Panorama of the Bible
Lesson 1
Written by Jeannie K. Barge -- June 16, 2002
If I said to you, “Give me the name of the book that you have read or referred to most of your life,” what would that book be? Most people – Christians – would say, “the Bible.” Probably even in the church nursery you were learning verses such as “God is love” and singing “Jesus loves me”. Like me, you probably memorized the books of the Bible in VBS when you were in the Junior Department – although I doubt I can say them all in a row now! We have been in Sunday School most of our life – if not all – and heard most of the Bible taught or preached many times.
But . . . if I said to you, “Give me an outline of the Bible – from Genesis to Revelation – and tell me how it came to be in the order it came to be – the main people – the central theme – how it all connects together,” would all those lessons and sermons enable you to complete such a challenge? It’s not just about history – just about laws – just about prophecy – just about the life of Christ – nor just about the Church. So, what is it all about? Nearly everyone knows something about the Bible, but few people actually know it in its entirety. As history’s all-time best-selling book, nearly everyone owns a copy, but most of these copies have never been read as a whole. How many other books do you own that you have only read pages from – here and there – and yet never read the whole thing?
This summer I’d like for us to look at the Bible – a Panorama of the Bible – from Genesis to Revelation – and see what it’s all about. We won’t be going into depth with any specific book or try to read the Book in its entirety this summer, but we will be looking at how it all fits together – and hopefully when we’re finished, you will have a better overall knowledge of this precious Book that God gave us to be our guide to life. And I’m sure you will be able to then complete that challenge – and give me a written Panorama of the Bible – your final exam of the class!
If you think about it, there are two main sources of our knowledge – reason and experience. Both are vital to our understanding of our world – but they are also limited. Our reasoning is limited to the availability of the opportunities of learning we have received into our mind – our experience is limited to our background, careers, families, travels – our good and bad times in life. But our reasoning and experience still does not fully answer the basic questions – Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? Is there any purpose to life? Where is the world headed?
That is why the Bible plays such a vital part in our life. It is a third and completing source of our knowledge. It is revelation given to us from God – that tells us about Him – the creation of this world – His purpose for mankind – His plan for the future of mankind – and how to live day to day in the here and now.
There is a general revelation – available to all – seen in His creation – in nature – implanted in our very mind and soul that makes us know inside ourselves of His existence (Romans 1:18). Then there is special revelation that is His direct communication with us in His Word, inspired by the Holy Spirit, given in dreams and visions, or by angels – but most clearly in the person of Jesus Christ (Heb. 1:1-2) – all recorded in the pages of the Bible – for us! How blessed we are to have it – but how well do we really understand it and grasp its intention from beginning to end?
As we read the Bible from beginning to end, we see that God reveals Himself in a progressive way – gradually showing us more and more about Himself and His work. The Bible we have is one complete Book – the Old Testament showing us shadows and types and prophecies – the New Testament then unveils those shadows, types and prophecies in the life of Jesus Christ, the Messiah that was awaited in the Old Testament and revealed in the New.
This Book is unique in many ways:
· In its production – the “Bible” means “the Book” – yet it is many books of history, letters, stories, poetry, parables, prophecy, hymns, wisdom literature, biographies, philosophy, drama, exposition, sermons.
· In its people – written over a time span of about 1500 years by people of many aspects of life: Samuel the judge, Amos the sheep breeder, Ezra the priest, Nehemiah the statesman, David the shepherd and king and poet, Matthew the tax collector, Peter the fisherman, Moses the Egyptian palace orphan turned deliverer of Israel, Daniel the captive of Babylon that became second in command, Luke the doctor, Paul the Pharisee tent maker turned missionary . . . on and on we could go . . . none being a professional writer . . . and yet were used as instruments of the Holy Spirit to write.
· In its places – such as prison, the hull of a ship at stormy sea, in palaces, in the wilderness, in times of war and peace, and in every other circumstance.
· In its preservation – despite persecution, perversion, criticism, abuse, and time, the Bible has survived virtually intact. The Museum of the Scroll in Jerusalem displays today the scrolls found in Quamran at the Dead Sea in 1948 – giving us many of the Scriptures as they were originally written – still the same Scripture we have today almost 2000 years later. Many have tried to ban and destroy it – its believers have been tortured and persecuted and killed – but thousands of martyrs would not deny the truth and power of this Book.
We see these reasons for studying the Bible, but there is yet its most important – the response it requires from us when we read it. We must not only respond with our mind – accepting it, understanding it – learning it – but we must respond to it with our soul and heart – with our will. The Bible was divinely written to change our lives in a radical way – from living a so-so life to living a supernatural life powered from the Spirit that abounds from its words.
Perhaps you are one of millions who have enjoyed reading the Bible but have a hard time putting all the pieces of the Bible together – like a 1000 piece puzzle that you’ve been able to find a few colors that match and that’s in this corner over here – and a strip at the bottom – a strip at the top – but the picture is far from being clear! We won’t put all the pieces of the puzzle together this summer – but we will put all the outside edges together and have enough of the middle that you can get a glimpse of the design – and hopefully will be compelled to finish the puzzle – the whole Book – on your own this next year!
Panorama of the Bible
Lesson 2
June 23, 2002
After our introduction last week to what this series will be about, today we actually begin our study of the Panorama of the Bible – beginning naturally with the Old Testament. We will try to put the text in order as it happened – give some of the basic background – and pinpoint specific highlights of events so you can see it as one continual story in God’s plan for the Jewish people – and later for us, who have been adopted into God’s family.
We know that the Old Testament was written by Jewish writers under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. But they do not call it the Old Testament – do you know why? Because that would indicate that there is a New Testament – which they do not recognize – because the theme of the New Testament is the fulfillment of the promises of the Old in the person of Jesus Christ – the Messiah. The Bible the Jews have is what we call the Old Testament – but they call it the Tenach (pronounced Ta-nock’). They have a very high reverence for the Scriptures – the way they handle it – in that it is very carefully held – would never be set on the floor or tossed on the seat of their car as we do. They also wrote it very carefully – such as, when the scribes copied it, it had to be exact – and if even one letter was miswritten, it was discarded and begun over–it would never have been erased or blotted out.
When Jesus referred to the Scriptures, was He referring to the King James Version of the Bible – the NIV – the Living Bible – which Bible did He read from and continually refer to? Of course, if you think about it, you know that it was the Jewish Tenach – the Scriptures compiled by the authors of the Old Testament, for the books of the New Testament were not begun until some time after His death and resurrection. So any misconception that you have that the Old Testament is antiquated and not for us today is refuted by the fact that Jesus Himself taught from it and verified it to be true and to be by inspiration and revelation from God. If we omit reading the Old Testament, we are missing 75% of God’s Word. But even though the writing of the Old Testament – the Tenach of the Jews – is the same Scripture we have, it is put together a little differently, such as:
Our English Bible (made up of 5 sections) Hebrew Tenach (made up of 3 sections)
Law (Genesis – Deuteronomy) Torah (Genesis – Deuteronomy)
Also called “the Law” or “Penteteuch);
The 5 books written by Moses;
Focuses on Covenant with Jewish people & God
History (Joshua – Esther) Nivieen (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings,
and all the prophets)
Poetry (Job – Song of Solomon) Kituveen
Also called “the Writings”
Includes Psalm, Song of Sol., Esther, Nehemiah,
And others – is poetry, psalms, stories.
Major Prophets (Isaiah – Daniel)
Minor Prophets (Hosea – Malachi) (the major prophets are no more important than minor prophets)
Since the Old Testament is the story of the Jews and their history with God, it can be easily remembered by dividing it into three sections of time:
A. FORMATION (of Judaism) includes Genesis through Judges.
B. THE MONARCHY tells of the time of the kings of Israel – from I Samuel through most of prophets.
C. THE POST-EXILE PERIOD tells of the time after the Jews returned from captivity in Babylon, and includes the prophetic books of Ezra and Nehemiah.
We will be giving you a time line as we go along to show you when these happened so you can better understand and remember it.
So to begin with we will look at the first five books of the Bible – beginning today with Genesis.
I. THE FORMATION PERIOD
1. Genesis
· Hebrew word “bereshit” – means “in the beginning”
· Beginning of all things – heaven, earth, man, animals, sin, redemption, beginning of Israel
· Written possibly during 40 yrs of wilderness wanderings (c. 1400) by Moses, although final work considered work of Ezra (445 BC) in writings after exile.
· Even Christ names Moses as author
· A brief summary of Genesis would be:
o Creation
o Fall of man – temptation in the Garden; sin enters mankind through Adam
o Murder of Abel by Cain; birth of Seth, the son that becomes the line to Christ
o The 7th generation from Adam brings birth of Enoch, who “walked with God, and God took him” – he did not die – but lived a righteous life; his son was Methuselah.
o Continual decline of man – to the point that God told Noah to build an ark for his family; after the flood mankind began anew from the three sons of Noah – his son Shem was the son to continue the line to Christ.
o Chapter 12 is the key chapter of Genesis – God’s calling of Abraham to leave his home in Ur (today Iraq) and dwelling in the land we know today as Israel – the Covenant God made with him and his heirs that they would be blessed and become so many they would be as the stars of the heaven. Abraham was born almost in middle of OT time line: Adam (0) – Abraham (1948) – Christ (c 4000) – approximately.
o The rest of Genesis gives the birth/development of Jewish people – Abraham, Isaac, Jacob (Israel), Joseph . . .
· Genesis covers about (c.) 2500 yrs of man’s history (4000 BC – 1400 BC) – from the creation to Joseph’s death in Egypt
· Chapters 1-11 tell of creation/destruction/flood/recreation of world
· Chapters 12-50 deal w/Jewish people – Abraham to Joseph
· Concludes with 70-75 of Jacob’s (Israel’s) family going to Egypt – then his & Joseph’s death
· THEME: fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham (Gen 12:13)
Other Bible book that comes during the period of Genesis:
Job – probably the oldest book of Bible – shows patriarchal man (like Abraham’s time) – lives during the age of Abraham or longer – his city, Tema, was dated city in time of Abraham.
Genesis is often referred to as the beginning – in that all the seeds of the rest of the Bible are seen in this first book:
· The seed of creation of the earth and heavens
· The seed of mankind with Adam and Eve
· The seed of sin in the Garden of Eden
· The seed of God’s chosen people in the calling of Abraham
· The seed of the Messiah in the chosen line of people from Adam (as seen in Luke 3)
· The seed of the Redeemer/Messiah as seen in type in Joseph, who provided a means for the family of Abraham – the Jews – to be protected and preserved for God’s plan.
Some time back we did a complete study on Genesis – so we will not go into great detail today on this book. But these seeds of the Bible are what’s important for us to remember about this book.
These people are not fables – they were real people. Can you put yourself in their place – can you imagine what it was like to be Eve in a perfect place to live – and then realize that you blew it?! Can you imagine what it would have been like to be Noah’s wife – and suffer the ridicule of the world for 100 years as he built a huge ship in the middle of dry land – knowing that one day they would be the only ones left – but no one would believe them? Can you imagine yourself in Sarah’s place – and waiting and waiting for a promised child until you are 89 years old – and then being told that you would have a son! These were real women – they weren’t superwomen – they were women just like us with the same emotions and fears as we have today.