The Scriptures
The Old Testament contains Law, history, wisdom literature, and the writings of prophets. The history portion, from Joshua through Esther, only summarizes some periods while devoting whole chapters to seemingly tangential scenes. One purpose, of course, is to plot the history of God’s preparation for the Messiah. But, just as importantly, this is a history of how a society goes when only a small fraction is at all faithful. On earth, the outsider will always be dominant in the areas of power and wealth, whereas the faithful few will possess peace and joy.
The Law of Moses was a contract between the nation of Israel and God in which the Israelites would be rewarded for performing certain rituals with big crops, big families, and victory in battle. The purpose of the Law was to build the stage on which Jesus would play, and to act out symbolisms that would come to fruition in Jesus and the church. From the Law, the faithful learn the true meaning of sacrifice, being a kingdom of priests, and following directions even when the reasons are not clear.
The Old Testament contains Law, history, wisdom literature, and the writings of prophets. The wisdom literature encompasses Job through the Song of Solomon, all written in Hebrew poetry (which is based on parallelism). Job, beyond the story itself, contrasts conventional wisdom with God’s wisdom. Psalms is the Old Testament song book, teaching how to pray and praise. Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are the sayings of wisdom. The Song of Solomon is a love poem. These philosophical books teach the faithful how to think.
The four gospels contain the story of Jesus’ life on earth. Of course, one purpose for those books is to document that Jesus accomplished the predictions written by prophets many centuries earlier. Further, the character of Jesus therein described is said by Peter to be a major attraction to outsiders to investigate faith. Equally importantly, the gospels describe how godly character plays out in a broken world. The faithful receive the indwelling Holy Spirit whose primary task is character re-development. The gospels make visualizing the objective easier.
The Book of Acts records some of the events surrounding the beginnings of the church, primarily involving Peter and Paul. The exploits of the other apostles and early traveling teachers are frustratingly unknown. Rather than compiling an incredibly long history book, God chose to relate examples of how faithful people, despite their foibles, can spread the gospel effectively. If the faithful are committed to the task, God will make up what they lack. But the intensity and dedication must come first.
The letters (Romans through Jude) in the New Testament were written to individual and groups of Christians, not to the general population. The original audience had had various difficulties putting their faith into practice due to dragging their cultures and past failures into the church with them. The various inspired writers provided cures for their self-made problems so that they could attain to the prescription found at the beginning and end of most of these letters: grace and peace. To the same end, the modern faithful continue to learn from these examples.
Paul began all his letters from Romans through Philemon with “grace and peace,” not because it was a standard greeting (non-Christians hoped for other things), but because that was Paul’s objective for each letter, to promote the growth of a gracious nature and to foster peace within the faithful. In his letter to the faithful of Colossae, Paul’s prescription included their hope of being a parade of godly character traits (glory), of keeping the gospel simple, of their unique perspective due to faith, and of their resulting focus on evangelism. Are their goals ours?
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