What’s your story?
Isn't it delicious to share stories with a friend, a spouse, a brother or a sister: “Remember the time when ...”? Whether it's funny stories, tragic stories, joyful moments or painful recollections, it's the stories that bring us close—that breed familiarity, friendship and love. Shared stories are the glue of relationship.
To be Christian is to be invited to share a story. It's a story that is told in the pages of the Old Testament. The story is not, first and foremost, my story or your story; it's not even, in the end, Israel's story. This story is ultimately the story of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The Old Testament tells a story that hints at, prepares for and even longs for the coming of the Son of God. And now that the Son of God has come and died and risen again, this story finally makes sense, and is truly his story.
Nevertheless, through his Spirit, God the Father and creator of the universe invites us to share his story. This story—the story of the Scriptures, fulfilled in the gospel of Jesus Christ and proclaimed by the apostles—is the glue of our relationship with God. This is how we come to know and love the Son and, through him, the Father. This is the story that is able to make us wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus (2 Tim 3:15). It is this story (comprising many interwoven stories) that brings us closer, deeper and stronger into a relationship with God himself.
Is it your story?
On page after page of the New Testament, the lips of Jesus and the pens of his apostles drip with quotations and allusions to the stories of the Old Testament.1 You can see them retelling the stories, explaining the stories, applying the stories, fulfilling the stories, and arguing with opponents about what the stories mean. But did you notice how they seem to assume that their readers, the early believers (Jew and Gentile alike), are already familiar with the stories themselves? This, of course, isn't surprising; if the Scriptures are indeed God's story, shared with us to bring us close to the Father through his Son, why shouldn't these early believers be intimately acquainted with their Scriptures?
But the early believers didn't have printing presses. They didn't have BibleGateway.com. They didn't have the Bible on MP3. They didn't have CD players in their cars, or iPods. We do. What excuse do we have for not being intimately acquainted with the stories of Scripture?
What's your story?
How can you get to know God more deeply and intimately? By sharing his story! By reading it. By downloading and listening to it. By imbibing it (you can listen to five chapters at once in a half-hour walk). By talking about it with your brothers and sisters in Christ. By experiencing it—by being absorbed by the heroism and tragedy of David's rise and fall in 1 and 2 Samuel; by feeling the weight of the relentless requirements of Leviticus; by booing and hissing at villains such as Doeg the Edomite (1 Sam 22); by smiling at the irony as the conniving Jacob is himself bought and sold (Gen 30:14-16); by standing awestruck with Isaiah at the holiness and unimaginable plan of God (Isa 6); by weeping over the all-too-human sin of Israel and the destruction of Jerusalem (Lam 1); by longing for the promised salvation of God; by rejoicing at the arrival of God our Saviour in the person of his Son (Luke 1:46-55).
Don't know where to start? There are excellent courses you can do to help you grasp the big picture and a framework for understanding the story of the Bible. But even these courses are no substitute for reading it, sharing it, listening to it and getting the story into your head.
Get the story, know the story, share the story. Don't feel obliged to do an hour-long intensive devotion every time you open the pages of the Scriptures. Just do it! If you get to know the stories, then when you do come to read the New Testament explaining the Old, or when you hear the doctrine of God spoken of and explained, you will find that you already know this God. You know him because you have shared his story—the story of his Son Jesus Christ.
1 Roger Nicole, ‘New Testament Use of the Old Testament’ in Revelation and the Bible: Contemporary Evangelical Thought, edited by Carl FH Henry, Baker, Grand Rapids, 1958/The Tyndale Press, London, 1959, pp. 137-151 (especially page 140). The whole article, while 50 years old, is still well worth a read.
Yes, Lionel, well said!!
I think it is no accident that story is a key if not he main way in which God’s plans and purposes are revealed to us in the Bible. The call to ‘remember’and so to live in humble trust and service to our Lord is very strong. To remember we need to know the story… so back to Lionel’s comments.
Hi Lionel,
Excellent and encouraging post.
I thought I’d share these following resources I’ve found helpful with bible reading.
http://www.bibleplan.org
they have many different programs and will email you out the passages to be read each day (not the text itself)
There is a “Bible in 90 days” program. They produce a bible which has slightly larger lettering and slightly larger pages that does make reading easier.
I also recently came across this bible reading system
http://www.4shared.com/file/84820158/92ad7a9e/professor_grant_horners_bible_reading_system.html
where you read 1 chapter a day from each of 10 different lists. He “challenges” people to take it up for 30 days.
Does anyone know if paper diaries are available (I know its so last millenium) where the passages to be read are given each day (not the text just the references) so you can read the bible in a year and make notes?
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