From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible tells one grand story - the true story of the whole world. This grand story provides the essential context for humanity to understand its place and purpose in the world! And this grand story begins with creation and the one true God who created everything magnificently good. To complete his creation God made humanity, in his likeness, to be stewards of creation and to magnify God’s blessing and goodness throughout the whole world.

So many of us are confused by the Bible because we've been taught to see it as disconnected moral stories, but it's so much more than that. The Bible is actually a brilliant, unified library revealing how we got here and how God, through Jesus, is making all things right and new.

One of our greatest problems with the Bible lies in a fundamental glitch in our understanding of it—where it came from, what it’s for, and how we’re meant to engage with it—creating a paradox we rarely stop to question.

[The Bible] does not flatter us, it does not seek to please us. We enter [into it] to meet God as he reveals himself, not to look for truth or history or morals that we can use for ourselves. What he insisted on supremely was that we do not read the Bible in order to find out how to get God into our lives, get him to participate in our lives. That’s getting it backwards. — Eugene Peterson

Let’s be honest, there are some complicated parts of the Bible that we have problems with. The challenge then becomes, what do we do with them? Part of our series called ‘The Bible & Authority’ takes a deep dive into how we address that problem.

Our first series within The Year of Biblical Literacy is ‘The Bible & Authority.’ In it, we’re taking a deep dive into the problems we have with the Bible, the reason for the Bible, the origins of the Bible, and the meaning of the Bible. We’re including this page with a list of additional resources.

“The love of God is one of the greatest realities of the universe, a pillar upon which the hope of the world rests. But it is a personal, intimate love—simple yet profound—known to every believer who has felt the weight of its truth.” — A.W. Tozer

“The love of God is one of the greatest realities of the universe, a pillar upon which the hope of the world rests. But it is a personal, intimate love—simple yet profound—known to every believer who has felt the weight of its truth.” — A.W. Tozer

Isaiah 9:2–7 teaches us to reflect on God’s revelation his people, ulitmately celebrating Christ’s transformative work that brings light, peace, and redemption, and calls believers to respond with faith and wonder.