Like many other things in life, the Bible is hard to understand until you understand the big picture story of it. If you go straight to the content without understanding the basic message and outline, you can get lost in how things fit.
Understand that the “structure” does not fit a traditional “story” or “textbook” format.
The structure
The Bible is a collection of 66 “writings” written over about 1,500 years that tell a story, but not in a traditional story format. We call the writings “books” for ease of conversation, but they are a collection of a variety of writings such as historical accounts, songs, prophecy, principles and wisdom, letters of encouragement etc. The two main sections are:
- Old Testament (OT): These writings were written in the 2,000 years before Jesus lived and are shared as inspired by God by both the Jews and Christians. They cover from Creation until a time period before Jesus lived.
- Key message: Old Covenant – If you want to earn your way to Heaven, here are the rules according to God. We find that none of us are “good” according to God’s standards and various activities are needed to acknowledge our attitudes of rejecting God as wiser and more loving than us.
- New Testament (NT): These writings were written in the 1st century by people that met Jesus personally. They “complete God’s story” in the Christian scripture (the Bible). Orthodox Jews do not accept Jesus or the NT.
- Key message: New Covenant – now that you see that you have a tendency to reject God’s wisdom and love, He offers unconditional love and access through Jesus paying the consequences to those that accept it by faith. Think of a wise and loving parent that understands there will be costs of having a child, but are happy to do so because of their desire to nurture that child into maturity.
There is an important thing to realize when reading through scripture. While it teaches life principles and includes things like prophecy, much time is spent on what is called “narrative”. Narrative is telling what people actually did. That includes things they did well and things they did poorly. Narrative shows that we people have a long history of doing some good things and some bad things. So, when you see people doing some bad things, that doesn’t mean that God approves of those things. It means that God is allowing us to exercise free will which plays into the big picture of what He is doing. Some people say that showing the imperfect side of key people gives more credibility to the story because most “religions” don’t do that with their key people. Narrative shows real people living real life full of blessings and consequences.
Summary overview:
- OT
- Creation (some content included in science & religion FAQ)
- Garden of Eden (no history of doing wrong, yet we stumbled)
- Early people groups (we were given the rules, yet we stumbled – focus was on Israel which continually cycled through trust and rebellion)
- Songs of praise and words of wisdom (shows how to respond to our tendency to stumble)
- Some prophecy scatter among the writings about us stumbling even more and God continually restoring us
- NT
- Four individual accounts of Jesus’ life (4 Gospels)
- Account of the establishment and growth of the early Church (“book” of Acts)
- God’s principles for living (21 “epistles”)
- End time prophecy (“book” of Revelation – Summary: Things get really bad as we more broadly reject God and then God concludes this lesson time we have on earth and we move into eternity. Whether we go to Heaven or Hell is not dependent on “being a basically good person”, but on what we decided about God/Jesus – not about “being basically good” or completing various rituals)
- When reading though the first time, there are some hard sections to grasp such as the genealogies and prophecies. It is OK to skim over them the first time through while trying to get the big picture. There will be a future blog on understanding the symbolism in the Old Testament rituals (e.g. sacrifices).
Key things to understand:
- Upper and lower stories:
- Upper story: The big picture of what God is doing. God gave us 1,200 pages (the Bible) to explain what He is doing and what He asks us to do.
- Lower story: What God is doing in a specific person’s life. That varies by person, so we need to look at what is happening in that person’s life. Sometimes it is pretty obvious (often to everyone except that person) and sometimes it doesn’t become clear until much later. Either way, what God is doing in a person’s life will fit into the principles and plans of the upper story on what God is doing. Remember that God “knew” us before we were born and using the brief life to show us a better way. We can only blame ourselves for our eternal life outcome if we reject Him.
- Two greatest commandments (two most important life principles):
- Trust God our loving and wise parent. When we trust and obey, we discover from experience that God really is a loving and wise parent. We God’s advice leads to a more fulfilling life and sense of peace and purpose that the world cannot offer.
- Love others as ourselves. Few of us really grasp and implement “it is better to give than receive”. When we do, we find that we gain peace and purpose that the world cannot offer.
- It is all about faith, hope and love
- Faith is not “blind faith”. A person has faith in a wise and loving parent, a winning coach, a respected doctor etc. not based on “blind faith”, but on past experience (ours or others). The more we learn about what God has done and is doing, the stronger is our faith.
- Hope is having a confident expectation that God will do what He has promised. That includes that He will complete what He said He is doing in the Upper Story and that what He is doing in our Lower Story is for our good.
- Love is the context for both our faith and hope. It is the loving and wise good intent of our Heavenly Father found in what has happened in the past and what will happen in the future. Love is also the foundation for healthy relationships. Unconditional love is what a child feels when they have a good parent.
- Trusting God (loving parent), loving others vs. “being a basically good person”
- Being a “basically good person” has two basic problems
- Everyone has a different value set for what is a basically good person
- No one would want their child to feel they are only loved when they are good
- Unconditional love based on grace
- Everyone wants to be accepted even when we mess up (although we realize there may be some consequences)
- We want that acceptance to be based on loving grace rather than earning it
- God says that He is offering unconditional love based on grace rather than if we are basically a good person. The only requirement is that we trust Him. It is reasonable for a child to trust a loving and wise parent.
- Being a “basically good person” has two basic problems
- Israel, a picture of us:
- Not going to expand on this here, but God selected Israel to be integral to the story being told. Like all Christians to various levels, Israel had a pattern of falling away from its trust in God which would result in consequences such as other nations conquering it. Then, after they had a change of heart, they would again see God’s blessings. When we trust loving parents, we see blessings. When we reject and rebel against loving parents, consequences happen. We think that this time on earth is our life. But it is merely a short lesson in our eternal life as pictured with the 6-eyar-old story.
- Why did God have so many people killed: This will be the subject of a future blog entry, but it contains three basic components:
- God is separating out those that reject Him
- He knows who rejects Him and who accepts Him
- He is looking at the full life (on earth and in eternity) of each person, not just what happens on earth
- Trusting the Bible: This will be the subject of a future blog entry, but it contains three basic components
- The Bible claims (and Christians believe) that the Bible was written by people guided by God on what to write. In the big picture, the Bible is a compilation of 66 writings that were written over 1,500 years and tells a consistent story of a loving Father maturing His imperfect children. Only God could pull together such a collection with such a consistent message. Ask yourself if God really is God and not just some smart person, wouldn’t He want to make sure the one piece of material He puts in front of us accurately tells His story and God would be easily capable of doing that…
- As with any historic document, translation involves understanding and interpretation. This means that we need to look for strongest consensus among translators if we cannot read the original language. Also, when there are many manuscript copies, there will always be some inconsistency in the copies. That is where we need to look to document experts to give clues as to the most reliable manuscripts. The Bible, especially the New Testament, has the most manuscript copies dated back closest to the original writing of any ancient document and yet none of the differences in the most respected manuscripts are on any major ideas, only minor things such as grammar or whether some text sections were added to provide expansion of the major ideas.
- “Contradictions” do not exist contrary to critics. There may be differences in accounts by different writers based on what they saw/heard or other reasons such as counting methods. If you ask a detective about witnesses differences, they will tell you that this is highly common because of a variety of reasons.
In summary, God is telling a story by giving us the Upper Story and then showing scenes of it actually playing out. As plays have “acts” that divide the story into “key segments”, God’s story being revealed in the Bible:
- God’s story has “segments” that show we continue to stumble in our faith in a variety of circumstances and need acceptance based on unconditional love, not us being a basically good person
- God’s story leads to a conclusion where those that trust Him are gathered together in Heaven where He is directly (visibly) involved and we live in eternity with those that have learned how to have happy and wholesome relationships.
If you have not read the Bible before or have started and find it hard to understand, read the FAQ on how to read the Bible. Hint: Don’t start at the beginning like a novel because the story being told is not easy grasped that way.
Bible verses:
- 2 Timothy 3:16-17 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
- 2 Peter 1:20-21 But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men of God guided by the Holy Spirit.
- 2 Peter 1:3-7 (summarized): God has given us the info we need. If we respond in faith, it leads to virtue, which leads to understanding, which leads to self-control, which leads to steadfastness, which leads to Godly character with brotherly affection, which leads to true love for others.