Immerse: Beginnings Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 341
THE STORIES AND THE STORY
How the Bible Works
The Bible is a gift. The Creator of all things has entered into our human
story, and he has spoken. Working through all the authors of the Bible’s
various writings, God brings wisdom into our lives and light to our path.
But his biggest intention for the Bible is to invite us into its Story. What God
wants from us, more than anything else, is to make the Bible’s great drama
of restoration and new life the story of our lives too.
The appropriate way to receive a gift like this is to come to know the
Bible deeply, to lose ourselves in it precisely so that we can find ourselves
in it. In other words, the best thing we can do with the Bible is to immerse
ourselves in it.
The first step on this journey of immersion is to become intimately familiar with the Bible’s individual books—the songs and stories, the visions
and letters. These books reflect different kinds of writing, and each book
with its various parts must first be read and understood on its own terms.
Your Immerse Bible is designed to help you easily see what kind of writing
is found in each book. This will foster a better reading experience that leads
to reading more and to reading in context.
But there is an even bigger goal than understanding the individual
books. At its heart, the Bible is God’s grand narrative of the world and his
intentions for it. By reading whole books and then reading them as a collection of writings, we discover how the Bible presents God’s big story—the
Story. The true destination of Bible reading is for us to inhabit the Story.
All the smaller parts of the Bible—Gospels and histories, proverbs and
prophecies—take their rightful places in revealing the saving drama of God.
As we begin our journey deep into the heart of the Bible, we come
across many stories. The plots and subplots of these stories fit together to
tell the Bible’s big Story. All the characters, communities, and covenants
play a part in bringing the overall Story to its fitting conclusion. That is,
they are related to each other and work together to reveal God’s bigger
purposes for the world.
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