The Drama of Scripture was a unique read. It was not a super exciting book, but it truly tells the story of the scriptures from beginning to end. As someone who seriously struggled with understanding Biblical theology, this book opened my eyes up in big ways. I can now say that with confidence, I understand at least a basic level of the Bible from beginning to end. I would recommend that you dig into it for yourself to understand the scriptures on a deeper level.
During my time in The Fellowship Residency Program, I will be reading a long list of powerful books. To read more about my residency experience click here. One aspect of my assignments is to summarize and write key takeaways from each of the books. This is a summary of "The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story" by Craig G. Bartholomew and Michael W. Goheen .
The Drama of Scripture is one of the most beneficial books that I have ever read when it comes to understanding the Bible from beginning to end. The authors truly work throughout the book to help the reader understand where they fit in the Biblical story. As the reader finishes the book, they begin to understand that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel is the same God of Jesus Christ and the same God in our lives today. Additionally, they begin to understand that they cannot thoroughly find their place in the Biblical story until they know the Biblical story. Once one knows the story of the Bible, they begin to understand that it is not about finding out how God can fit into our lives or our culture. Instead, it is about figuring out where they, both individually and as part of their culture, fit within the church’s mission of spreading His gospel.
From the beginning of the book, the readers are made to understand that different stories will give the same event different meaning. It is crucial for us to understand the context of the Biblical story so that we are accurately able to depict its meaning. The book opens up by telling us that before all else, God is our creator. He created for His glory and deemed His creation as good in His own eyes. More specifically, He created mankind in His own image to rule over the rest of His creation. Humans are made “for God, for one another, and for the creation, to be a work within it.” From the beginning, it is clear that there is an order and structure within God’s creation. We, the readers, are then taken through the central conflict of the story involving rebellion within the kingdom, or the fall. We discover that the nature of sin is to separate ourselves from God’s presence. When the sin of Adam and Eve occurs, the creation is no longer good in the eyes of God. The call of creation itself never changed, but our ability to be image bearers of God was tainted by sin. Although the story of the fall appears hopeless, God makes His first promise to Eve that Christ will be the woman’s offspring and will ultimately defeat Satan and sin itself at great cost to Himself.
At this point in the book, I was initially led to my first big takeaway which was that God is a God that follows through on His promises to His people. The drama of the scriptures describe over and over again that God remains truthful to His promises of both grace and judgment. This truth should excite, motivate, and terrify us. Over and over again God is making covenants with His people including Noah, Abraham, and Moses. God’s covenant must be understood as it is a promise of bond, in blood, and sovereignly administered. This means that God’s promises bind Himself to us as His people. Additionally, the promises are acted through ritual symbolization that require sacrifice and the shedding of blood. Finally, the covenants are not between equal partners, but by the sovereign Lord who has complete control of the terms of the promise. From OT through to Jesus’s story of redemption, God fulfills His promises to His people and enacts grace or judgment appropriately.
The authors then help us understand how God chose Israel for redemption. It begins with Abraham, as God promises to make Abraham into a great nation (Israel), to bless him, to make his name great, to make him a blessing, to bless those who bless him and curse those who judge him, and ultimately to bless all peoples on Earth through him. This covenant promise is the first of many promises that God delivers on. As a result of God’s promise, He chooses Israel to be His people. This choice has nothing to do with them earning His love through obedience, but everything to do with His love and grace towards His creation. God gives them a law and promises to bless them if they uphold His commandments. This begins the cycle of God’s chosen people of Israel begging for redemption, God faithfully protecting and providing for them, and them sinning against His commands for their lives. They become desperately in need of a redeemer to deliver and save them for eternity. The people demand laws, judges, and finally kings. None of God’s gift to them are enough. Finally, God decides to send prophets to share that a Messiah is coming, and Israel must prepare itself or suffer immensely.
At this point of the book, I am brought to my second key takeaway from the book. At times, the people from the Old Testament can feel incredibly far removed from the people living my own modern lifestyle today. However, when the book walks through the various types of Jews such as the Pharisees, the Essenes, the Sadducees, the Zealots, and the common people, I immediately recognize that the people of the OT are not that different than the people of today. Though historical times and culture have changed, the root of sin’s hold on our hearts has been around for all of time. For example, the Pharisees believed in extreme separation from the ideas and practices of the pagans as well as “radical obedience to the Torah among God’s faithful one.” However, their legalism prevented them from being able to identify the hardness and sin that infiltrated their judgmental hearts. Jesus came for redemption for ALL. Not just the “rule followers.” In today’s world, there are so many people that call themselves a Christian, but lack the basic understanding that they too suffer from the sin of pride. This book has opened my eyes to the similarities of the Jewish followers of the Old Testament and the Christians in my world today.
The readers are then walked through the climactic journey of the coming of Jesus. Jesus is sent when the Romans have taken over and there is a great deal of division between the Jews. His coming for redemption was divinely timed and orchestrated. Jesus lives a perfect life spent teaching, discipling, healing, and sharing the good news of God. We are taken through His substitutionary death on the cross as atonement for the sins of the world and His resurrection to complete the Father’s will. The authors then move to discussing the time of the church and the fulfillment of the mission. The mission is for the will of the Father, of the exalted Christ, and through the Spirit to give salvation to the church and for the church to spread to the ends of the world. We play a crucial role in this act of the story and are called to join in on the church’s mission. Finally, the authors walk us through to Revelation and Jesus’s promise for a Second Coming. We learn that He is coming to restore all of creation to its intention for goodness in the eyes of God. It is His final promise made to us and based on God’s history that we can trust that He will follow through on this promise as well.
This brings me to my final key takeaway from the book. The idea that the Bible is intended to be read in its entirely to bring unity is powerful and important to grasp. Too often we are reading the Scriptures with a “take what we need” mindset. We are frequently reading scripture to, “find only those theological, moral, devotional, or historical fragments we are looking for.” We cannot truly understand the encouragement the Bible offers without also understanding the innate goodness of a God that rescues a group of complaining Jews from Egypt to a holy land when they were fiercely disobedient of His commands. Just as our own entire life story has made us who we are, so do the scriptures in their entirety paint the picture of who God is and what He has done for us.