The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place In The Biblical Story

by Craig G. Bartholomew

But all human communities, including our own, live out of some comprehensive story that suggests the meaning and goal of history and gives shape and direction to human life. We may neglect the biblical story, God’s comprehensive account of the shape and direction of cosmic history and the meaning of all that he has done in our world. If we do so, the fragments of the Bible that we do preserve are in danger of being absorbed piecemeal into the dominant stories of our own cultures. And the dominant story of modern culture is rooted in idolatry: an ultimate confidence in humanity to achieve its own salvation. Thus, instead of allowing the Bible to shape us, we may in fact be allowing our culture to shape the Bible for us. Our view of the world and even our faith will be molded by one or the other: either the biblical story is our foundation, or the Bible itself becomes subsumed within the modern story of the secular Western world. If our lives are to be shaped and formed by Scripture, we need to know the biblical story well, to feel it in our bones. To do this, we must also know our own place within it—where we are in the story.