What Is the Bible and How Do We Understand It?

Dennis R. Edwards

• Publisher: Herald Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781513806143
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Reading the Bible is one thing. Understanding how the Bible came to be and how it can guide our faith and life? That's quite another. Dennis R. Edwards offers a succinct and profound investigation of Scripture. By holding up Jesus as the interpretive key and inviting us to read the Bible with the marginalized, Edwards challenges us to a Christ-centered approach to hermeneutics. What does it mean to read the Bible with Jesus at the center? How does Scripture illuminate the work of God in the world? Edwards shines light on contemporary debates about the Bible and calls us to faithful, loving interpretations and applications of the Word of God. The Jesus Way: Small Books of Radical Faith delve into big questions about God's work in the world. These concise, practical books are deeply rooted in Anabaptist theology. Crafted by a diverse community of internationally renowned scholars, pastors, and practitioners, The Jesus Way series helps readers deepen their faith in Christ and enliven their witness.

• Accessible Jesus-centered theology from an Anabaptist perspective
• Designed for use by individual readers, small groups, and Christian education classes
• Glossary of terms, illustrations, and discussion and reflection questions in each volume

Books in series: What Is the Bible and How Do We Understand It? Dennis R. Edwards [Fall 2019]
Why Did Jesus Die and What Difference Does It Make? Michele Hershberger [Fall 2019]
Why Do We Suffer and Where IsGod When We Do? Valerie G. Rempel [Spring 2020]
What Is theTrinity and Why Does It Matter? Steve Dancause [Spring 2020]
Who Are Our Enemies and How Do We Love Them? Hyung Jin Kim Sun [Summer 2020]
What Is God's Mission in the World and How Do We Join It? Juan F. Martínez [Summer 2020]
What Is the Church and Why Does It Exist? David Fitch [Fall 2020]
What Does Justice Look Like and Why Does God Care about It? Judith and Colin McCartney [Fall 2020]
What Is God's Kingdom and What Does Citizenship Look Like? César García [Spring 2021]
Who Was Jesus and What Does It Mean to Follow Him? Nancy Elizabeth Bedford [Spring 2021]

1

What Is the Purpose of the Bible?

Sometimes when I preach, I claim that the Bible is not a list of rules but a love story. After one service in which I made such an assertion, a woman approached me, her preadolescent children at her side, to express her disagreement. She believed the Bible is a rule book and that I had diminished its authority by calling it a love story.

I am sympathetic to a mother’s need for rules for her children and her desire to see the Bible as the source of those rules. Perhaps she had grown up with the Bible serving such a purpose. I did not try to change her mind, and we parted that day with our differing perspectives, yet still respecting each other’s point of view. In another church where I’d made the same assertion—that the Bible is a love story—a woman approached me after the service to say how much that description had warmed her heart and given her comfort.

I insist that the Bible is a love story, but I don’t intend for that to sound like sappy sentimentality. The notion of the Bible’s love story held appeal for believers who lived centuries ago. For example, an early Anabaptist Christian, Peter Riedeman, wrote in 1542 that it has always been God’s desire to be in relationship with creation: “It is his will to be our God and Father, and that we should be his people and loved children, and that he desires through Christ to fill us at all times with every divine blessing and with all that is good.”⁴ This perspective permeates the Bible, even though not every section or verse we read has love in the foreground.

Because the Bible is an eclectic collection of writings, it can be a bit like the proverbial elephant being examined by people who cannot see. In that story, each person, touching only a part of the elephant, generalizes their findings and winds up making assumptions about the entire elephant. If one focuses on rules in the Bible, the Bible will become a rule book. If one focuses exclusively on verses about happiness and joy, the Bible will become a manual for personal fulfillment on earth. If one focuses on verses about sin and judgment, the Bible will become a source of condemnation of others and possibly of oneself as well.

But the Bible is more than just any one of those parts, and even more than the sum of those parts. The various writings that make up the Bible—including the rules, the songs, the promises, the short and long stories, and the admonitions, along with the pronouncements of judgment—conspire to tell a story. The Bible tells a story, even though it consists of parts that aren’t narrative and don’t have a convenient “beginning, middle, end” flow to them. Ghanaian scholar Kwame Bediako declares that “Scripture is not just a holy book from which we extract teaching and biblical principles. Rather, it is a story in which we participate.”⁴ The grand story of the Bible is one of love: God’s love for humanity and God’s efforts to create a safe, secure, and satisfying existence for humans in harmonious relationship with God and each other.

THE BIBLE TELLS A STORY

If you’ve ever tried to read the Bible from cover to cover, perhaps as a New Year’s resolution, you probably found it pretty interesting for the first several days as you went through Genesis and Exodus. But when you got to Leviticus, things might have slowed down dramatically!

Although the Bible tells a story, it is not all stylistically narrative. New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham observes, “While not all Scripture is generically narrative, . . . the story Scripture tells, from creation to new creation, is the unifying element that holds literature of other genres together with narrative in an intelligible whole.”⁴ Bauckham’s description of the biblical story as one of “creation to new creation” resonates with the notion that the Bible is a love story. At the center of that love story is Jesus; more on that idea in chapter 3. Right now, it is helpful to consider what may be the Bible’s grand story.

The idea that the Bible has a grand, overarching story might be new to some people, especially if they’re accustomed to viewing the Bible as a random collection of tales and truisms. But the Bible does tell a story, and offering an overarching story may prove especially helpful when you are talking to someone who is unfamiliar with the Bible. Most popular Christian summaries of the Bible’s story follow this pattern: creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. The world is created (Genesis 1–2); humans fall into sin (Genesis 3); Jesus comes to redeem humanity (explained in Paul’s letters); and history is wrapped up when Jesus returns to earth (Revelation). Certainly, something like that movement is found in the Bible. Yet emphasizing this creation-fall-redemption-consummation pattern tends to magnify a small part of the Bible (Genesis 3) while omitting a large portion of the Old Testament (such as Exodus, Psalms, Proverbs, historical books, and the Prophets). It also downplays the life of Jesus on earth while focusing almost exclusively on the apostle Paul’s letters.

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus is called Emmanuel, or “God with us” (Matthew 1:23). In John’s gospel, we read that Jesus is the Word of God who made his home among human beings (John 1:14). The Gospels stress the life and teachings of Jesus and show him to be the most significant witness of who God is and what God is about (Hebrews 1:1-4). The summary of Scripture that focuses on creation, fall, redemption, and consummation correctly highlights the death and resurrection of Jesus—but it says next to nothing about his earthly ministry. If Jesus is the center of Scripture, as we will look at in chapter 3, then a different narrative might be more helpful.

There’s another way to consider the biblical data, and I invite you to ponder this Jesus-centered version of the grand story of the Bible. This story of the Bible highlights three topics that are introduced in the Old Testament and then reversed in order in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, the story unfolds the themes of creation, salvation, and the kingdom of God. That movement is evident through the drama surrounding the people of Israel. When we get to the New Testament, the story plays out in reverse, but with Jesus as the key. Jesus not only preaches and teaches about the kingdom of God, but is shown to be the source of ultimate salvation. He is also the one who ushers in God’s new creation. Love consistently motivates God, who is the central character in the Bible’s drama and is presented as Creator, Savior, and King.

The titles Creator, Savior, and King also apply to Jesus. We discover that Jesus is God in flesh, which gives human beings a clearer picture of what God is like. God is the Creator, who establishes and sustains the world (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16). Jesus is Savior, who rescues humanity from sin and death (Colossians 1:13; Romans 5:9-10). Jesus is also King, sovereign over all creation (1 Corinthians 15:24-25; Ephesians 1:22; 1 Timothy 1:16-17; 1 Peter 3:22). Through Jesus, God sent the Holy Spirit to empower all who follow Jesus. The Holy Spirit works within and among the followers of Jesus to help us know God better as history advances toward the new creation.

Let’s look at each of these themes in a bit more detail.

FROM CREATION TO SALVATION TO THE KINGDOM

The Bible’s story begins with God’s creation of the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1-2). I recognize that not all Bible readers take the beginning of Genesis to be historical writing, and my point here is not to debate the specifics of the creation account. Rather, it is to suggest that the story introduces readers to a God who has power over everything yet chooses to live in harmony with human beings. Genesis portrays God not only as Creator but also as Savior, who fashioned the world from nothing and did not leave it in a formless and chaotic condition. In Genesis 1, each act of creation begins with the words “and God said.” Genesis communicates that God is king over all, creating by his authoritative word. Right from the start of the Bible, God is shown to be Creator, Savior, and King. Creation also displays God’s love, evident in how everything that God made was declared to be good (Genesis 1:31) and was for the benefit of humanity, who was made in the likeness of God (vv. 26-27). As theologian Willie James Jennings observes, “A Christian doctrine of creation is first a doctrine of place and people, of divine love and divine touch, of human presence and embrace, and of divine and human interaction.”⁴ Humans were to live in harmony with God and each other, under God’s care in an ideal environment (Genesis 2:4-25).

Salvation, or deliverance, is a key theme of the second book of the Bible. Exodus is largely the story of God working through Moses to rescue Israel out of slavery in Egypt. As I noted earlier, Christians usually tell the story of the Bible as moving from creation to the fall, which is the disobedience of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. It is true that according to Genesis, the prototypical humans not only disobeyed God but tried to usurp God’s role by being “like God” (Genesis 3:5). Yet the story of Adam and Eve is not central in the Old Testament. In fact, the Old Testament itself rarely reflects on that story.⁴ The serpent of Genesis 3:1 is not explicitly identified as the devil, or Satan, in the Old Testament (Revelation 20:2 makes the connection). Satan’s origin is a mystery. Even though some have attempted to identify Satan with the king of Babylon who is castigated in Isaiah 14:3-23, that identification is unlikely.

Genesis does, however, recount how human rebellion against God is evil, pulling the world toward chaos, resulting in murder (Genesis 4:8) and all manner of wickedness (6:5). The point of Genesis is not primarily about the origins of evil but about the manifestations of sin as well as the need to be free of sin.

By contrast, the event frequently recounted in the Old Testament—virtually countless times—is Israel’s deliverance from Egypt. Here are a few examples from different parts of the Old Testament:

I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. (Exodus 20:2)

For it is the LORD our God who brought us and our ancestors up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight. He protected us along all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed. (Joshua 24:17)

And [Samuel] said to them, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘I brought up Israel out of Egypt, and I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all the kingdoms that were oppressing you.’” (1 Samuel 10:18)

“And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and made your name renowned even to this day—we have sinned, we have done wickedly.” (Daniel 9:15)

These verses are but a small sample of the many places in which the Old Testament mentions God’s deliverance of Israel out of Egypt. The book of Exodus foreshadows the ministry of Jesus in several ways, preparing readers to understand what it means for Jesus to be Savior.

Seeing God as one who saves will also enhance our appreciation of what God is like. It is common for people to have a harsh image of God: an angry old monarch, seated on his throne with folded arms, ready to punish or kill anyone who steps out of line. Yet the notion of God as Savior conjures different images. Rather than seeing the God of the Old Testament as cruel and vindictive, we might be able to view God as motivated by love toward creation, with arms outstretched to receive us, not folded in disappointment.

Seeing the emphasis on salvation throughout Scripture may help us stop pitting the God of the Old Testament against Jesus. It is commonplace to hear people say that Jesus is loving and kind, while the God of the Old Testament is judgmental and even capricious. But the God who saves in the Old Testament is the same God who saves in the New Testament.

African Americans have long understood God to be Savior, having seen ourselves in the exodus story. While white slave owners typically appealed to the Bible to justify slavery, Black slaves and their descendants believed that the God revealed in the Bible is the Savior who rescues people out of slavery.

Additionally, Exodus prepares us for the important idea that sin involves slavery. Pharaoh, the antagonist in the early part of Exodus, had influence over the structures that bound the Israelites. In that regard, Pharaoh is like Satan. The Bible depicts Satan, the devil, as having influence over the structures that affect human beings (Ephesians 2:2). Human beings are victimized by evil, often evident in the way societies are structured. Slavery, patriarchy, and fascism are examples of oppressive systems that prevent human flourishing. Those systems are sinful, supported through violence and intimidation. Everyone caught up in evil systems—those who perpetuate them, as well as those who are victimized ...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction to The Jesus Way Series from Herald Press
• Introduction
• 1 What Is the Purpose of the Bible?
• 2 How Was the Bible Born?
• 3 What Is the Center of the Bible?
• 4 What Is the Spirit of the Bible?
• 5 Who Gets to Interpret the Bible?
• 6 What Impact Does the Bible Make?
• Glossary
• Discussion and Reflection Questions
• Shared Convictions
• Notes
• The Author