How to Read and Understand God’s Word
The Epic Story of the Bible is meant to help them not only learn what they are missing but also help them to set out and complete that epic, beautiful, and rewarding trek. And I am convinced it will serve well in accomplishing that very purpose. I highly recommend reading it—and highly recommend buying a few extra copies to give away to others so they, too, can embark on a life-changing journey.
The Bible can be an intimidating book. I suppose any book of the Bible’s size can be intimidating merely by virtue of its page count. But then there’s also the claims people make about the Bible—that it’s a book that transforms lives, that it’s a book that reveals the mind of God himself, that it’s a book that is without error. And beyond that, there’s the nature of the Bible as a collection of writings that span centuries, peoples, cultures, and genres, not to mention the outsized importance of the Bible in shaping the Western world as we know it. For these reasons and many others, the Bible can intimidate people to such a degree that they read it without confidence or perhaps fail to read it at all.
It’s little wonder than that Christians have often written books meant to help introduce people to the practice of reading the Bible and to help them read it profitably and in its entirety. New among them is The Epic Story of the Bible: How to Read and Understand God’s Word by Greg Gilbert. Using his own trek to Mount Everest (base camp, not summit) as a backdrop and illustration, Gilbert says his book is meant to “give you a briefing about what you’re going to see, what you’re going to experience, what you should look for and look out for as you set off on the long trek of reading the entire Bible.”
The key to reading the Bible well, he says, “is to understand that all of those authors and books—all 1,189 chapters of them—are actually working together to tell one overarching, mind-blowing story about God’s action to save human beings from their high-handed rebellion against him, and from the effects and consequences of that rebellion.”
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The Cord and the Cross
When we read the story of Rahab in Joshua 2, we are meant to understand that story in light of the exodus backdrop. The scarlet thread recalls the blood of the unblemished lamb. The window in Rahab’s house recalls the doorposts and lintel of an Israelite home. Impending divine judgment was true for both Exodus 12 and Joshua 2. And in both stories, the designated sign meant deliverance for those inside.
Early in the book of Joshua, a Canaanite named Rahab confessed her faith in the God of Israel to some Israelite spies (Josh. 2:8-11). She then asked that she and her household be spared the coming judgment of the conquest (2:12-13).
The spies told her, “Behold, when we come into the land, you shall tie this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and you shall gather into your house your father and mother, your brothers, and all your father’s household” (Josh. 2:18).
So Rahab did. After the men left, she tied the scarlet cord in the window (Josh. 2:21), trusting and waiting.
This scarlet cord was consistently interpreted in the early centuries of Christian interpretation as signifying the cross of the Lord Jesus (see the writings of Justin Martyr, Origen, Augustine, Jerome, Clement, Irenaeus, and Ambrose).
Such an interpretation has caused no small amount of controversy for modern readers. First of all, there’s no clear prophecy in Joshua 2 to the future redemptive work of Jesus. Second, the color-connection of a “scarlet” cord and the red blood of Jesus is not a substantive correspondence. Third, no New Testament author connects the scarlet cord to the cross.
Those three points are valid but not decisive. I’m going to offer a cumulative case that argues for the scarlet cord of Rahab to be a type of Christ’s cross-work. Let’s notice how the episode with Rahab is meant to evoke the event of the exodus.
First, Rahab tells the spies, “For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt…” (Josh. 2:10).
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God and Healing
Written by T. M. Suffield |
Sunday, January 22, 2023
It is important to wrestle with these questions in an attempt for answers. Why is God’s will so, seemingly, horrible to some people who love him? Here’s my answer: I don’t know. But I continue to believe that he is the sovereign King of the Universe, that he is Goodness itself, and that he loves me more dearly than I can imagine.I’m a charismatic, I believe that God heals today and that this happens frequently. I’ve watched someone’s leg grow while someone else prayed for them. I’ve felt the muscles in someone’s back untwist while I prayed for them. I’ve known a friend’s brain cancer to disappear. God heals. We can, in a general sense, suggest that God wills that everyone be healed, not least on the basis that sickness has no place in his inbreaking kingdom (Revelation 21).
I’ve also prayed for numerous people who have not been healed, including a dear friend who is going blind, I’ve known a friend die from a brain tumour despite our prayers.
Which at the very least raises a theological question for us. It raises a range of pastoral ones too. Why was it that these people aren’t healed? Is it their fault? Is it mine for not praying correctly?
Some of the big American charismatic churches that are popular in my circles would probably suggest that the problem was with our faith. One particular church suggests in their popular teaching that there is no ‘deficiency’ on God’s end (sure, no one disagrees), so when someone isn’t healed all the ‘lack’ is on our end.
Thankfully they don’t always blame the person being prayed for their lack of faith, though this sadly does happen, more often they would situate the lack of faith in those praying. Which raises some important pastoral questions. And it’s nonsense.
Let’s go back to the Bible. Sometimes, we’re told that Jesus ‘healed everyone he met’ so therefore we would too if we could, indicating that the problem is ‘on our end.’ Except clearly he doesn’t heal everyone he meets: think of Mark 6, which raises its own questions, or of characters healed by the apostles who Jesus presumably knew (e.g. Acts 3).
In the pages of the Scriptures, we find a God who heals, marvellously, time and time again. We also find a God who wounds (2 Corinthians 12). Our theology needs to be big enough for both. We know that the revealed will of God is to heal and to bless. And we know that God sends calamity (Isaiah 45).
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Slaves to Time
A church body is at its best when its members are gathered and invested in sharing Jesus and sharing lives with each other. That’s best done when we forget the clock, forget being slaves to time and focus on being what Jesus had called us to be—disciple making disciples.
In the majority of cases when people spend time with their family they’re not keeping an eye on the clock. When we’re doing things that we enjoy we’re not making sure that we’re keeping to a strict end time so that we can leave. When we’re in the coming of family and when we’re doing things that we enjoy, we let time go by without much thought. But in a lot of UK church contexts that isn’t the case.
When it comes to many churches in the UK we’re slaves to the clock. There are reasons that we like to stick to time (kid’s groups, etc.), but are we missing something?
I was speaking with a brother the other day who originally comes from Kenya and hearing how services in his town would often go on for 3 hours, there would also be long times of fellowship before and after the service. He spoke fondly of the sense of community and love that it created for him and his church family. There remains, in that context, an understanding that the Lord’s Day is the Lord’s day, rather than the Lord’s Hour and a quarter.
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