A Brief History of Israel / The Bible
In my sermon today, to give context to our passage, I went through a very brief, and simplified history of Isreal (story of the bible) through the time of Jesus…
Here it is:
1. God creates the world
2. Man’s sin brings the world away from its original intent
3. God promises that Israel, through Abraham, in the midst of its imperfect condition, would be the nation He uses to bring about the redemption of all things.
4. Israel lives in a state of exile and deliverance as a nation as it waits for the Messiah promised in Isaiah, Jeremiah, etc.
5. Jesus comes to announce and bring about the ultimate exile, the New Heavens & New Earth.
6. The religious leaders do not recognise Jesus as Messiah because they have their own agendas.
7. Jesus is rejected and crucified.
8. Jesus rises again from the dead and presents himself to the disciples.
9. The Disciples spread the hope of a risen messiah (by preaching and writing)
10. The recreation of all thing (Rev. 21-22)
What do you think? Is this helpful to how you see the narrative of the scriptures? Is this missing anything major? Would you change anything? What are your thoughts?
(I’ll have the message online tomorrow sometime on our website if you want to listen - i have to warn you though, I trashed the second half of the message at 8:00 this morning so the second half is a little rough around the edges).
Gerald Hiestand said...
106/18/06 6:13 PM | Comment Link |
I was working through the same thing and it is remarkable how similar we are on this. The only thing that I included that you leave out is the drama between Satan and Man. I think every good story needs to have an antagonist. And as you may recall my arguing for earlier, I think that the primary throne that Satan was after was Adam’s–not God’s. Thus Christ’s coming to reclaim the world is a reclaiming of the world for humanity as a human. Christ rides to the rescue on the white horse to rescue his bride from the clutches of the evil dragon. It’s perfect–the primordial story from which all stories flow.
Todd said...
206/19/06 6:33 AM | Comment Link |
Gerald, what can i say, great minds think alike…or something like that…
good point on that battle between good and evil.
even though i know the right thelogical answers to this, it seems problematic that there is a real “struggle” and that God just doesn’t smash satan right now.
then the world could be brought to rights now. instead of it continually being a future thing.
okay smart guy, any answers to that one?
Scott said...
306/20/06 4:21 AM | Comment Link |
Now of course I’m not even a pastor :-) But how about this: God restraining his “wrath” and patiently waiting for those who are not yet ready for the time Christ will come to redeem this fallen world once and for all. Just a thought. Peace out!
Gerald Hiestand said...
406/21/06 9:08 AM | Comment Link |
Perhaps also, the real “struggle” is not between God and Satan, but between Satan and Man. After all, it was our world that he stole, and it is through Christ (the son of Man) that we get it back.
And what Scott said, too.