This week the blog is sponsored by Lifeway, who also wrote this article.
On the surface, most Christians would agree with the title of this post. Yet, we so often read and study the Bible in a way that says the opposite.
When we read the stories of the Old Testament, we draw moral conclusions to inform how we live our lives.
- We see in Noah a model of how to live righteously in the midst of a generation where everyone’s hearts are set on evil.
- We learn from Abraham that we should not hold anything back from God, just as he did when he put his only son on an altar.
- We read about how David kills Goliath, and draw the conclusion that God will help us slay our own giants.
The same is true of the parts of the Bible that aren’t narratives: the Psalms and Proverbs, the Major and Minor Prophets, and much of the New Testament. We read these to tell us how to live—or how not to—and draw on our own pursuit of spiritual discipline to obey.
While some of us may wonder what’s wrong with that, what if this approach causes us to miss a truth that is so singularly important and life-altering it completely reframes what we understand the Bible to be? What if it prevents us from seeing that there is something so much more going on in the Bible—something more than its stories and letters in isolation?
What if, by reading the Bible as if it were about us, we miss the story that God has been telling?
Through every passage of Scripture, through every story and parable and prophecy, God is telling one story: God’s plan to rescue His people from sin through the life, death, and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ. The Righteous Man who rescues sinners. The Faithful Son who laid down His own life for His friends. The Glorious King who slew the ultimate giant, sin, and death, to redeem His people.
This is the story that The Gospel Project shares with kids, students, and adults every week. And this Fall, we’re beginning a new three-year journey through this story where people of all ages will see how God’s gospel project unfolds—the one that began “in the beginning” and continues today in the hearts and lives of His people.
The story that is better than any story that begins with us.
The story that changes everything.
Learn more at gospelproject.com/preview.
