Dever - What does God want of us anyway?: a quick overview of the whole Bible

Mark Dever is an able and sure guide to the message of the Bible, which tells us what God wants of us all. The reader of this book is in reliable hands because the author depends not on himself but on the Word of God to answer lifes greatest questions. We cannot live lives that please God unless we know what God has said about himself and about us. This book will help you to know God through knowing his Son revealed in his Word.

Thabiti Anyabwile, Pastor,Anacostia River Church, Washington, DC;author, What Is a Healthy Church Member?

In this fantastic little book, Dever shows us what it means to say that Jesus Christ is the point of the Bible. He offers us a breathtaking, panoramic view of Scripture. Since the message of the Bible is so important, and since Dever has captured that message so succinctly, Ill give this book away again and againboth to Christians eager to get a sense of the whole and to seekers wondering just what the Bible is all about.

Aaron Menikoff, Senior Pastor,
Mount Vernon Bible Church, Sandy Springs, Georgia

The Bibles size and complexity can overwhelm many new readers. Mark Devers friendly overview both provides a map to its complexity and downsizes its message to the heart of the matterwhat is the passion of Gods heart? Keep a bunch of these at your church for giving to anyone unfamiliar with the grand narrative of Gods Word.

Matt Schmucker, Executive Director, 9Marks; Elder,
Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Washington DC

Other 9Marks books published by Crossway:

Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, Mark Dever
The Deliberate Church, Mark Dever and Paul Alexander
The Gospel and Personal Evangelism, Mark Dever
What Is a Healthy Church? Mark Dever
What Is a Healthy Church Member? Thabiti Anyabwile
The Church and the Surprising Offense of Gods Love,
Jonathan Leeman
What Is the Gospel? Greg Gilbert
It Is Well, Mark Dever and Michael Lawrence

What Does God Want of Us Anyway? An Overview of the Whole Bible
Copyright 2010 by Mark Dever
Published by Crossway Books
a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers
1300 Crescent Street
Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.

Part 1 and Part 2 originally published in The Message of the Old Testament: Promises Made by Mark Dever (Crossway, 2006). Parts 1 and 2 were originally preached each as one sermon on January 9, 2000, and September 1, 1996, respectively, at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington DC.

Part 3 originally published in The Message of the New Testament: Promises Kept by Mark Dever (Crossway, 2005). Part 3 was originally preached as one sermon on September 8, 1996, at Capitol Baptist Church in Washington DC.

Cover design: Studio Gearbox
First printing 2010
Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture references are from The Holy Bible: New International Version. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

The NIV and New International Version trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society. Use of either trademark requires the permission of International Bible Society.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4335-1415-9
PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-1416-6
Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-1417-3
EPub ISBN: 978-1-4335-2400-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dever, Mark.
What does God want of us anyway? : a quick overview of the whole Bible / Mark E. Dever.
p. cm.
Parts 1 and 2 originally published in The message of the Old Testament : promises made, 2006. Part 3 originally published in The message of the New Testament : promises kept, 2005.
ISBN 978-1-4335-1415-9 (hc)ISBN 978-1-4335-1416-6 (pbk.)ISBN 978-1-4335-2400-4 (ebk) 1. BibleTheology. 2. BibleCriticism, interpretation, etc. 3. BibleIntroductions. 4. BaptistsSermons. 5. Sermons, American21st century. I. Title.

BS543.D48 2010
220.6'1dc22

2009039053

To
Annie and Nathan

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
THE BIG PICTURE

Have you heard of the Above series of large coffee-table photography books? There is Above Washington and Above London and Above Europe and many others. I enjoy the series because of the sweeping panoramas it provides. The plans of the original city planners, hidden when walking down the streets with building tops high overhead, suddenly become visible as the pictures let us rise up and look down on the whole. The aerial photographs provide a sense of perspective and interrelatedness, and we see what the planners envisioned in their minds and blueprints.

Clearly, the sense of the whole is important for understanding and for planning. Some people suggest the ecology movement did not begin until the first pictures of the whole earth, taken from space, were published around 1970. Wasnt it on the cover of the old Whole Earth Catalog? Seeing a photograph of the earth, I think, jelled our understanding of the world as a whole and galvanized certain individuals to action. In the same way, we want, in the three studies that follow, to pull up and get an above the Bible or whole Bible view all at once.

Or we might consider the concept of time-lapse photography. In time-lapse photography, the photographer positions the camera to take a shot of the same location multiple times over the course of a day. That allows him to see the changes that occur in one place over a long period of time in just a few moments of flipping through pictures. Reading through the Bible has the same effect. The Bible is, of course, much briefer than what it records. I know it would take you a long time to read it, but it would take you much less time to read it than it took to write it; and it took less time to write it than it took for the events to happen. So the text of Scripture itself is already like a time-lapsed series of photographs. And we want, in the course of the three studies that follow, to flip through an even more condensed series of pictures that present the message of the whole.

The three studies that you can see on the contents pageThe Message of the Whole Bible, The Message of the Old Testament, and The Message of the New Testamentbegan their life as three sermons that I preached to my church, Capitol Hill Baptist Church. Then, several years later, we edited them to read more like chapters in a book and published them together with my overview sermons on every book of the Bible. The first two messages appeared in my book The Message of the Old Testament: Promises Made (Crossway, 2006), while the third appeared in the companion volume The Message of the New Testament: Promises Kept (Crossway, 2005).

Now, Crossway has seen fit to publish just the three studies in one volume, which I pray you find useful.

Since they began as sermons preached at different times, you will find some overlap between them. Still, my hope is that you will find that each presents the burden of the material. God gives life through his Word. He created the world through his Word, and he recreates his people through his Word (Gen. 1:34; Ezek. 37:110; Rom. 10:1417; 2 Cor. 4:16). Therefore, good preaching is nothing more or less than speaking the burden of Gods Word, relying on the Spirit to impress this message into the hearts of sinners. Whether the text you choose to teach is one verse or one Testament, good preaching aims to communicate the burden of that text. Whats the burden of the whole Bible? I try to answer that question in The Message of the Whole Bible. Whats the burden of the Old Testament? Again, I try to explain that in The Message of the Old Testament. And then I try to do the same in the study on the New Testament.