See that blue text immediately above? That’s what’s called a “hyperlink”. If you hover your mouse over a hyperlink and click on it, you’ll notice that it takes you to a scripture inspiring this blog. If you prefer reading from a hard copy Bible, especially a good study Bible, you’ve probably noticed little alphanumeric characters interwoven into the script. These are hyperlinks too. Some refer to footnotes on the same page, while others show you where to turn in scripture to find out more about the subject.
These tools are helpful in answering the question “How do I study the Bible?” The Bible should be studied as an unfolding story, complete with flashbacks and flash forwards “hyperlinks”, so we come to understand the complete story. If you ever saw the movie The Sixth Sense, you may recall that once they started rolling the flashbacks, the whole story came together for you. It may be that no other book in the Bible is better at showing us flashbacks and flash forwards than Isaiah. Isaiah cites Old Testament scripture as well as introducing us to Jesus – some 700 years into the future.
A brief synopsis, or in movie language “trailer”, of the Bible should pique our interest. Briefly, in the beginning, God created mankind in His image and in His likeness. And almost from the first moment, mankind has been trying to reverse the process by creating a god in our image and in our likeness. God is righteously repulsed by this idolatry and mankind finds ourselves separated from the intimacy God wants with us. The appropriate fine for the offense of choosing idolatry is eternal separation; living forever outside the presence of the one true God. The good news is that the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is all about Jesus and answers all the questions from why we need His help to the sacrifices He had to endure to make His help available to us. Studying the Bible leaves us with a feeling of complete gratitude. The Bible has always been, and still remains, the best-selling book in the world. Let’s crack this open and find out why.
Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim his greatness. Let the whole world know what he has done. 1 Chronicles 16:8 NLT
