The Bible’s Story: An Overview
At the Youth Day Camp held in June 2024, Nicholas took the youths through the Bible’s story. God has revealed Himself to us through His Word. When we read it, we understand who He is, and our place in it.
Why do we need to know the Bible’s story?
We need to know the Bible’s story
We need to know the Bible’s story, so we can read it accurately. If you don’t know the bigger story of a book, you can end up with some weird and disastrous conclusions. In the same way, when we read the Bible, if we knew where those verses were taken from and their place within the larger storyline of the Bible, we would be able to read and apply them better. Knowing the Bible’s story helps us to read it more accurately.
But why do we need to get this story right anyway? Why can’t we just have our own different interpretations of the Bible? At the end of the day, as long as you read something helpful or useful, isn’t that enough?
Why did He give you this book, this story? Because He wants you to know who He is. He wants you to know what kind of world you live in. He wants you to know who you are, and what you should do with your life.
The Bible’s story is not just like any other story you find in a fantasy novel. It is a real story, grounded in real people and real events. And most importantly, it is God’s story. The one telling this story is the one who created the whole universe, and the one who created you! He is the one who wrote it. Why did He give you this book, this story? Because He wants you to know who He is. He wants you to know what kind of world you live in. He wants you to know who you are, and what you should do with your life.
We need to know the Bible’s story, so that we can know God and how we should live. Living life without knowing God’s story is a bit like riding an MRT – except there are no blinking maps telling you where you are or where you’re headed, there are no coloured signs telling you which station you’re at. When you try to ask someone on the MRT which station you’re at and where you’re heading, they all give different answers, and there’s no real way of checking their answers anyway. In other words, you are lost, with no idea where you are, how you got there, or even where you want to go next.
That is what it means to live as God’s creature in God’s world, but without knowing God and the story He has told you. That is why it is so important that we get God’s story right. It is not about becoming a Bible scholar, or becoming a better literature student. It is not ultimately even about becoming a better person. It is about knowing God and discovering our true purpose in Him. After all, He is the one who made you, so knowing Him and worshipping Him really is the best thing you can do with your life.
Two groups of people
Now there are just two groups that I want to address before we begin. First, there might be some who do not like reading. Maybe you do not read a lot on your own time, and you find it challenging to sit down for an extended period of time and just read. God has wired all of us differently. But the primary way that we know God, the way that He has chosen to reveal Himself to you, is through this book! All of us, regardless of our preferences, need to put in the work to read it well, so that we can know God. And it is work! You have to sit down, put aside distractions, read and then think about what you’ve read. You really can read the Bible for yourself! More importantly, I want you to know that if you ask God for help, He really will help you. James 1:5 says this, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” God is eager to help those who ask Him for it.
The second group of people I want to address are those who find it easier to read. Praise God that you enjoy reading. But what you need to know is that this book, like what we said in the first session, is unlike any other book you might read in school or in your free time. This book and the story it tells is the most important story you will ever read in your life. This book is not just something you study for a test, or to impress your friends or leaders in church with. It is not even something you study to impress God — how could you anyway, since He wrote it? It is a book you study in order to know God, to know His promises, His character, His deeds both in the past as well as those He’s promised to do in the future. It is a book you study so that you know Jesus, God’s son, because its through Him that you can be part of God’s kingdom and be reconciled to God. So don’t just read it like you would any other book – read it for what it is, God’s story through which we come to know Him.
The Bible’s story
It is the story of how God establishes His kingdom through Jesus.
So what is the Bible’s story? Bible scholar Vaughan Roberts provides us with a simple answer, and it’s this: It is the story of how God establishes His kingdom through Jesus.
What do I mean by kingdom? God’s kingdom is God’s people, living in God’s place, under God’s rule and blessing. This is what the whole Bible is about. God’s people who He created and loves, living in the place that He chooses for them, under the authority of His word. Because God is our creator, living in His place under His rule actually results in our blessing! The best life that we can live is under God’s authority. Every book and chapter in the Bible is about how God is going about establishing His kingdom.
Now this theme of Kingdom isn’t the only big theme in the Bible. Another big theme is covenants. Covenants are promises that God makes with His people that form the basis of His relationship with them. Looking at covenants would also be a good way to trace the Bible’s big story. This is not contradictory to the theme of kingdom. God actually establishes His kingdom by making promises.
As with other big books or novels, there is usually more than one way to bring together the story of the whole book. But kingdom is a particularly useful, unifying theme because it's easy to see how every part of the Bible fits under this theme.
In this session, we want to see how this story of God’s kingdom ultimately points to Jesus. What we see when we take in the whole scope of the Bible, is that God ultimately establishes His perfect kingdom through His son, Jesus Christ. The way that God brings His people together in His place, under His rule and blessing, is through His Son, Jesus Christ, the perfect King.
The Old Testament patterns and promises Jesus,
Every part of the Bible, both the Old and New Testament, point to Jesus. An easy way to think about it is that the Old Testament points forward to Jesus, while the New Testament points backward to Jesus. The Old Testament patterns and promises Jesus, while the New Testament tells us about the Jesus who has already come, and how we should live in response to Him. So let us walk through some Bible passages and see how they point to Jesus, starting with the Old Testament.
Patterns in practices
Now, what do I mean that the Old Testament patterns Jesus? There are different kinds of patterns in the Old Testament, but today we’ll just focus on two kinds of patterns - practices and people.
Let’s look at Leviticus 16:15-19. Now at this point in time, God has saved the Israelites from Egypt, and has met them at Mount Sinai. There, God gave them the law, which were instructions on how they were to live such that God could dwell with them. This passage, Leviticus 16:15-19, is part of these instructions. It describes some of the sacrifices and practices that God instructed Aaron, Israel’s high priest, to observe on the Day of Atonement, which is the most important day in the whole Jewish calendar.
This practice of killing an animal and sprinkling its blood on the items of the Most Holy Place shows us that if sinful people want to approach God, there needs to be a sacrifice.This practice of animal sacrifice shows us that something, or someone, needs to die in our place before we can enter the presence of God. In other words, if God is going to establish His kingdom – bringing His people together under his rule – a price needs to be paid for their sin. You and I need a sacrifice to enter God’s presence
And that is exactly what Jesus did on the cross! The animals that died in the Old Testament could not actually pay the price for sin. This is why they had to keep sacrificing animals year after year. But Jesus only died once, a final sacrifice that paid the full price for sin. Jesus is the better sacrifice, far better than the animals in the Old Testament. This is what the New Testament book of Hebrews talks about — these continuous animal sacrifices cannot take away sin, but they point forward to a better sacrifice that really can take away our sins, not just for one or two years, but forever.
Isn’t that wonderful, that Jesus paid the final sacrifice needed for forgiveness? Imagine if you had to kill a goat every time you stepped into church! What a horrible experience that would be, not just because it would be bloody and noisy, but because it would be a continual reminder that you weren’t clean yet.
Do you see how this practice of sacrifice lays out a pattern that ultimately culminated in Jesus? Jesus is the final piece of the puzzle of how God is going to make sinners clean, so that they can approach Him and dwell with Him.
Patterns in people
King David is God’s anointed king, and in the historical books of the Bible, we see how David is chosen by God to lead Israel. He is, for the most part, a great king who follows and trusts God, and is meant to point forward to an even better king, Jesus Christ.
But apart from the historical books, we also see David in the psalms. David wrote almost half of the psalms we have in the Bible and in these psalms, we can see how David patterns Jesus. For example, in Psalm 22:1-8, we see that David wrote this psalm during a time of deep distress, when he was deeply persecuted by his enemies. He was really being mocked and persecuted for trusting in God, who had anointed him as king, and was confused as to why God seemed to have abandoned him.
But this psalm is not just about David! The opening words of Psalm 22 — “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” — were quoted by Jesus on the cross. In Matthew 27:39, we also learn that when people passed Jesus hanging on the cross, they “derided him, wagging their heads and sarcastically saying “He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him.”
David is one shape in a bigger pattern we see throughout the Bible — a person suffering because they are righteous, someone being mocked because they trust in God. And this person cried out to God for vindication, for God to deliver them from this unjust suffering. Ultimately, Jesus is the final shape in this pattern. Because he took on the sin of everyone who trusts in Him, He really knows what it's like to be separated from God, to be able to fully say “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”. He really knows what it's like to be mocked for trusting in God His father.
And what happens after he dies? Does he stay dead, proving that the world was right to mock Him for trusting God? No! David says in Psalm 22:24 that “For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him.” David was confident that God would hear his prayer and deliver him.
We see this even more clearly in Jesus! When Jesus cried out to God the Father, God heard Him. Jesus did not stay dead but was raised to new life, showing that God accepted His perfect sacrifice, and proving that everyone who trusts in God will not be put to shame. They won’t remain in suffering forever, but they will be delivered. So when we read the psalms, we should be thinking – what pattern do I see that points to Jesus?
Promise
Apart from patterns, there are also portions of the Old Testament that directly promise Jesus. These verses in 2 Samuel 7:12-13 are part of a larger promise that God makes to David, who had just been made the king of Israel. In these verses, God tells David that He is going to raise up a king from David’s family, and through this king, God will establish his kingdom. And this kingdom isn’t just going to last for one or two generations, but it’s going to last forever.
This promise that God makes to David sets up the whole of 1 and 2 Kings — this whole time, we’re waiting to see which king this is going to be! Who is this son of David who’s going to be king forever? The most promising candidate seems to be David’s immediate son, Solomon. He’s the wisest person of all time, he’s the most prosperous and successful king in Israel’s – surely he’s the one through whom God is going to build his Kingdom! But what did he do? He married foreign wives who didn’t worship God, and he was led astray to worship idols instead. And with every subsequent king, Israel’s spiritual state gets from bad to worse, and God’s promises seem to get further and further away.
But Jesus arrives on the scene, a man whose family line goes all the way back to David, and it becomes clear that God never forgot the promise He made! He fulfils that promise in Jesus, the perfect king from David’s line, whose kingdom has lasted until today and will last forever and ever.
Another place in the Bible where we see Jesus promised is Isaiah 49-52. By the time of Isaiah, the kingdom of Israel was already divided into the northern kingdom of Israel, and the southern kingdom of Judah. Isaiah was warning the leaders of Judah that their rebellion against God would result in severe judgement in the form of exile. Foreign nations would invade their land, oppress and subdue them, and eventually forcibly remove them to live in foreign lands. Most of Isaiah is made up of these warnings of how breaking their covenant with God would result in serious consequences.
But Isaiah is also a book of hope. In chapters 49 to 55, Isaiah prophesies that a future saviour was going to come and rescue his people from exile and bring them home safely. Isaiah 53:3-6 speaks of this one who is to come. Isn’t it amazing that Isaiah was written 700 years before Jesus was born? All the way back then, God promised that He would send Israel a saviour that would be despised and rejected, but who would carry the sins of the very people that rejected him. Jesus is the one that perfectly fits all these descriptions of the promised Saviour.
Passages like this that explain why there are Israelites in the New Testament who are waiting for Jesus. For example, in the book of Luke 2:25, Luke tells us that in the Jerusalem temple there was a righteous man named Simeon who was “waiting for the consolation of Israel”. In other words, he was waiting for this promised Saviour who would rescue Israel. How did Simeon know that this promised Saviour would come? Well like every Israelite he would have read Isaiah and read these promises of a Saviour.
The Old Testament is full of promises that are ultimately fulfilled in Jesus. Think about Genesis 2 when God promises that one of Eve’s offspring will crush the serpent’s head. Think about Genesis 12 when God promised Abram that through his family, all of the world (not just Israel) will be blessed. All those promises are answered by Jesus.
The next time you read a promise made in the Old Testament, especially a promise that God makes to His people, think about how Jesus might be the final answer to that promise.
The New Testament speaks of Jesus
So we see how the Old Testament points forward to Jesus through patterns and promises. Now let’s turn to the New Testament. It is much easier to see how it points to Jesus because, well, he’s often the main character! So let’s go through the key things that the New Testament tells us about Jesus.
…the New Testament tells us about the Jesus who has already come, and how we should live in response to Him.
It tells us who Jesus is. John 1:4 says this “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Jesus is the son of God the Father who became flesh. Though he was God and did not need to be limited or confined to a human body, He did! He had a real body like you and I, with all of its quirks like needing to sleep, to eat and drink. That is who Jesus is — the Son of God who is also the Son of Man, fully God, fully human. Jesus is God’s final word to us. Think about what we saw in the Old Testament, how God’s word written thousands of years ago ultimately points to Jesus. Jesus is the final word that God has for His people — the Word in flesh.
The New Testament also tells us what Jesus said. Many of you might be familiar with parables that Jesus told, like the parable of the prodigal son, or the parable of the sower. Matthew 4:17 tells us the essence of Jesus’ message “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Jesus was not just a moral teacher teaching people how to live a better life. He is God’s chosen King through whom God establishes His kingdom. Jesus also told us why He came, how we can be saved, and how we can be part of this kingdom. Reading from John 3:16-18, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” Jesus called everyone to believe in Him so that they won’t perish, but have eternal life in Him instead.
In the New Testament, we also see what Jesus did. Jesus did many things, many incredible things actually, like turning water into wine, and feeding five thousand people with just five loaves of bread and two fish. But miracles were not the main thing that Jesus came to do. Romans 5:6-10 tells us that Jesus came to live a righteous life, die in our place, and be raised to new life, so that everyone who puts their trust in Him can share in His new life. And we see that all this is motivated by God’s love for His people. God wants you to trust in Jesus because He loves you, because He knows that trusting in Jesus really is the best thing that you can do!
We also see in the New Testament what resulted because of Jesus. One of the clearest places we see this is in the book of Acts, which tells us how the disciples of Jesus Christ brought the good news of Jesus Christ to those around them, and how the people responded to this good news. Acts 13:48-52 gives us a picture of what it looked like in the early church, and we see that happen even today. There are people who happily receive the good news of Jesus and go on to experience God’s love and joy, but there are some who hate this news, and even hate those who believe it.
But the New Testament tells us that this persecution won’t last forever, because Jesus is coming back. In a letter to the Thessalonian church, Paul writes of Jesus coming back (1 Thess 4:15-18). When He does, everyone who trusts in Him will be saved, even those who have passed away. They will be raised to life, and we will all be with Jesus. This is the final chapter in the story of God’s kingdom – God will come back, and we will be with Him forever.
Finally, the New Testament also tells us how the Old Testament points to Jesus! The book of Hebrews actually tells us how the sacrificial system points to Jesus. In some copies of the Bible, the editors may have added a footnote to the part of the Old Testament that the verse is quoting. Reading Hebrews 10:11-13, there could be a footnote for Hebrews 10:11 that takes us to Numbers 28:3 which describes the daily sacrifices that the priest has to make. So the next time you read the New Testament and you see a direct quotation or something that reminds you of the Old Testament, flip to it and see for yourself how the Old Testament points forward to Jesus.
But the New Testament does not just tell us about Jesus, it also tells us how to live because of Jesus. Now that Jesus has come, what should we do? And this is the most important part of the session today. Because remember what we said about the Bible’s story – this is not any ordinary fairy tale. This is God’s story, and how we respond to it has real eternal consequences. We can summarise the right response to Jesus in three ways: faith, repentance, and obedience.
Faith simply means trusting God and taking Him at His word. As Paul writes in Romans 10:11-13, it does not just mean believing that Jesus is a real historical character. It also means believing everything He said and did — that He is the Son of God who lived a righteous life, who died on the cross for sinners, who was raised to life by His father, and who is coming again!
Do you believe this? That you are a sinner who needs a Saviour, and that Jesus Christ is that Saviour? Believe in Jesus, and you will be forgiven of your sins and reconciled to God. You don’t need to have it all together now, you just need to have faith. And you don’t even need a lot of it. Maybe you feel like you’re too young or too weak in your faith to really be a Christian. Matthew 17:20 tells us that all you need is faith the size of a mustard seed. The important thing is where you put that faith.Faith always comes together with repentance. Repentance means turning away from your sins, from the thoughts and actions that displease God. Colossians 3:1-8 helps us to see that following Jesus means saying no to sin, and yes to obeying Him, because sin displeases the one who saved us, and ultimately leads to death. If you have trusted in Jesus, you have a new life, you have been raised with Jesus! Why would you, as someone who has received new life in Jesus, still want to walk along a path that leads to death?
Are there any sins you need to confess to God today? Do you have any sinful habits that are leading you toward death? Don’t hesitate, pray and confess them to God now, and tell your leaders about it. Let them lead you back to Jesus Christ, through whom we have the forgiveness of sins and a new life.But we’re not just trying to avoid bad things, we want to pursue doing good things, things that please God, that bless those around us. Colossians 3:12-14 teaches us that having a new life in Jesus means that we look different from the world, from what we were before we trusted in Jesus. Someone who trusts in Jesus, looks more and more like Jesus. So we grow in being compassionate, being kind, being patient. Ultimately, we grow in love, both for God and for the people around us.
Think back over the past week, or even just today. If you’re a Christian, have there been ways that I’ve acted differently from what God wants me to do? Have I said anything that maybe Jesus Himself would not have said? What would obeying God look like for the rest of this camp?
If you’re not a Christian, maybe this is something you can ask your Christian friends or group leaders – why do you want to forgive those who have hurt you? What makes you want to be more like Jesus?
And as we conclude, I would like to leave us with three questions to consider:
Why do I read the Bible?
What is my place in the Bible’s big story?
How is God calling me to respond to Jesus, the one that God’s story points to?