The universe is big. When we look through a microscope, we find another incredible universe.

Take the human body for example. If we could join end-to-end all the veins, arteries, and capillaries found in the average human body, they would reach around the equator three times. The fibers that make up the average human brain would reach to the moon and back. If we could store all the information in the average human brain on CDs, it would produce a stack of CDs about 2,000 miles high.

Though things seen through telescopes and microscopes point to God’s existence, they do nothing to reveal God’s identity and character. You know? We do not find God; God is not lost. WE are lost – and it is God who has come looking for us and has found us. The Bible reveals God as searching for lost people to draw them back into fellowship with God and with one another.

In Ephesians 1:7-10, Paul teaches us: In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment – to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.

Think about that. Redemption through blood; forgiveness of sins; riches of God’s grace; wisdom and understanding; the mystery of His will; His good pleasure purposed in Christ; being put into effect when the times reach fulfillment; bringing all things in heaven and on earth together under Christ. Here’s what that passage means:

Because of the sacrifice of Jesus the Messiah, His innocent blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, you and I can be free – free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free!

But there’s more from that passage that we need to know. . . God thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need – and He let us in on these plans He took such delight in making by setting it all out before us in Holy Scripture – the creation account, history, the prophets of old, the books of wisdom, and the poetry of praise – all pointing to Jesus Christ. . . a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in Jesus Christ – accomplishing and completing everything in deepest heaven and everything on planet earth.

Telescopes and microscopes reveal God’s footprints through CREATION. However, if we’re to know something of God’s heart, character, and disposition – we must look at God’s footprints through HUMAN HISTORY.

Ever watch a reality TV show? (How can you escape them?)

There’s Jersey Shore with Snooki and “the Situation” and their friends. “The Osbornes” which has given way to “Married to Rock” and all of those spin-offs. The Bachelor, The Apprentice, Gold Rush, Housewives of Orange County, Housewives of Beverly Hills, Housewives of New York City, Celebrity Rehab, Amazing Race, Survivors,
Bridezillas, Say Yes to the Dress, My Big Redneck Wedding, Bridalplasty. . . please – don’t make me go on - I’m only scratching the surface. What these shows capitalize on is our desire to see real life acted out – while we watch. We’re observing life, rather than actually living it - how insane is that?

The reality we’re living is much, much more real and dramatic and life-altering. Our tiny, fragile planet Earth is the chosen location in all of the universe for God’s activities in rescuing humanity – His much-loved children and companions – from our lost and wandering state. The biblical narrative is like a reality show – but instead of us watching it like observers – we are all on stage, taking part in it – whether we realize it or not and whether we want to be on the stage or not!

What you and I need to come to grips with is that we’re in this reality – and we need to become familiar with the background, the history, the stage directions, the author of the script, and what happens at the end of the drama. . . and all of that is found in God’s Word, the Bible.

Some years ago, a Mission agency sent a man named Trevor McIlwain to the Philippines to work among the Palawano people on Palawan Island. The sending agency was the “New Tribes Mission” group, which was started and built on a passion for reaching unreached people groups with a “simple Gospel” that required little or no training to communicate. Soon after McIlwain began serving the Palawano people, he tried teaching them some very basic biblical doctrines – kind of like “Five Things You Need to Know to Be Saved.” He got nowhere. They simply didn’t get it; they couldn’t catch on.

Then he tried guiding the Palawano through John’s Gospel, verse by verse. Once again, his teaching made little or no sense to his audience. McIlwain then realized that both methods failed because the people had never been taught the basic Old Testament narrative as one complete story, as a sequence of events leading to the message of the Messiah. So he changed his approach.

First, he decided that the entire bible story itself was the outline of the salvation of humanity. The best way to teach divine truth is to teach the biblical narrative as it unfolds in the Scriptures. The Old Testament is about preparing for Jesus; the New Testament is about Jesus showing up. Second, other teaching methods are beneficial only when people have a clear panoramic view of God’s dealing with humanity. You have to see the whole picture and understand the story before you try to understand the details. Third, the Old Testament is where the themes Jesus grapples with are located. Then, in the New Testament we find that Jesus Himself becomes the ultimate interpreter of all of Scripture.

What we learn from missionaries like this – who bring the gospel of Jesus to people who do not have any concept of Jesus, of sin, or of separation from God - and no concept of forgiveness and salvation – is that the people we live with are no different than the indigenous people of those far-flung foreign lands; all of us start from a place of knowing nothing about Jesus, and nothing about the God of Abraham or the people of Israel and their role in history. If we want our family, friends, and neighbors to understand Jesus and the New Testament, we need to understand it ourselves so they can finally come to understand the story of the Bible as a whole, not just fragments of it, or a piece here and a piece there.

The Bible is not a collection of stories about a succession of so-called heroes or a series of holy statements to be selected at random depending on the moral point of the moment. The Old Testament is a narrative – a sequence of events – through which is woven a story of key spiritual themes. When we reach the New Testament we must ask ourselves “How does Jesus pick up the story line, and how does He interpret and redefine the themes presented up to this point?”

Jesus is the final interpreter of Scripture. He is the final Word of God. When we come at it that way, the entirety of the Bible can make tremendous sense – and challenge us in incredible and enormous ways.

The Greek word from which our English word “Bible” is derived means simply “book.” However when we pick up a Bible, we’re really picking up a library of books. The books found within the Bible are grouped into helpful sections. The Old Testament contains History, Poetry (sometimes called Wisdom books), the Major Prophets, and the Minor Prophets. The New Testament is comprised of History (the four Gospels and Acts of the Apostles), Paul’s Letters, General Letters, and the Revelation to John, also known as Apocalypse, a word taken from the Greek meaning “Revelation.”

This library of 66 books is the Bible traditionally used by Protestants. These are the books that made it past the careful, intentional, prayerful testing, research, comparisons done by our early church fathers throughout the centuries. They were “canonized” or “held up to careful measurement.” The word “canon” literally means “rule.” You’ve been to amusement parks where some rides have a rule or standard at the entrance saying “You must be THIS TALL to ride.” That’s what a “canon” is – a rule or a significant measurement to which a book was subjected and must pass before it would be considered correct, safe, and God-inspired and therefore become “canonized” as a part of the Bible.

(Let me just say this too: I believe that if you want to become a serious reader and student of the biblical library, you really need to memorize the names and order of these 66 books so you can find your way around in the Bible, and check out references quickly and intelligently.)

The Roman Catholic Church adds seven books to the Old Testament. We refer to these as “Apocryphal” or “Deuterocanonical” books. (“Apocryphal” means “hidden text” and “deutero” means “the second” so “Deuterocanonical” means “the second canon.”) Those books are Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, The Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), and Baruch. Other Apocryphal books used by other Christians sects like the Coptic Church might also include 3 and 4 Esdras (which are the books that follow Ezra and Nehemiah – which are considered 1 and 2 Esdras). There is also Song of the Three Holy Children, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, and the Book of Manasseh. While we do not consider these additional, hidden books fitting for inclusion in our canon because of some details that don’t mesh with the rest of Scripture, we do find them very useful in our research because they contain things that shed light on the history and faith of God’s people in the period of time – about 400 years – between the Old and New Testaments.

This is our Bible – a library of 66 books – showing us the unfolding of the key parts of history that pertain to God’s involvement in humanity. Martin Luther once said that
“the Bible is the cradle that brings us Jesus of Nazareth.” We find a thread of salvation running through the entire Bible – not just the New Testament. Salvation is not something new introduced in the New Testament – God’s intervention and involvement in saving us from ourselves started way back in the creation story.

For example – take a look at Genesis, chapter 3. The world has been created for man. Woman has been created to become one with man. We’re surrounded by beautiful animals in a beautiful Garden. But, man and woman invited sin into our lives – we became separated from God by our own choice. We gave in to temptation, succumbed to it, and now live in that state of sinfulness and separateness. Because of our choices, we FELL from God’s grace and favor into a state of lowly, pain-filled, toil and labor and suffering.

What did God do? Did He send us out wandering, lost, with no hope? No. He showed us mercy. Adam and Eve had been surrounded by beautiful animals in a beautiful garden that defies description today. They had lived in peace with animals – beautiful, sleek tigers and lions; soft, cuddly, playful Grizzly bears, raccoons, lemurs, cats, dogs, you name it. Now, in chapter 3, verse 21, a simple verse kind of slides by. . . “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.”

An act of kindness and mercy from God towards sinful, selfish Adam and Eve – but it required that God take one of these innocent, beautiful animals from the Garden and slice it open spilling its blood everywhere. The man and the woman had never witnessed death – and here – one of their innocent animal companions, with whom they shared the Garden, was killed, and butchered, and skinned so that Adam and Eve’s shame could be covered and clothed. Innocent blood shed – to atone for humanity’s disgrace – and the process of blood sacrifice for our sin and separation began – all within days of the creation of the world.

Salvation runs through the entire Bible. God’s plan for redeeming humanity has been a part of the biblical narrative from the very beginning. Jesus Himself said that the Bible (He was referring to the Hebrew Bible – which is our Old Testament) reveals Him as the Messiah. This is what Jesus said: “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. . . if you believed Moses, you would believe me, for [Moses] wrote about me.” (John 5:39-40, 46)

The great Apostle, Paul, tells us that “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. . .” (2 Timothy 3:16) Paul is referring to the Hebrew Scripture – our Old Testament – because that was all that was available at that time – and all of the Old Testament spoke of the Messiah, the Anointed One of God who would come to rescue God’s people. So – for us to truly find Jesus in Scripture, we need to learn to study both the Old and New Testaments.

Take a look at what we might call the Biblical Prologue – Genesis chapters 1 through 11. These chapters comprise perhaps 1% of the entire Bible. Let’s say for the sake of ease, that if we removed all the charts and graphs and study notes from the pages of our Bibles, we would probably end up with between 1,000 to 1,500 pages of text. Chapters 1-11 make up about 10 to 15 pages, depending on your typeface and size of the print; 10 pages from 1,000 pages is 1%.

The first 1% of the Bible deals with God’s purpose in bringing creation and humanity into existence, and describe what went wrong. It also describes the background of Abraham’s roots and origins. The enormous narrative that follows in the other 99% of the Bible describes God at work in history to form a people for a mission to draw all people back into fellowship with God and each other – in Christ.

The thread of salvation runs throughout the entire Bible. God created humanity to live on planet Earth in our wondrous universe. We were created to live in a love relationship with Him and with one another. We were to serve God by serving one another – we were created to live in community. That’s the goal of Christ’s Church in today’s world – to help restore people to the love relationship with God and with one another by serving Him and people everywhere, living in joyful community together.

Our western culture emphasizes individuality – but the biblical narrative focuses on the concept of community. God’s original plan has been supplanted by our own desires – and we need to return to His original plan both as individuals – and as a community of faith. The purpose of Christ’s Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ. Karl Barth – the great Swisss theologian, once said: “The Church is formed to be a provisional display of God’s original intention.”

In Christ we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment – to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. (Ephesians 1:7-10)

It’s all here in Scripture: Generation–Degeneration–Regeneration. Formation–Disintegration–Restoration. It’s our job and our privilege to become life-long, committed, and intentional students of God’s Word.