The Six Acts Of The Drama Of Scripture

Paul preaches sermon of remembrance that ends in Jesus at King in the line of David

Prophecy, poetry, songs, and genealogy lists are just a few of the many genres found in the Pentateuch. However, the two dominant genres include biblical law and biblical narrative. In fact, 40 percent of the Old Testament is narrative (“Lecture 1,” 2015). Key to interpreting different texts within the Bible, it is critical to understand the genres themselves. Each genre possesses unique features that, when understood, assist in the interpretation of the text. Understanding the key features of biblical law and biblical narrative genres will affect how an individual interprets Scripture in the Old Testament.

The book of Acts is known as 'the birth of the church'. Acts recounts the story of

In the Beginning, "The PLAY" was created and written by God. The stage of Heaven and Earth, water, dirt, land, lighting, darkness, time, boundaries, vegetation, living creatures, provision, procreation, and life were set to play out, make choices, to live, and to die.

The Bible is composed of many different stories and narratives. Each one of these individual stories contributes to the greater story of the Bible; sometimes called the Grand Story of Scripture. Within each Story, they have elements that define the setting, characters, climax, and themes. The overall Grand Story of Scripture contains these elements in each of the five divisions: prologue, epilogue, and three acts in between.

The Drama of Scripture written by Bartholomew and Goheen takes the reader on a journey through the entire Bible in six short “acts.” The first Act discusses creation and the establishment of God’s Kingdom. In the beginning was complete darkness. Then, God created light and divided the heavens and the earth. He then split the waters and the seas, creating dry ground on which the rest of creation could walk. He proceeded to make plants and flowers and the sun, moon, and stars. He created days and seasons and animals of all shapes and sizes. And then, to add the finishing touch, God created men and women, male and female, He created them. The book states that “the Genesis story is given so that we might have a true understanding of the world in which we live, its divine author, and our own place in it” (Bartholomew, 29). Genesis 1-3, the story of Creation, is prevalent because it introduces the author of creation, humanity, and the creation upon which humanity’s drama unfolds.

The word 'gospel' means good news. There are four gospel accounts in the New Testament:

Macdonald, (2010) suggested that the bible is a cultural work of art because it is used in storytelling, preaching, drama and visual posters. The bible tells God’s story in how he created the world, the fall, redemption and the new creation. The bible has a sequence of events, songs, proverbs, prophetic books, writing of wisdom and letters. In the bible there is a comparison between connecting scripture and constructing culture. It is able to change one’s life and one’s culture because

In doing so, we can discover that final authority is not in and of scripture itself but of the Triune God who is the Author of scripture. The second obstacle to consider is that many have dismissed scripture as a book of Israelitic & Christian stories. Wright contends that these stories are told to inform us of “internal dynamics” of the past so as to engage us in the present for transformation into Christ-likeness. (p.25). Thirdly, Wright asserts that the question of scripture’s authority should not be viewed as a list of rules where God condescends to man. Rather, scripture should be received as God’s purpose to save and renew the entire world by authorizing the church—God’s agent in the world—with His mission through the work of the Holy Spirit. Thus, it is imperative that biblical scholars “see the role of scripture not simply as being [informative about or revelatory of God’s truth] but as a means of God’s action in and through us.” (p.28)

According to our text, the New Testament is comprised of four primary literary forms: Gospels, History, Letters and Apocalyptic (Harris, 2014). The Gospels was made up of four books written by four separate authors who tell of Jesus from four individual viewpoints based upon their understanding of who Jesus was, yet it does not cover the lifespan of Jesus, only certain accounts. Therefore, it is not considered historical or a biography but is defined as ‘sui generis’. The historical counts of the life of Christ is noted in the book of Acts. This book tells of the history of the early church but by all accounts doesn’t use traditional criteria most often noted in historical writings. The Epistles are known as letters. These letters were thought to be written by Paul and his followers. The letters were often written to the various churches rather than people or individuals. They were also written to address issues, concerns or to offer praise for specific acts or behaviors. Thus, letters or epistles addressing sin were more of the rebuking nature to bring correction and accountability in the effort to restore the parishioners to appropriate, God-fearing behaviors. Whereas, other letters may be to praise churches for exemplifying model behaviors that could be used for strong witnessing. The latter form is known as the apocalyptic writings. This form tends to deal with the End Times and was suspected to have been written during the time of church persecution. The book of Revelation in particular, was written around the 1st century when Christians were said to have been killed for their faith. It is during this time that the question was raised regarding God’s role and whether or not he would win. It was stated emphatically that God would win and would redeem his people.ReferenceHarris, S. L., (2014). The New Testament: A Student’s Introduction (8th ed.). Dubuque:McGraw-Hill Education.

As Lewis Chafer notes, continuity in the Bible is best shown through the fulfillment of prophecy (164). Christ is the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies. And the Second Coming of Christ is the expected fulfillment of the New Testament prophecies. In both cases, and throughout the Old and the New Testaments, "highways of prophecy" are directed towards Advents of Christ.

There are many central themes that are in the Old Testament, and many may say that there is only one theme of the Old Testament, which is Jesus, and even though that is true in a lot of ways due to the fact that a lot of the minor prophets actually talk about the coming of Jesus, His death and His resurrection. However, I have discovered five main themes of the Old Testament that I found quite interesting. And in this paper I will discuss two of them. I believe one of the most important themes of the Old Testament is Covenant.

The King James version of the Bible affected many things and had a major impact on society and the English language. It was created by King James to benefit and fill a request given by the puritans to King James. It took seven years to write and it became the English standard version of the Bible. The King James version includes a lot of formal and poetic language to describe stories and events in the other versions of the Bible. It taught the Bible in a different way making it easier for some people to understand and believe in the stories and truths of the Bible. This version is the most influential version of the Bible. It is also the most referred too and the most popular for many groups of people. Overall it is a descriptive and creative translation that combines truth with poetic art and beautiful language appealing to many different groups of people.

The point of this assignment is to discuss the passage chosen, as well as information regarding the historical/cultural background of the passage and applying it to my life as a human being. It is also important that I apply this information on the passage to the Christian life or church ministry. The passage I have chosen for this assignment is from Matthew chapters 5-7 and is labeled “The Sermon on the Mount”. The Sermon on the Mount is the longest and most prominent of the five discourses of Jesus in Matthew. The whole point of the Sermon on the Mount was to show people who converted to Christianity how to live. It is to show how Christians should live in their actions, words, thoughts, and others ways of life. With that being said, this way of life was preached by Jesus Christ as he “went up on the mountain” to deliver his powerful message. The information for this passage is in, of course, the bible and our textbook “Encountering the New Testament”, as well as many other resources on the web that are related to the bible and passage.

The first 39 books of the larger work called the Bible, is called the Old Testament. The Bible itself is arguably the best selling and most read book of all time, yet it’s well known to be quite challenging to read through and understand. The Old Testament portion of the Bible, notably the most difficult portion of the Bible for most to study and follow, yields 39 books from multiple authors, and spans over 4000 years of crucial world and church history. If that were not enough to take on, the Old Testament comes our way through multiple styles of authorship and formats, including but not limited to, books of history, law, proverbs, ethics,