TELL ME a STORY and PUT ME IN IT
Finding your place in the Grand Story of Scripture
Tell me the old, old story.
Tell me the story slowly, That I may take it in.
Tell me the story slowly, That I may take it in.
Most, if not all people believe in the power of story to influence how we live, even if they only believe subconsciously. And most, if not all, believe there is a meta-narrative out there somewhere to guide our living. In their book, Living God’s Word, Duvall and Hays affirm this, writing, “Everyone believes in or buys into a big story, whether they realize it or not. The only question is which great story will we accept as the one that tells us the truth about the way things really are. Which guiding story will we claim as our story?” (2012: 14)
I believe the guiding story, that is the one Christians need to claim as their story, is the meta-narrative the Christian Scripture tells from its beginning to its end, a story I’ll refer to as ‘the Grand Story’ of Scripture. It’s a good story because it’s a story of redemption and transformation; a story with power to shape disciplined readers in the way of the gospel (meaning ‘good news’) of Jesus Christ. The Story (as in Grand Story) is told in multiple ‘little’ stories that deliberately, albeit not exactly systematically, tell the Grand Story of God’s plan of redemption in Christ Jesus. These many ‘little’ stories of the Bible, therefore, aren’t a random collection of disconnected events over time, but a gradual unfolding, bit by bit, of the Story, which is God’s Story and, in a real sense, our story too.
It is this Grand Story that grounds consistent readers in a tradition of God’s ways of dealing with creation, and a tradition of ways God’s people have responded and in turn dealt with God and lived to tell their story. Reading their stories helps us discover who we are and where we are in the Grand Story. John Goldingay in his book, Key Questions about Biblical Interpretation, writes, “In general the biblical story is designed to enable us to discover who we are. This involves our telling our own story, but doing so in the context of the Bible story. We find ourselves by setting ourselves in that other story. It shows us who we are and what our story means” (2011: 166).
The Grand Story of Scripture is indeed worth living. But, in order to live it we need to know it. Learning the Story, discovering what God has done and continues to do and discerning how to improvise by putting ourselves in the Story is sacred work for the church and also for individual Christians. And this is essential work because it is a Story that helps us discover and then tell the story of our personal life.
The Grand Story unpacked
Despite its many short stories and multiple literary dramas, Scripture tells a single Story. As N. T. Wright asserts, “The Bible tells a multitude of stories, but in its final form it tells an overarching story, a single great narrative, which offers itself as the true story of the world” (2014: 143). One way to get into and learn this story is by considering the common elements found in any good story. Many of us were taught about these story elements when we were children but haven’t necessarily thought of them in relation to the Grand Story of Scripture. Yet they are there in the biblical Story. Discerning and unpacking them is a helpful way to learn and then let this Story shape our lives. There are other helpful ways to describe the Story of Scripture that other people have used, but focusing on story elements is a good way to stay in touch with what really matters in the Bible, avoid getting sidetracked into irrelevant issues and arguments, and read the Bible to experience our own personal encounters with God in Christ Jesus.
It begins; it ends; and everything in between
The most fundamental elements contained in any story are a beginning, middle and ending. Every story begins and then ends after everything in between has been told. The biblical Story begins, as do many good stories, with ‘Once upon a time,’ or more literally, “In the beginning, God created…” (Genesis 1:1; TNIV). It ends with a ‘happy-ever-after’ moment as John the Evangelist claims in the last book, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth…coming down out of heaven from God” (Revelation 21:1). It becomes clear to readers that the beginning and ending of the Bible are about the same thing—creation. Both moments are given a brief telling; a couple of chapters in the beginning and a couple of chapters at its ending. The drama of the story takes place in the middle where the reader will discover why the first creation needed to be re-created, that is, restored to original goodness, in other words, redeemed. The necessity of redemption takes up the middle of the story, forming the essence of its plot. Throughout the Story there are references and allusions to creation and new creation and redemption that story-listeners will discover as they pay attention to the ‘little’ stories. When we do this, we learn that creation and redemption are inextricably linked. And somewhere in the Story of creation and redemption the reader can discover where she fits in the grand scheme of things as she wonders what part of the little stories are her own.
The beginning of the Story, albeit brief, introduces the reader (that is, the story-listener) to two other crucial story elements I’ll unpack here—the main characters and the setting for the drama. As the story grows and unfolds we’ll discover other elements, such as the plot (which we also learn very early in the story), the climax (the story’s most dramatic moment but not its end moment) and the resolution (how the Story finally concludes). There are other story elements, but for now these will be enough to understand the essentials of the Grand Story of Scripture so can we begin to read and live it more purposefully.
The main characters in the Story
Perhaps the most important element in any story, and most definitely in the biblical Story, is its main characters, usually a protagonist and an antagonist. The biblical Story begins with an introduction to the protagonist, “In the beginning God ….” Immediately the reader knows that the main character in the Story is God. However very little information is revealed about this God who is there at the beginning. Unlike contemporary novels that usually begin with somewhat detailed descriptions of the main character, the biblical story omits any such description. As the Story begins there are no long and difficult theological statements about the nature of God, like those that fill up our contemporary theological text books. There are no propositional truth claims about God’s nature for us to believe before reading on. Even more notable, there is no proof presented for the existence of God. That is simply assumed. The reader must proceed in faith that God really is there and speaks. Instead of descriptions and proof, we’re told a story and then another and another right up to the end of the Bible. Each story reveals something about this God who was simply there in the beginning. Other characters will be introduced as the story progresses, but always as creatures who are subject to the Creator God, the focus of the Story.
Because God is the focus, each and every story, and indeed every passage of Scripture regardless of literary genre, is about God, rather than the human character in the ‘little’ story. We read each story first and foremost to know God—who God is, what God is like and how does God relate to creation, including you and me, today? We also read to learn about ourselves, wondering what part of each story is actually our own or very like our own story. Each story, therefore, is necessary and must be read and told again and again by the people of God in order to get God and ourselves right. Therefore, we are to read prayerfully wondering: Who are you, God? And follow that up with a question about who we are. As we do this regularly and consistently, we will also learn who we are, where we are in the Story and how we’re to live God’s way in God’s creation.
The Story of the Bible begins with two creation accounts (in Genesis 1 and 2), each highlighting important truths about God, truths we need as we read more and more of this Book. The first obvious truth is that all things, seen and unseen, were created by one God, the God of Israel. 'God is Creator' is the loud proclamation at the beginning. This is an ‘in-your-face’ truth and an essential one to living rightly, that is holy (meaning ‘set apart’) in the world. This truth about God will often be restated in various ways throughout the Story and even applied to Jesus in the New Testament (see John 1:3; Colossians 1:16). The second truth, or rather two truths, are not as obvious and require prayerful attention to each creation account. While affirming the basic truth that God is Creator, each account, in its own way, also reveals a different foundational truth about the nature of God. Since these two revealed truths in each account are necessary ones for us to grasp as we continue to read and listen to the Story of Scripture in order to know God more truly, I’ll give a brief explanation of them. They stand as the two entrance pillars through which we must travel in order to get into the Grand Story.
The first creation story (Genesis 1) is told on a grand scale, emphasizing that everything in the universe came into existence as a result of God’s creative word. The picture of God is that of a ‘Speaker’ who appears to stand ‘outside’ as he calls all creation into existence, one item at a time. The Psalmist quite simply described creation this way, “For he spoke, and it came to be” (Psalm 33:9). God, it is made clear, is far above, even distanced from the entire created order, possessing the power to dramatically call it all into existence. The prophet-poet of second Isaiah visualized this truth about God in wonderful imagery as he claimed that God “sits above the circle of the earth” (Isaiah 40:22). Use your imagination and visualize God seated above the circle of the earth. Theologians use the term transcendence to name this truth about God. Transcendence basically means God is above all and over all and therefore in absolute control, indeed the Sovereign Ruler of all creation at all times. The entire universe and all that exists in it is under God’s Sovereign Rule and intended for God’s purposes, which will be accomplished in God’s time and way.
In this first picture, God is seemingly far away, a distant and even a somewhat impersonal creator; hence the necessity for the second and very different creation story in Genesis 2 that gives a picture of a God who is nearby, both personal and relational.
The second creation story is narrower in scope than the first. It is set in the Garden of Eden, rather than the universe, and focused only on the creation of things that go into the garden, including the two humans who are to live in and tend it. The picture of God that it ‘paints’ is of a very present and personal God, intimately and lovingly involved with creation and especially with the male and female God created and placed in the garden as its gardeners. Theologians use the term immanence for this picture of God. Immanence, from the same root as Immanuel (meaning God with us) means God is among his creation as a personal presence desirous of friendship with the humans God created. Immanence is not to be confused with the beliefs of ancient Greeks who claimed the gods were ‘immanent’ in creation, and meant that they existed within creation, and thus were a natural process of creation. God is not inside as a natural process. God comes alongside and is with creation.
Both terms are important for us to understand at the beginning of the Story in order to get God ‘right’—that is, to know God as God revealed himself and not as we want him to be. They stress that God is both ‘near by’ (immanent) and ‘far off’ (transcendent), as God claimed through the prophet Jeremiah, rhetorically asking, “Am I a God near by, says the LORD, and not a God far off?” (Jeremiah 23:23). The creation accounts answer, Yes, God is both far off and near by at all times. Stanley Grenz once wrote, “From the beginning, Christian theology has used the terms, ‘transcendence’ and ‘immanence’ to characterize the foundational aspects of the manner in which God enters into relationship with creation” (1996: 52). The fact that the Story begins with two accounts that teach these two truths suggests their importance in coming to know and learning to deal with God, the Creator. We enter the Story with the understanding that God is both Transcendent and Immanent, and thus a Mystery beyond human conception and imagination. We’ll need to resist temptations to understand God in this present age, if ever. As we keep reading the Story we’ll only make sense of God when we pay attention to both God’s transcendence and immanence each time God appears in the many stories and passages of Scripture.
The two creation stories also introduce us to the minor players in the Story—humankind, that is, male and female. Detailed description about the man and woman is missing, but two important truths about humans are obvious. First, they are creatures, created by a greater Being. They are not the Creator and neither are they self-made. Second, male and female were created together and together created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27) and therefore possess equal dignity and status in the world and in God’s eyes. From the beginning of the Story, humans are the secondary characters in the Story as it grows. Sometimes they are obviously on God’s side and sometimes they appear to be opposed to God. As the Story progresses, the secondary characters on God’s side will be narrowed to the people of God (Israel in the OT and the Church in the NT). We’ll read about them in the many ‘little’ stories that unfold the Grand Story. Their stories keep pointing us to God since they are stories about how humans deal with God and God’s creation or fail to do so.
One final character in this story, as in all good stories, is an antagonist, who, interestingly isn’t mentioned in either of the creation stories. The antagonist simply appears in the symbolic form of a serpent in Genesis 3, without explanation, as the adversary opposed to God. Not until the end of the Story, in the book of Revelation (12:9) is the serpent identified as the satan. From its first appearance, it’s clear that the antagonist is all evil and relentless in its opposition to God and good. It is simply described as “more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made” (Genesis 3:1). This primary antagonist has no real name, known only by different designations such as, the serpent, the devil, the satan (which means adversary), among others. We know very little else about the antagonist other than it’s a force of great evil opposed to all God does and plans to do. On the side of the antagonist will be those humans opposed to God and his people.
The setting: where it all happens
A second story element introduced at the beginning of the Story is the setting. In its broadest sense the Story is set in creation, the universe as we know and experience it. Later in the Story the setting takes on a more narrow sense and is confined to God’s people wherever they live. This applies first, to Israel in the Old Testament with their wanderings and eventual settlement in the Promised Land, their long exile in Babylon and gradual return to the Land. And second, to the Church of Jesus Christ initially established in Palestine and surrounding areas, but rapidly moving into Eastern Europe, as we read in the Book of Acts. The setting here on earth reminds us that God comes to us, in our place, meets with us in space and time, as we’ll see when we read all of the Story. We keep reading it in order to experience God in our present geographical settings around the world today.
The plot
The plot of the Story, as with most story plots, has to do with a conflict between the protagonist and antagonist; between good and evil. Very early in the Story (Genesis 3) conflict occurs when the serpent tempts the woman and the man to disobey the only negative command God gave them—not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The immediate seemingly disastrous consequences of their disobedience are spelled out in the ‘little’ stories of Genesis chapters 4 through 11. The point of these stories isn’t to present factual historical information, but to demonstrate the desperate plight of God’s creation, especially humans. They highlight the truth that left to themselves, humans tend towards evil, rather than good, away from, rather than towards God. The lesson they teach is that humans, along with all creation, are incapable of helping themselves out of the mess they’re in. Help must come from outside and God is the one who provides it. This disastrous state of humans forms the backdrop to God’s plan of redemption which then triggers the aggressive and relentless opposition from the satan that goes through the rest of the Story. The story, therefore, contains much drama and suspense. It is an exciting story.
In summary form the plot of the Grand Story can be described this way: God the Creator (the protagonist), is inexorably moving all creation (not just humankind) towards full redemption in a new creation, while the satan (the antagonist) continuously attempts to thwart God’s plan at every turn, creating the ongoing and major conflict in the Story. The redemption plan begins with a covenant God made with Abraham and Sarah, promising them “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3), that is salvation, not only for Abraham and Sarah’s descendents but for all peoples of all nations through them. The drama unfolds in the ups and downs of the history of their descendants, Israel, in further salvific covenants that unpack God’s plan more fully and then, much later in the Story, also the Church. We follow the drama through countless stories of individuals who struggled to live in relationship with God, and experience the redemption he offers while at the time still living in this messy world so loved by God.
Climax and resolution: how it concludes
Now we come to some final story elements not introduced, albeit vaguely hinted at, in the introduction. The climax to the Story, its most dramatic moment, is the Cross of Christ. This is the moment when God in Jesus decisively overcomes the satan and evil and triumphantly wins the conflict. We’re given a hint of this victory and destruction of evil in the promise of hope God gave to the woman and man after they’d both eaten the forbidden fruit. God says to the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:15). This somewhat cryptic promise begins to make sense only once we get into the New Testament part of the Story. The Gospels tell the story of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, while the Epistles give a theological explanation of the Jesus Event and, along with the entire New Testament emphasize that Christ’s death is the decisive victory of God over the satan and evil. The victory of God is assured, as Jesus’ resurrection asserts, but we still wait the final resolution when this victory will be fully experienced in all creation renewed—the ‘happy-ever-after moment’. The ending of the Story is the assurance that perfect resolution will happen in a restored new creation (a new heaven and a new earth) when Christ returns as Sovereign Ruler to reign, with all the saints, over all creation for all eternity. The little stories we read in Scripture keep assuring us that God’s plan will not be overcome by the antagonist no matter how powerful it appears to be and how consistently it tries to defeat God. In the end, simply stated, God wins!
The basic message
The message of the biblical Story can also be described thematically as one of creation, chaos, covenant, cross, creation (new). The first creation introduces us to God; chaos defines the conflict between God and the satan that plays out in the lives of humans, beginning with Adam and Eve in Eden; covenant is God’s plan of salvation that begins with Abraham and Sarah and is continued and completed in Jesus who claimed to be ‘the new covenant’; the cross brings us to the climax, the satan’s defeat and finally, the new creation restores all creation back to its original goodness when Christ returns to earth.
We tell this story so that people will understand salvation God’s way, which is, of course, the primary message of the Story. Salvation in its biblical understanding is, as Eugene Peterson maintains, “the work of God that restores the world and us to wholeness. God’s work complete" (2007: 7). When we prayerfully read Scripture, focused on its Grand Story, we learn to reject defining salvation in exclusively individualistic terms with ‘me’ as the focal point—Christ died for me; Jesus must be my personal Lord and Savior; salvation means I will go to heaven when I die. The sad result of such me-oriented teaching is the conclusion that salvation is nothing more than escape from damnation and an eternity in heaven, and that redemption is only about humans and not God’s entire creation. Paying attention to the stories of Scripture and seeing how each fits into the Grand Story will broaden our understanding of salvation and also help us to live more fully in the way of God’s redemption in Jesus, finding our place in the Story regardless of where and when we live. The many little stories help us get God and God’s salvation right and also get our way of living more and more in line with God’s way as we also come to know ourselves more truly.
A heart on fire
The final story element I want to mention, indeed an essential requirement for reading and entering this Grand Story, is what Daniel Taylor calls ‘a heart on fire’ (2001: 9). The Story of Scripture began in the heart of God and was ‘spoken’ to the prophets who recorded it. God is, therefore not only the owner of the Story but also the primary Storyteller. We’re invited to listen and participate in God’s Story; indeed, find ourselves in the Story in such a way that our hearts are set on fire, and we commit to living intentionally and deliberately the Story; a Story that will shape our lives, guide us into redemptive ways of living and help us in turn become storytellers ourselves. We tell, not only our personal stories of encounters with God in Christ but also, and this is most critical, the many biblical stories in ways that point to the Story, and influence other peoples’ lives.
Learning how to read this Story in ways that shape our personal stories is a critical discipline that I seek to promote in the practice of Storymakers. To learn more how to read the stories of Scripture I encourage you to read my articles ‘Reading the Bible for all you’re worth: the practice of lectio divina’ and ‘Reading the Bible together for all its worth: the practice of Storymakers.’
Jackie L. Smallbones. 2015©
Not to be copied without permission from Jackie (contact me for permission).
Works Cited
Duvall, J. S. and J. D. Hays. (2012). Living God’s Word: Discovering our Place in the Great Story of Scripture. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
Goldingay, J. (2011). Key Questions about Biblical Interpretation: Old Testament Answers. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic.
Grenz, S. J. (1996). Created for Community. Wheaton: A BridgePoint Book.
Peterson, E. H. (2007). The Jesus Way. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Taylor, D. (2001). Tell Me a Story: The life-shaping power of our stories. St Paul: Bog Walk Press.
Wright, N.T. (2014). Surprised by Scripture: Engaging contemporary issues. New York: Harper Collins.
‘Tell me the old, old story,’ is from William H. Doane’s hymn.
I believe the guiding story, that is the one Christians need to claim as their story, is the meta-narrative the Christian Scripture tells from its beginning to its end, a story I’ll refer to as ‘the Grand Story’ of Scripture. It’s a good story because it’s a story of redemption and transformation; a story with power to shape disciplined readers in the way of the gospel (meaning ‘good news’) of Jesus Christ. The Story (as in Grand Story) is told in multiple ‘little’ stories that deliberately, albeit not exactly systematically, tell the Grand Story of God’s plan of redemption in Christ Jesus. These many ‘little’ stories of the Bible, therefore, aren’t a random collection of disconnected events over time, but a gradual unfolding, bit by bit, of the Story, which is God’s Story and, in a real sense, our story too.
It is this Grand Story that grounds consistent readers in a tradition of God’s ways of dealing with creation, and a tradition of ways God’s people have responded and in turn dealt with God and lived to tell their story. Reading their stories helps us discover who we are and where we are in the Grand Story. John Goldingay in his book, Key Questions about Biblical Interpretation, writes, “In general the biblical story is designed to enable us to discover who we are. This involves our telling our own story, but doing so in the context of the Bible story. We find ourselves by setting ourselves in that other story. It shows us who we are and what our story means” (2011: 166).
The Grand Story of Scripture is indeed worth living. But, in order to live it we need to know it. Learning the Story, discovering what God has done and continues to do and discerning how to improvise by putting ourselves in the Story is sacred work for the church and also for individual Christians. And this is essential work because it is a Story that helps us discover and then tell the story of our personal life.
The Grand Story unpacked
Despite its many short stories and multiple literary dramas, Scripture tells a single Story. As N. T. Wright asserts, “The Bible tells a multitude of stories, but in its final form it tells an overarching story, a single great narrative, which offers itself as the true story of the world” (2014: 143). One way to get into and learn this story is by considering the common elements found in any good story. Many of us were taught about these story elements when we were children but haven’t necessarily thought of them in relation to the Grand Story of Scripture. Yet they are there in the biblical Story. Discerning and unpacking them is a helpful way to learn and then let this Story shape our lives. There are other helpful ways to describe the Story of Scripture that other people have used, but focusing on story elements is a good way to stay in touch with what really matters in the Bible, avoid getting sidetracked into irrelevant issues and arguments, and read the Bible to experience our own personal encounters with God in Christ Jesus.
It begins; it ends; and everything in between
The most fundamental elements contained in any story are a beginning, middle and ending. Every story begins and then ends after everything in between has been told. The biblical Story begins, as do many good stories, with ‘Once upon a time,’ or more literally, “In the beginning, God created…” (Genesis 1:1; TNIV). It ends with a ‘happy-ever-after’ moment as John the Evangelist claims in the last book, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth…coming down out of heaven from God” (Revelation 21:1). It becomes clear to readers that the beginning and ending of the Bible are about the same thing—creation. Both moments are given a brief telling; a couple of chapters in the beginning and a couple of chapters at its ending. The drama of the story takes place in the middle where the reader will discover why the first creation needed to be re-created, that is, restored to original goodness, in other words, redeemed. The necessity of redemption takes up the middle of the story, forming the essence of its plot. Throughout the Story there are references and allusions to creation and new creation and redemption that story-listeners will discover as they pay attention to the ‘little’ stories. When we do this, we learn that creation and redemption are inextricably linked. And somewhere in the Story of creation and redemption the reader can discover where she fits in the grand scheme of things as she wonders what part of the little stories are her own.
The beginning of the Story, albeit brief, introduces the reader (that is, the story-listener) to two other crucial story elements I’ll unpack here—the main characters and the setting for the drama. As the story grows and unfolds we’ll discover other elements, such as the plot (which we also learn very early in the story), the climax (the story’s most dramatic moment but not its end moment) and the resolution (how the Story finally concludes). There are other story elements, but for now these will be enough to understand the essentials of the Grand Story of Scripture so can we begin to read and live it more purposefully.
The main characters in the Story
Perhaps the most important element in any story, and most definitely in the biblical Story, is its main characters, usually a protagonist and an antagonist. The biblical Story begins with an introduction to the protagonist, “In the beginning God ….” Immediately the reader knows that the main character in the Story is God. However very little information is revealed about this God who is there at the beginning. Unlike contemporary novels that usually begin with somewhat detailed descriptions of the main character, the biblical story omits any such description. As the Story begins there are no long and difficult theological statements about the nature of God, like those that fill up our contemporary theological text books. There are no propositional truth claims about God’s nature for us to believe before reading on. Even more notable, there is no proof presented for the existence of God. That is simply assumed. The reader must proceed in faith that God really is there and speaks. Instead of descriptions and proof, we’re told a story and then another and another right up to the end of the Bible. Each story reveals something about this God who was simply there in the beginning. Other characters will be introduced as the story progresses, but always as creatures who are subject to the Creator God, the focus of the Story.
Because God is the focus, each and every story, and indeed every passage of Scripture regardless of literary genre, is about God, rather than the human character in the ‘little’ story. We read each story first and foremost to know God—who God is, what God is like and how does God relate to creation, including you and me, today? We also read to learn about ourselves, wondering what part of each story is actually our own or very like our own story. Each story, therefore, is necessary and must be read and told again and again by the people of God in order to get God and ourselves right. Therefore, we are to read prayerfully wondering: Who are you, God? And follow that up with a question about who we are. As we do this regularly and consistently, we will also learn who we are, where we are in the Story and how we’re to live God’s way in God’s creation.
The Story of the Bible begins with two creation accounts (in Genesis 1 and 2), each highlighting important truths about God, truths we need as we read more and more of this Book. The first obvious truth is that all things, seen and unseen, were created by one God, the God of Israel. 'God is Creator' is the loud proclamation at the beginning. This is an ‘in-your-face’ truth and an essential one to living rightly, that is holy (meaning ‘set apart’) in the world. This truth about God will often be restated in various ways throughout the Story and even applied to Jesus in the New Testament (see John 1:3; Colossians 1:16). The second truth, or rather two truths, are not as obvious and require prayerful attention to each creation account. While affirming the basic truth that God is Creator, each account, in its own way, also reveals a different foundational truth about the nature of God. Since these two revealed truths in each account are necessary ones for us to grasp as we continue to read and listen to the Story of Scripture in order to know God more truly, I’ll give a brief explanation of them. They stand as the two entrance pillars through which we must travel in order to get into the Grand Story.
The first creation story (Genesis 1) is told on a grand scale, emphasizing that everything in the universe came into existence as a result of God’s creative word. The picture of God is that of a ‘Speaker’ who appears to stand ‘outside’ as he calls all creation into existence, one item at a time. The Psalmist quite simply described creation this way, “For he spoke, and it came to be” (Psalm 33:9). God, it is made clear, is far above, even distanced from the entire created order, possessing the power to dramatically call it all into existence. The prophet-poet of second Isaiah visualized this truth about God in wonderful imagery as he claimed that God “sits above the circle of the earth” (Isaiah 40:22). Use your imagination and visualize God seated above the circle of the earth. Theologians use the term transcendence to name this truth about God. Transcendence basically means God is above all and over all and therefore in absolute control, indeed the Sovereign Ruler of all creation at all times. The entire universe and all that exists in it is under God’s Sovereign Rule and intended for God’s purposes, which will be accomplished in God’s time and way.
In this first picture, God is seemingly far away, a distant and even a somewhat impersonal creator; hence the necessity for the second and very different creation story in Genesis 2 that gives a picture of a God who is nearby, both personal and relational.
The second creation story is narrower in scope than the first. It is set in the Garden of Eden, rather than the universe, and focused only on the creation of things that go into the garden, including the two humans who are to live in and tend it. The picture of God that it ‘paints’ is of a very present and personal God, intimately and lovingly involved with creation and especially with the male and female God created and placed in the garden as its gardeners. Theologians use the term immanence for this picture of God. Immanence, from the same root as Immanuel (meaning God with us) means God is among his creation as a personal presence desirous of friendship with the humans God created. Immanence is not to be confused with the beliefs of ancient Greeks who claimed the gods were ‘immanent’ in creation, and meant that they existed within creation, and thus were a natural process of creation. God is not inside as a natural process. God comes alongside and is with creation.
Both terms are important for us to understand at the beginning of the Story in order to get God ‘right’—that is, to know God as God revealed himself and not as we want him to be. They stress that God is both ‘near by’ (immanent) and ‘far off’ (transcendent), as God claimed through the prophet Jeremiah, rhetorically asking, “Am I a God near by, says the LORD, and not a God far off?” (Jeremiah 23:23). The creation accounts answer, Yes, God is both far off and near by at all times. Stanley Grenz once wrote, “From the beginning, Christian theology has used the terms, ‘transcendence’ and ‘immanence’ to characterize the foundational aspects of the manner in which God enters into relationship with creation” (1996: 52). The fact that the Story begins with two accounts that teach these two truths suggests their importance in coming to know and learning to deal with God, the Creator. We enter the Story with the understanding that God is both Transcendent and Immanent, and thus a Mystery beyond human conception and imagination. We’ll need to resist temptations to understand God in this present age, if ever. As we keep reading the Story we’ll only make sense of God when we pay attention to both God’s transcendence and immanence each time God appears in the many stories and passages of Scripture.
The two creation stories also introduce us to the minor players in the Story—humankind, that is, male and female. Detailed description about the man and woman is missing, but two important truths about humans are obvious. First, they are creatures, created by a greater Being. They are not the Creator and neither are they self-made. Second, male and female were created together and together created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27) and therefore possess equal dignity and status in the world and in God’s eyes. From the beginning of the Story, humans are the secondary characters in the Story as it grows. Sometimes they are obviously on God’s side and sometimes they appear to be opposed to God. As the Story progresses, the secondary characters on God’s side will be narrowed to the people of God (Israel in the OT and the Church in the NT). We’ll read about them in the many ‘little’ stories that unfold the Grand Story. Their stories keep pointing us to God since they are stories about how humans deal with God and God’s creation or fail to do so.
One final character in this story, as in all good stories, is an antagonist, who, interestingly isn’t mentioned in either of the creation stories. The antagonist simply appears in the symbolic form of a serpent in Genesis 3, without explanation, as the adversary opposed to God. Not until the end of the Story, in the book of Revelation (12:9) is the serpent identified as the satan. From its first appearance, it’s clear that the antagonist is all evil and relentless in its opposition to God and good. It is simply described as “more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made” (Genesis 3:1). This primary antagonist has no real name, known only by different designations such as, the serpent, the devil, the satan (which means adversary), among others. We know very little else about the antagonist other than it’s a force of great evil opposed to all God does and plans to do. On the side of the antagonist will be those humans opposed to God and his people.
The setting: where it all happens
A second story element introduced at the beginning of the Story is the setting. In its broadest sense the Story is set in creation, the universe as we know and experience it. Later in the Story the setting takes on a more narrow sense and is confined to God’s people wherever they live. This applies first, to Israel in the Old Testament with their wanderings and eventual settlement in the Promised Land, their long exile in Babylon and gradual return to the Land. And second, to the Church of Jesus Christ initially established in Palestine and surrounding areas, but rapidly moving into Eastern Europe, as we read in the Book of Acts. The setting here on earth reminds us that God comes to us, in our place, meets with us in space and time, as we’ll see when we read all of the Story. We keep reading it in order to experience God in our present geographical settings around the world today.
The plot
The plot of the Story, as with most story plots, has to do with a conflict between the protagonist and antagonist; between good and evil. Very early in the Story (Genesis 3) conflict occurs when the serpent tempts the woman and the man to disobey the only negative command God gave them—not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The immediate seemingly disastrous consequences of their disobedience are spelled out in the ‘little’ stories of Genesis chapters 4 through 11. The point of these stories isn’t to present factual historical information, but to demonstrate the desperate plight of God’s creation, especially humans. They highlight the truth that left to themselves, humans tend towards evil, rather than good, away from, rather than towards God. The lesson they teach is that humans, along with all creation, are incapable of helping themselves out of the mess they’re in. Help must come from outside and God is the one who provides it. This disastrous state of humans forms the backdrop to God’s plan of redemption which then triggers the aggressive and relentless opposition from the satan that goes through the rest of the Story. The story, therefore, contains much drama and suspense. It is an exciting story.
In summary form the plot of the Grand Story can be described this way: God the Creator (the protagonist), is inexorably moving all creation (not just humankind) towards full redemption in a new creation, while the satan (the antagonist) continuously attempts to thwart God’s plan at every turn, creating the ongoing and major conflict in the Story. The redemption plan begins with a covenant God made with Abraham and Sarah, promising them “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3), that is salvation, not only for Abraham and Sarah’s descendents but for all peoples of all nations through them. The drama unfolds in the ups and downs of the history of their descendants, Israel, in further salvific covenants that unpack God’s plan more fully and then, much later in the Story, also the Church. We follow the drama through countless stories of individuals who struggled to live in relationship with God, and experience the redemption he offers while at the time still living in this messy world so loved by God.
Climax and resolution: how it concludes
Now we come to some final story elements not introduced, albeit vaguely hinted at, in the introduction. The climax to the Story, its most dramatic moment, is the Cross of Christ. This is the moment when God in Jesus decisively overcomes the satan and evil and triumphantly wins the conflict. We’re given a hint of this victory and destruction of evil in the promise of hope God gave to the woman and man after they’d both eaten the forbidden fruit. God says to the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:15). This somewhat cryptic promise begins to make sense only once we get into the New Testament part of the Story. The Gospels tell the story of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, while the Epistles give a theological explanation of the Jesus Event and, along with the entire New Testament emphasize that Christ’s death is the decisive victory of God over the satan and evil. The victory of God is assured, as Jesus’ resurrection asserts, but we still wait the final resolution when this victory will be fully experienced in all creation renewed—the ‘happy-ever-after moment’. The ending of the Story is the assurance that perfect resolution will happen in a restored new creation (a new heaven and a new earth) when Christ returns as Sovereign Ruler to reign, with all the saints, over all creation for all eternity. The little stories we read in Scripture keep assuring us that God’s plan will not be overcome by the antagonist no matter how powerful it appears to be and how consistently it tries to defeat God. In the end, simply stated, God wins!
The basic message
The message of the biblical Story can also be described thematically as one of creation, chaos, covenant, cross, creation (new). The first creation introduces us to God; chaos defines the conflict between God and the satan that plays out in the lives of humans, beginning with Adam and Eve in Eden; covenant is God’s plan of salvation that begins with Abraham and Sarah and is continued and completed in Jesus who claimed to be ‘the new covenant’; the cross brings us to the climax, the satan’s defeat and finally, the new creation restores all creation back to its original goodness when Christ returns to earth.
We tell this story so that people will understand salvation God’s way, which is, of course, the primary message of the Story. Salvation in its biblical understanding is, as Eugene Peterson maintains, “the work of God that restores the world and us to wholeness. God’s work complete" (2007: 7). When we prayerfully read Scripture, focused on its Grand Story, we learn to reject defining salvation in exclusively individualistic terms with ‘me’ as the focal point—Christ died for me; Jesus must be my personal Lord and Savior; salvation means I will go to heaven when I die. The sad result of such me-oriented teaching is the conclusion that salvation is nothing more than escape from damnation and an eternity in heaven, and that redemption is only about humans and not God’s entire creation. Paying attention to the stories of Scripture and seeing how each fits into the Grand Story will broaden our understanding of salvation and also help us to live more fully in the way of God’s redemption in Jesus, finding our place in the Story regardless of where and when we live. The many little stories help us get God and God’s salvation right and also get our way of living more and more in line with God’s way as we also come to know ourselves more truly.
A heart on fire
The final story element I want to mention, indeed an essential requirement for reading and entering this Grand Story, is what Daniel Taylor calls ‘a heart on fire’ (2001: 9). The Story of Scripture began in the heart of God and was ‘spoken’ to the prophets who recorded it. God is, therefore not only the owner of the Story but also the primary Storyteller. We’re invited to listen and participate in God’s Story; indeed, find ourselves in the Story in such a way that our hearts are set on fire, and we commit to living intentionally and deliberately the Story; a Story that will shape our lives, guide us into redemptive ways of living and help us in turn become storytellers ourselves. We tell, not only our personal stories of encounters with God in Christ but also, and this is most critical, the many biblical stories in ways that point to the Story, and influence other peoples’ lives.
Learning how to read this Story in ways that shape our personal stories is a critical discipline that I seek to promote in the practice of Storymakers. To learn more how to read the stories of Scripture I encourage you to read my articles ‘Reading the Bible for all you’re worth: the practice of lectio divina’ and ‘Reading the Bible together for all its worth: the practice of Storymakers.’
Jackie L. Smallbones. 2015©
Not to be copied without permission from Jackie (contact me for permission).
Works Cited
Duvall, J. S. and J. D. Hays. (2012). Living God’s Word: Discovering our Place in the Great Story of Scripture. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
Goldingay, J. (2011). Key Questions about Biblical Interpretation: Old Testament Answers. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic.
Grenz, S. J. (1996). Created for Community. Wheaton: A BridgePoint Book.
Peterson, E. H. (2007). The Jesus Way. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Taylor, D. (2001). Tell Me a Story: The life-shaping power of our stories. St Paul: Bog Walk Press.
Wright, N.T. (2014). Surprised by Scripture: Engaging contemporary issues. New York: Harper Collins.
‘Tell me the old, old story,’ is from William H. Doane’s hymn.
