By Brian Godawa, Elder

Some of us struggle to stay awake reading the Bible, let alone study it. It just doesn’t read like the latest bestselling novel or self-help volume. The stories don’t always flow like watching a movie. Who can get through all those genealogies and census numbers, let alone the detailed food laws? Now that Jesus came, is the Old Testament really all that important anyway? And can’t I just get practical application principles for living my life without having to go all “theological”? We miss the exciting drama of God’s Word.

I grew up learning my faith through the eyes of Christian apologetics, learning about philosophy, skepticism, cults, heresy and other intellectual issues. While this was a valuable part of my spiritual walk, I began to read the Bible through an imbalanced perspective that treated the Bible like a systematic theology, or a textbook of doctrinal answers for spiritual questions, something to be studied scientifically. I thought that knowing all the right doctrines to believe was equivalent to knowing God. I didn’t realize how much my own modern American culture had biased my interpretation. In a different way, I too had missed the exciting drama of God’s Word.

When I began to rediscover the Bible through the eyes of its ancient Jewish context, I discovered that the Bible is primarily a story – a story of God’s plan to bless the world through His chosen people. Yes, it contains doctrinal truths and facts about God, and yes, there are principles for living life – but only within the context of God working out His story with heroes and villains, shocking revelations and plot twists, as well as its creative use of images and symbols. As individualistic Americans, we tend to read the Bible for “practical keys” for our personal relationship with God. But when we see the “big story” of God and His people, we begin to recognize this is our story too, and we learn how we fit in with that drama.

We’ve all heard the story of Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey as fulfilling a prophecy. But wow, does that identity come alive when we learn that He was re-enacting a long held prophetic story that God Himself would “return to Zion” after making Himself absent from a disobedient Israel who was in exile for her sins. And God’s depth becomes even more meaningful when we understand the irony of God mocking the worldly kings who would make triumphal entries into cities upon horses of glory laden with riches. The King of the universe who owned Jerusalem and the whole earth could march in with ten thousand angels, but instead comes as a humble servant – which tells us so much more about God and His ways than a mere surface fulfillment of a historical prediction. Jesus was acting out the story of a king, but in a new way that would bring a new kind of kingdom with servants focused on humility and sacrifice.

Story is personal. It gives flesh and bones to the skeleton of truth. It helps us inhabit that truth rather than merely talk about it in abstract concepts. Story fosters relationship with God, rather than mere mental assent to facts about Him. Engaging with God’s story compels a living response: Will we, His servants, follow in the dramatic footsteps of that King?

Brian will be teaching a new 6-week class starting February 19 called Genesis to Revelation: Understanding the Bible as Story. The class will lead us in a journey of discovery of this bigger picture of God’s story. We’ll seek to understand how story communicates to us and connects with our humanity. We’ll take a rollercoaster ride through the ups and downs of the narrative of the entire Bible, exploring some of its exciting plot twists and how it ultimately relates to our lives. Reading the Bible can become like watching a movie—we suspend our disbelief (faith) and get so engrossed in it that we begin to consider ourselves in the story as well. Join us and let’s explore this award-winning script of God’s story together.