Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture

A book review of Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture by Graeme
Goldsworthy
Content:
Graeme Goldsworthy begins “Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture” by explaining the importance of preaching, and how it is the very act of what the local church lives to do in the hearts of people. He starts by using the text of 1 Corinthians 2:2 to show how Paul constantly addresses the main issue of his letters always being Christ first. He then continues to argue how it is easily miss interrupted when preaching the stories of men in the Old Testament. Christians today do not understand that Christ is the center of the New Testament as well Old Testament. What most Christian do today is live like the Gospel was an event, and they do not actually see its whole role through-out Scriptures. When we believe that the Gospel is an event, it does not become a lifestyle as it was meant to be. This means that the gospel must be the center of our own thinking. We must remember as Christians that the Gospel is central not only to our minds and thinking but central to the Bible and theology as well. The Bible brings this to a climax when it points Christ on the cross because that is when freedom comes from the Law.
Also I understand the meaning of what an evangelical person is. It is a Gospel person. A Gospel person is someone who accepts biblical authority in all areas of life. The Bible started from the beginning when God said “let there be” (Genesis 1:3) and there was light. What His Word says has always been and will always be final in a Christian’s life.
The Bible has been under attack since the Enlightenment with the rejection of God. That is when a change in a man’s mind start to question the Word of God. They question the truth and unity of God‘s Word and even God Himself. With this they have started to treat individuals in the Bible as examples of how to live, missing the true mark of the work of God. The center of the Bible is Christ and not individual’s writings or stories. This is where many theologians and pastors have taken God’s Word out of context and have mislead congregations.
Then I see how God calls His people to live and serve Him. It is never the man going to do a work for God because they want to, but God doing the work in the man. God called Abraham and Moses to do His will and work in order that they may serve Him because He wants His Glory. The only way men found God was first set with God calling them out of Egypt. The example of Egypt shows that God is first and not something we think of after our story of the wilderness.
The question in chapter three is “what is biblical theology?” It is about the quest for the big picture, or what is the main focus of the Bible through its’ revelation. Preaching with a purpose should always bring people back to that focus. Today liberal theology has made it seem that God was not up to the task of saying and showing what He wanted in ways humans today can understand. This destroys the message of the Word of God. We look at the Old Testament not as theology but as some historical record. This is critical because we must look at the Bible as a whole historical event and not merely a number of them just thrown together. Through this we must remember Scripture stands alone. This is only when biblical theology works in understanding that we do not need man’s presumptions, theory, or methods that fragment the Word.
This is where we look for the starting point of the message the Bible is trying to show to us. The message is Christ with the work in the New Testament and fulfilling the Old Testament while waiting for His kingdom. Jesus is the goal of the Old Testament and is fulfilling the goal in the New. So why not would this not be the key message of scripture? We cannot take the message as meanings or reasons how we want to but must see what the writers understood from their own historical context. We must be concerned with how God’s character is reveled at the given time, not what we want to say. This is the function of biblical theology. We must watch the still shots of what put all together show the message of God’s Word.
The last content in this chapter shows the story of redemption throughout the Word. Man looks at history as events and does not place them together unlike Scripture which is a series of events divinely ordered for a purpose. With this it is seen how God fulfills past events and placed them together to make known His message. This is were salvation is shown. Redemption is shown theological, historical, and liturgical in God’s Word. The literature of God’s Word works to convey His message. This is the very important aspect of the context of any biblical text.
The very act of preaching from the beginning has never been to give a new opinion or creative way but to proclaim the Word of God. No matter what the form that was used the gospel was always proclaimed which was the reason for the numbers of people added to the church. Seeing how Jesus Christ preached and taught the Scriptures helps us understand the way we need to study for ourselves, and the way we need to get across the message of the Scriptures. One of the ways in doing this is to become sensitive to the Christology in the New Testament. The key point is that Christ did not come to wipe out the Old Testament or even start something all together different, but He came to fulfill the teaching and the leading up of what there was in the Scriptures of Him. In this we see how Jesus is a biblical theologian, and that the Old Testament is needed to enable us to interpret the New Testament. Seeing the gospel in the New Testament shows us what the Old Testament was all about and give reasoning more then just itself.
My last concern from reading this text is knowing the context in which the Bible was written. How the Word God leads and then shows the redemptive work of Christ. How can one teach, study, preach, and learn the bible without explaining the gospel of Christ? It seems to me that sometimes man makes the focus on some kind of emphasis and misses the mark of the true meaning in Scripture. This is due to man’s mindset of Scripture. Without great bible theology, there is always a misinterpreting of the Scriptures. Making sermons and devotions to fit one’s mind or for an emphasis that you want to get across is dangerous. There needs to always be a clear exposition of the gospel throughout any text. Although there is much in the Bible that is not strictly speaking of the gospel there is not anything in the Bible that can be understood without the gospel.
Key Insights:
The biggest insight that I first came to was how so many preachers today miss the mark. The mark of the Bible started out with Christ. During the writing of the books and of the Bible, the focus was Christ, so with this question I ask “why would Christ not be the focus now?” I see how we rob Christ of His glory when we preach about Moses, David, or Peter without referring to what was behind these men. What was the focus of the men when they wrote. These men are used to be illustrations to direct us to the glory of the reason the Bible was written, the glory being Christ.
Another insight is how God used Christ as the center of the New Testament doing what we could not, which is bring us depraved humans to God. Stories like Moses leading the Jews out of the wilderness are not meant to look at the work of the depraved man, but to see the story that starts with Christ leading His people with great redemption. This salvation in the Old Testament is the same salvation that Christ would live out in paying for our debt to His Father. These works of Noah, Moses, and others are not the work of man but of God’s sovereign work to bring man back to Him through redemption. With this thought, we see God always at the beginning of any task, situation, or trial we are given and not to let our minds run wild with focus on our human minds.
The first insight in chapter two is the fact that I will not rob the God that sent His Son of what is His. His work, the Bible, is meaningful, and this was all done for the glory and honor of God. It is not for me to lift up a sinner like Noah or a sinner like Moses, but to see how God is in control and what the work of His design and will has been and is today. Not one of these men would lift themselves up and say “live after me.” They would always direct their work(s) back to God who had place all things.
My favorite idea I learned in this chapter is preaching from the Bible without the gospel makes life become a legalistic reasoning. How and why we do things for Christ should be true love from our hearts behind what we do. A message without the gospel brings no relief to life. How can a man bring a message without the reasoning of it being grace. Without grace it leaves no hope for the hearers of the Word.
One thing I noticed right away was how much we as Christians miss the message of the Bible because our focus is a story or event we like to read. When I teach a message or a piece of Scripture I must always remember what its meaning was for the purpose of God’s Word. Without the riches of Christ shown in a message leaves the reasoning behind any message without hope and the true meaning of joy. We must show the relationship between passages to have properly preached Christ. This is were the enrichment comes to the listener knowing the reasoning of how a passage has hope, victory, and grace. Knowing these things show a proper view of what God meant for His Word to show, that is His Son.
Another key insight I have done much thinking about was the fact that Christ declares Himself the goal of the sovereign work of His Father. Thinking about this made me think about how much we Christians really tend to miss that mark and especially in our Christian educations. I see an extreme need for a course of correct biblical theology and not some light, simple, feel good class that allows the hearer to be perverse in their own thinking about Jesus Christ. Most schools and even churches today have a weak understanding of the Old Testament, and with this comes a weak understanding of the gospel. Therefore, both schools and churches need proper biblical theology.
The Bible is primarily about God, not man, and about Jesus and his saving act. The key is to take the focus on Christ and not man, then a sermon that has been enriched with the depths of the fullness of Jesus and His true redemption work and not merely some mind set upon a sinner that can never have hope in himself when focused on nothing but himself. To preach, speak, and even teach about man’s problems, situations, life, and so on without the significance of the gospel is to take God’s Word way out of understanding and completely go against it by saying that we must not understand the humanity in Scripture. To preach a message or study the Word focused toward humans and their nature without hope, joy, and the gospel is like perverting one’s mind and not giving one’s problems, trails, and life theology correctly.
Preachers and studiers must be careful not to try to be relevant to humans just because they think they need it. A sermon that is made for entertainment for church or class is wrong in every way. This takes a mindset that must have already formed ideas and is prejudice towards something or even maybe someone. In that mindset of studying and relaying the Scripture is not the reasoning we should teach the Word. Preach the Word being as pure in mind and in life as possible with and open mind set and heart that will allow yourself to even learn more than the audience.
When studying a passage or book of the Bible, it must in some way testify to Christ and His gospel as God meant it for salvation. So therefore we must not go into the Scripture looking for text that makes one feel good or be on the “outlook” for a phase of something that will help man, but we must dig deep into theology and then see that Jesus has gave us victory and redeemed us from hell, there realizing that stories within the Story will help one find the true meanings of Scripture and life changes and not fuzzies nor changes that do not last, but the gospel changes lives.
Some more insights that have made me think for my own personal use as far as preaching and teaching is how we make teaching and preaching to sound simple. This hurts the hears ears to get a wrong view of what it is supposed to be. By making a message sound simple for a audience is making one’s message fit for your own self. Who are we to pick and choose how to make something “sound good” or to fit for ones ears. We should never lessen any bit of the Word to entertain ones wants or likes, but preach the Word with fullness and richness that it has.
I found in reading this book telling one that they need to choose from heaven or hell is not giving the gospel. One must explain that true repentance and faith go hand in hand. This is a free gift from the Holy Spirit that God has given us through his Son Jesus Christ. Without being given a true gospel it might be as if I have lessened the gospel and made it sound like a free gift that anyone could have. Only if they have repented and turned from sin, knowing that their faith they now have in Christ was only given to them from Christ by which God has done and not any man’s message or decision.
Lastly, I see and hear preachers today preach a message so lawful in teaching what we must do. They never explain about what God has done but rather explain how we can get ourselves right before the eyes of the Lord, yet seems like we can without Christ. A message that never explains where our hope lies, and where we can find a Savior that has already gave grace in order to change our lives for him. A message without Christ always shows law. Preaching lawful sermons undermines the thinking of a congregation and not revealing the true mystery of the Gospel which lead them to God.
Critique:
This might have been the hardest and longest book I have read in a long time. I have never learned so much from one book in my life. I can not thanks Mr. Goldsworthy enough for his time and his thought and mindset upon the Scriptures for showing my eye, mind, and heart things in the Word of God I have never seen. What I love most about this book was that fact that my own messages, devotions, and studies have changed more in depth with the intellection on Scriptures that I can only start to use in my life to turn it into a loving relationship my own personal Savior Jesus Christ.
The book knowledge has helped me so well that I may now get a more correct view on what the Gospel truly is and has done already in my life, not to mention what it will continue to do in my life from this day on. From seeing how to make a better interpretation of Scripture from different areas in the Word I now see that the Bible is not merely stories of individuals. A story of people that make thee story of Christ so much richer and so much more meaningful in my own life. When I read I can see for myself the divine plan that God had set out for my own soul. I can only try to grasp the grace of God’s glory that is shown throughout the Bible and actually know with a more in-depth understanding the reasoning behind Christ’s payment on the cross. Now knowing that one must have an understanding of the Old Testament to see what the New Testament is about and get a grip of it, I see how little I even know about the Old Testament. I need to start to know and learn more about what God made known to the writer and hearer of the Word in the Old Testament so that I can see even more than I do now about what the New Testament has for my life.
As for my preaching and speaking on the Word, it will never be the same! I have just started to realize how much it means to preach the Word. Just how much it means to make it clear but make it correct in the eyes of the Lord and not man. It is not meant for entertainment but to correct one mind and view of just what God has set it for in order to make my own and my audience’s pursuit of holiness even more pure till the day we meet Christ. I know can see how the stories in the Old Testament lead up to thee story, and how the books of the Bible go hand and hand in order to show Christ amazing love for his people. When seeing this preaching is never the same. In your preaching want to actually show the hope in a message and give hope in what happened in my own life giving the giver of grace the glory and not myself in any decision or preaching of what I would do. I want others to after a message see how that Christ is our ability to find hope and our giver in our faith that we might actually be able to see just in order what is the purpose of the bible.
In ending this I want to show how to see the big picture in small pictures throughout the book of thee book helps me see just how amazing redemption is. I can see even now one can preach or even study a story without seeing what its’ reasoning behind the story was for. From Noah to Abraham, Moses to David, and to the decline of the Lord’s people there after all I can now say is that I do not want to lose sight of what the Lord is doing in the world with his people. Nor do I ever want to think for a moment that I can not explain or teach this to others. I want others to have a correct view on His word. I want others to see His grace. I want others to have His faith, and not just for their entertainment. I do not want man to be happy with milk every time they study or hear the word, but I want them to taste the meat God has given so they can fall more in love with Him. He is their Messiah who has laid out His life and His purposes throughout His Word for his chosen people.