“I sympathize with doubters who may feel drawn to Christianity but find plenty of objections to keep them at arm’s distance. If you’re drawn to the message of Jesus but can’t seem to get past your doubts, perhaps it would be helpful if I share how I worked through some of my doubts.” 

I was raised in an environment of skepticism, during a time of questioning, amid a culture that preferred sarcastic mocking over serious thinking. We liked simplistic slogans more than complex considerations. We loved to point out religious hypocrisy but rarely turned the light of inquiry on our own assumptions.
On top of all this, I was raised in a Jewish family who firmly believed that “Jews don’t believe in Jesus.” So, to say the least, I had many doubts about the Christian faith my friends encouraged me to consider. After all, it was hard to give much credence to a religion that supposedly dominated Germany as it incinerated six million of my fellow Jews. A “Christian nation” thought they had found “the final solution” to the world’s problems: get rid of people like me.
So, I sympathize with doubters who may feel drawn to Christianity but find plenty of objections to keep them at arm’s distance. If you’re drawn to the message of Jesus but can’t seem to get past your doubts, perhaps it would be helpful if I share how I worked through some of my doubts.
Out of Absurdism
As I’ve said, many factors pointed me away from accepting the Christian faith. In addition to those already mentioned, I immersed myself in absurd literature and comedy for several years as I began my university studies. I mixed together an intellectual cocktail of Samuel Beckett, Kurt Vonnegut, and Woody Allen — with large quantities of alcohol added in. It made for a lot of laughs, even more smirks, and a great deal of what felt like fun. But there were hangovers as well — and not just from the alcohol. After the intoxication of laughter wears off, absurdism leaves the mind and heart with existential emptiness.
Immersed in meaninglessness, I continued to seek something transcendent in the world of music. I attended concerts, practiced, performed, and listened desperately, hoping to find a portal to the supernatural or divine. But every piece, every concert, every experience left me disappointed.
I was experiencing the kind of chronic disappointment C.S. Lewis describes in his book Mere Christianity, in the chapter titled “Hope.” Although I had not read anything by Lewis at that point, my life bore out the truth of what he said. Since even my best experiences proved unsatisfying, I could essentially respond in one of three ways:

I could embrace godless hedonism and keep trying to chase momentary intoxicating pleasures.
I could embrace cynicism and reject any hope that life might have some ultimate meaning.
I could embrace the possibility, as Lewis so eloquently puts it, that “if I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world” (Mere Christianity, 136–37).

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From Desiring God: Randy Newman, our longtime friend, wrote this article just weeks ago to be published May 30 at Desiring God. Last week Randy died unexpectedly of heart complications. We publish this article with the blessing of his wife and family, and in gratitude to God for Randy’s faithful ministry and contagious joy in Jesus.
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As we look at how the ending of the Bible story contains pictures that we can gather along the way, we begin to again see an important foundation for biblical theology: the Bible story ends in a way that relates to all of what has come before. There are echoes of Genesis in Revelation, as well as pictures and events that remind us of every part of the story of God’s saving work in the lives of his people in the world.

A Foundation for Biblical Theology
The core conviction of those who practice the discipline of biblical theology is that the Bible is a unified work—a book inspired by one divine author (God) and given to human beings to help them understand his broad saving plan, which ultimately was accomplished through the death and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ. We will see shortly how Jesus himself pointed us toward this way of understanding Scripture. Our goal in biblical theology is to trace God’s story of redemption as it is revealed to us progressively in the revelation of Scripture.
Let’s discuss some foundational arguments for biblical theology. In other words, why do we believe that this is a valid way to study the Bible? This is an important question to answer because not everyone agrees that this is a valid approach! So I will seek to explain just a few of the key foundations that establish biblical theology as the right way to engage with Scripture.
1. Jesus’s Example
One answer to the above question is that Jesus read and interpreted the Old Testament in this way. When we practice biblical theology, we are following the lead of Jesus in the way that he looked at and applied Scripture.
In Luke 24 we find the account of Jesus walking and talking with two men on the road to Emmaus after his resurrection from the dead. These disciples were struggling to understand the events that had just taken place. Jesus, the man they had followed as the Messiah, had been killed. They were sad and discouraged because it seemed that he had failed.
Jesus confronted these men based on Scripture. He told them that it was “necessary” for the Christ to suffer and die (Luke 24:26); Scripture had told them that would happen! Then he did something amazing: Jesus opened the Old Testament Scriptures for these men—right there on the road—and explained to them the “things concerning himself ” (Luke 24:27). Luke tells us that he began with Moses (the books of Genesis to Deuteronomy) and then moved into the prophetic writings in order to show them how the Old Testament—all of it—ultimately pointed to him.
This is a crucial passage for helping us understand how Jesus interpreted Scripture. He saw himself as the main character—the one to whom the entire Old Testament pointed. Thus, biblical theology is legitimate. It is right to see the Bible as telling one great story that has its climax in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
We can draw a few conclusions:
The Bible—all of it—is about Jesus. That is not an overstatement. We can really say, according to what we see from Jesus in Luke 24, that the Bible is ultimately all about him. The Old Testament points forward to him, shows the need for him, and explains what he was going to do for God’s people. The New Testament makes Jesus’s work clear and plain. The Bible is about Jesus.
We cannot rightly understand the Old Testament without understanding the work of Jesus. In other words, it is bad scholarship to read the Old Testament without looking forward to the work of Jesus—the Messiah—that the Old Testament anticipates! This is what Jesus would have said. He called the men on the road to Emmaus “slow of heart” because they did not understand all that the Old Testament Scriptures had been teaching about him and his work. If we miss Jesus in the Old Testament, we simply have not studied it correctly!
We should never study the Bible without talking about Jesus. Finally, we can conclude with this important point: to study any part of the Bible without referencing Jesus—the central character of the Bible—does not do the Bible justice. We have studied it incorrectly. We need to frame our discussion of each passage of Scripture in terms of its place in the great story—a story that has its climax in the life, death, and resurrection of God’s Son, Jesus Christ.
Jesus’s “sermon” on the road to Emmaus lays an important foundation regarding biblical theology. How wonderful it would be to have that entire sermon recorded for us! Jesus took time to explain to the two men, from Moses and the Prophets, all the things about him in the Old Testament Scriptures. In other words, Jesus himself used “biblical theology” to see the connection between the Old Testament Scriptures and his work through his death and resurrection.
2. The Apostles’ Preaching
Another foundation for biblical theology is the example of Jesus’s apostles. We will look at just one example of the teaching of the apostles about Jesus in relation to the Old Testament: Acts 2:14–41 (Peter’s sermon to the crowd at Pentecost). In this passage, we see how Peter explained the work of Jesus from Psalm 16—a psalm written by King David.
Just as Jesus did biblical theology on the road to Emmaus, his apostles did biblical theology as well.
In Acts 2, Peter delivered a sermon to the crowd at Pentecost, just after the Holy Spirit had descended with power on the disciples, enabling them to share the gospel with people in many different languages.
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Christ has entrusted the church with the responsibility to identify who is making a credible profession of faith in Christ, based upon their life and testimony, and who is therefore baptized into the visible body of believers known as the church. This is a major aspect of what church membership is all about. It’s about individual believers expressing a desire to be united to a true, biblically sound church, and in turn, that church mutually affirming professing believers as members of the body with all the privileges and responsibilities that come with that reciprocal relationship. 

What authority does the church have in the world? Not only is this an important question, but it’s a question that has been at the center of recent conversations concerning the topic of  Christian Nationalism. Yet, when we consider the purpose of the local church, we must understand that this is also a question that gets to the very heart of the church’s God-ordained foundation and function. Therefore, the more specific question we need to be asking is this: What authority has Christ given the church? 
As we prepare to answer that question, we need to begin in the Old Testament. There, we discover that, under the Old Covenant, three offices comprised the divinely designated representatives of God. Those representatives of heaven included the prophets, who declared, “Thus says the Lord,” as they spoke to the people of God on behalf of God (Isa 4:22). It included the priests, who mediated the Old Covenant through sacrifices (Lev 9:15). And it included the kings, who ruled and reigned over the children of Israel (2 Sam 2:4). But now, through the New Covenant, Jesus has been revealed to be the fulfillment of all three of those Old Testament offices. He was and is the ultimate Prophet, Priest, and King. As the Word of God made flesh, Jesus is the Prophet who always proclaims the truth of God (Deut 18:15; John 1:1). As the Mediator of a new and eternal covenant, he is the High Priest, who himself has become our once, for-all-time, sacrifice (Heb 4:14). And as the one who reigns from heaven and will reign on earth, he is the King of kings and Lord of lords (Rev 9:16).
Like a divine rope with three strands, it is by this three-fold office that the crucified, resurrected, and ascended Christ now leads his church to carry out the gospel mission, as his ambassadors and representatives upon the earth. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17–21:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
The Authority to Make Disciples
So, when was this ambassadorial authority given to Christ’s followers? To see that, we turn our attention to the gospel of Matthew. As we do, it’s worth noting that Matthew’s gospel is primarily focused on helping Jewish believers understand how Jesus, the Messiah and King, has inaugurated his Kingdom and how he expects his Kingdom citizens to live and operate. Of course, as Jesus enters the scene of redemptive history, as recorded in the gospels, he is doing so as the one who has all authority. And, with that authority, he makes a fundamental shift in who represents heaven on earth.
We find that exact moment in Chapter 28 of Matthew’s gospel. Even before his crucifixion, Jesus had commanded his disciples to meet him in Galilee after he was raised from the dead (Mark 14:28). Following that instruction, along with a helpful reminder from an angel at the tomb, the disciples meet the resurrected Christ on a mountain in Galilee (Mark 16:7). As he appears to them, Jesus begins by establishing his all-encompassing authority, declaring, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (v. 18). Notice, that no domain is excluded in this proclamation. Jesus is saying, unequivocally, that everyone and everything, both in heaven and on earth, is within the realm of his sovereign rule and reign. And it will be upon this basis that Jesus grants his disciples the authority to make disciples. 
We see this sacred mantle delivered by Christ in verses 19–20. Jesus says:
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
This monumental mission has traditionally been called the Great Commission. Notice that the apostles, who will go on to become the very foundation of the church, are not given a mission to be mercenaries who create converts by force. They’re not called to be vigilantes of law and order who wield the sword of retributive justice. And, they’re not called to obtain political power in order to overthrow the Roman Empire. No, the sacred mantle Christ entrusts to his disciples is the divine authority to proclaim the Word of God and shepherd the people of God for the glory of God. 
In short, disciples are entrusted with the privilege and responsibility to make disciples. We accomplish this, first and foremost, by proclaiming the gospel from our neighborhoods to the nations. Salvation comes only through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, so we must share the good news with everyone in our spheres of contact and influence (Rom 10:13–17). From there, as Jesus explains, disciple making involves baptizing believers in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This public profession of faith and identification with the risen Christ and his church, is the believer’s first act of obedience to Christ. This, then, leads to the culminating portion of Christ’s commission, which is teaching believers to continue submitting to Christ’s lordship in all things, with the accompanying promise that he will always be with us. 
The Authority to Affirm Believers
Thus, it is the church of Jesus Christ, with her Lord as the Head, who now represents heaven on earth (Eph 5:23). As Christ’s ambassadors, the church now bears the weight of the sacred mantle, appointed to fulfill a calling of eternal significance. Yet, one of the great challenges found within the responsibility to make disciples is the existence of imposters. Like Satan himself, who disguises himself as an angel of light, there are imposters in this world who claim to be genuine believers in Jesus Christ, and fellow representatives of heaven, but are not (2 Cor 11:14–15). Jesus warned us of these people and provided the criteria by which to discern their true spiritual identity (Matt 7:15–20).
It is for this reason that the church has also been given the authority to affirm true believers, which we find prescribed in Matthew 16.
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