The New Testament is really rather brief. Much of what needs to be known about God is in the Old Testament, which is rather extensive in demonstrating the outcomes of living by God’s wisdom – or not, as history and biographies in general are quite vocal about. The Old Testament has genres (songs and poetry of Psalms, the wisdom of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, the steamy love of Song of Solomon) that need not be repeated. The New Testament does much to collate and make useful application, since and via Jesus, of some things that may have been a bit fuzzy in the Old Testament and be seen in sharper focus.
The New Testament is response to Jesus, God among us. It had long been God’s intention that Israel, as God’s national presence on Earth, present to the world the way and the value of salvation. In the end they not only bottled it up, they botched it up. God established a covenant with Abraham. That covenant was refreshed at Mount Sinai. The covenant was explicitly recorded and refreshed in Deuteronomy.
For hundreds of years God and His people struggled to live within the covenant and keep it alive. But the roller coaster kept running down hill. The leaders of Israel made a crucial statement at the trial of Jesus, “We have no king but Caesar” John 19:15. With that they finally, officially signed out of their covenant with God as His agents of salvation to the world. Even so God has not forsaken them. Indeed, they, in recent years, have returned to their homeland.
How Do We Fit?
But God still needed a presence, a way to reach the population of Earth with knowledge of God and hope of restoration into the general society of God’s kingdom. In the book of Acts is record of the formation of a new entity, a new approach to God’s presence among people – the church. The church doesn’t have national boundaries. It is much more free to infiltrate and breeze through cultures.
A large part of the rest of the New Testament is record of how this new borderless entity is identified, organized, works. There are treatises refining and detailing what salvation is and how it works. There are ongoing invitations to chose life. There is a building, growing hope for wonderful, ongoing, eternal life.
It is built into us to desire life. Here is how we meet and fulfill that desire. It is hope and desire rooted in love – God’s love. This is that love that makes life in this world, as broken as it is, still desirable. These lovers will not disappoint or forsake that love. They hold a deep faith, hope and love that goes long beyond the present.
In the written Word we hold a permanent record. In that written Word we (in a limited way, for He so greatly exceeds our comprehension) hold the mind of God. But that written word received and accepted can do a work beyond the creation of a universe. For when God spoke with intent at the start of the creative rampage it just came to be – it had no choice. But with us He faces and has to deal with our “No” or “Yes.”
Let’s take that to other chapters.
Some of you recall doing research papers in college. One of the requirements was to consult multiple sources of information bearing on your chosen topic. Each source contributed something different to the topic; in the end your work was more extensive and balanced. Indeed, you may have drawn inferences and conclusions no one had seen before. To work from a single source is both limited and biased. This is why the Bible is not just a book – it is a library, a compilation of numerous authors over a significant period of time. Earlier we referred to the physicist’s and the driver’s understanding of acceleration. Both are useful from different perspectives. So this library can provide views of key topics from different perspectives.
The Bible has a fascinating pair of “book ends.” The first three chapters of Genesis mirror the last three chapters of Revelation – both absolute ends of the Bible. Genesis one and two describe creation development of the earth. Chapter three describes the Fall. It got broken. God’s love brought grace to bear turning the wreck into a detour. Revelation 20 describes the detour’s end. All remnants of what was broken, corrupt, polluted is incinerated to oblivion. Then “… I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away” Revelation 21:1. Descriptions continue to verse five of chapter 22. The rest of chapter 22 is a set of sincere, earnest invitations to be there. The tree of life lost in Genesis 3 is restored in Revelation 22. Access to the tree of life provides the essential ingredient for ongoing, unending human life.
In Genesis 3 Satan offered to mankind that they be like God knowing good and evil. Records of history and biography (some of that recorded in the Bible) between the bookends allow observation and comparison of good and evil as in comparing beautiful ferns and deadly hemlock.
God had a library assembled into a book, a permanent record, so we could navigate a difficult detour back to the main road of life.