Christ Church Balham
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God's Big Picture
Author: Vaughan Roberts
IVP, 2002
£6
ISBN: 0-851-11298-6
Reviewer: Matt Searles
St Andrew's Apprentice
Date added: 10/2004
In summary:
-Find out the story of the whole Bible, the great God in charge of history, and his wonderful plan of salvation through Jesus.
-Every Christian should read a Bible overview, and this is a great place to start.
-It’s short and it’s an easy read, but it’s packed full of Biblical truth.
This excellent bible overview answers such questions as: ‘What is the overall message of the Bible?’ ‘How do I understand some of the more confusing parts of the Bible?’ ‘What has Daniel in the Lion’s Den got to do with Jesus and the New Testament?’
Vaughan Roberts explains how he hopes to do this in the introduction:
‘My aim in this book is to give you an overview of the main story of the Bible (...) so that whichever part you are reading you should know where you have come from and where you are heading.’
Jesus spoke of the Old Testament saying ‘These are the scriptures that testify about me’. How do the Kings of Israel relate to Jesus? What about the narrative sections of the Old Testament, which seem to be mere history?
This book shows us that the Bible is one book, with one overall story. Vaughan Roberts shows us that God’s overarching plan through history is to make a people for himself, who will live with him, under his rule, enjoying his blessing. This theme is that of ‘the Kingdom of God.’ This book shows us how this idea of the Kingdom of God is developed through the Bible – from the pattern of the kingdom in the Garden of Eden, through the fall, the history of Israel, and the prophets, until it finds its fulfilment in Jesus.
This book shows how God has progressively revealed himself in history, and is progressively working out his plan of salvation.
This helps us when we want to understand a part of the Bible – it gives us the necessary context. We no longer perform bloody animal sacrifices. Why is this? Is it because society has moved on, or because we no longer believe those parts of the Bible? ‘God’s Big Picture’ helps us see that these sacrifices were fulfilled in Jesus: they were only appropriate before his death on the cross. We are now at a different stage in what we might call ‘salvation history’.
Roberts is following in the footsteps of Graeme Goldsworthy, who wrote an excellent Bible Overview – ‘Gospel and Kingdom’. Roberts acknowledges this in the introduction, and states that his aim is not to improve on Goldsworthy’s book, rather to write a less technical book, to enable more people to understand God’s plans through history.
In this, the book is a great success. Vaughan writes with great wisdom and insight, yet his book is very clear and easy to understand. He writes short chapters, followed by helpful diagrams to summarise the story so far, which means that the reader can easily follow the main thrust of his argument. Study questions are also provided at the end of each chapter to help the reader take things farther, and to provoke further reflection.