Reading the Bible as a Story
Every once in a while I witness a scene in a movie or television that taps into something deep and wows me. I saw one such scene last week.
Mr. Robot is a story about a computer hacker named Elliot who finds himself recruited into a conspiracy to bring down the global banking system. It shares a lot of themes and motifs with one of my favorite movies, but to share which one gives away some of the major plot points of season 1.
I’m now midway into season 2 (please don’t tell me how it ends), and there’s one particular scene in episode 4 (“eps2.2_init_1.asec”) that leapt out of the screen at me. Elliot, a character paralyzed by social anxiety, is lying in bed, considering a conversation he’s had with another character early in the episode, and begins to dream:
If I do close my eyes, what is it that I picture years from now?
Like Leon said: Doesn’t everyone need to understand that before they’re ready to fight for their existence?
How will my future fairy tale unfold?
Will I finally connect with those I deeply care for?
Will I reunite with old friends long gone?
See the ones I love find true happiness?
Maybe this future includes people I’d never dream of getting close to.
Even make amends with those that I have unfairly wronged.
A future that’s not so lonely.
A future filled with friends and family.
You’d even be there.
The world I’ve always wanted.
And you know what, I would like very much to fight for it.
With those closing lines, all the characters of the story, allies and enemies, embrace with laughter around a banquet table in the middle of the street. A skyscraper, the EvilCorp headquarters, crumbles in the background, and they all cheer. Elliot smiles for the first time in the show.
And that, my friends, is the story of God summed up in one image: The table of reconciliation and evil undone.
From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible unfolds a story about God. It’s a story about God making the world, of evil un-making God’s good world, and of God rescuing and remaking the world again.
This is important because, in the West, we’ve been trained to read the Bible as a collection of thingsabout God, a depository of information about God, like an encyclopedia or dictionary. Just random facts, do’s and don’t’s strung together. Perhaps you’ve heard an acronym for “bible” as “basic instructions before leaving earth.”
But the reality is it’s something all together much different from that. Something much more exciting and inspiring.
I like to think of it in terms of five big movements: Our story is the story of the Church. And the story of the Church is the story of Jesus. And the story of Jesus is the story of Israel. And the story of Israel is the story of the God who made and is remaking the world.
Creation. Fall. Israel. Jesus. Church.
Creation
God made the world. Before we know God as father, king, judge, shepherd or any other of the biblical metaphors, we see God as creator, maker, architect, creative. God makes things. God makes good things. God makes human beings in his image. There is shalom—everything in its right place. And there is sabbath—celebration and enjoyment of God’s good world. These are the stories in Genesis 1 and 2, which are themselves, two distinct accounts of how God made the world.
Fall
But human beings said this was not enough. This is humanity’s rebellion against God. This is the unraveling of all of God’s good world. All hell is unleashed, and Sin and Death, like two rampaging monsters, come smashing and crashing. This is Adam’s world, a world where relationships between people and God are destroyed. A world where relationships between people are destroyed. Where people internally are destroyed. Where humanity’s relationship to the rest of creation is destroyed. This is not only the story of Genesis 3, of Adam and Eve, but the story of all humanity all the way thru chapter 11.
The story of Israel
But God has a plan. And I find it helpful to think of this story of Israel in the Old Testament in five mini-movements:
Abraham
God singles out one man, and essentially tells him that through him and his family, God is going to make everything right, going to put the world back together. And Abraham says, “Okay.” These are the stories in Genesis, starting with chapter 12.
Moses
Generations later, this family finds itself the slave labor of Egypt, the most powerful nation of the ancient world. God chooses Moses to lead the people out of slavery in Egypt. Caught between the sea and the Egyptian military, the people of Israel think all is lost. But God makes a way through the sea, and they are rescued. This is the defining moment in the Old Testament. God is a God who rescues.
The people come to a mountain where God provides the Law, like a new operating system for how to be human beings. God is also a God who makes promises. God makes provisions for a tabernacle so that God can live with the people. And they begin a journey to the land where they can be a new nation. This is the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
David
Again, generations later, once the people are settled in the Promised Land, David becomes king over Israel. He’s a larger-than-life character. For the first time, that nation expands its borders and experiences peace. It’s the Golden Age of Israel. God makes a promise to David that one of his ancestors will rule over God’s people forever. And God offers instructions for a permanent temple where God can dwell among the people. The books of 1 and 2 Samuel have the stories of David.
Exile
But the people have a hard time keeping God’s instructions. Sin is a tough habit to break. The nation fractures in two. In time, the northern nation (called “Israel”) is overtaken by the Assyrian Empire. A little over a hundred years later, the southern nation (called “Judah”) is besieged by the Babylonians. The temple is destroyed. The few survivors are marched into exile. It’s like “the Fall” happening all over again.
This is recorded in the final tragic chapters of 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles. The book of Jeremiah is a first hand account of the tragedy with the book of Lamentations being a poetic reflection on the aftermath. Stories like that of Daniel and Esther take place during the exile in Babylon.
Return
After 70 years, the Persian Empire has overtaken Babylon, and a new king allows a remnant of the Jews to return to their homeland. It’s like entering the Promised Land all over again. The people return, but they’re returning to ruins. They begin to rebuild the city of Jerusalem, as well as a new temple where they can worship and experience God’s presence again.
Jesus
Over the course of 400 years, the Persians are overtaken by the Greeks who are replaced by the Romans. And in that time, the Jews are, at best, seen as strange neighbors, and at worst, threats to national imperial security that should be exterminated. They may reside in their own Promised Land, but they have no king, and they may as well still live in exile.
It’s into this dark and hopeless world that the baby Jesus is born in a manger. As a man, Jesus heals the sick. He raises the dead. He teaches about the kingdom of God. He eats with the poor and “sinners.” He challenges the institutional religion. He draws a following that wants to make him king. And all of the above gets him publicly executed.
But three days later, God raises Jesus from the dead. With the resurrection, the course of human history is forever changed. This is moment the tide turns. The momentum of history towards the chaos of Sin and Death reverses towards the order of God’s good creation all over again. This is the answer to God’s promise to Abraham that through his family God would put the world right again. This is the stories found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Church
Jesus recruited 12 followers, a symbolic putting back together of the 12 tribes of Israel that had been scattered in exile. In the Church, Jesus provides a new, alternative way of living in the world. He charged his followers with being witnesses to the kingdom of God—to the shalom of God (everything in its right place), and to the sabbath of God (the celebration and enjoyment of God’s good world).
The followers of Jesus are a sign to the world of the radical reconciliation possible now because of what Jesus has done. “Look, I am making everything new,” says the risen Jesus, and the church participates in Jesus’ work putting the world back together again. When Jesus talked about the end of everything, he described a banquet. The image in the book of Revelation is a wedding feast.
And each time the Church celebrates communion, it remembers the last meal Jesus shared with his disciples before his death. It remembers God’s rescue from Egypt (which is what Jesus was doing with his disciples). And it looks forward to that final banquet when evil is finally eliminated forever, an image not unlike the one portrayed in Mr. Robot. This is the story in the rest of the New Testament, which is the manifesto of the Church.
It is a story that doesn’t allow us to sit and watch. It compellingly invites us ever deeper. Our story is the story of the Church. And the story of the Church is the story of Jesus. And the story of Jesus is the story of Israel. And the story of Israel is the story of the God who made and is remaking the world.
This is the story of God.
I can’t take credit for any of these ideas. One book, in particular, I owe a great deal to is Epic of Eden by Sandy Richter. Another is The Story of God, the Story of Us by Sean Gladding, which takes a narrative approach. N.T. Wright’s Scripture and the Authority of God and Scot McKnight’s The Blue Parakeethave also shaped my understanding of the Bible. You should check them all out.