For several centuries many good-willed Christians have attempted to extract wisdom and knowledge from Scripture about a myriad of topics, and create theologies that attempt to explain the nature of God, his creation, and his relationship to other created entities (both physical and spiritual). Theologians and scholars alike aim to take a peek through the curtain of God’s behind-the-scenes work using the Bible as their inspired source. These efforts are unfortunately futile if we ignore God’s main purpose for inspiring a select few people to write down his message.
The Bible has a singular central theme that is found throughout all of Scripture. That theme is God’s plan for the redemption of humanity. It is not so much a question of “how” but rather “who.” The hero of the story is the second person of the Trinity, the Word of God, Jesus Christ.
The first 11 chapters of the Bible, Genesis 1–11, recount the events that led to the necessity of redemption of humanity, and also hint at a future “offspring” (Genesis 3:15) that will restore God’s original edenic vision on Earth. God put his redemptive plan into motion in Genesis 12, where he selected a man from whom God created a new nation, and this nation would eventually give birth to God incarnate, who sacrificed himself to redeem people from all nations, tribes and languages (Revelation 5:9).
Humanity needed to be both forgiven and rescued. We are simultaneously the perpetrators and victims of sin. And while the rebellion and fall of humanity was preceded by an angelic rebellion (Genesis 3 and 6), we are also at fault for turning away from God and giving in to the tricks and lies of heavenly rebels. In Genesis 11 humanity has turned completely against God’s will. Humans are oppressed by dark cosmic forces, but we are also the oppressors of each other and abusers of the Earth. We are one of the villains in the story, as well as the damsel in distress in desperate need of a Savior because she cannot save herself.
The hero and central focus of the story is Jesus. His actions are what brought salvation to humanity. We are saved from the due punishment of our actions, and those who put their faith in Christ are no longer under the power of death. Later we will be completely rescued from the oppression of wicked authorities and powers in the heavenly places when evil is finally destroyed.
With this in view, we must approach the Bible as God’s love story to humanity, where we can learn about his plan of redemption through Jesus Christ, and ultimately surrender to him by putting our believing and trusting faith in our Savior. The Bible does not reveal everything about the nature of God, his creation, the spiritual world, or how things will play out at the end when Jesus returns. There is some information in Scripture about these topics, but only enough to serve as the backdrop to the central point: Jesus, who he is, what he did, what it means, and what he will do.
Any attempts to assemble a theology around topics that are secondary to the central theme, such as predestination vs free will in regards to salvation, or end-times systems that aim to predict future events, will inevitably be incomplete. In our current broken human bodies with limited and biased intellect, we can not fathom the mystery of a God who is perfect and infinite. And since Scripture only gives us but so much content around secondary topics, we are working with an incomplete source that will naturally lead to incomplete conclusions.
The Body of Christ will be much better served by its leaders and teachers if we keep our minds and hearts focused on the central point of The Bible: Jesus. Consequently, we would be better servants of the world in which we are currently in exile, where we are called to spread the message of the Savior–who he is, what he did, what it means, and what he will do–and to be blessings to our communities as conduits of God’s love.
It is worthwhile to learn more about God and his written Word, but secondary and non-essential topics can become a distraction if they emerge to be a crucial and dominant aspect of our faith.
God the Father wrote a book through the Holy Spirit about his Son. Let’s keep our focus on Jesus. That’s who Scripture is about.
