Friday, April 1, 2011

Want to Transform Your Bible Reading?

The excerpts below are from a piece at The Resurgence by Dane Ortlund on how to Transform Your Bible Reading:
A biblical theology lens trains us to place any given passage in the sweep of the single story. This way of reading the Bible gladly acknowledges the various genres in Scripture—narrative, poetry, prophecy, letters. Yet while the Bible is not uniform, it is unified.
Biblical theology reads the Bible as an unfolding drama, taking place in real-world time and space, that culminates in a man named Jesus—who himself said that “everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms”—shorthand for the whole Old Testament—“must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44)....

....A biblical theology approach takes the Bible on its own terms—namely, that “all the promises of God find their ‘Yes’ in Jesus” (2 Corinthians 1:20). Result: transforming reading.
Biblical theology invites you to read the Bible by plotting any passage in the overarching narrative that culminates in Christ. The Bible is not mainly commands with stories of grace sprinkled in. It is mainly a story of grace with commands sprinkled in....

...Imagine jumping into the middle of a novel, reading a sentence, and trying to understand all that the sentence means without placing it in the sweep of the novel as a whole. That would confuse the reader, obscure the meaning, and insult the author.
The Bible is God’s autobiographical account of his personal rescue mission to restore a lost world through his Son. Every verse contributes to that message.
The Bible is not a pep talk. It is good news.
You can read it all at the link above. Good Stuff!

Correction:  In the first draft of this post I had attributed the article to Mark Driscoll instead of Dane Ortlund. I have corrected that error above. Both good guys, but want to give proper attribution and credit where credit is due!

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