Post 2: A Walk Through the Bible

Overall, I found A Walk Through the Bible  to be very interesting. I knew most, but not all, of the stories referenced, but I hadn’t interpreted all of them like Newbigin did. One thing that Newbigin emphasizes throughout the book is that the Bible is the story of humanity, not as a collection of unrelated helpful thoughts. Therefore, it must be looked at as a whole instead. A lot of people turn away from religion because they read the Bible and realize that it contains murder, war, and slavery. However, Newbigin argues that you have to look at the Bible as the very long training of the world to understand the nature of God, and that the Bible took place at an early stage in this training.

I think that Newbigin sees creation, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the vision of the world depicted in the book of Revelation, as the key elements of the Biblical story. These three moments all show something important about God’s nature. 

The creation story is an important moment in the Biblical story because it establishes God’s love to the reader. God created the world because he wanted to “create a world to reflect his glory and a human family to enjoy his world and give back his love”, and the writers of Genesis, who “knew God as the redeemer God” wanted to convey this idea.

Newbigin argues that having Jesus “go down into the very depths of dereliction” during his crucifixion makes it so that no matter how sad or angry we are, Jesus would be there beside us. Additionally, his resurrection marks a new creation and the beginning of a new era for the world, one in which death and sin have been conquered.

Lastly, the image of the world depicted in the book of Revelation is important to Newbigin because it gives us a purpose and hope because we can look forward to the day when Jesus will return and humanity will strive towards beauty, civilization, and order.