Sermon Cloud

Teachers of Bible study and reading repeatedly stress three things crucial to the art of mining the Scriptures--context, context, and context. Among other things, context involves getting into the heads (the way of life, the thinking patterns, the culture) of the original author and intended recipients of the Scriptural text. Twenty-first century America is a far cry from the ancient Near East of Abraham's day, and for that reason one of the Bible's major unifying themes may elude us. That theme is "covenant." Unlike today, where the idea of covenant is relegated to a few cultural practices (such as marriage), covenant was a central component of society, both on individual and global levels. Therefore, when the early Hebrews read and heard of "covenant" in their Scriptures, they would have given it more than a passing nod (as we so often do). If you search for the term "covenant" throughout the Scriptures, you won't find all that many instances. Yet today we'll learn that this concept is one of the best ways to understand the Bible as one book--a single story, an over-arching meta-narrative. In fact, God's whole plan of fixing this broken world can rightly be summed up in that one word. Today's message may very well reorient your whole perspective of the Bible!