The Adventure Begins

The Big Picture of the Bible

The knight bravely storms the enemy castle.

Out of love for his kidnapped bride, he overcomes every foe. No one can stop his determined climb up the tower stairs. Vanquishing his final enemy, he bursts into the room where his beloved has been kept prisoner. “I am here,” he exclaims, “I have come for you!” He sets her free and, at long last, the two embrace with great joy.

Does God have such a love for us?

In our previous faith messages, we examined some of the reasons for faith in God. One can come to important insights by reflecting on the physical universe and on our experience of human nature. But these insights can only scratch the surface of the mysteries of God. If we are to know him in a deeper way, God has to choose to reveal himself to us. He has to come into the castle, so to speak, and make himself known.

God has indeed made himself known to us!

He did not simply set the universe in motion and leave us on our own without another thought. Rather, since our first days on earth, he has interacted with the human race and revealed himself to be a faithful, loving Father. As God revealed himself to his people over the centuries, he inspired many individuals to write down the stories of his words and deeds.

This is the amazing story recounted in the Bible.

In its pages, we find the greatest adventure ever told: how God patiently prepared the way for the most amazing rescue mission of all time. This adventure is recounted by many authors and through various types of literature, such as histories, poems, and letters. For this reason, the Bible is not like a typical novel, but more like a library of small books collected under one cover.

To understand the Bible, we need to see the big picture.

At its heart, the Bible is the adventure of God gradually forming a family of faith, the Israelites. With great patience, he helped them to love and trust him, calling them to be the light by which all the other nations would come to know him. If we can understand the broad outlines of this family history, then the other pieces of the Bible begin to fall into place. The Psalms, for example, are the family songs of the Israelite people, while Proverbs is a collection of their wise sayings.

God comes to save us!

In this message series, we will share the big picture from Genesis to Jesus. We will see that God created humanity to enjoy perfect union with him, and that we lost this union due to sin. We will watch as God begins his family of faith with the “yes” of one faithful man, Abraham, and follow this family as it grows into the nation of Israel. We will see how God prepares the way for a gift of himself beyond our imagining, a mighty warrior coming to save his beloved.

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