The Bible Tapestry Volume I

When reading the Bible and focusing on particular chapters, books or verses it is easy for us to get immersed in the details and to momentarily lose our appreciation for the Bible as a whole. It is not prudent to take out one chapter, one verse or even one book and focus on it in isolation. Such a practice often leads to conflicting opinions and bitter debate. Understanding and studying the Bible as a whole is very important, because every chapter and every verse was written with the intention that it be read in context, in relation to the whole. God revealed the Bible to us as a text, not a picture or a scientific formula. The word text comes from the Greek word textus from which we get the word textile closely related to fabric. As is the case in a piece of fabric, all of the "fibers" of this text are woven together. The finished product can be considered a tapestry composed of many threads, which portrays an entire story. It is a story that moves in a linear fashion. One way to study the Bible is to examine the tapestry up close and to investigate and study each knot, every dye, perhaps even inspecting the reverse side to see how the knots have been tied. Many Bible scholars focus on each knot and every dye and are able to extract a great wealth of information out of each element. Our purpose in this study is to take a step back and look at the tapestry in its entirety. This is admittedly a limited view, but is also one of the many approaches to studying the Bible.

Dettagli