I was recently listening to a talk given by my friend Joe Whitwer (Spokane, WA.). He summarized the Bible in four minutes. I like it. Here it is, tweaked a little by me:
We were designed for good. God created the world and made it a good world. God created you & me. God made us for himself. We’re designed for good and for God.
If God made the world good, and made it for himself, what went wrong? How do we explain all the suffering & evil that we see in the world all around us?
We were designed for good, but we were damaged by evil. (How? I’ll tell you in a minute).
Human beings from the very beginning have rebelled against God and gone our own way. In the process, we alienated ourselves each other, and from God. The world is a mess, starting with me. Starting with you.
We’ve been designed for good. We’ve been damaged by evil. The next question is, “Is there any hope for change?”
Yes … we’ve been rescued by God. Rather than giving up on us, God came after us. God became a human being. Jesus lived a perfect life, a sinless life, and in that sense was a great example for all of us.
Jesus became an example of what God is like … and also what we are supposed to be like. (He showed us another way of being human). But we needed more than an example. We needed rescue. To do that, God allowed broken people to nail His Son to the cross. And in that dark moment, God took all of our Rebellion … Evil … Brokenness … Sin … upon himself and defeated it. Jesus absorbed our evil into Himself.
Then God raised Jesus from the dead, defeating the final enemy, death itself. This is the good news, that God has acted in Christ to rescue us and offer us a whole new way of being. (Tremendous Aliveness)
God changes your life, but that is not the end of it. There are more dominoes to fall. You are a ‘human becoming’ (caterpillar to butterfly), and while you are still in process, God sends you out as an agent of transformation.
When you receive Christ, you become contagious with God healing grace, truth, love and justice. He sends you out to be his hands extended, his love made visible.
So there it is. The Bible in 4 minutes. Designed for good. Damaged by evil. Rescued by God. Sent to heal.