Growing up in church I remember hearing stories week after week of amazing things recorded in God’s Word. One week we would hear about a man who got swallowed by a giant fish. Another week we heard about a man who built a giant boat that housed giant animals to survive a giant flood. Another week we learned about a giant warrior (turns out there are lots of giant things in the Bible!) that was slain by a small boy with a small pebble. We heard about walls that came “tumbling down,” seas being split apart, talking snakes, and many more amazing stories of people doing amazing things for God, and God doing amazing things for people. Then we get to the New Testament and hear about Jesus who came to earth, lived a perfect life, and died for our sins so that we can go to heaven when we die.
So, maybe the Old Testament is just a bunch of cool God stories and then we get to the New Testament where suddenly there’s this thing called sin which we need to be saved from, so Jesus comes and dies so that we can be forgiven! At first glance, the Bible might seem like a hodgepodge of stories that involve God in some way or another, leaving us to wonder: How in the world does all that fit together? …or does it?…
To make matters more confusing, when you begin exploring this question you will find a variety of camps who try to answer this question in the affirmative, saying, “Yes, the Bible is telling one grand story,” but they each “put the Bible together” differently! From Dispensationalism on the one hand to Covenant Theology on the other, and a whole host of other “camps” in between (and outside of these two as well), the literature can be overwhelming, not to mention the sub-camps of camps: Classic Dispensationalism, Progressive Dispensationalism, New Covenant Theology, Baptist Covenant Theology, Presbyterian Covenant Theology, and others.
If you resonate with my experience and wonder the same thing, and are, at this point in my article feeling rather daunted, then I would like to introduce you to a book that I firmly believe represents a very faithful way of reading the Bible as one grand story of redemption for the glory of God in Christ. God’s Kingdom Through God’s Covenant: A Concise Biblical Theology by Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum (Crossway, 2015) is a book that traces the covenants of the Bible, showing how there is indeed one overarching, grand story of redemption presented in Scripture. God is building His kingdom of redeemed saints, and He is accomplishing it through making covenants, namely the covenants with Adam, with Noah, with Abraham, at Sinai, with David, and all culminating in the New Covenant in Christ. Space prevents me from saying any more, but if you are interested, I would love to talk more with you about this! Don’t hesitate to reach out!
P.S. If you would like to purchase and read this book, let me advise that you make sure you buy this book: God’s Kingdom Through God’s Covenant, and NOT Kingdom Through Covenant. They both have nearly the same title and both are written by the same two authors. That is confusing, I know. God’s Kingdom Through God’s Covenant is an abridgment of Kingdom Through Covenant, and you will probably want to start with the small one, not the 900+ page one!
Pastor Joshua
So, maybe the Old Testament is just a bunch of cool God stories and then we get to the New Testament where suddenly there’s this thing called sin which we need to be saved from, so Jesus comes and dies so that we can be forgiven! At first glance, the Bible might seem like a hodgepodge of stories that involve God in some way or another, leaving us to wonder: How in the world does all that fit together? …or does it?…
To make matters more confusing, when you begin exploring this question you will find a variety of camps who try to answer this question in the affirmative, saying, “Yes, the Bible is telling one grand story,” but they each “put the Bible together” differently! From Dispensationalism on the one hand to Covenant Theology on the other, and a whole host of other “camps” in between (and outside of these two as well), the literature can be overwhelming, not to mention the sub-camps of camps: Classic Dispensationalism, Progressive Dispensationalism, New Covenant Theology, Baptist Covenant Theology, Presbyterian Covenant Theology, and others.
If you resonate with my experience and wonder the same thing, and are, at this point in my article feeling rather daunted, then I would like to introduce you to a book that I firmly believe represents a very faithful way of reading the Bible as one grand story of redemption for the glory of God in Christ. God’s Kingdom Through God’s Covenant: A Concise Biblical Theology by Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum (Crossway, 2015) is a book that traces the covenants of the Bible, showing how there is indeed one overarching, grand story of redemption presented in Scripture. God is building His kingdom of redeemed saints, and He is accomplishing it through making covenants, namely the covenants with Adam, with Noah, with Abraham, at Sinai, with David, and all culminating in the New Covenant in Christ. Space prevents me from saying any more, but if you are interested, I would love to talk more with you about this! Don’t hesitate to reach out!
P.S. If you would like to purchase and read this book, let me advise that you make sure you buy this book: God’s Kingdom Through God’s Covenant, and NOT Kingdom Through Covenant. They both have nearly the same title and both are written by the same two authors. That is confusing, I know. God’s Kingdom Through God’s Covenant is an abridgment of Kingdom Through Covenant, and you will probably want to start with the small one, not the 900+ page one!
Pastor Joshua
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