This week’s “Wednesday Word” is a summary of Dr. Wellum’s introduction of our new series, The Bible’s Big Picture, given on Sunday, September 13, 2009.
This week we began a study on understanding the “big picture” of the Bible. Our goal in this study is to let the Bible unfold for itself God’s glorious plan of redemption rooted and grounded in Christ. A study such as this is important for at least three reasons.
First, we must know the “whole counsel of God” if we are going to know the God of the Bible truly. The chief end of human beings is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Given who God is, there is nothing greater than knowing him for it is the very purpose we have been created and redeemed. But how do we come to know God other than through Scripture? And it is not just this or that text of Scripture, but the entire revelation of God which teaches us about our great and majestic Triune God. Knowing the “big picture” of Scripture leads us to know, love, and obey God more.
Second, a study such as this is essential in helping us put together the diverse pieces of the Bible on the Bible’s own terms. Even though the Bible’s overall message is clear, we sometimes get lost in the details and don’t think through how the Bible itself is put together. The Bible is a big book with a lot of diversity and, unfortunately, most of us are taught to read it in a piecemeal fashion. But this way of reading the Bible is not true to the Bible’s own understanding of itself. As a result, we are often confused as to how all the parts relate to the whole, particularly how the OT makes sense in light of the NT and how to apply the OT to us today as Christians. Unless we step back and see the “forest” and not merely the “trees” we will miss what God is teaching us; we will not be reading and apply the Bible as God intends us to do. This is especially a problem today in light of biblical illiteracy and poor education in the church which has taught us a lot of Bible stories but not how the whole Bible fits and how all of it should be applied to us in light of the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Third, it is essential in helping us think as “worldview” Christians. The storyline of the Bible gives us a grand metanarrative and thus lens by which Christians are to look at their world and interpret every aspect of their lives and experience. As we seek to communicate the gospel with others, we realize more and more that we must do worldview evangelism with competing viewpoints, religions, and ideologies. It is utterly essential that we discover what the “big picture” (worldview) of the Bible is so we can set it over against all other viewpoints, not only critiquing them but also explaining to them the truth of the gospel. A wonderful example of this in practice is Paul at Athens (Acts 17:16-32). It is important to note that as Paul preaches the gospel to biblically illiterate people who operate with contrary worldviews, he does so by laying out the “big picture” of the Bible, starting with who God is, so that the gospel will be heard and understood on its own terms. In many ways, over the next number of weeks, our study is going to do in detail what Paul does at Athens: learn how the Bible fits together with the goal of knowing God better and making him known to our poor, lost world.