There are several things that it seems necessary to know about the story as presented in Scripture that will help us read the story with more clarity. First, its main character is God. He is the hero of all the stories. Scripture shares his story in terms of his actions and words. We get to know a person by his or her story. We can get to know God better by understanding his story.
Second, the story of humanity in Scripture is told in terms of one race, Israel, and one person within that race, Jesus, the true humanity of God. God’s story is told from his point of view through the lives of those who he called to be his light bearers. The stories in the Bible are not about how to get to heaven when you die. They are about how God is recreating his world and where the church fits into that picture.
Third, becoming the people of God means to find our lives in the continuing story of God. It means that there will be struggles like our forefathers had. It means there will be a conflict just as our kinfolks who went before us had. It means that we will face agony just like our chief ancestor faced as he gave himself for the world. However, it does not mean doing with exactness what was written on the pages of Scripture. If that were true, then, if one needed to make a trip from Jerusalem to Rome, one should take a ship and expect to be shipwrecked and viper bitten on the way.
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