Do you know the message of the Bible? Could you retell it in 16 words? Chris Bruno wants to do just that – tell the message of the whole Bible in just 16 words. Well, sort of.
Hi, I’m Fred Zaspel, editor here at Books At a Glance, and today we’re talking to Chris Bruno, author of the new, The Whole Message of the Bible in 16 Words.
Chris, welcome, and congratulations on your new book!
Bruno:
Thank you, Fred; it’s great to be with you.
Zaspel:
Let’s start out with some review and a comparison. Tell us again about your first book, The Whole Story of the Bible in 16 Verses, and how this book follows it up.
Bruno:
A couple of years ago I published a book called The Whole Story of the Bible in 16 Verses. What I was trying to do in that book was tell the chronological or canonical story of the Bible tracing from the Creation, through the Fall, Redemption, and finally the New Creation and Consummation. Looking at 16 key places or turning points where the ongoing story of the Bible moves forward and unfolds. What I was really trying to do was a biblical theological overview of the Bible that was accessible to people who didn’t have PhD’s were advanced Bible degrees or who were really not that familiar with the Bible to begin with. I was trying to introduce a discipline of biblical theology by taking that approach where you just work your way through the story of Redemption.
Then following up with the second book, also trying to do biblical theology in an accessible way; but rather than a chronological or canonical approach to biblical theology, I am taking a thematic approach. I’m looking at 16 key themes or words as we call them in the title. 16 key words that can help us frame the whole message of the Bible. My hope is that these two volumes will work well together. We can put them in the hands of people, whether they are in the United States or internationally, who are not familiar with biblical theology, the ongoing story of redemption, the Christ-centered nature of the Scriptures. Put those in people’s hands and really get them started on a journey toward a lifelong learning of biblical theology.
Zaspel:
Your book is 16 chapters, but it’s divided into three parts – can you give us a broad overview of the “16 words” and explain how you approach your subject? Why do you divide it up as you do?
Bruno:
I divided into those three parts, firstly, using the analogy of a building. I wasn’t very tight with this all the way through, but I do think it works well. I tried to lay a foundation, in the first couple of chapters, of what the subsequent chapters will be built on; laying out a few key ideas in the first part. In the second, part I did a frame, so to speak, to frame out the building – what will the frame that’s laid on the foundation look like? What are some key themes that the whole message of the Bible is built around? So there’s an ongoing story, but there’s a frame that gives structure to that story. So I looked at creation, covenant and kingdom. In the foundation, what I wanted to talk about was eschatology, or the already and not yet nature of God’s promises and then God himself – that was the foundation. And then the frame – I traced creation, covenant, and kingdom. How do those three themes fit into and wrap around the story of the Bible? And then the last part, which is the longest part, chapters 6 through 16 I call the superstructure, or the building itself. What do the walls and windows and doors look like? I chose things like the Temple, Messiah, the land, the Exodus, wisdom, mission, the spirit – things that are woven throughout the whole message of the Bible but built on the frame that creation, covenant, and kingdom give us that’s all rooted in who God is and what he has done. So that’s the basic structure. While I haven’t walked through the story of the Bible in the way that I did in the 16 verses book, what I’ve really done is walk through the message of the Bible, which is part of the story of the Bible (I don’t want to divide those two things up too sharply) and try to show how all these things fit together into one harmonious, glorious whole. I thought the analogy of the building would be helpful to put some of that together.
Zaspel:
Your first chapter is entitled, “The End,” which certainly seems a bit odd! Tell us what you’re getting at – and tell us how “eschatology” shapes your whole study.
Bruno:
Chapter 1, The End; that’s a little bit of tongue-in-cheek, but I thought it would be important, as we think about the message of the Bible we recognize that eschatology is really at the center of it, in a lot of ways or at the foundation of our understanding of the whole message of the Bible. Because I’m not talking about eschatology just in the sense of events like the Rapture and the Return of Jesus and the Millennium. While those things are certainly an important part of eschatology, what I want to do is step back and say, okay, eschatology is the study of the last things, the study of the end. But when we talk about the end, we can’t just start on the last page of the Bible Emma: we need to see everything that God has done and is doing to get us to that last page. So really I’m defining eschatology as the study of God’s work in history to bring the story to its intended end. So if we are thinking about God’s work in history, the bringing the story to its intended end, then what I want to say is, we have to start all the way back in Genesis; because right after the fall, God began to work to make all things new with the promise of the Redeemer, the promise that the offspring of the woman would overcome the offspring of the serpent. I am saying that if we want to understand the end, we have to understand that God has been working throughout history to bring his promises to their intended conclusion. When we think about eschatology, what we are really thinking about is the fact that God is and will keep his promises. The reason I see that as a foundational aspect of understanding the whole story of the Bible is that it’s all about God’s faithfulness to his promises. So the two pieces of the foundation that I have laid out are: God, and his faithfulness to keep his promises and to bring the story of history to its desired conclusion.
Zaspel:
Let’s take a sample from Part 2: how does “Creation” frame the Bible message?
Bruno:
If you read the Bible very much, I think you can begin to pick up on this repeated creation theme that really frames the story of the Bible in significant ways. Obviously the beginning of the Bible tells the story of the creation, “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The end of the Bible in Revelation 21 ends with God creating a new heavens and a new earth. So anytime we see the same theme repeated at the beginning and the end of the book or section it’s a flag saying, “this is important.” When we look at the whole Bible and see that it begins and ends with the Creation and New Creation, that should be a flag for us saying this is an important theme. Then as we trace out the creation theme throughout the Bible, we find that to be the case. When the flood came and God judged most of humanity apart from Noah and his family, and then Noah got off of the ark, there’s all of these creation phrases and themes that are repeated again. There’s all these allusions back to the first creation with the wind blowing over the waters and God gathering the waters, the mountains appearing, then birds and land animals appearing and when Noah comes out of the ark God blessed him and commanded him to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. So we have this new creation.
We see this repeated again with the Exodus from Egypt; all of this language that points us to the new creation. When Israel came through the Red Sea, there’s these hints that God is blowing the sea, dividing the waters and it’s a lot like what happened in Genesis 1. So there’s these hints for us that when God redeems his people, when God saves his people, it’s a new creation. When God keeps his promises, it’s like a new creation; he’s keeping his promises and in so doing, making all things new. We see it again in Israel’s return from exile that when Isaiah in the other prophets speak of a return from exile God is going to keep his redemptive promises and when he does there’s this new creation that comes along with it. So then it shouldn’t surprise us that when Jesus comes, and Paul can write, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;” or, as the NIV translates it, “if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come.” God’s redemption of his people is a type of a new creation; we receive the spirit; we begin to be made new and we look forward to the day when God will indeed make all things new. I am just scratching the surface here, but when I see all of these themes throughout the Bible it helps me to understand that this is a very important part of the overall message of the Bible. That’s why New Creation, along with Covenant and Kingdom, I think, have a high level of importance when we’re trying to understand these things.
Zaspel:
And let’s take one from Part 3: how does “Temple” tell the Bible message?
Bruno:
At this point in Part 3, I am moving beyond the foundation and what I would call the frame to the superstructure or the walls, the windows, the doors, those things that are important part of the story that may not be as central as some of the others. But I think we can’t discount the Temple theme throughout the Bible. If you are familiar with some of the things that Greg Beale has done on the Temple, I’m very dependent on Beale; and he’s not the only one, certainly, but his stuff on the Temple has helped me think through this so I’ll give credit where credit is due there. From the very beginning, in the garden of Eden, we have this Temple where God’s dwelling with his people. Because the Temple is a place where God’s presence is; where God lives among his people; or where God is represented among his people. And so there is this command to Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and really what God is doing, I think, is commanding them to expand the borders of the Temple; to expand the place where his presence dwells. Israel’s Temple, many years later, had a similar purpose; it was different in a lot of ways, but God’s special presence was with his people in the Temple. And interestingly, the Tabernacle and the Temple were full of garden-like images. The high priest had these pomegranates on his robe; the lampstand was designed to look like almond blossoms; the pillars of Solomon’s Temple had lilies and pomegranates on them; they were pointing us back to the garden of Eden, reminding God’s people that that was the very first Temple. And the purpose of the Temple was not just for God’s people to sit back and relax and admire how great they were; but, rather, it was to remind them of their commission to take the presence of God to the nations. It really is a part of Israel’s commission to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation to represent the God who dwelt among them to the nations around them. And then when we move to the New Testament, we see Jesus himself fulfilling that. As the true Temple, he was the place where God’s presence dwelt in its fullness. John 1:14 says that Jesus tabernacled or tented among us; so he makes God’s presence known to us and through Jesus, we take God’s presence to the nations. So we can see this theme of Temple traced throughout the Bible as a missional type of theme as we take God’s presence to the nations and his glory is seen more and more as the gospel advances. So I think this is an important part of the message of the Bible. We see it woven throughout is closely linked to the mission of God’s people.
Zaspel:
Who is your intended audience?
Bruno:
My intended audience is, hopefully, people who are reading the 16 verses book; but anybody who is interested in learning more about the Bible. Hopefully, Bible study groups, individual Christians who are interested in the journey towards biblical theology, and maybe even some non-Christians who are wondering what all these things are all about.
Zaspel:
You have pitched it so that it is accessible for a first introduction to the Bible story and the Bible message, right?
Bruno:
That’s right.
Zaspel:
Do you have another book planned for this same series? Can we expect 16 of anything else?
Bruno:
Well, I’m hoping to put the 16 mantra up on the shelf; but I do plan to work toward creating more accessible biblical theological introductions. I’m in the beginning stages of a new project on what it means to enter the story of the Bible. That is, this overarching story of the Bible, this overarching message of the Bible; what does it mean that we are all part of that story? What does it mean to shape our lives around that story? I’m looking at the way biblical theology should shape the way we live as Christians. It’s really about a Christian worldview when you come down to it.
Zaspel:
We’re talking to Dr. Chris Bruno, author of the book, The Whole Story of the Bible in 16 Verses, and now the new The Whole Message of the Bible in 16 Words. It’s a wonderful idea and a really very good little book. I hope this one and his previous book will be read widely. They are both wonderfully helpful resources for understanding what the Bible is all about.
Chris, thanks much for talking to us today.
Bruno:
Thank you; it was my pleasure.
Editor’s Note: You may want to check out our previous interview with Chris Bruno, where he talks to us about his previous book. You can listen in here.
