Africa Study Bible Sampler - Flipbook - Page 45
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THE STORY OF THE BIBLE
T
he story of the Bible is the story of God, his
people, and his world.
God spoke. The world sprang into life. Everything there is—the huge and the tiny, mountains
and oceans, little ants and bugs so small you can
only see them with a microscope—God made
it all.
Then he made us. He made the very first people
and gave us a job: “You be in charge here, for me.
You are to take care of everything. I have made
you to be like me; show the world what I am like.”
He gave our first ancestors, Adam and Eve, a
garden to live in, with flowing rivers and flour
ishing trees. “Start here,” he said. “I will meet with
you here.”
When Adam first saw his wife Eve, he said,
“Eyaa! This is the one!” Adam and Eve had everything—God, each other, and good work to do.
But There Was an Enemy
But there was an enemy. He was jealous. He wanted
to wreck what he could not have. He was also
clever. He asked Eve, “Why cannot you be the
boss? Why not run things your own way? Why not
do what you feel like doing? Why let God keep
you back?”
Soon, our ancestors disobeyed. They did exactly what God said they should not do and set the
pattern that lasts to this day. Everything began
to fall apart. The world is still full of wonderful
things, of beauty that makes you tremble. We are
still smart and still able to do amazing things. But
our thinking and our feelings are twisted and often
broken. When we are all trying to be the boss, we
cut ourselves off from God. We hurt one another.
And the whole world feels the effect. In fact, the
brokenness is inside us and we hurt ourselves, too.
Our brokenness even damages creation.
God saw the messed-up world and the messedup people he had put in charge of it. God could
have gone away. Many of the old African stories
say that is what he did. The stories say that we
made God angry, and he went a long way off.
But that is not the story of the Bible. Yes, God
can seem far away. Yes, we can choose to build a
wall between us and God. But God is not going to
be defeated. He is going to get rid of the bad. He
is going to take broken people and make them
over again. And he is going to take the broken
world and make it over again. He is going to do
this through his own Son, who came to live in
this broken world.
God Starts with Abraham
He started small, with Abraham. “Leave your
family. Leave your people. Follow me. I will be
family for you. And I will make you into a nation
with your very own land to rule. Through you, my
blessing will reach the whole world.”
Abraham followed God. Abraham stumbled,
but he still trusted God, and God kept his promise. Abraham and Sarah were given a son, Isaac.
From Isaac came a son named Jacob, also given
the name Israel. From that son came a nation,
also called Israel.
In time, there were thousands of Israelites, but
they were not that impressive. They lived as forced
labourers in Egypt and the government was trying
to destroy them. God called Moses to lead them
and told the people, “I will rescue you. Come to
me. Meet with me in the desert. Walk with me. Be
my people. Live my way. I will give you your own
rich land, your own garden. And through you, my
blessing will reach the whole world.”
God rescued them by opening up the sea. The
towering cloud and fire of his presence marched
with them. But the people still had Adam’s sinful nature. Before long, they forgot the blessings.
They complained. They disobeyed. They said,
“Let’s go back to Egypt.” They said, “Let us make
our own gods and worship them our own way.”
So God punished them, but he did not leave
them. In spite of what they did wrong, he took
them through the desert and gave them their
own land. They marched in, led by Joshua. They
watched city walls fall down and conquered the
communities. They renewed their promises: “We
will live as God’s people. We will show what he
is like to the world.”
But it did not last long. “Let us be like everybody else” was the easier way to live. But they
belonged to God, and he did not leave them. They
were his. He punished them, and he sent leaders
to rescue them. Then they would turn from God
and things would get worse again. This pattern
repeated for many years.
Next Come David and the Kings
God gave King David to the people of Israel.
David made no room for false gods. Enemies all
around were defeated. The people lived in peace.
In the time of David’s son Solomon, Jerusalem,
the capital, was made God’s city. God’s presence
was focused in his Temple—a beautiful building
that Solomon built to worship and sacrifice to
God. The people gathered there to worship God