Can you imagine watching a play like MacBeth and getting the wrong message.
By the wrong message, I mean watching the play titled MacBeth which features a central character called MacBeth with the narrative about the rise and fall of MacBeth and leaving it thinking actually the play was about King Duncan.
Can you imagine that? That would be a bit silly wouldn’t it.
The Bible is usually encased as a book, but it is more a collection of books. What’s outstanding about it is that through it there is a story going on. Depending on ow we read the Bible determines what we think the story is – therein lies the problem.
In a world where quite a number of professing Christians barely read their Bibles all the way through, and those who do don’t necessarily understand what they’re reading, it makes the issue of telling the old, old story all the more interesting. After all – what is the story?
Our appreciation of the story enriches a number of things. It enriches our awareness of the human condition. It enriches our awareness of the interactions between humans and God. It enriches our awareness of who God is and what His will is concerning His creation. That enriches our awareness of God’s perspective on the pressing issues of our day – it does inform us on God’s desire for children, adults, relationships, social formations and community arrangements.
Our appreciation for the story also determines how we view time, past, present and future. It also highlights how we live in the light of what we know, and what we should be declaring for others to help them in life’s journey.
With that at stake, it pays to take the time again to read this collection f books and be clearer on what that story is all about.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
Life With CD 
I’ve been thinking about this subject a lot – the story. I would love to know how you (and others, and anybody) would say the story is in a word or sentence or 2 🙂 To a child / to an adult?
You ask a wonderful question Randi – though to be fair, what would I expect from one as wonderfully inquisitive? The following are initial thoughts … one word cannot as far as I know do justice to the story. For example ‘grace’ is about as close as you can get to the story because it’s more than ‘love’ or ‘peace’, ‘reconciliation’ is too big a word and you might as well say ‘peace’ but that doesn’t do justice to the bits in between the beginning and end.
So then we have the one-sentence challenge …
To a child: The Story is about how a loving Father sees His children run away and return home because of His love through His love.
To an adult: The story shows how the central theme of life, the universe and everything is the mysterious and unifying grace of our heavenly Father revealed in His Son so that through His Spirit all creation can be as it was meant to be. (Long sentence I know, but it’s early days.)
Thanks for the challenge Randi, these are rough efforts, which will sure improve with time. Let me know if you come across any other efforts worth viewing.
I loved your answers, there! 🙂
And I am thankful you blogged about this – because it spurred a beautiful discussion with me & my kids & husband. I am not sure that I have ever sat down with the kids & straight out told them, in short what this entire story about. what THE story is. We always talk about Jesus & look for Him in every story…… but I had not put it in a sentence for them or help them see the bigger picture of it all.
My 7 year old boy – when I asked – what is this entire Bible all about anyway? I mean, what is THE story here. What is this all about!? He said grace. I didn’t even realize he knew what that word was. He listens a lot more than I knew 🙂 We talked about God, the creator Father who loved His children so much…that sin had separated His children from Him…. but He came Himself to come rescue them and now He & His children can be together forever now and someday we will experience that fully!! 🙂
For ages 7, 4 & 2 — that was as far as we needed to go — but I really think I will keep a journal/page with their response each year — for them somewhere so they can see how their understanding of the story deepens over the years 🙂 yet always is mostly the same……. Jesus. Grace
Thank you for this!!! 🙂