The bible is many things to many people and as a “believer” it is the source of strength, instruction, validation and a guide to the tenets of the faith for those who wish to live a Godly Life. To put it simply, it is a collection of stories from the time of the creation…about our God’s relationship with his people and the path of God’s people to the day of salvation, through the blood of of His only Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. A good story has a few traits or guidelines that enhance it ability to educate, inspire or just simply be able to get ones attention. That is what we are about this week. I am always reading and learning from other people’s work in the telling of the story and their perspective of the Gospel. I came across a person who has helped me understand the way to study these scriptures his name is Jeffrey Kranz. (Click this link to learn more about him.)
I Love to Tell the Story Arabella K. Hankey, 1866
“I love to tell the story of unseen things above, Of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and His love; I love to tell the story, because I know ’tis true, It satisfies my longings as nothing else would do.”
A scripture reference to consider:
Psalm 66:16
Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul.
I often read summaries of different books of the Bible in order to understand the direction or theme that the writer is looking for. If you took journalism in school back in the day you might recall these questions were asked in order to tell the story…Who, What, Where,Why and When… Mr Kranz mentions the importance of the Theme Verse describing it as… “a verse or set of verses that sums up the story, structure, and/or theme of the book of the Bible it was written in.” Our Sunday School Class has begun a study of the Book of Hebrews so I decided to apply some of his methods to better understand how it might help me as I studied this book. Mr Kranz breaks down of the structure of the book that leads to its purpose. Then there is Key verse or verses which identify the Theme. I suggest you go to the underlined link above and read his blog.
There are many written opinions as to the theme verses in Hebrews one being that God has spoken to us through Jesus Christ his Son and our great High Priest, so we should pay attention to his message and fix our thoughts upon him.
- Hebrews 1:1-4
Today God speaks through his Son. - Hebrews 2:1-3
We have heard what Jesus says and we should pay much more attention to what we have heard. - Hebrews 3:1-3
We should consider (fix our thoughts on) Jesus as our great High Priest, and not neglect the great salvation that he preached.
Mr Kranz refers us to these verses… Hebrews 10:23-24 Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. 24 Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.
Just as Arabella K. Hankey’s hymn I Love to Tell the Story, I love the words that tell the story and it is in the Bible, the Holy Word that we draw closer to our God.
Life is Good
jk