This is the seventh in a series of eight videos refreshing steps and tool in the Pathways Bible Study method. I welcome you to view and enjoy and utilize principles found in this video (at bottom of post), particularly if you are familiar with the Pathways study method. Again, these videos are designed for global pastors who have previously been through our workshops, but who would benefit from some “refreshing” of basic principles.

In this brief video, the focus is on a very important step in the Pathways process called the Whole Story of the Bible. This step is particularly important for helping New Covenant believers today understand and apply Old Covenant (Old Testament) passages appropriately.

We defined the Whole Story of the Bible in this way: “The Bible is the story of God and His progressive plan to redeem a sinful people to Himself, through Christ, for His glory.”

Two important questions we ask tied with the Whole Story are:

1. How does the message of this text add to our understanding of the Whole Story of the Bible?
2. How does the Whole Story of the Bible help us better understand this text? 

In this way, grasping the Whole Story of the Bible is like looking at the larger biblical context for any passage. When studying a passage, we look at surrounding verses, and we look beyond that to chapters and even the flow of the entire book. But we also want to see where any passage in the Bible fits into the larger context of the whole Bible, which will radically affect our understanding of the passage. One way of understanding this is shown through this diagram of a progressive incline of revelation and understanding as the timeline progresses:

We view any passage in the Bible from our perspective having all of Scripture to help us with our understanding. This is particularly important in the Old Testament, when Old Covenant Jews had a different perspective, before the cross of Christ. Now that we are under the New Covenant because of Christ, we preach Old Testament texts differently than if we were still living under the Old Covenant. We see the precursor to the New Covenant in the Abrahamic Covenant in the Old Testament, which was rooted in faith, not in works. The Mosaic (Old) Covenant emphasized obedience resulting in blessing, but disobedience resulted in judgment. The story of Israel was that they could never measure up to God’s righteous standard, so the Law showed them (and us) that we can’t get to God through our efforts, no matter how hard we may try. Instead, “Abram believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.” (Gen. 15:6) The way we visualize this is with this diagram:

In one paragraph in the Whole Story workshop, we state, “The message of the Whole Story of the Bible, all the way from Genesis to Revelation, is that God has planned throughout history to reconcile His people to Himself. He has now completed that plan, forgiving us and declaring us right with Himself, through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ. He has poured out His Spirit upon us and given us new hearts. We have become one with Him and will enjoy His blessing forever. All of this is a gift of His sovereign grace.”

A couple of other elements we emphasize in this workshop are:

1. Learning how to understand Old Testament passages from New Testament writers. Much of the Old Testament is quoted in the New Testament, so we see a Whole Story understanding by viewing how these writers understand Old Testament passages in light of the work of Christ.
2. Preaching the Old Testament as a Christian. How do we move to Christ from the Old Testament when his name is never mentioned there? Some passages point directly to Jesus, and others do not, but we can always move to Christ by first preaching the Old Testament text and then moving through the Whole Story to how New Testament believers can apply principles found in that passage.

Considering the Whole Story of the Bible is an essential part of careful Bible study. Although this video only touches a bit on Whole Story, hopefully it will help to refresh principles you’ve studied previously. I hope you enjoy this video!