The Story - Why Should We Review the Gospel?

Over the past six weeks—wow, I can't believe it's been so long—we've reviewed the entire story of the Bible. Obviously, we've simplified some things, and skimmed over others that we didn't have time to cover. It's one reality of writing about the Bible: you'll never have time to do it all, because there's just so much richness. Every word is from God. 

However, I'm guessing that a large part of my audience grew up like me, in the church. (If you didn't, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that; it's just my guess.) And therefore, we know these stories. Really well. 

What's the point of this series, then? It's just review. 

The purpose of this exercise is manifold, so I'll just go through the top three reasons I've spent the last month on a consecutive retelling of the Biblical narrative. 

 

It helps us present the Gospel. 

When I was preparing for my baptism in my church, my pastor asked me to give a short Gospel presentation. The essentials of the whole Bible, boiled down into two minutes with no preparation whatsoever. And in a manner easy enough for an unbeliever with no church background to understand. 

It was more difficult than it sounded. What's the most important part? Should we go straight to the crucifixion, or do they need some background first? 

I ended up going through Creation and the Fall, then skipping all the way to Jesus and his substitutionary death and resurrection. And while those are indeed the highlights, I don't know how effective it would have been in conveying the sheer importance of that sacrifice. Why do we need a sacrifice? Why does God care about sin at all? 

Most non-Christians don't know this story. They don't understand the significance. They don't understand why there's evil in the world—and they view the doings of a man who was born over 2000 years ago as completely unconnected to them. 

But it's not. Everything that was done in the past has set up this age, this life, this moment. We are a product of our past. And we've got to learn that the conflict hasn't gone away, nor is it unbeatable. 

I've grown in my understanding of the Gospel through writing this series, and my hope is that you've been blessed by it too. 

 

It encourages the saints.

I started the very first article off with a quote from Katherine Hankey's hymn, "I Love to Tell the Story." I thought it appropriate. And one of the verses of that hymn shows why it's necessary for us who know this tale to hear it again.

"I love to tell the story, for those who know it best / Seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest / And when in scenes of glory I sing the new new song / 'twill be the old old story that I have loved so long."

We, as Christians, love to hear this story told. 

Why is it good to go to the house of the Lord if you could ace any theology test already? Well, for a huge long list of reasons—but near the top is because you need to be reminded of what Christ has done. Sure, you could say "Christ died for me and saved me from my sins" any old day when prompted, but there's something about sitting in a church service and hearing your pastor relate the crucifixion account one more time, or talk about how the prophet Hosea's love for his unfaithful wife is a picture of Christ's love for us. We want to hear it. We need to hear it. 

And we'll hear it again for the rest of eternity. No matter how well we know it already, we will still grow from the listening. 

 

It strengthens our assurance.

As a writer, I know how hard it is to craft a good story. 

The books I like do this amazingly. Each little detail matters, and there are themes and symbols constantly cropping up and drawing me in. Every time I read them, I'm learning new things—of course I didn't notice that little hint the first time, but now that I know the ending, I see how clever it was of the author to put that there! It draws the story together into a cohesive whole, and the reader experience is made the better for it. 

Of course, writing a book like that is extremely difficult. I'm always forgetting what happened last chapter, and whether it's this or that character who ends up betraying them all—my brain can't keep up with the words. 

No book has more themes, symbols, and interconnected foreshadowing than the Bible. 

Why did I harp so much on the foreshadowing? I'm sure it got annoying after a while, but I couldn't help it. And we barely scratched the surface, so be glad I exercised so much self-control! 

The Scriptures were given to us by the hands of over 35 different men, across hundreds and thousands of years. They didn't have communication (time travel still hasn't been invented, to the best of my knowledge), and they didn't know the full significance of what they were writing half the time. 

And yet, Jesus is there on every single page. 

How is this possible? It's hard enough for one human author to get their brain to cooperate with itself well enough to do this, and there's no way that thirty-five different authors could make a story with anything approaching this level of cohesiveness. This is only possible by a divine plan. 

For myself, this has been one of the greatest factors in my assurance of the Gospel's truth. When I'm wondering about whether it's actually divine or not, I think back to how impossible it would be for humans to write it, and I'm reassured. 

Because God is the best storyteller of all, and everything that humans write is in his image. 

 

I hope this series has helped you see the Bible as a cohesive whole with Jesus at the center. Seeing it that way has shown me how amazing it really is, and I hope and pray that it does for you too.