The Big Picture

At the beginning of the week I was told that I would be going through the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation in one week, I thought this was crazy! There is so much in the Bible, how could we possibly go through it in just three days? Mr. Mike Aleckson, our guest speaker came prepared to walk us all the way through. We started our week off with defining worldview as a frame of how one sees existence. We also learned that a Biblical worldview could be drawn out as a ray, with the starting point being Genesis 1:1 and our last at Revelation 22.

     The first day we reviewed over the history of the Old Testament.  I thought it was really interesting to learn about all the different covenants.  I learned that a covenant is not just a promise; it is a promise with rules. We looked at the Adamic (Genesis 2:16-17), Noahic (Genesis 6:8), Abrahamic (Genesis 17:2), Mosaic (Exodus 19:5), Davidic (2 Samuel 7), and the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34). It was interesting to see God’s faithfulness through all of these covenants.

     Early in the week we read Matthew 5:48, “you therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”   This verse didn’t sit well with me because we are all sinful and now this verse was telling me that I must be perfect? It wasn’t until our last session that learned the true meaning behind this verse. We had to look at the origin of the Greek word telos and teleion to see what perfect really means in this passage. Telos is Greek for goal or purpose while teleion is Greek for perfect, so when it says we must become perfect, it really means that we are to fulfill the purpose for which we were created. By going back to the origin of the Greek word we were able to see what the author of this passage was trying to convey.

      Mr. Aleckson had us draw out a timeline beginning with Genesis 1:1 and ending with Revelation 22. A common misconception after looking at the timeline of the Bible was that the Old Testament was concerned more with outward actions, while the New Testament was concerned with inward beliefs. Anyone can believe, the Bible says that even demons believe, but Ephesians 2:8 tells us that “faith without works is dead”.  Christianity is not a works based religion but our beliefs should influence our actions. Therefore because we believe in God, we should want to honor and obey Him in all that we do.

Our last point on our timeline was Revelation 22. This was just a great reminder of what the Kingdom of Heaven will be like. We concluded our week with looking at the big picture of how we can live for the Kingdom in our daily lives. It’s important for us to live out our beliefs and use the talents that God has given us to spread his word and bring Him glory in all that we do.