The Bible is One Story
Remember that the Bible is ‘one big book’ with ‘one big story’ and that story is the gospel. The gospel is the key to unlocking and understanding the scriptures, so holding all passages in light of the big gospel story helps understand them.
Each section of scripture is part of this ‘gospel circle’ and so it helps to ask where a certain passage fits into this circle/story. The phrase ‘gospel circle’ is one that I have borrowed from a book called ‘The Archer and the Arrow’ by Phillip Jensen, Paul Grimmond.
As you read throughout the scriptures, each section of scripture will illuminate and contribute towards this gospel story.
Pearl Necklace – think of it another way, that each book of the Bible is a pearl and the thread running through them all is the gospel. The gospel story is what ties and holds all the Bible together.
So as you go throughout the Bible, look for foreshadows and symbology of Jesus and the cross through the OT, our need for salvation and how everything ties together under this cohesive story. God has been whispering the gospel message since time began so the question to ask is “which section of the gospel story does this passage highlight?”
Example
What part of the gospel story do you think the following passage from Ezekiel 5 contributes towards?
“This is what the Sovereign Lord says: This is Jerusalem, which I have set in the center of the nations, with countries all around her. Yet in her wickedness she has rebelled against my laws and decrees more than the nations and countries around her. She has rejected my laws and has not followed my decrees. Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: You have been more unruly than the nations around you and have not followed my decrees or kept my laws. You have not even a conformed to the standards of the nations around you.”
Ezekiel 5:5-7
That’s right – man’s sin. The fact that we are utterly sinful and rebellious before God, that even when God had chosen a people for himself, given them his Laws and their own land, they continued to be rebellious and were even more unruly than the surrounding Gentile nations – facepalm!