The Main Character of the Bible
“You can’t get there from here.”
It’s an old joke we tell each other whenever someone asks for directions. The joke’s funny because you can get to any destination regardless of the starting place on the map, as long as you are willing to pay for the transportation. We live in an accessible world. You may have to fly, but if you know where you are going, you can get to where you’re going.
The starting point is not as important as the destination. In other words, where you are is not as important as where you are going.
That’s extremely important to remember when studying the Bible. If you do not understand who the Bible is about, you will fail to interpret it correctly.
In Luke 24:27, the Lord took his disciples through a survey of God’s Word: “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” The phrase “Moses and all the prophets” refers to what we know today as the 39 books of the Old Testament. Jesus was able to show them “in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” He revealed to them on that day, but not for the first time, that he was the main character of the Bible.
Charles Spurgeon illustrated this concept, telling about an older minister mentoring a younger minister. The older minister stressed that every sermon should have Christ in it. The younger minister asked about texts that were not about Christ. The older man said, “Don’t you know that from every town, and every village in England, wherever it may be, there is a road to London?” “Yes,” said the young man. “And so from every text in Scripture, there is a road to the metropolis of the Scriptures, that is Christ.” Whatever we are studying, we are not finished until we find the main road that connects to Christ.
The problem is, many of us approach the Bible as if the central character were us and the theme concerned our desires and ambitions. We decide what the Bible is about before we even open it up, then we go to some proof text or isolated passage for evidence of our beliefs, read the Bible out of context, and close it shut thinking we have found the justification we were looking for when really we have arrived at a wrong interpretation.
Every book, chapter, and verse in the Bible is about Jesus. Whether we are reading Genesis, Habakkuk, or Galatians, we must ask, “How does this passage relate to Jesus?” When we have figured that out, then, and only then, we can understand how the Bible relates to us.
