The big picture

This is the title of a chapter in a small book I wrote to provide new Christians with a map to reading the Bible.

It sets out the basic flow of God's unfolding relationship with his creation that the Bible traverses.

I foreshadowed this in a previous post.

The very abbreviated form is below, in 7 themes:

1. Creation: Genesis 1
2. Corruption: Genesis 3
3. Catastrophe: Genesis 7
4. Confusion: Genesis 11
5. Covenant: Genesis 17 and this can extend to Deuteronomy-Joshua
6. Crucifixion: Luke 23...John 20
7. Culmination: Revelation 21.

Mostly in Genesis, but this frames the entire congress between God and people.

Later I'll post on my suggested introduction to reading the Bible: which books in which order.

Despite most contemporary opinion I'd always advise starting with Genesis. Not only does it set the scene and define the concerns of the Bible, but its simply a fabulous read. One of the great 'sagas' of world literature.

One just has to get past the pagan preoccupations of our culture (and its influence on modern theology) and appreciate that it is written in concrete terms, not mythic ones. It really happened, it is therefore, really important.

[BTW my seven Cs is based on the framework presented at First Baptist Church in Weymouth Mass. in the USA...I don't necessarily endorse all or any of that church's views.]