, “The genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matt 1:1), revealing Jesus as the promised king who will bless all nations.
Mark immediately directs his readers to the prophetic books, “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, according to Isaiah the prophet” (Mark 1:1), revealing Jesus as the Lord himself returning to his people.
What are the Gospel writers doing? They are telling the good news of Jesus, beginning with those Scriptures, and they tell the story with Jesus at the center. In so doing, they imitate Jesus’s interpretive method, but they are not the only ones.
We can see the same approach across the book of Acts in the preaching of Peter, Stephen, Philip, and Paul. We see this approach throughout the letters of the New Testament and the book of Revelation. I could even argue that this interpretive method began with the Old Testament itself! The biblical authors read the Bible as one story with Jesus at the center. And so should we.
In the Master of Christian Studies (MCS) and Master of Arts in Bible and Theology (MABT) programs, students learn to interpret Scripture in the same way. To what end? Is this simply an academic exercise? May it never be!
“In the MCS and MABT we learn to tell the old, old story so that we might join God in his mission to make all things new.”
Neither Jesus nor the biblical authors interpret, teach, and preach Scripture as a mere academic exercise. They tell the story because it has power. This story has the power to equip God’s people for good works that he has prepared for them (2 Tim 3:16–17; Eph 4:11–16), to encourage us as we endure our cross and follow Jesus (Rom 15:4), and to call those who do not yet know Jesus to saving faith (Luke 24:45–49; 2 Tim 3:15). In the MCS and MABT we learn to tell the old, old story so that we might join God in his mission to make all things new.
