What Do We Mean by God’s Big Story?
What do we mean by “God’s Big Story”?*
When I was young growing up in an American mainstream Protestant church in the 1970’s and 80’s I was given the impression that God was, well, rather schizophrenic. I often heard the preacher make remarks about “the God of the Old Testament” in contrast to Jesus in the New Testament. We were basically taught that what God was doing through Jesus in the New Testament was all about love, grace, and peace, and these things were in stark contrast to what God was doing in the Old Testament which was all about wrath, war, and judgment.
Somewhere between Malachi and Matthew, God had flipped a cosmic switch in his eternal brain and decided to do things in an entirely different way. It was disconcerting for my adolescent heart and mind to try and make sense of this God who metamorphosized from a once angry war-hungry perfectionist in the Old Testament into a long-haired love-your-enemy hippy-like peace child in the New Testament.
It just didn’t make sense. Isn’t God supposed to be the eternal Creator, the unmoved Mover, without beginning or end, and therefore immutable (“not subject or susceptible to change”)? If Jesus is God incarnate, then wouldn’t his character resemble the character of “the God of the Old Testament”? Even as a young person I sensed that there was something seriously wrong with this picture of God.
What I would come to learn later is that this perspective of the Bible comes from a very superficial reading of both the New and Old Testaments and is built on a weak foundation of Enlightenment-inspired principles and presuppositions that simply don’t let the Bible speak for itself.
For just one example of many that could be pointed out, a more careful reading of the Old Testament will reveal a Father-hearted God showing unprecedented longsuffering mercy and grace toward people who repeatedly thumbed their noses at him, their faithful Creator and mighty Deliverer. The very name for himself that God reveals to Moses is:
“Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin…” (Exodus 34:6-7)
In the same way, a careful reading of the New Testament will reveal a surprising amount of concern for the holiness of God, a call to holy living, and warnings of God’s immanent judgment (read Jesus’ description of the final judgment in Matthew 25:31-46). God is revealed as holy and full of steadfast lovingkindness all at the same time, all the way through the entire Bible.
But, instead of trying to deconstruct all those weak principles and presuppositions underlying the preaching I heard as a kid, let’s consider an approach to understanding the Bible that lets the Bible (and God as he has revealed himself in the Bible) speak for itself.
I have come to a very different conclusion about the Bible than what I was taught in my church growing up. I spent many years in formal post-graduate theological studies. I learned to read the Old and New Testaments more carefully. I spent over fifteen years reading the Bible all the way through each year, paying careful attention to God’s character as revealed in the Old and the New, especially the way Jesus and the Apostles understood their Scriptures (the Old Testament).
I have come to see that the Bible is God’s one big story with a beginning, middle, and end and with a consistent depiction of God all the way through. The Bible is essentially one story, God’s story, that finds its focus and fulfillment in Jesus Christ. As a story it has an over-arching plot line including an introduction, rise in action, climax, and resolution. God’s big story is made up of many smaller stories, written down by around forty authors (some known, some unknown), spanning thousands of years and projected into the future eternally.
The perspective that the Bible is one story that finds its focus and fulfillment in Jesus arises from a commitment to let the Bible speak for itself and an effort to see the Scriptures the way Jesus and the Apostles did. They saw how intimately the gospel story of Jesus relates to the story told in the Old Testament Scriptures.
The technical term for the theological discipline that studies the contours of the Bible as one big story is called “Biblical Theology.” Biblical Theology takes seriously the entire narrative of Scripture as a whole and observes a high degree of continuity between the Old and New Testaments, the Bible’s main themes, purpose, and intentional self-awareness. Another way to put it is that Biblical Theology is not only concerned with what God has revealed (which is the focus of Systematic Theology) but also how, why, and for whom God originally revealed it.
Biblical Theology regards the Bible as one story about One Person: God as revealed in Jesus Christ. So as readers of God’s word, this means we treat each part as a part of the greater whole. In other words, we aim to recognize the importance of interpreting every part or passage of Scripture in light of the whole story. P. Adam writes:
When God chose to reveal his saving will in the Bible he did not use a systematic theology, a dictionary of useful texts, or an anthology of current debates. He used progressive revelation in word and explained deed, at intervals during the history of his chosen people. The OT declares God’s promise; the NT relates its fulfillment. Salvation in Christ was first revealed in shadow, and then in substance (Col. 2:16-17). In preaching [and reading] Scripture we are not dealing with timeless truths but with coherent, progressive, historical and theological revelation. [1]
This means we cannot fully understand a particular passage of Scripture if we try to understand it in isolation of the rest of God’s Big Story in the Bible. We can’t fully understand a portion of the Bible apart from at least a basic understanding of its role and function in carrying forth the whole of God’s Story.
For many of us, this means we may need a paradigm shift in the way we treat the Bible. We shouldn’t go to the Bible simply looking for nuggets of truth to make us feel better. We will need to resist cherry-picking our favorite verses to memorize and build our lives on. We can no longer go to the Bible simply for proof texts to support our forgone conclusions or to win our apologetic arguments.
Rather we stand before the Bible ready to marvel at God’s holy character, mighty deeds, lovingkindness, and everlasting faithfulness on display through many genres of literature all working together to tell God’s metanarrative and understand how it all fits together and how our own personal stories fit into God’s big story.
So, Biblical Theology as it concerns the story of God should play a significant role in our understanding, study, and communication of God’s word. This is because when we take the perspective of Jesus and the Apostles about Scripture (as Biblical Theology does) we are studying the Bible according to “the principles of revelation and inspiration claimed and assumed in the Bible itself.” [2].
When we realize that the Bible is God’s Big Story with a unified purpose, we begin to see all the way through, that God’s Big Story finds its focus and fulfillment in Jesus. Understanding the Bible as God’s Big Story that finds its focus and fulfillment in Jesus is true to the Bible’s own self description and to God’s purpose for it. In fact, this is the way Jesus understood the Bible. Let’s look at some examples.
Look at the Gospel of John chapter 5. There Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath day. The Jewish religious authorities become angry at Jesus because when Jesus healed the man’s legs so that he could walk, Jesus told the man to pick up his mat and walk (John 5:8-9, 11), an act they considered to be illegal on the Sabbath according to their interpretation of God’s law.
In defense of his authority to say what he said, and revealing his opponents’ misunderstanding of the Scriptures, Jesus says in verse 39-40
“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.”
Jesus’ opponents opposed Jesus, in part, because they failed to see that their own Scriptures witnessed to Jesus’ authority, legitimacy, and unique value as the source of eternal life. According to Jesus, the Old Testament bears witness about him.
Now, take a look at Luke 24:13-49. When Jesus explains to the men on the road to Emmaus that what had happened that week (Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection) was all part of God’s plan, he reveals how he understands his story in relationship to the story of the Old Testament. Luke tells us in verse 27
“And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”
Jesus understood “all the Scriptures” as containing things concerning himself. Jesus understood himself to be the focus of the Old Testament Scriptures.
Next, what did Jesus open the minds of the disciples to understand in Luke 24:44-46? In verse 44 Jesus tells his disciples:
“These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”
Jesus understood himself to be the fulfillment of every part of the Old Testament.
Consider also the Book of Acts and the preaching of Peter (Acts 2:14-41), Philip (Acts 8:26-40), and Paul (Acts 13:13-49). They make their argument that Jesus was indeed the Messiah by quoting from the Old Testament. They understood Jesus’ story (his life, death, and resurrection) to be the completion of the Old Testament story.
So, if we would strive to read the Bible in the way the Bible reveals itself, we will need to ask God to help us see the Bible as God’s one big story. Whenever we are reading a part of the Bible we will want to ask questions like:
How does this part of the story fit into God’s big story?
How does this story in the Bible function to support the whole?
How does this passage find its focus and fulfillment in Jesus?
How does Jesus fulfill prophecies or promises that I’m reading (often found in quotations and references from elsewhere in the Bible, or direct statements of fulfillment)?
How does Jesus complete the themes or imagery in this passage (like themes that go from shadow to reality; cf. Hebrews 8:5; 10:1; for instance, the sacrificial system, rest, temple & God’s dwelling with his people, kingship, or future hope and longings)?
How does Jesus ultimately accomplish patterns in God’s great works of the Bible (like using the weak and unexpected, accomplishing good through suffering, or God’s great reversals)?
How does Jesus bring resolution to tensions in the story (like Israel’s longing for a king, God’s plan for the nations, awaiting judgment and salvation, failures of God’s leaders, cries of God’s people for justice and vindication, human suffering, or Satan’s activity)?
Then once we have explored how Jesus is the focus and fulfillment of the part of the Bible we are reading in these ways, we can begin to ask:
How does my story fit into God’s Big Story according to the way Jesus completes this part?
How is Jesus the focus and fulfillment of my story?... of my family’s story?... of my church’s story?... of my city’s story?
Indeed, to consider these questions will take more work than we are typically used to doing when we sit down to read our Bibles with our cup of coffee in the morning. But the extra effort is worth it. In fact, even if we don’t always find all the answers immediately, just taking the time to ask questions like those above can slow us down enough to help us see what God has revealed in his word with clearer sight. Along with prayer that asks God to show us how Jesus completes God’s Big Story, asking questions like these is part of the way we can begin to listen more carefully and let the Bible speak for itself.
*Understanding God’s Big Story is just one of the many Tools for Bible Navigation we use in our Training for Transformation with Great Sea Commission. If you and your church or group would like to receive training in this hermeneutical tool and others to equip you to better understand, teach, or preach God’s word please contact us and we can talk about connecting for a workshop.
[1] P. J. H. Adam, “Preaching and Biblical Theology” in Alexander and Rosner, New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 107.
[2] Clowney, Edmund, Preaching and Biblical Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Company, 1979/2002), 13.
