The Bible is structured to reflect a unique worldview, presenting life’s episodes grouped into seasons that come and go like days. Its language paints vivid pictures of evenings giving way to dawns, much like a globe with horizons. What is planted in one season cycles back; new dawns await as the sun rises after the night, ushering in a new day or season. Moving forward and rooted in the past— are represented in this framework where the composers have placed the episodes and seasons of God's story. As with any profound Hebrew story, narratives, themes, and images build thematically toward the center.
The composers of the Bible—those who wrote and edited the original texts—structured God’s story expressing their worldview. Understanding their perspective is key to "having eyes that see" the wonderful things God has for us in His word. We use the term "composers" because God inspired people to write and compile the books, and He has preserved His story through the seasons of time. Together, we have the composition we hold today: God's written word. Holding our Bible, we grasp the most important, life, world and cosmos-view-shaping story ever told.
When we read the Bible, we aren’t reading "raw," unedited source material, even if we are reading the original languages. Some interpreters deconstruct and reconstruct the text to serve their own worldviews. Rather, the original writers rearranged the raw material for their intended readers. The compositions communicate how the lives and events among God's people advance His story into world history. These stories come together as episodes, weaving into seasons of human history. Each story, in spite of failures, furthers the redeeming story of God through His People, leading to new seasons filled with hope for the next horizon.
To best convey their intended meaning to their audience, the composers used rich language to paint pictures tied to a storied past. These images, saturated with insider language and hyperlinks to commonly known tales, describe events with multi-layered overtones. Furthermore, it is poetic—a literary work of art. Stepping into the story, humans can join this narrative as an act of worship pleasing to God. In these pages are meanings captured in words, backed by all authority in heaven and earth, igniting our imagination about what God wills.
Personalizing the Living Word in Our Generation
Would you walk into the Louvre in Paris, approach a masterpiece, and start rearranging it—mixing it with colors from other paintings or creating a mash-up with different works?
For example, when we merge the writings of the Gospel authors into a "harmony of the Gospels" or interpret them through modern perspectives like Enlightenment thinking, we dissect the text and remove it from its original context. This process can help create linear timelines, but it was not the intent of the original writers. In doing so, we risk missing or misinterpreting the intended meaning protected and conveyed by the structure of the message that the writers, inspired by God, carefully crafted.
This exemplifies how modern thinkers rearrange the good news of the Bible's story to fit our paradigms, instead of immersing ourselves in the paradigm of the Gospel. We struggle to be transformed by the renewing of our minds because we change the Word to suit our thoughts.
Corporately, beyond individual reasoning, our philosophy of ministry is shaped by our worldview. If we look to the Bible solely to support our paradigm—one that seems right in our eyes—we risk missing the transformative power, it holds for ourselves and our community.
Western church history has been riddled with failures due to personal greed, distorted images, and societal oppression. These failures caused many organizations to crash and burn or fade away with a generation, losing their societal and generational influence.
The narrative of Scripture invites us to embody the spirit of God's story in our generation. As individuals, we personalize God’s purpose for His body in connection with others, becoming an influential community in society. We influence by rearranging our priorities—our "personal economy"—around God’s economy as a new humanity, a priesthood of believers among other peoples.
Peter passes on this profound expectation: we are like living stones, once part of a grand cathedral now torn down and scattered across the land. Yet, when these scattered stones come together, they form a community that others can enter, much like a majestic cathedral whose stained-glass windows are crafted from brokenness. These windows tell a story as the light of the Son shines through them, illuminating the pathway to a new reality. Each stone is carved into shapes of love and good deeds, acts of faith that bring God's presence into the world. The sounds of praise rise from earth below, echoing into the heavenly realms above. The aroma of prayers fills the air, and God responds through miraculous deeds and the miracle of His body’s presence in times of need. In this living cathedral, people are invited to step inside and experience a transformative reality, a sanctuary woven together by the collective, embodied faith and love of its believers.
As co-creators and co-culture makers with God, we realign our worldview with that of the biblical authors. Together, we take the raw materials of society and shape them into a form of God’s presence among us. God breathes His life into us, and through us, His seal on what He is doing in the world today.
It is never too late to ask ourselves: Are we willing to let go of our preconceptions and truly engage with these ancient texts as intended? How might our lives and communities change if we fully embraced the paradigm of the Gospel—the good news of what God has accomplished and calls us into? This is a salvation that begins now and travels into, “the horizon beyond the horizon.”