06: Biblical Storyline

Question 1

How do we read the Bible?

Answer 1

1. Pietism - seeking a spiritual experience, a heart response
2. Doctrinalism - as a body of information and propositions of truth
3. Moralism - as an ethical rule

Question 2

What does Poythress mean about “multi-perspectivism”?

Answer 2

Because the Bible warrants all three views of Scripture-reading, we may only notice what we’re looking for.

Question 3

What is the problem of fragmenting ways of reading the Bible?

Answer 3

We can miss that the minor parts fit into a unifying story across the Bible.

Question 4

What makes Scripture a coherent, unified revelation?

Answer 4

The meta-genre of Scripture is narrative, a story.

Question 5

What is the essence of the Christian religion as a story?

Answer 5

That “the creation of the Father, devastated by sin, is restored in the death of the Son of God, and re-created by the Holy Spirit into the kingdom of God”.

Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics 1:89

Question 6

What is the importance of story?

Answer 6

Like all worldviews and metanarratives, a story claims to explain:

1. the way things are
2. how they have come to be so
3. and what they will ultimately be

A story is a rendering of reality. An account of the universe we inhabit and of the new creation we are destined for.

Question 7

What are the fundamental elements of a story?

Answer 7

1. Introduction: the setting of the context of the story
2. Conflict: the dramatic problem of the story
3. Resolution of the conflict
4. Conclusion

Question 8

What is the biblical storyline?

Answer 8

1. Creation
2. Rebellion
3. Redemption
   
   • Israel
   • Christ
   • Church
4. Restoration

Question 9

What is the Structure of creation?

Answer 9

What God has made, he has made good and has a good will for it.

Question 10

What is the Direction?

Answer 10

The responsive character of what God has made.

1. Sin does not belong to the structure of things
2. Sin misdirects God’s creation away from him.
3. Though touched by sin, the creation remains good.
4. Sin is blasphemous in the sense that it uses God’s things contrary to his purpose

Question 11

Recite 1 Timothy 4:4-5

Answer 11

For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

Question 12

What is the rebellion story of Genesis 3?

Answer 12

1. Human being is guilty
2. God is not the source, the cause or the author of human rebellion (Eccl. 7:29)
3. As the imago dei, human’s sin brought about the curse of all creation.
   
   • Moral response is never and individual, private matter
   • God’s “very good” still holds, but in some mysterious way, sin bear its effect on creation.

Question 13

How are we to understand the spiritual warfare between good and evil?

Answer 13

Not dualism, because the enmity between the two forces does not coincide between two parts of reality; as if one was holy and the other unholy, one righteous and the other unrighteous. It is a directional antithesis.

Both God and Satan lay claim to all reality.

Question 14

Recite Ecclesiastes 7:29

Answer 14

See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.

Question 15

What is the goal of Grace?

Answer 15

Grace is about the removal of sin and the restoration of creation.

• It creates no new cosmos, but rather makes the cosmos new.
• “Christ came not for the destruction of the world, but for its deliverance” (Calvin)

Question 16

What do we mean by ‘redemption’?

Answer 16

• to buy back
• reconciliation
• to return