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Commentary on "Story and History"

COLLEEN TINKER

 

Day 1: Sabbath Afternoon, September 25, 2010 - Introduction

 

Overview

This lesson introduces the quarter's lessons and defines the components of "story": plot, characters, and setting. It refers to the stories of Satan challenging God regarding Job, and Job's subsequent suffering on account of God's permission for Satan to afflict him. It also refers to the stories of Joseph and Potiphar's wife, David, and Hulda the prophetess.

Additionally, the lesson's Teacher's Helps say these lessons must be seen within the framework of the great controversy, the way Satan works against us and God works for us.

Today's lesson says "story" is a postmodern return to more subjective ways of seeing and knowing than was the modern period which stressed science and logic. The Bible, it says, is very current because it gives us lessons in stories.

 

Observations

The lesson is correct in saying "story" is a powerful means of telling truth. The biggest problem with this lesson, however, is the fact that it sees the Bible stories as demonstrating the "great controversy". The Bible does not tell us Satan's story; it only tells us ours. The Bible never says that Satan and Jesus are in a continuing struggle. Rather, it says that Jesus defeated and disarmed the "rulers and authorities" on the cross (Col 2:15).

Our lives are not the pawns of a struggle for our souls. We are born definitively into the "domain of darkness" (Col 1:13), by nature "objects of wrath" (Eph. 2:3b). We are born condemned to eternal death (Jn 3:18), and unless we believe in the Lord Jesus and His sacrifice, we are "condemned already" (Jn. 3:18).

Reality is actually not about us. History and all reality is about God. The "story" is actually God's story, and He graciously gives us roles to play in His story. The great controversy tells us reality is the story of Satan and Jesus struggling for dominance with humanity giving Jesus the victory He needs to defeat Satan. Nothing could be further from the truth.

History is not "our" story with moments where God intersects with us. Rather, History is God's story, and it shows how God draws us into His story. Jesus has already won the victory, and Satan is a defeated foe who rattles his figurative chain and tries to make trouble. The outcome, though, is already determined.

The OT stories are not "background" stories. They are all part of the shadows that prefigure the Lord Jesus. Unless we read the OT stories to discover God's faithfulness and His sovereign power and control over all creation, we miss the point.

The OT stories are not disconnected anecdotes revealing people's victories and failures. They are, rather, revelations of the effects of trust and lack of trust—and of God's faithfulness to Himself no matter how strong or weak human's trust is.

God is the Sovereign Lord and Ruler, and Jesus is the victorious Lamb slain from the foundation of the earth. the OT shows us the "shadows" of the reality of Jesus' completed atonement and victory over Satan.

We can rejoice because these OT characters show us God's power and faithfulness, not their own.

 

Summary

  1. "Story" is a powerful means of telling truth.
  2. The great controversy is not a biblical idea.
  3. The Bible does not tell us stories of Satan's supposed struggle with Jesus; this concept is not in the Bible.
  4. We are not the pawns nor the heroes in a cosmic struggle. We are born doomed to eternal death unless we place our faith in the Lord Jesus.
  5. History tells us God's story and reveals how He gives us roles to play in it. History is not the story of humans with moments of divine intervention.
  6. The OT stories are not "background". They are integral parts of the shadows that prefigure the Lord Jesus.
  7. Christ Jesus has already won the victory over Satan. We must read the OT stories from the perspective of the Sovereign Lord accomplishing His perfect will IN SPITE of human failure.

 

GO TO DAY 2

 

Copyright 2010 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised September 23, 2010. This website is published by Life Assurance Ministries, Glendale, Arizona, USA, the publisher of Proclamation! Magazine. Contact email: BibleStudiesForAdventists@gmail.com.

The Sabbath School Bible Study Guide and the corresponding E.G. White Notes are published by Pacific Press Publishing Association, which is owned and operated by the Seventh-day Adventist church. The current quarter's editions are pictured above.

 

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