There is not much enjoyment in contemplating a single piece from a jigsaw puzzle. It may create some level of interest—but not much. Even looking at three pieces, or even ten pieces, isn’t that interesting. What makes a jigsaw puzzle attention-grabbing is the process of figuring out how the pieces fit together. Slowly, a pleasant, unified, comprehensible picture begins to appear. The more complete that image becomes, the more anxious we are to grab another piece and see where and how it fits. In some ways, the books and stories of the Old Testament are like the pieces to a jigsaw puzzle. In and of themselves they create some level of interest—but they don’t become attention-grabbing until we begin to see how the individual pieces relate to the whole. For many, the study of the Old Testament may never reach beyond looking at the individual pieces. Nothing fits the pieces together. How is the book of Leviticus connected to the book of Hebrews? How is John’s reason for writing his Gospel related to Psalm 2? How do we connect the covenant ceremony of Genesis 15 with the cross—much less understand that ceremony to begin with? Why is the book of Ruth included as part of the Bible? What does it have to do with anything? Or better yet, why do we have the book of Esther—where God is not mentioned at all? What makes each of these important? How are they related, or are they? In short, how is God’s story—God’s revelation—unified? And that’s where A Forty-Day Study of the Biblical Story comes in. We journey through Scripture in a way that brings all of the bits and pieces into a unified whole—because our focus is going to be on what makes the Biblical Story whole: Jesus Christ. We examine the Old Testament through the lens of what we learn about Jesus.
