Colin S. Smith - The One Year Unlocking the Bible Devotional

In the beginning God... GENESIS 1:1

The Bible is one marvelous story that people sometimes shelve in the fiction section of their mind, alongside myths, legends, and fables. But it belongs in the biography section. In this book God reveals himself. He tells us about who he is. He also tells us who we are, why we are here, what we were made for, and where we are going.

The Bible is one story that begins with two people in a garden and ends with a crowd, too many to number, in a city. In the Bible, God tells us the story of how we got from this beginning to where we are today, and how we will get from where we are today to the ending he has revealed.

Many people today know a number of stories from the Bible, but they do not know the story of the Bible. That is like holding a bunch of pearls in your hand but having no string to hang them on.

What we want to do this year is string the pearls together to make a necklace. If you stay on this one-year journey, you will be able to do that, and you will have a good grasp of the story of the Bible.

The Bible was written over a period of fifteen hundred years, beginning with Moses and ending with the apostle John, fifty to sixty years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. But the whole Bible has one main subject or focus, and that is Jesus Christ himself.

After his resurrection, Jesus began with Moses and the prophets and taught the Old Testament to two disciples on the road to Emmaus. As far as he was concerned, the whole of the Old Testament is about him. It shines a light on who he is, why he came, what he has done, and what he can do in our lives today.

As we move through the Bibles themes, it will be like taking a diamond and turning it in the sun. Each facet reflects another brilliant shaft of light. Each of these themes will help us to understand something of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For further reading, see Luke 24

| Day 2

Prologue: Raising the Curtain

In the beginning... GENESIS 1:1

Suppose you and a friend have tickets to a major play called The Bible Story, but because of traffic, you arrive late to the theater. You walk into the lobby and discover that its already intermission! You figure you might as well stay. Besides, youve heard that the New Testament is the best part.

You hear the buzz of conversation about act 1, then the lights fade. Its time to get a seat. You sit down just in time for the beginning of act 2. But you have entirely missed act 1, so you know nothing about what came first, the Old Testament.

The curtain rises, and a manger and a newborn child are at center stage. As the scene unfolds, you learn that this is no ordinary child. Unlike any other character in human history, he has no human father. He is born of a virgin, and an angel announces that this child is the Son of God, God... with us (Matthew 1:23), and that he will save his people from their sins (1:21).

You overhear a wife say to her husband, This is it! He will be the one who was promised. You wait and see; it will all center around him. Hell be the answer to the problem.

But youve just arrived, and you dont know what the problem is.

You hear that he is the Son of God, but you dont know who God is. You hear that he will save his people, but you dont know who his people are or what they need saving from! Having missed act 1, you struggle to grasp what this story is about.