The Story of the Bible as a Whole

​As we go through, the Bible and turn its pages. We get to discover the God of the ages how, he's actually revealing himself to us, and so what's happening is God is not just having an event happen in the history of the world, but he's he's working in mankind. He's working in our hearts. He's, really , establishing a home in us. It's an amazing reality, and it's unique to Christianity. I mean, No other world religion speaks so intimately about the God who's the creator and the creation having such an intimate, unified relationship, but that's what Jesus Christ makes possible.

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Welcome to Episode 2 of the You Can Learn the Bible Podcast, a podcast intended to equip you to understand the Bible more effectively. My name is Bodie Quirk. I am here with Joey Rozek, and today we are doing something really exciting, we're going to talk about the story of the Bible as a whole.

So if you clicked on this episode, wanting to know the entire story of the Bible, that is what we are gonna do today, right Joe?

Joey

Absolutely Bodie, this is gonna be a great episode for anybody who ever wanted to get, a big picture of what is the whole Bible about. We know it's 66 books. We know it's broken up in the old and New Testament, but to see that the volume of the book is written of Jesus, but then what is it teaching us about Jesus?

What is the purpose of God? What is the plan of God? So this is gonna be a great episode, buddy. It's great to be back with you. And I'm on the east coast. You're on the West coast from coast to coast. We're getting a chance. Bring all that we've learned over the years in pastoral ministry to be able to help communicate to people the story of the Bible as a whole. So this is gonna be an exciting episode.

Yeah, it's exciting. Yeah. yeah, go ahead.

No, and I was just gonna say, and, And I, was thinking Bodie um, you know, I spent 10 and a half years in England and when I was there I think I could give an illustration of what, why this episode is so important for everybody. When I was in England the, number one sport once you leave America, it's pretty much football around the world.

They're not American football, but what we call soccer. One of the things that that you'll notice is kids are playing football out in the streets all the time. Here's an illustration I think a lot of Christians miss the objective of, Christianity. Like, like the way somebody brand new to the game of soccer wouldn't understand the, the objective if all they did listen this, if all they did was show up at a practice.

The coach did some exercises and drills like, All right, team, here's gonna, we're gonna teach you how to head the ball. We're gonna teach you how to pass the ball. We're gonna do some exercise here in good shape, and then, oh, by the way, we've got a game coming up and imagine. If he never explained the object of the game, the players show up.

They know how to kick the ball, they know how to head it. They're in good shape, but they don't understand that they're to work together as a unified team to kick the ball into the net and score a goal. And that's what we're giving today.

We are gonna teach you how all these books of the Bible work together to have one objective to see the goal of Jesus Christ being formed in his people, us being united together with him in glory and we're gonna show you that today in this program.

Oh, I love it. And I think you're right because so often people's Christian lives, they are fragmented, right? Like the, examples you gave about heading the ball or practicing, we treat either prayer or Bible study or maybe spiritual growth as kind of these independent things, but we have not always been shown how we are brought into the larger story of God, and that's what we want to do and talk about today.

So I love that analogy. Thank you for giving that to us because we hope that by the end of this episode you have a sense of the Bible as a whole. And so what this episode is actually gonna be, it's an.

Overview of the next four episodes, cuz what we wanna do today is give you the entire overview of the Bible as a whole, and we're gonna break those down into four different groups that you'll see in a second. But the next four episodes, we're kind of gonna go one level down and really talk about the groups as a whole.

So we'll get to that in a second. But today we're gonna really try and talk about the Bible as a whole. And we have a definition that we're using.

To be kind of our overview or our guide, and this definition, we wanna understand God's eternal purpose, which if we stopped right there, that's a great way to spend your life, right?

But this episode we wanna understand God's eternal purpose revealed through the unfolding of God's story, which is what the Bible is. As we connect the Bible's most significant turning points, and there's a, there's a word that I want to have Joey talk about called Covenant in a second, but here, just even before that, Joey, why should we care to understand God's eternal purpose?

Yeah it's so vital. Bodie, because Let's make sure we understand. The purpose of all of God's creation is to reflect the glory of the creator. And the Creator is a loving God. God exists as a triunity the Father's son, the Holy Spirit, and as a result, there's perfect love. There is a desire for love to extend beyond himself.

And so God creates us out of all of creation. Human beings are made in the image and likeness of God. We are the imago day. But what we have to see then is that God wants a relationship with us. And a relationship when it comes to God is gonna be holy. It's gonna be eternal. It's gonna be something that God is gonna protect and to preserve and so a covenant.

Is a mutually binding relationship between two or more parties. Uh, It is God essentially saying, I am not just gonna create and then let creation be God is, intimately connected to his creation. He, understands our deepest most thoughts. He knows our rising up and our sitting down, and so God is committed to us and a covenant in, in, in a biblical sense, theologically speaking it, is. Referring to God's grace in our lives, his gracious acts in our lives. Those turning points you were talking about to establish this unifying relationship with humanity.

And I like to call it when you think about this theological term I, always put it into an invitation where God is inviting us into the unity of the community, of the triunity of God. That's amazing. That's what God is doing with us in the eternal purpose, Bodie.

Which is so different, right? Because so many views of God, especially in the ancient Near East, were either that of many gods or of distant gods, but that God would one care about people and two, care about them to the degree that he would actually bind his his reputation. His joy, his heart to them that says something very specific about the heart of God.

And so when we look at this definition, I love this quote, by the way. I hope that as we podcast many years together, I capture these "Joey isms", as I call them, I, which is such a great way, You have a great way of phrasing things, Joey. You always have. But we hope that this definition here helps you understand, right?

We, it's not just that we're talking about human events, we're talking about the eternal purpose of God revealed. Through the unfolding story, God's entering into the creation realm. But the way that we wanna structure it today is through what we call turning points. And so this is gonna be an important phrase to understand and this is how we're gonna going to go about this episode because, To summarize the entire Bible is a massive undertaking, but turning points are here to help.

So what do we mean by this phrase, turning point? Here's what a turning point is, and here's how we're gonna use it. When we talk about talking about the Bible as a whole, it's a significant event in a story that permanently changes the course of the story from that point forward.

And if what's so exciting is that if you can understand the turning points that we're gonna help you see today you can know the whole Bible, you can know the least the framework that the whole Bible operates under. But we think about a turning point and we combine it with this idea of covenant, we're really gonna get a picture of the heart of God, but also how God has worked in humanity.

Amen. Bodie I,

I like to frame it this way as we go through, The Bible and turn its pages. We get to discover the God of the ages how, he's actually revealing himself to us and because turning points are significant events. As you rightly said, Bodie, God is also turning our hearts. And so what's happening is God is not just having an event happen in the history of the world, but he's he's working in mankind.

He's working in our hearts. He's, really establishing a home in us. It's an amazing reality, what this covenant means, and it's unique to Christianity. I mean, No, no other world religion speaks so intimately about the God who's the creator and the creation having such an intimate, unified relationship, but that's what Jesus Christ makes possible.

And we're gonna see this covenant unfold in four different kind of categories, aren't we?

Right. Yeah. these are the turning

points. So introduce the categories if you would. Sorry, I cut you off, Joe.

No, that's,

the categories, and then why don't you just take us into the turning point, number one. After you do that.

Sure. Yeah. So we, we kind of look at, like, Since the word covenant is is, is in a sense an all encompassing banner for us to see throughout the whole Bible. I We have the old covenant, the new covenant, we call them testaments as well. But basically there are four categorical ways we could see this progression.

Number one, the covenant conceived when God first gave birth to this covenant and the early players, the early men that were created, that God began this with, and then we see it confirmed. We see that God confirms this covenant. And we're gonna look at the different ways that God confirmed this covenant Abraham, Isaac, Jacob those 12 tribes and so forth.

And then we see that this is gonna be a challenge because the covenant. Fallen man. We see that when a fall happens, mankind is constantly incapable of keeping up the covenant. And so as a result, we're gonna see it all the different ways in which division and deception, destruction, and the heart of man being deceitful and wicked shows itself.

And then, praise God, we have the covenant completed. Jesus Christ comes to the scene and he perfects the imperfect. He brings light to the darkness. He is the just and justifier of those who are infinitely undeserving and his grace wins for the people of God who put their trust in him. And so we're gonna look at those four categories and we're gonna hit him one at a time.

But of course, Bodie, it all starts with creation, doesn't it? God has to first create people before you can have a covenant. The first point, our first turning point starts with God basically breathing life into existence. Speaking life into existence. God spoke, let there be light and there was light.

And why that's an important starting point in our Bible. The first statement given by God that we have in scripture is because light allows us to see what God's about to do. And so he goes into the days of creation where he begins to let us know in order the different things that God brought into existence.

He brings out of nothing that, which is something he, speaks it into existence, he thinks, and he acts and out of the abundance of God's heart, he speaks. And there it is. It's amazing. And so God's created order shows us that everything God creates is good. And everything that God made was made for the glory of God.

And the last thing that God ends his creation with is us. That which he's gonna have covenant with humanity. We are made in the image and likeness of God. And we discovered that God made us man and woman, male and female then joined us together in marriage. And this is where creation begins. It's a beautiful picture. That's where the stage is set.

Yeah. And God now, so that's number one, where God sets the stage, right? The, creation order, which is the animals, but then culminates as you said, with number two, the creation of mankind. So we kind of have the creation but also the fall because they happen so close to one another. At least in scripture.

We don't know the actual timeline. But the fact that mankind, this is number two, was created not just to bear the image of God, as you beautifully said, Joe, but to rule with him. Not to rebel against him, but that's unfortunately what happens in the fall. So in the fall, mankind chooses to disobey God and therefore sin enters the world.

So at this point right here, number two, the reason why number two is a turning point is because the very image bearer of God that God had created to co-rule with him is now rebelling against him. Sin enters mankind. And so what happens after sin comes into the world?

This second turning point is really where man's heart turns away from God. And at this point, God is looking at the hearts of men, because God is always searching this earth searching to and for throughout the whole earth. He's always been and he looks at the hearts of men and he saw as Genesis six.

That the hearts of man were only evil, continually. The thoughts in those hearts was thinking away from God, contrary to God. And God was gonna basically wipe out creation because it had so fallen from the glory of which he intended it. God didn't intend for there to be disease in the world or destruction or death.

God intended for us to have life and blessing and unity with him. What's amazing, Bodie is in this third point with the flood in the new beginning. It's interesting that it says in Genesis six that Noah found grace in the sight of the Lord. That turning point, sets the stage for the gospel, doesn't it?

Because it's God's saying, I am going to bestow blessing still on mankind and Noah. Was chosen and his family, his wife, his three sons, and their three wives. And so these eight souls are now in the ark. God told Noah to build an Ark, he had never seen rain before. He had to put the arc together, wood beam by wood beam, and then God basically gave him the design for this.

And said, I will bring two of every kind into this ark, and we see a kind of salvation here. Being in the ark is like being in Christ. It's this idea of salvation early on, early picture, and it's God's grace making all the difference. This is the beginning of the new beginning.

Yep. I love it and I love that you're probably familiar with the theological term the, law of first mention, which is any time a key theological term is mentioned, it can have a, it can set the set its course for the whole scripture. And the fact that the word grace would, the verse that Joey referenced, Noah found Grace is the first mention of grace in the Bible, and it becomes so paramount because God, again, as making a covenant, even though.

Fallen evil is completely exploding. God is not forsaking them. Noah finds grace. God protects him in the covenant. God wipes out the earth and he restarts humanity with Noah and his three sons. And that is with the new beginning. But of course, Joey, we know that sin didn't quite leave the scene even though God did away with it less.

And so ultimately what God is seeking to do is connect himself even further with humanity. So, we have the new beginning, which takes us to number four. So I understand that now mankind has been restarted. The flood waters have receded, and now God is now going to align himself with a particular family line starting with abraham, the call of Abraham. So when we say number four, the call of Abraham.

Abraham was a pagan, he was a moon worshiper, but God called him out of his country to go to somewhere that he had not yet even known. And so why is the call of Abraham a turning point and how does it set us up for our next section on the Covenant Confirmed?

Yeah. Bodie, that's such an important point. I think by connecting that Noah was the one that God makes this covenant with in the new beginning, makes this rainbow that declares that God has a promise he's not gonna destroy the earth the same way he did like that with a flood. And Noah walked with God in his generations, but mankind was not gonna live as long as they did in the beginning.

The effects of sin, as you rightly said, Bodie has hit the world and their hearts are showing that there's still sinful nature in them. Abraham was called out of a family of idolatry, his father Terah in the Ur of the Chaldeans and, all that was a part of his family was really early paganism.

It was, I idol worship and God is now calling new people that he's now going to have a new name under. And we, the patriarchs number five is one of the names we give it, but ultimately these are people who are in covenant with God because God has an Abrahamic covenant. It's a covenant based on faith.

Abraham is the father of faith and these men are learning the principles of faith, how to trust God. And so we have Abraham and his son Isaac. And Isaac was the son of Promise that Abraham and Sarah had an old age. Then of course they had a son in Jacob and Jacob, although two sons, Jacob and Esau.

We see that God starts choosing where he puts his blessing. Not the first but the second. The blessing is always on the second. You'll start seeing not Ismail, but Isaac not. Esau but Jacob. And so the patriarchs start teaching us the covenant plan of God. Jacob, if you remember at one point, after he steals the blessing and the birthright from his brother, he then wrestles with God, what an important scene that was in Genesis 32, and he basically tells God, I will not let you go, until you bless me.

And that was when God changed the name of Jacob to Israel. And Israel is the new covenant name for the people of God. And they start showing their sin and the troubles, and how does that transition into the next scene of where, what happens with Israel as things unfold, Bodie?

There's a famine in the land and so Jacob's second youngest son, Joseph, gets sold out by his brothers into Egypt, which was the place where God is preparing for his people to go. God uses a nation that doesn't like the Hebrew people, which is just a small. One family to grow into a nation.

And so what happens is is that after they go into Egypt just to avoid, to stay alive, they discover that their son, that they sold out, Joseph is actually second in command over the world's, biggest commanding nation and in there, despite the people there, they not only do they stay alive, but they grow and they thrive inside Egypt, until the point to where this is, and this is again, decades here, we're moving quickly here but to the point to where that nation, it can no longer stay because God made a promise to Abraham once he called him that they were gonna have their own land, they were gonna be a nation and they were in, God was gonna continue to unite himself to this people.

So the exodus happens in number six, which is the exodus of the Hebrew people that started with a small group, grew into hundreds of thousands and miraculously escaped Egypt, though Pharoah was not on board with that plan, and eventually they go out, God rescued them. It's the pinnacle moment. But then unbelief starts to creep into their hearts.

The very people that God rescued miraculously and then drown the Egyptians. Their hearts over 40 years in the wilderness starts to go cold to God again, and they are no longer able to inherit the promise God gave them. And so what happens? They stay for 40 years in the wilderness and

Um,

as what's called the conquest, which is they, entered, led by Joshua into the land that God had originally promised to Abraham.

Yeah. Bodie. And, abraham. And you when you brought up the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness before they crossed that river Jordan, Into the land that God promised Abraham earlier. I think it's important to note that the reason why they could not go into that land was disobedience and unbelief.

Yep.

see those are the things that are constantly plaguing mankind. We disobey God. We don't believe in his goodness. We, stop seeing the beauty of God. So we start looking at the beauties, the false fleeting pleasures of this world to find our hope in that. And that brings up number seven because that's really what we see happening in the tribes and what we call the cycle and the judges that reveal the cycle.

What's the cycle? The cycle is that you know, Israel's believing God, they're doing good for a time. God's blessing them. Then they forget the blessings. They forget the God who blesses them. They rebel in sin, they turn away from God. They reap what they sow, and as they reap what they sow. There's a period of time where there's all kinds of, not wondering in the wilderness in, in an external way, but there's a wilderness in their own hearts.

There's no fertile soil. There's no fruit in their lives. And so we see that the, 12 tribes. Of Israel, they possess their land in the Promised Land and they won victories. But what kind of victory can we have if God's not reigning in our heart? What kind of possessions can we really possess if the possessions are now possessing us and if we make idols out of the things of creation?

And so we see that there's a time in which the kings are not established yet because before the Kings, there's these judges. And judges were the, people that God raised up as deliverers and they were deliverers to be those who were instruments of God's mercy. To allow them a time of refreshment and restoration, and the judges would see we, know Samuel was one of those key judges, but before that you had Samson and Gideon and Deborah, they were used by God to see Israel return back to God. But then they start looking around at the world, don't they, Bodie? And they want to be like the other nations, don't they?.

They do. They do. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So here so every time Israel repents, so this is God being faithful to the covenant because whenever they repent, God raises up a judge. Whatever they fall into idolatry, God backs off. Lets some of their neighbors who don't like them come in and overtake them for a time, always controlled by God.

And then they'll cry out again. And then ultimately it comes to Samuel, who you mentioned, Samuel, is a transition point at the end of number seven into. Because now, as Joey said, the people, they want to be like the other nations and God actually grants them this request knowing that even though it's not what's best for them, it's actually God is going to use it for his ultimate purposes.

So the nation of Israel, they go from a tribe, from 12 tribes to a single nation under the name Israel, originally given to Jacob, as Joey said. And so there are three kings that reign during. Number eight, the time when Israel is a single nation. The first one is Saul, followed by David and his son Solomon.

And then after that, some important stuff happens. But what's really important is that we see another covenant during this time, which is called the Davidic covenant, where God continually even more, It's like he's, linking with people more and more, the Davidic Covenant says that there will be a king from the line of David who will re reign and rule forever, and so that happens during number eight, the Nation of Israel.

But, now that they're, a single nation. A lot happens. There's a bunch of strife. And unfortunately we're gonna now transition to, group number three, the covenant challenged and talk about number nine, the nation splits and the Prophets arise.

Yeah, and, what I think might be even important just for those who are listening in to catch is that the nation of Israel got ahead of God, and requested a king earlier than was appointed by God. You mentioned the Davidic Covenant, but before they had David, they had Saul and, so I really wanna point out this, cause I think it really relates to why the nation even split later on is because when the hearts of people are comparing the, things of this world and making that the standard, rather than God's standard, we start looking at worldly standards.

It was why Saul was chosen the beginning. And then of course he was disqualified because he made an offering, he shouldn. And when David was chosen, do you remember even David wasn't even the first selection of when he, when Samuel got to Jesse's house, he had all of Jesse's sons standing there and they didn't think that he was one of the, One of the ones, and I bring this up to say Bodie, is because mankind is constantly trying to compare ourselves, compete with things to try to make a name for ourselves or to de be defined in our identity by the wrong thing.

David was a shepherd boy, and he was a man after God's own heart. So when we come into this covenant challenge number three, what we discover is that issue of being either a man after God's own heart, or having a heart after the things of the world. In number nine, what we see is that the Nation of Israel split uh, Solomon's son, Rehaboham, he became the next heir. And rather than showing grace and mercy to all the people, he followed his peers. He didn't listen to the older counselors.

And, what happened was they basically wanted to make things hard on, on all the different people they wanted to elevate their status. So Jeroboam became the king of the North in Israel. And Rehaboam was the king of the South, which we call the Kingdom of Judah. And, it, would be Judah, which is where Jerusalem is, that would really have the key focal point of the narrative of God, because that's where the temple would be.

That's where the promises would be, and that's where the prophetic voices would arise. These would be men who God would raise up because of the division of God's people. He raised up what was called seers at first, people who saw ahead of time things that were gonna take place, but they became God's messengers, the prophets.

Had major prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, they were minor prophets as you read in your Old Testament. But those prophets throughout the passing of generations, they tried to speak the word of God to bring them back to the standard of God and to

Yes.

Messiah.

Yeah, exactly.

what did God do to judge is we go into number 10, right?

Bodi,

Right.

Why don't you talk about.

Yeah, for sure. So, we have two nations that were, one, they were Israel, and then they split the north, as Joey said, retain the name Israel. The south was the only tribe that was still faithful to the covenant. You know, The tribe of Judah that God had selected. And so they both get overtaken.

So a number 10, it's called dispersion and exile. And what those refer to are the two ways that the North and the South lose their country, essentially the north is called dispersed. It's called the Assyrian dispersion. So Assyria becomes the world's superpower and they wipe out what was Northern Israel. So now it becomes ruled totally by Assyria, but Assyria does not conquer Judah.

And so Judah then becomes the only sliver of land remaining. Ultimately, they then fall 150 years later to King Nebuchadnezzar, who's led by the next ruling empire, which are the Babylonians. And so now this people are, exiled, they're spread out and they're exiled, but they still have the covenant promises.

And

Hmm.

what are we gonna do? We have no land. God promised us, a land. And so we know that God is always faithful to keep his promises right Joey? So that. So now that people are, exiled, what happens after that?

And we come into this now time of returning, rebuilding and restoring a and this is where God uses the likes of Zerubbabel, and Nehemiah and Ezra, and they begin to come back and they, rebuild the temple. They, rebuild the house of God. And with, that comes the restoration of the sacrifices.

It comes with the returning of the hearts of the people and back into the land. A remnant that establishes themself in the land. A and that's really something that we see the grace of God in, it's the grace of God that would allow things to be rebuilt up. It would be this temple, which would be the rebuilt temple that would eventually be the temple that Jesus would come in.

But there's a lot of returning to the law, the law of God was found. It was read, it was declared and, people were now coming back under the authority of God, the revelation. Of God is now back at the forefront of people's

Yes.

And that brings us into what we would call a period of time where the scriptures aren't being written for 400 years, it's called the Inter-Testimental Period. Uh, And and what happened there, Bodie, after this restoration that temples rebuilt, what kind of went on in this phase, this turning point of history.

Yeah, so this is important because this is the 400 years. There's the 400 years when the people are in Egypt, but there's another 400 years where there is no prophetic revelation. After Malachi, the last book of what we call the Old Testament. There's a 400 year time period until the beginning of what we call the New Testament, but a lot happens during that time.

Basically, you have a transition of empires. It goes from Babylon, to Persia, to Greece, and ultimately to Rome. But one of the key things that happens is that Alexander the Great Hellenizes the known world, Hellenization is, basically the spread of Greek culture, language, philosophy, and worldview. And so we have what's called the Greco-Roman world at the time of the beginning of the New Testament, meaning Rome becomes the dominant military superpower, but Greece still has prevailing influence on the culture.

But the question is, what do God's covenant people do in a world like this? And so the, the, the Inter-Testimental period doesn't take place in the Bible. But knowing all the things that happened, because the people of God almost get annihilated a number of times, but God is faithful to his people. He's faithful to keep his covenant, and we see the transition, the final Old Testament prophet becomes the transition point into stage four, the covenant completed. This is exciting cuz this is the culmination of the whole thing.

Yeah, this is where we can pick up the prophet Isaiah who says, Those who walked in darkness have seen a great light. We discovered that the last prophet of the Old Testament and who's the forerunner of the new is the voice of one crying in the wilderness. John the Baptist, begins to remind people that this is the time of the Messiah.

He says the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent, Turn your mind, change your ways. And he begins to baptize people in the river Jordan, and prepares them until he says there's one coming. Who I'm not even worthy to loosen his sandal strap and he's, and then all of a sudden, Jesus the Messiah is born in Bethlehem.

He comes in the scene, he's a cousin of John the Baptist, but Jesus is the greater light. John is the lesser light and he's testifying of him, preparing the way of the Lord, making straight the way the Lord. And so Jesus shows up. Number 13, the Messiah has come, Emmanuel God with us. This is the beginning of this fourth category, Bodie called the Covenant completed.

Jesus is the word that was made flesh and tabernacle or dwelt among us. And we be held his glory as the glory of the only begotten of the father full of grace and truth. Jesus lives 30 years just being an obedient son. Working as a carpenter, but then he starts his public ministry and he has a three and a half year ministry.

He calls disciples, he calls people to deny themselves, take up the cross daily and follow him, and Jesus begins to establish what kingdom living looks like. He begins to call people after himself. The Messiah is here. And he is going to this is the gospel. This is where he comes to seek and save that which is lost.

This is where everything

Right. Yep.

is the way, the truth in the life, The only way to the Father, and he's the one who dies on the cross for our sins, was buried and rises again. This is what the Messiah, the Christ that is the chosen one, the anointed one of Israel is all about and, the people who follow him. They make up what we would call. The early church what is that, Bodie? What's

the early

Yeah.

Well, So what's, incredible when we talk about covenant is that Jesus fulfills the covenant. So, So there's a covenant originally to Noah, there's a covenant to Abraham. There's a covenant that builds on that to Moses, which was for the people. And then ultimately we have what's called the new covenant.

So Jesus. He puts to bed the mosaic covenant based on law and sacrifice in the temple, and he himself inaugurates the new covenant. Jesus', life and death is really everything as this is the turning point. Everything has really been pointing to this, but what happens after? So Jesus, changes everything, right?

But then he leaves well. Why does he do that? He leaves because his, the spirit of God. We know that the, that God is a triunity father, son, and spirit. The Spirit is now empowering what we call the early church. The early church were started with the people, the disciples that Jesus trained directly to carry forth his message.

And so what happens is the early church starts in Jerusalem and it spreads outward to the region that Jerusalem is called Judea, which is the Roman name of Judah and then later what's called to the ends of the earth. So we see what's happened. The gospel, the message that, that Jesus has fulfilled, the covenants that sin is atoned for and sacrificed, now needs to go out to the whole world.

And that's what happens in number four, the early church. So there, So that's the story. We find that in the Book of Acts. But the Book of Acts is not the only book in our, what we would call the New Testament. So Joey, what is the New Testament and how, what role does it play in the story that we get to at this point?

Yeah so, the New Testament is this new covenant now that's in Jesus. It's based on the gospel that has now been completed in him, that he's died, He's buried, he's risen again. The opening verse of the Book of Acts is really helpful cuz it says Luke writes the former account I wrote to you oh Theophilus of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach.

Notice that it says, Both to do and to teach. This new covenant is now unfolding the Book of Acts. As you rightly said, Bodie is the early events and history of the early church, but the New Testament witness number 15, speaks of all these books now and churches that are established and the apostles who are the sent ones, the ones that Jesus originally poured into for his three and a half year ministry.

They saw his miracles, they heard his teachings. They witnessed the resurrection. They now write letters to the churches to make sure that they live as people of the kingdom where they are. These are the people who are manifesting the kingdom in their cities, but are still looking for the kingdom to come when Jesus comes back.

And so every one of the epistles comes with corrections, el collaborations of Jesus is teaching how to apply. The way of Christ in their life, in the different ways that they had to live in their cultures. And so the New Testament witnesses is really the Holy Spirit working through the believing churches as they lived out the teachings of Christ.

And it's

Right?

thing. And so we have the whole New Testament. Really giving us all the different important letters that we needed to know about life and godliness and, that's really where the church is even today.

Sure. Right, Exactly. Yeah, so I think you, So I hope you're asking the question, where do I fit? Because you, my friend, have been brought into this story. We are invited into this story. These covenants are important because the new covenant is the covenant that we are operating under now.

A covenant of forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God. And as Joey said, the reason why the New Testament is so important is because what it does is it, the beginning books, the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they give the accounts of Jesus' life. But the epistles books like Romans and First and second Corinthians and those type of books, they apply the full impact and meaning of what Jesus' life and ministry meant.

And then, so what's interesting is that there are events In the, in the New Testament, Joey, that have not yet happened yet. Which comes up toward the Book of Revelation and also throughout some of the epistles. But the church is the vehicle for God's presence in the world. It started in Jerusalem and Judea, in Acts, but my friend, you and I are invited into the church today, which is why the time between the Book of Acts, Today and what's coming is the church age.

Now the church is not a perfect thing. Jesus is a perfect savior. The church has made mistakes, but guess what? The church is where God works. And so for the past 2000 years of church history, God has been working today, God is working and God is gonna continue to work until some of the final events that have not yet taken place are going to happen. But nonetheless, God is calling us into His story.

Amen. And, that's what the great commission made possible. Jesus said, Go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them, the name of the Father's son and Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you, Bodie, we're here because the first disciples did their job and then on and on and on in every generation.

And so you're in California. I'm in New Jersey right now, and we know. The gospel is still going around the whole globe. And uh, And and, it's so important that we see that we are a part of the church now. We are the people who have been called out of darkness and into his marvelous light. We called on the name of Jesus and, we are answering the call of God.

And, so Bodie, we just hit all the turning points that we have in these four sections. The Covenant Conceived, the Covenant Confirmed, the Covenant Challenged, and the Covenant Completed. And, I wanna just bring, us to a close and land this plane, if we will, with one of the most amazing pictures to see.

Do you know that the whole Bible is God's redemptive story? His the Miseo Dei, the, mission of God? But do you know, there's only four chapters where there's no sin mentioned at all. And it's the first two chapters in Genesis and the last two chapters of Revelation, and they both are a picture of a marriage.

First we have a picture God creates Adam and Eve, and says, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and join his wife, and a two shall become one. That first picture, notice that God put Adam to sleep. He took something out of his side, he made into a woman who became his bride, and then he brought the woman to the man.

Adam said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh in my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of the man. Do you know that was a foreshadowing? Brothers and sisters out there, People listening in understand something. This was a foreshadowing of what God was ultimately gonna do. That was a marriage between one man and woman on earth.

But it was a foreshadowing of the ultimate covenant promise that God would unite himself with mankind. In the end, in the last couple chapters of Revelation, we see that there's a marriage, so to speak, in heaven between Christ and his bride, The

Wow.

and just like Adam was put to sleep and out of his side came a bride, Jesus was lifted up on the cross, put to sleep, literally put to death and out of his side, just like they pierced his side with a spear out came blood and water and a bride, a church was born one day that church will be brought to Jesus, the woman, the bride brought to Jesus. And that's why the Bible ends within the Spirit and the bride say, Come.

Amen. Oh my goodness.

between Christ and the church. Wow.

Yeah. Yeah. And the fact that we get invited into that God wants to know us, He wants to grow us, and he wants to transform us, but that so much has happened before us and we don't know how much is yet to come, but nonetheless, your life matters. You have been brought into this story, and if you've not yet treasured Christ. We both, our lives, Jesus has been the turning point of our lives, and so

Amen.

you to continue to seek him. But that's what I hope that we've did, Joey. What a great job you've done. Just helping us just see some of these points.

When we, I went, there's so much that we weren't able to say today. So what we wanna do I hope that this was helpful for you and just understanding some of the structure of the Bible

because when we talk about the story of the Bible as a whole, now what we wanna do, we went pretty quickly today, didn't we? So, yeah. So yeah, that's okay.

cuz we, we did add some stuff,

We added some stuff. Yeah. But what we wanna do is we know that we went pretty quickly, and so what we wanna do in our next episode in episode three, we wanna go back and we wanna give another episode for each of these four sections. And then once we feel like we've done that, I think that you will feel ready to really start to go book by book.

And we're gonna really start at that point to analyze, each book and how they offer it, kind of in the format we talked about in episode one. But before we get to the individual books, we want to talk about these four groups that we've looked at. The Covenant Conceived, the Covenant Confirmed, Challenged and Completed. And so what we're gonna do at our next episode is we

wanna talk just about this one, The covenant conceived. We wanna give a little more time to these first four turning points. God, in the creation order, there were stuff we couldn't say about that, that we'd love to the Creation and fall of man, the flood and the new beginning and the call of Abraham.

So what we wanna do is, is we wanna just wish you blessing, grace in peace. Joey, you get the last word. But I am so excited about this series because I hope that this helps equip people to know and study the Bible.

Amen. Bodie, all I can say is that brothers and sisters get into this book. It's the only book that will reveal what's inside your heart, but it will take us into the heart of God.

And so we invite you to just fall in love with the Bible and in doing so, you're gonna fall in love with Jesus.

And that's our ultimate plan. That's our ultimate goal. And we're gonna do all that we can to help you to

Amen.

learn it well, so that you

Amen.

it well and follow Jesus. So

Amen.

and thank you so much for taking this journey with us. We got a lot more to come

A lot more to come. All right. Episode three, The Covenant Conceived. Next time, we'll see you later. God bless you.

God bless you.

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