To understand how Scripture changes lives, it might be helpful to think of the Bible like a movie.

When you watch a movie, whether you recognize it or not, your outlook on life is changed.

Your life after you watch a movie is never the same as it was before you watched it.

Sometimes the change is noticeable, and based on what you saw and heard, you resolve to live differently. Most of the time, however, the change is imperceptible, and you go on with life thinking that everything is the same.

But it isn’t.

In ways you do not fully understand, you connect with the images on the screen, with the actions of the actors, with the plot of the story, and with the theme and ideas of the script. Consciously or subconsciously, you decide to either become more or less like some of the characters in the story, based on what they did and how the story turned out.

How Scripture Changes Lives

Like a good book or great movie, Scripture changes your life, your perspective, your imagination, and your outlook.

The Bible does not tell us what to do; it tells us what was, what is, and what can be.

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In previous posts, we have suggested that the best way to read the Bible is to read it as a story.

In his books, The Last Word and Scripture and the Authority of God, N. T. Wright uses an extremely helpful illustration for explaining how God’s story functions, and where we fit into the plot. For a brief synopsis of the ideas in these books, see the paper by N. T. Wright, “How Can the Bible be Authoritative?”

History is a 5-Act Play

Wright portrays history as a play with five Acts. The first four Acts of the play are (I) Creation, (II) Fall, (III) Israel, and (IV) Jesus. The book of Acts and the rest of the New Testament are the opening scenes to Act V. If I were to tweak this image a little bit, I would add Act VI from some of what we read in the book of Revelation about the New Heavens and New Earth.

Based on this, Wright argues that we are currently living in the middle of Act V, and we are actors on the stage.

But there is no script, so we must improvise.

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Did God give us the kind of book He wanted, or did He give us a book that we would have to make into the kind of book we wanted?

To ask the question is to answer it.

We must accept the Bible the way God gave it to us, trusting that the kind of book we need is the kind of book God gave. If we want something different than what God gave, that is our problem, not His.

What kind of book did God give us? God gave us a story.

So now the question before us is not how we can rearrange the story and cut it up into pieces to make it more “helpful,” but rather to figure out why God chose to give us such a book.

Why did God give us a Story?

The answer is that God knows that a story is more powerful than a list. A story has more transformative power than a doctrinal statement or an ethical code of conduct.

When the Bible is taken as a story, it becomes far more powerful and effective in changing lives and transforming society than any book of doctrine or code of ethics ever could.

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All Christians know that Scripture is our guide.

This is why we have Bible Studies and sermons, daily devotions and Scripture memory. We believe that the Bible is the Word of God and is a guide for all matters of faith and practice. This is well and good. The Bible is a primary source of guidance for following Jesus into the world.

But why is there disagreement?

Even though we all agree that the Bible is our guide, there is great disagreement on what the Bible says about what to believe and how to live. With all of the doctrinal confusion and lifestyle chaos that is in the church, some have begun to wonder whether the Bible is helpful after all.

As one who has been wrestling with this issue for over a decade, I have finally come to piece together what I believe is not so much a conclusion on the matter, but is rather a working hypothesis.

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Following Jesus sometimes seems dangerous. If it doesn’t, you might not be following Him.

So start slowly.

Take a simple step.

If you and your church decide to take some of the suggestions in my book, Close Your Church for Good, and are trying to decide what to do next, let me offer the same advice that is given by Robert Farrar Capon in his book, The Astonished Heart:

My program would be this. Whoever was in command over the dying institution… would take the bull by the horns and kill it: close the church, dissolve the board, sequester its endowments, and sell off its property, putting the proceeds in escrow just in case the corpse ever rises and finds a use for them. Then the managers would explain to the remaining members of those churches that they were free to do anything they could think of (or nothing at all, if they so chose). A suggestion would be made, however, that they might think of holding a kind of wake on the next Sunday, perhaps in one of their homes, or in a restaurant or bowling alley that didn’t open until 1:00 p.m. And if they took that suggestion….

Well, they might sit and stare blankly at each other to begin with. But with any luck, some free spirit (young or old) among them would break the ice with the questions they had never before been able to ask—namely: “Who are we?” “Why on earth are we here?” And, most important of all, “What do we think we’d actually like to do?” Having no model at all to meet the upkeep on and no known shape to whip themselves into, they would for the first time be open to looking for really new answers—honest answers—that could range anywhere from “We haven’t the foggiest notion, but let’s get together next Sunday and see if anything’s occurred to us in the meantime,” to “We’re here to be the church, I suppose—whatever that means,” to “How about for openers we just try to stick with fellowship, breaking bread, and saying prayers?—maybe God will take care of the rest, if He wants any.”

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If the church wants to follow Jesus into the world, we must begin by looking in our town, in our community, and in our neighborhood for the places that are dark and sin-filled. We must have the courage and the faith to see those places and those people set free from their slavery to sin in the kingdom of darkness and redeemed into the peace and love of the kingdom of light.

There is no place off limits.

There is not place that is too sinful.

There is no place that is too corrupt.

The raging fire of the Gospel of Jesus can overcome and outshine any darkness, any sin, any corruption.

The Power of Redemption

I believe that the church has not yet begun to understand the power of redemption. Jesus wants not just to redeem every person on earth, but every place and event as well. Through redemption, Jesus not only transforms and rescues you and I, but also pagan holidays, wicked places, torn nations, and corrupt governments.

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