What You Need to Understand God’s Big Idea

…three narratives, which woven together, tell the epic story of God’s ageless purpose…taken together, they embody God’s grand mission in the earth…they help us to understand the story of the Bible, the Christian life, and our world….they embody the story of the Bible…the Father obtains a bride for His Son by the Spirit. He then builds a house in which He, the Son, and the bride dwell together in the Spirit. The Father, the Son, and the bride live in that house as an extended household and they have offspring by the Spirit. The offspring constitutes a family, a new humanity called the body of Christ…that purpose is the very reason you exist.

-Frank Viola (@frankviola), From Eternity to Here

The Story of the Bible

When you read the Bible, do you read it like a love letter?  Do you read it like a movie in which you are part of the cast?  Or do you read it trying to find out “how to live a christian life,” like an instruction manual for how to perform better in your life?  The truth is that the story of the Bible is not the last one.  It’s the previous two.  When attempting to figure out how to learn the Bible to allow it to show you what it’s about, you first need to get to know the 3 main narratives that show you God’s big idea; what He was after that motivated him to create.

Understanding Purpose

Your purpose is found in your role in God’s purpose for Himself.  If you’ve ever thought about how to find a purpose in life, this is the place to start.  These 3 stories unlock for us the human understanding of that purpose.  It can be hard to remember what life is for as we go through our days with a laser focus on our own individual purposes.  But, when we look at our existence in light of God’s thoughts regarding it; that changes everything.

One Goal

All 3 stories give us beautifully different perspectives of the same goal.  What is that goal?  For God to become all in all (I Cor. 15:28).  He has given us these 3 perspectives to help us understand who it is we really are inside of that goal.  Remember, we are fighting against all of the lies that are fed to us on a daily basis since we were born.  The more you can re-train yourself to believe the stories God has given us, the more we will be delivered from those things that do not bring life.  What are those stories?  Stay tuned…

Your turn: Were you aware that there were 3 main narratives woven throughout the Bible?  If so, when did you find out and how did this impact your Christian life?  If not, how has the way you read the Bible changed over time as you’ve learned more about God?

*The first post for this book is here. The next post is here.