Remember The Heart of The Bible

The Bible continues to be at the top of bestseller charts and a favorite book for people from all backgrounds. Yet for many people, including long-time Christians and those with a more casual interest, the Bible remains daunting and difficult. New Testament Professor Tom J. Cowley charts a way through the Bible by focusing on the "heart of the Bible". He creates a framework for understanding the whole Bible and takes readers through twenty-six studies, covering the Old Testament, New Testament and Epistles. Emphasizing the message of love that God sends his people throughout the Bible, this book is ideal for small groups or individuals who seek a clearer understanding of the Bible, a better way to recall the Bible's stories, and a tool to experience spiritual growth.

Introduction

Most of you who pick up this book have some familiarity with the Bible. You probably own one at home; you may even own several. Many of you studied the Bible in Sunday School and some of you still do. In our Western culture, the Bible is often quoted, and we are almost as likely to hear its words used in the marketplace as in the church. Meanwhile, the Bible tops bestseller lists every year by a large margin. In fact, “Americans buy more than 20 million new Bibles every year to add to the four the average American [already] has at home” (The Economist, Dec. 22, 2007). With such popularity, you would think that knowledge of the Bible is quite high. Yet, it turns out that the opposite is true. The same article reports that “the state of American Bible knowledge is abysmal.” Many polls, such as those done by the Barna Group (www.barna.org), confirm this reality.

Many people, including long-time Christian believers, lack a basic working knowledge or basic “literacy” of the Bible. Or, they may understand some of the basics, but lack a framework to hold it all together. It is my hope that this book, Remember the Heart of the Bible, can address both these concerns: I hope to cover the basic truths and narratives of the Bible while providing an overall framework that puts all these pieces together. To do this, I have tried to provide clear summaries of the Bible’s important narratives and to organize the Bible in ways that seem helpful for recall, keeping in mind the importance of being able to share and live Bible truths in our day-to-day life. I have avoided deep theological study. This way, both new and seasoned students of the Bible can benefit from this guide. For new students, I hope this gives a thorough overview of the Bible’s key narrative and truths; for seasoned students, I hope this gives a good review of the same material, while filling in some missing pieces.

Simplifying and ordering scripture was important to Jesus. An important example is told in Matthew 22, when Jesus was challenged in the temple by religious leaders. As the story unfolds, on the Tuesday of Holy Week, Jesus has just silenced one group of dissenters, the Sadducees. The Pharisees (another religious group) gathered together to question him. One of the Pharisees, being an expert in the Law, tested Jesus with a question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?”

(Matthew 22:36). There were more than 600 rabbinical laws at the time. Jesus had to take care in bringing simplicity, accuracy, and focus to his answer. He replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All of the law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37-40).

I consider these love commandments to be the heart of the Bible. Later, in the Upper Room on Thursday evening, Jesus shared with his followers:

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35).

Love is at the heart of Jesus’ message. This is why I have titled this book Remember the Heart of the Bible. This story of love is woven throughout the pages of the Bible. Through history God has expressed his love for humanity and in this book we will follow this story. We start with “Foundations,” a look at how God loved his people and laid the foundation for Jesus in the narratives of the Old Testament. We follow that with “Fufillment,” where we will focus on Jesus’ message of love as presented in the Gospels, particularly Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Lastly, we examine the “First Followers,” those early believers who attempted to live out Jesus’ message, as documented in the Epistles of the New Testament. To summarize, this book has three sections that contain a total of twenty-six Bible studies:

Section 1 – Foundations

• 9 narrative studies to order the key event chronology of the Old Testament

Section 2 – Fulfillment

• 8 studies on love organized by “Love God/Father” and “Love our Neighbor”

Section 3– First Followers

• 9 Epistles studies, organizing the letters, emphasizing love passages

The idea for this book grew out of work on my earlier book, A Biography of Jesus. In that book, I sought to provide an outline and overview of thirty-two key events of Jesus’ life centered around four geographic locations. In both the previous book and this one, I attempt to give a framework summary to assist readers in organizing and recalling information. However, Remember the Heart of the Bible differs from the previous work in at least two areas: It covers the whole Bible, rather than only the Gospel record of Jesus’ life, and the emphasis is placed on love of God and love of neighbor versus a chronology of events from the life of Jesus.

I believe that setting up a framework to organize information, spiritual or secular, is extremely helpful. Studies of the human memory show that having a framework increases our ability to retain and recall information. For example, I am a baseball fan and I have a framework for the leagues, teams, and players set up in my mind. It is easy to recall baseball facts, talk about important information, and store new data in my mind. On the other hand, I am not an opera buff; I have no framework for opera information. Facts about operas enter and leave my memory with little chance of “sticking.” I am not equipped to talk knowledgeably about opera because I haven’t created a framework to store and recall facts. The same is true with scripture and spiritual information. As we set up frameworks for Biblical information, our chances of remembering those stories and facts and being able to dialogue about them increases.

In addition to creating a framework, this book may assist readers in choosing material for an annual reading of the Bible. I am a great believer in regular Bible reading. Keep in mind that the organization and passages presented here are my choice; you may want to develop your own organization and select different passages. Beside the twenty-six studies, this book also includes three appendices for those who want to a different kind of focused meditation and review:

Appendix 1

The word love is used sixty-three times in the New International Version (NIV) four Gospels. Forty-eight of the usages are “red letter” words of Jesus. This appendix records each of thirty-four Bible scriptures where Jesus used the word love. Reading these verses slowly and collectively in meditation can provide powerful insights into the love teachings of Jesus.

Appendix 2

There are 163 uses of the word “love” in the Epistles. This appendix orders the 163 times love appears by 133 scripture citations for meditation and review.

Appendix 3

This appendix presents the thirty-two key events highlighted in my previous book, A Biography of Jesus. This framework provides a chronological outline of the life of Jesus. Under the thirty-two key events are 172 scripture references for meditation and study. As mentioned earlier, this book does not focus on deep theological discussion. It is designed to emphasize the simplicity and practical truths for daily living from the whole Bible, and increase religious literacy among Christian lay persons. As we will see in our first studies, God provides very basic truths and answers to important questions in the very first five books of the Bible. He addresses questions such as:

• Who am I?
• Who is God?
• Why am I here?

He then builds on these truth threads throughout the Bible and creates a wonderful fabric mosaic for living. He says:

• You are a child of God, created to dwell in His marvelous creation, the Earth, and create balance in the universe he designed.
• There is one God, who desires a covenant of love with you. He reveals his word (logos) through his son, Jesus Christ and leaves the Holy Spirit to be your counselor for daily living.
• You are made to seek to follow God’s laws of love and build his kingdom on this earth.

As you study, focus on these simple truths. The heart of the Bible, the commands to love God and love neighbor, are what we were created for and are good starting points for focus.

God bless,
Tom J. Cowley, D. Min.