Episode #90 The Beautiful Big Picture of the Bible – Noticing God

Have you ever felt like other people get things out of the Bible that you just don’t get? You know it’s God’s word, you know you ought to want to read it, that it’s supposedly supposed to be life giving and fueling for your faith, but you sit down to read the Bible and it just feels flat or heavy or cumbersome? Well, if you can relate to any of that, know that you are not alone. I can too. And one of the things that changed this for me was better understanding the point of the Bible.

This series we’re in is all about noticing God in scripture, and the reality is the whole of the Bible is God’s story. It’s the unified story of God’s love and his redemption for humanity. It’s all about God. I knew this cognitively for many years in the faith, but even after learning about it more thoroughly, I can still forget that.

I’ll go through a hard season. I’ll want clarity on what God would have me do in making a decision or fixing a problem in my life. I’ll forget about the truth of what scripture actually is, and I’ll treat it like a reference book to research and find specific answers to specific problems.

Now, don’t get me wrong, the Bible is full of wisdom, it’s full of practical instruction. The Word of God is living and active (Hebrews 4:12) and it’s profitable for teaching and correction and training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16). That’s true. But the problem is, I saw it as a resource I wanted to use to easily solve my problems, which was drastically undermining the point of the Bible.

Even in reading different Bible stories, I would look at Abraham or Esther or Moses, and I would want to figure out things I needed to work on to be more like them. And I would bypass opportunities to see God in their stories.

The point of the Bible is to help us get to know God. His character on display. To see time and time again, how God demonstrates his love for us, for us to get to know his character and his nature.

The invitation to notice God in scripture changes the way that we approach the Bible.

And I misunderstood that invitation for so many years. I would read the Bible, not understanding that this is God’s written word, God’s active word, so that I would begin to know him, so that I would connect with him.

I saw it as a way to try and fix up my living in the hopes that I could obtain something that I can never earn or achieve on my own.

I saw it as a manual to hopefully make my life easier when instead it’s God’s story of his persistent, loving pursuit of us.
I’ll read from John 17. This is Jesus speaking before he is betrayed. He’s talking with God.

“I have given them your word…” (John 17:14a ESV)

“O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:25-26 ESV)

All throughout scripture, we see God’s love on display.

It’s the reason we have in John 3:16, for why He sent Jesus to earth.

The Bible is a way that we get to know God, that by knowing him, by learning of his character, by understanding who he is, that we get to receive the love that he freely gives us. That we get to receive the good news of salvation. And in doing so, he does his transformative work.

The Bible is not first and foremost, an instruction manual. It’s not even a guide for what I can do in and of my own strength.

From beginning to end it’s a story that points to Jesus.

It’s a story that tells us who God is and what he’s like and what he is like toward us. There’s more that God wants to show each of us about himself. There’s misunderstandings, there’s unhelpful habits that we have in how we approach or don’t approach the Bible that God wants to clarify for us.

Maybe you stay away from the Bible because it scares you or you haven’t known yet how to approach it as God’s love story towards you.

Or maybe you can relate to how I was in past seasons, and I would cherry pick trying to find answers in individual verses and look for me in the story and my problems solved in each passage, and I missed the opportunities to see God on display there, to step back and take in more of His story.

Maybe for you, he wants to encourage you to keep going in the way that you’re going.

Whatever that is for you, talk with God more about it. And so here’s today’s question:

God, what’s something I can put into practice as I approach your word?

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

Connect with Jen on Instagram