I've been listening to the first few mp3 lectures by Dr. Miles Van Pelt in a Biblical Theology course I'm taking.
I thought it was very interesting that other scholars answer the question "What is the Bible all about?" by saying, the Bible is all about:
- a creation theme (G K Beale)
- acts of God (G E Wright)
- monotheism (Paul House)
- the promise-plan of God (Walter Kaiser)
- the revelation of God (Vos)
- the Kingdom of God (Bright)
- the presence of God
Van Pelt believes the Bible is "purpose driven" and it's:
- Thematic Framework is the Kingdom of God
- Theological Center is Jesus Christ
- Canonical Structure is the Law and the Prophets
He says the Kingdom of God is "the skin" of the Bible, Jesus is "the heart" and the Law and Prophets are "the bones". I think I agree with him. I'm happy a friend recommended to Karen and I that we buy a copy of "The Big Picture Story Bible" to read with Rachel. It goes from Genesis to Revelation talking about Jesus as King of God's Kingdom!
Here's a quote from Stewart Olyott that made me say a good "AMEN" out loud in Fortinos while I was grocery shopping. This is from Olyott's book "Preaching: Pure and Simple":
"The third key feature of preaching is Christ-centeredness. It has to be. This is because preachers are heralds of the Scriptures, and all of the Scriptures are about Christ - explicitly or implicitly, directly or indirectly. Every single part of the Bible points us to Him. There is no passage in the whole book which is an exception.
It was the Spirit of Christ that moved every Old Testament author to write what he or she wrote (1 Peter 1:10-12). It was the Lord Jesus Christ himself who opened the Old Testament to his disciples and explained to them that He was in it everywhere (Luke 24). The four gospels and Acts, all the epistles and the Revelation also have him as their great subject.
So what shall we say about a preacher who opens the Bible and does not preach Christ from the passage in front of him. Such a preacher has not understood the Book, and if he does not understand the Book he should not be preaching!"
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Dave, perhaps you can clarify (or maybe I have to read it) for me what Olyott means by preaching Christ every time the scriptures is opened. Practically speaking, how does that look like. What of say instructional texts?
If some text implicitly is connected to Christ, is it the responsibility of everyone to make it clear the implicit to make it explicit understood?
I recently understood what you were talking about as typology and read someone's comments that some of the wisdom literature would be hard to understand Christ through that particular genre...
anyways...comments only.
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