What is the Bible?

A tight statement of what the Bible is is essential for outsiders (those outside the Kingdom of God), and possibly for all of us.

 

Knight attempts this, but I think he skirts around the central objective of the Bible in showing the relationship of Creator and creature, describing the dilemma of man (made for eternal fellowship with God, but rejecting it) and the resolution of that dilemma in Christ, and the New Creation of eternal joy of God and man.

Knight’s article is OK, as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough for a viable discussion with one who is not Christian.

The Bible is the ‘story’ of reality  that addresses the only reality that matters: the relationship between God and his creature-in-his-image: man/humanity (‘man’ is a relational term, ‘humanity’ is a de-relational term). 

 

It shows how God ‘out-graces’ our wrecked lives and offers us restored relationship with him replacing our disrupted human condition with peace, joy and deep satisfaction of new life in God’s family.

Rather than it set out a theology or philosophy in vapid, arcane discourse, disconnected with our everyday life; it sets out a set of relationships, encounters and historical flow that show the course of reality and its results and implications in real lives.

In summary: God - Man - Christ - Cross - Resurrection.  

God

The great arc of the ‘story of reality starts with the eternal God who in wisdom, by intention, delivered by his ‘logos’ or ‘word’ created the space-time-material world (cosmos) of our life-experience and as the place where we experience relationship with God. Heaven and Earth come together in Genesis 1 where the creation is unfolded in the real-world terms in which we experience the creation.

 

[Genesis 1-3...]

Man

The breach of relationship between creature and creator comes early, with Adam and Eve’s rejection of fellowship with God.

The Bible is then about the relationship of God with his creatures: his formation of Israel to be the crucible by which he would restore the relationship so that man would be able to enjoy God for ever. 

 

[Genesis 3 to Malachi; that is, the entire Old Testament]

Christ

This resulted in the Messiah: the one who would make the way of re-connection.

 

[The gospels]

Cross

The work of the Messiah, God with us, (as he was in the beginning), is his victory over sin (rejection of God) and its resulting death, giving those who seek it... 

 

[Acts of the Apostles to Revelation]

 

Resurrection

...new life and restoration of relationship between God and man to culminate in a new creation of eternal joy in our fellowship.

 

[Acts of the Apostles to Revelation]