Story and Structure of the Bible FINAL
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Moody Bible Institute**We aren't endorsed by this school
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GSU 1115
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Religion
Date
Dec 16, 2024
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7
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EatonNick EatonProfessor RumleyThe Story and Structure of the BibleMay 9, 2020Final Biblical Theology PaperAfter thorough study of scripture it has become abundantly clear that you cannot tell the story of the Bible without telling the story of grace. In face, I would argue that the story of the Bible is grace itself. There are so many accounts of grace being given by God, and by man to man within scripture. Both the New and Old Testaments are filled with them. The entire point of the Bible is to tell of the story of grace, and how we can receive it.As we look at the story of grace throughout scripture we start at the very beginning. God has just finished creating everything, the sun, the moon,the stars, the earth, and everything on, and above it. Gods final creation of man was the most important, as they were made in His own image. God gave Adam a wife named Eve, and together they would serve as Gods rulers on earth, ruling over all of creation. God didn’t give them many rules to abide by, in fact, He only gave them one. The one rule given was to not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. If they did eat it they would surely die. Eve was tempted by the serpent in the garden, and ate the fruit, encour-aging her husband to do likewise. The lie the snake told them was that they would become like God, able to see good from evil. He simply asked them if
EatonHe really said that they would die. They ate it, and realized they were naked,so they ran and hid. God finds them in the garden, and this is where we see the first act of grace. He allows them to live. They died spiritually, but they would be able to live on physically. After that, God sacrificed animals to cover their nakedness, and sins. God did not have to allow them to live, but did because of His amazing grace. God showed grace to humanity immediately following the fall of man. In Genesis we read that while handing out punishment to Adam, Eve, and Sa-tan, God promises a seed. That seed would come from the line of Adam and Eve. This is significant because as we close in on the flood account, we need to understand that God promised this seed, and nothing (not even a global flood) would stop it from happening. The idea of a promised seed is ex-tremely important as it is a gracious act. In fact, it is the most gracious act that has ever happened. God promised to bring someone along that would bring redemption and salvation to the human race. Redemption, and salva-tion are both things that we do not deserve. Man is incredibly sinful, and by that we deserve eternal damnation. “Since our sin in the Garden, God’s grace in the promised Seed has always been an ultimate display of His mercy and love to sinful humanity.” (Steve Ham, answersingenesis.org,How Do We Find Grace in a Flooded World). In my eyes, this gracious act is the entire story of the Bible. We see the promise of a Messiah, who is going to rescue man from sin, and crush the head of the serpent once and for all.
EatonAfter the fall of man, humanity kept getting more and more sinful, untilthere was only one righteous man among everyone. That mans name was Noah. God gave Noah His plan of salvation through his building of a boat (or an ark) that would house Noah, his three sons and their wives, and his wife. Along with Noah’s family, God instructed Noah to bring 2 of every animal on board. Gods plan was to destroy to entire earth, and start over with the one righteous man left. A lot of people look at this as an unjust thing that God did. Gods judgement is completely justified, He is God and man was sinful ona global level. They deserved every ounce of judgment that He poured out on earth. In fact I would say that we deserved much more. Though Noah was a righteous man, he was not a perfect man. He honored God, but he still lived a sinful life. If Gods judgement were not gracious, He would have de-stroyed everything, without giving Noah a chance to start over. Through Noah, God brought a way for mankind to continue. God shows grace in this situation by allowing man to survive, though we didn’t deserve that grace. Grace is shown throughout the biblical account of the exodus. The big-gest and most obvious grace that God bestowed was in rescuing His people to being with. They had drifted from God over the 400 years, they had for-gotten what it meant to follow His statutes. They had been living in a poly-theistic society for almost half a millennium. But, God showed them grace and fulfilled His promise that He would deliver them to the land of promise.
EatonThen we see the Israelite people go out into the wilderness in the midst of a 40 year journey to the promised land. My youth group has recently been go-ing through the entire Bible, and we are currently in Joshua. We finished withthe wilderness wandering a few weeks back, and something that I was con-sistently teaching was the unbelief of Gods chosen people. There are so many times when they turned their backs on God and worshipped other idols. The first and biggest example is the creation, and worship of a golden calf. We see grace in this story with God allowing people to survive this defi-ant act. More than that though, we see Aaron who was responsible for the creation of the calf being made the high priest of Israel. Only a gracious God would forgive an act like that, and then appoint that man into such an impor-tant position. We see the Israelite people constantly complaining to Moses about God, stating frequently that they should have stayed in Egypt. God sees His promise through and brings them into the promised land, though not without punishment. The Israelite people saw so many miracles, it’s hardto imagine unbelief, but the exodus account is rampant with i. But God is gracious towards them. We can see how Gods grace has been slowly re-vealed to us through time beginning with allowing Adam and Eve to live physically, going up until the end of the OT. There are however, and endless amount of times in the New Testament when God, and Jesus show grace.The New Testament begins with the ultimate grace shown. We are given Jesus, the promised seed, the Son of God. This is the fulfillment of that
Eatonpromise that God made to Satan in Genesis, this is the One that will crush hishead. The Old Testament points towards Christ, and shows us why we need aMessiah as much as we do. The New Testament shows us that very Messiah. God graciously provided us with His only son to live a human life on Earth.There are an innumerable amount of times in Jesus life when He pro-vides grace to those who persecute Him, or who do harm unto others. I think that the most extreme example, and one of the biggest, is during His cruci-fixion. By now Jesus has lived a perfect life, teaching others about loving God, and loving people. However, the Jewish leaders didn’t like Him, and didn’t like that He was taking attention away from them. So they had Him crucified. They congregated together to kill the only sinless human being to ever walk the face of the earth. If anyone deserved condemnation, it is these. However, as Jesus is dying on the cross he cries out to God “Father forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.” Even in the absolute agony of being crucified, Christ is forgiving his killers, and at the same time asking God to forgive them.After the resurrection of Christ, and His calling back up into heaven we are introduced to a Pharisee named Saul. Saul was one of the most intelli-gent Jewish men of his day, and an up and coming leader. He hated the fol-lowers of Christ, and encouraged their imprisonment, and stonings. Paul had a misguided zeal for God which ended in his persecution of Christians. We
Eatonread in acts that he is heading to Damascus to bring more Christians to “jus-tice” by bringing them to be tried in Jerusalem. However, the grace of God is going to hit him, and it is going to hit him hard. While on the road Saul is stuck down and blinded by someone he didn’t know. When asking who it was, they replied “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” An incredible amount of grace is bestowed to Saul in this moment, and he is called into ministry by Jesus himself. Saul’s name is changed to Paul, and he begins traveling to spread the gospel and start churches all around Judea, Samaria, and even as far as Rome. This truly shows the grace that God has on man, tobe able to take a murdering persecuting zealot, and turn him into one of the most influential Christians who ever lived.We can see the beginning of grace in the Bible, and we can follow it book by book throughout the Old Testament, and then the New Testament. The story of the Bible is the story of Gods grace on mankind. A grace that wedo not deserve. God had grace on Adam and Eve when they sinned in the garden. He physically covered them with animal skins, and while doing so covered their sins. We follow grace given to Adam and Eve to the grace God gave to all by promising a Redeemer. We then move to Gods grace on mankind by preserving mankind through Noah. We then see an incredible amount of grace given to the people of Israel while wandering in the desert. The New Testament is filled with grace, from the birth of the promised Re-deemer, to His death and resurrection. One of my favorite examples of graceis the grace God had on Saul (Paul) by converting him and using him in an in-
Eatoncredible way. As you can see, you cannot tell the story of the Bible without telling the story of grace. Bibliography: Lowman, Jefferey. “Mercy to Adam and Eve.” Youtube, uploaded by Thirdmill, 8 Aug. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-UZqMdtNn0.“How Do We Find Grace in a Flooded World?” Steve Ham, 30 July 2010, answersingenesis.org/answers/biblical-authority-devotional/how-do-we-find-grace-in-a-flooded-world.Coulter, Fred. “The Grace of GOD in the New Testament” [Hollister, California]. Truth of God, 30 Apr. 2016, www.cbcg.org/series/grace/graceofgod-nt.html.United Church of God. “The Apostle Paul An Example of God’s Grace in Action” [United States]. Beyond Today, 3 Sept. 2019, www.ucg.org/bible-study-tools/booklets/what-does-the-bible-teach-about-grace/the-apostle-paul-an-example-of-gods-grace-in-action.