Like most of those reading this article, I love the Bible. I love to read it and study it and I do what I can to live according to the principles laid out in its pages.
One of the reasons I love the Bible is that it isn’t a simple history textbook that lets us know what has happened in the past, nor is it just a book of prophecies that foretell our collective futures. The Bible isn’t even a relationship handbook to teach us how best to love and serve G-D. It is not simply a book of laws or a book of do’s and don’ts.
But for too long, that is how many believers looked at the Bible. Because our perspective of what the Bible is has been skewed, believers struggle to understand their proper place within the pages of the Bible.
The truth, however, is that the Bible isn’t about us. We tend to view it in terms of being about us, but the truth is it is not about us.
The Bible is about our heavenly Father. He is the main character, and the narrative is centered totally upon Him. The Bible tells His history and, because we are His creation and His family, it tells our history also.
The Bible tells about His future and, because we are a part of His future, it speaks about us also. The Bible tells us about His relationships and, because we are one of His relationships, it speaks of us also. The Bible tells us about His nature and character and how He governs Himself and, because we exist within His creation, it teaches us how our nature and character should be and how we should govern ourselves.
We need to understand that, in the Bible, G-D is the main character of the story and even those we consider main characters, such as Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Israel, Moses, David and Solomon, are all minor characters in the greater narrative that help those reading the story understand more about Him.
You and I are both minor characters outside the text who participate in the story by divine invitation. It is only because of our human pride that we read the text as if we were the center of each word, sentence, paragraph, page and chapter.
I am not writing this today in order to say that humanity is unimportant or that we have zero value, because that is not true. I am saying this because the Bible is primarily focused on G-D, who He is, what He has done and will do, His past and His future.
It is also important for us to understand that, although the Bible should be read and understood to be primarily focused on G-D, we also need to understand that the Bible was written by G-D because He is primarily focused upon you and me, His children. In other words, the Bible is focused on G-D because G-D is focused on us. {eoa}
Eric Tokajer is author of With Me in Paradise, Transient Singularity, OY! How Did I Get Here?: Thirty-One Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me Before Entering Ministry, #ManWisdom: With Eric Tokajer, Jesus Is to Christianity as Pasta Is to Italians and Galatians in Context.
