Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Bible Story



Ed Clowney -
"There are great stories in the Bible ... but it is possible to know Bible stories, yet miss THE Bible story. The Bible has a story Line. lf we forget the story line ... we cut the heart out of the Bible. Sunday school stories are then tol...d as tamer versions of the Sunday comics, where Samson substitutes as Superman. David...becomes a Hebrew version of Jack the Giant Killer. No, David is not a brave little boy who is't afraid of the big bad giant. he is the Lord's Anointed..God chose David as a king in order to prepare the way for David's Great Son, our Deliverer and Champion..

If we ever tell a particular Bible story without putting it into the Bible story (about Christ), we actually change the meaning of the particular event for us. It becomes a moralistic exhortation to 'try harder' rather than a call to live... by faith in the work of Christ. There is, in the end, only two ways to read the Bible: is it basicallv about me or basicallv about Jesus? In other words. is it basically about what I must do, or basically about what He has done? If I read David and Goliath as basically giving me an example, then the story is really about me. I must summon up the faith and courage to fight the giants in my life. But if I read David and Goliath as basically showing me salvation through Jesus, then the story is really about Him. Until I see that Jesus fought the real giants (sin, law, death) for me, I will never have the courage to be able to fight ordinary giants in life (suffering, disappointment. failure, criticism. hardship). The Bible is not a collection of 'Aesop's Fables", it is not a book of virtues. It is a story about how God saves us."

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