Sermon Tone Analysis

What is the Bible About?

Many books and random stories or one big story?

40 different authors, on 3 continents, in 3 languages, over a 2,000 year period.

The Bible is about God as King and how he has established his kingdom through redeeming a people for himself.

Can you understand a puzzle without the picture?

Just as we need to see the box of a puzzle to know how to put the pieces together, we need to understand the big story of the Bible to help us understand the books and letters that we read.

Lead into explaining God’s Kingdom established through God’s covenants with his people.

God’s Kingdom

God’s Kingdom: His possession, rule, and reign over his creation.

The Kingdom of God has a threefold dimension

God as King

Human Beings as His subjects

The universe as his domain

“The Kingdom of God has a threefold dimension, focusing on God as King, on human beings as the subjects of the King, and the universe as the place where his kingship is worked out.”-Thomas

Schreiner

God unfolds His Kingdom through the covenants He makes with His people.

The unfolding of his kingdom can be seen in four main plot lines:

Creation

Fall

Redemption

Restoration

Lead into transitioning from God’s Kingdom to explaining what God’s covenants are… What is a covenant and why is it important?

God’s Covenants

What is a covenant?

“A covenant is an enduring agreement which defines a relationship between two parties involving a solemn, binding obligation(s) specified on the part of at least one of the parties toward the other, made by oath under threat of divine curse, and ratified by a visual ritual.”

Six Covenants between God and Man in the Bible:

Creation: Genesis 1-3

Noah: Genesis 6-9

Abraham: Genesis 12, 15, 17, 22

Sinai: Exodus 19-24

David: 2 Samuel 7; Psalm 89

New Covenant: Jeremiah 31-34, Isaiah 54, Ezekiel 33-39

Covenant vs. Contract

Walk through the slide and general differences between a contract and covenant.

Thing-oriented vs. person-oriented.

The major difference between a covenant and a contract is personal loyalty.

“hesed”=Loyal love, “emet”=faithfulness

Explain how these two words characterize the covenant relationship.

God’s relationship with his people is centered around his faithfulness and loyal love to a people who least deserve it.

Here is an example of how we can see loyal love and faithfulness played out in a covenant Jacob made with Joseph at the end of his life…

Genesis 47:29-30 “When the time approached for him to die, he called his son Joseph and said to him, “If I have found favor with you, put your hand under my thigh and promise me that you will deal with me in kindness and faithfulness.

Do not bury me in Egypt.

When I rest with my ancestors, carry me away from Egypt and bury me in their burial place.”

Joseph answered, “I will do what you have asked.”

So to recap, a covenant is a binding agreement between two parties based on a relationship that is made up of loyal love and faithfulness that requires obligations of at least one of the parties to be fulfilled with the result of either blessings or curses.

Now that we know what a covenant is, let us answer the question as to how why understanding God’s covenants with his people are important.

Why are Covenants important?

They help us understand the Bible’s grand-narrative.

The Bible is about God and his kingdom, God is a relational God, and the covenant is all about explaining the relationship b/w the creator and his creation.

The covenants are the “backbone” of the Bible’s storyline… therefore to understand the Bible’s story rightly, we must put these covenants together in the way God intended.

Back to our puzzle analogy, The story of the Bible is a big puzzle and the six covenants are the six big pieces that make all of the other small pieces fit together and make sense.

You could also view the covenants as guide posts if you were on a long journey.

They tell you where you are in the story, where you have been, and what you should be looking for next along your journey.

They help us see the importance of Biblical and Systematic Theology

Biblical Theology is an attempt to understand how Scripture tells the story of how God has redeemed his people throughout history.

Biblical Theology is concerned with the whole message of the Bible.

To practice Biblical Theology rightly, we must understand the Bible “on its own terms”-we must “grasp the text in the original audience’s town.”

Some questions we could ask would be… “how does this passage of Scripture fit into God’s redemptive plan for his people?

“If this passage was not in the Bible, how would it take away from God’s plan to redeem his people?”

Systematic Theology is the detailed study of what the Bible teaches and how it applies to our own lives today.

Biblical Theology and Systematic Theology are related in that one has to first practice good Biblical Theology (interpreting the Scriptures within the grand redemptive narrative of Scripture) and then apply those truths in more detail to all of areas of ones life… practicing Systematic Theology.

In Summary, Biblical Theology is looking at the picture of the finished puzzle on the box…where Systematic Theology is looking at the small individual pieces of the puzzle.

They help us connect the OT with the NT and see how all of the covenants have their ultimate fulfillment in Christ.

God has told his story through what is known as “progressive revelation,” which means that God unfolds his story of redemption, one “puzzle piece” at a time.

Illustrate the similarity between only having a quarter of the pieces for a puzzle.

Because of progressive revelation, we cannot separate the Old Testament from the New, but must use the New Testament to understand the purposes of the stories and acts of God in the Old…we must do this because we have the full revelation of God… we have the finished masterpiece!

Things the prophets and angels longed to see...

1 Peter 1:10-12

We must, as Pastor Steve said last Sunday, allow “Scripture to interpret Scripture.”

“Show me the Context!!”

Three contexts we must observe to understand God’s story rightly...

Immediate context: what is the context the verses before and after the text and how does that context fit in that specific book/letter.

Puzzle illustration: looking at what is around one piece to see what piece fits into it.

Covenant Context: Where is the text located in God’s unfolding plan of redemption...which guidepost (covenant) are you at?

Canonical Context: How does this story or text fit into the grand redemptive narrative of the whole Bible?

Puzzle illustration: looking at the picture on the box and how this piece fits into the whole picture.

We can interpret Scripture using a “promise-fulfillment” motif

Every promise in the Old Testament is fulfilled through the person and work in Jesus Christ in the New Testament.

So, a good question to ask when interpreting the text is, “how does this passage point to, show the need for, or relate to the person and work of Jesus?

Example: The Day of Atonement-was a promise made to Israel that someone had to die and they needed a substitute to take their place so they could be forgiven…fulfilled in Jesus, the spotless lamb of God who takes a way the sin of the world (John 1:29)

In Summary, The Bible is all about Jesus

The story of the Bible is about God’s Kingdom and how he has redeemed a people for himself through establishing covenants with them that are founded through faithfulness and loyal love.

Because Jesus is the one who redeems us and he is the one who became the perfect subject to the King to fulfill the covenant in our place, the Bible is all about Him.

Luke 24:27

But…if you do not know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, it is going to be very hard to understand the story of the Bible.

Close with the Gospel