{"id":6693,"date":"2025-06-23T07:01:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-23T11:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/learn\/?p=6693"},"modified":"2026-04-10T11:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T15:54:08","slug":"story-of-the-bible-changes-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/learn\/bible-101\/about-the-bible\/story-of-the-bible-changes-everything\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding the Story of the Bible Changes Everything"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Do you remember sitting in Sunday School as a kid, watching the volunteer teacher place flannel graph cutouts on a board, explaining different Bible stories?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had Noah\u2019s Ark, Adam and Eve, baby Jesus, Jonah in the whale, Daniel with a smiling lion, story after story, each one teaching us a little something about God. They were really helpful at the moment, wouldn\u2019t you agree?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, if you\u2019re like me, as you grew up in Church, you were encouraged to memorize verse after verse, to get the Word buried deep in our hearts. I wasn\u2019t exactly gifted at memorizing, so my mom had to incentivize me with Dairy Queen Blizzards for every verse I got to stick. It was a win-win situation, a pretty sweet deal.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So by the time I was a teenager, I knew a ton of Bible stories and random memory verses. But even with all that knowledge, something still felt disconnected. The Bible was still overwhelming. It was a massive book with tiny words, weird names, and cultural things that I didn\u2019t understand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as a Christian I was supposed<\/em> to fall in love with reading it. Right?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I just didn\u2019t know how. And it wasn\u2019t until my mid-twenties when I hit a low spot in my life (and in my faith) that I reached to the Bible again \u2014 but this time for answers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I joined a Bible training program in Australia where we studied Scripture for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, for 9 months straight. We read through the Bible five times, and essentially wrote our own commentary on the entirety of Scripture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That experience changed everything for me. Because for the first time, I realized what I had been missing: the bigger picture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, I knew stories.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, I memorized verses.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I was missing the full storyline that tied all of the stories and verses together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I finally saw the Bible as one unified narrative \u2014 the story of God, His people, and His plan to redeem and restore all things, with Jesus at the center \u2014 everything clicked.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Can you relate? Maybe you grew up in Church and had a similar knowledge of Scripture as I did. Maybe you want to read the entire Bible, but it\u2019s a little big and confusing and you don\u2019t know where to begin. I understand where you\u2019re coming from. I\u2019ve been there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But here\u2019s the thing: once you zoom out and learn the story, it will make everything else come alive. You\u2019ll see the Bible differently. You\u2019ll enjoy reading it more. And you\u2019ll even see how your story fits into God\u2019s story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are three ways understanding the full story of the Bible will change the way you read it forever:  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. You Don\u2019t Just Learn About God \u2014 You Fall in Love With Him<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As Christians, we can\u2019t approach the Bible the same as we do any other book. We believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, meaning that His heart is behind every word written within it. Yes, the Bible is a history book, full of wisdom and inspiring stories, but it\u2019s so much more than that. It\u2019s a revelation of God\u2019s heart. And we would be doing ourselves and Him a major disservice if we only allow our Bible time to build up our knowledge of Scripture, instead of allowing it to make an impact on our hearts.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story of the Bible reveals a faithful God who is in pursuit of His creation and wants to partner with them in redeeming the world. It\u2019s a love letter<\/a> and a divine rescue plan that we get to be a part of. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

God is not just all-powerful and all-knowing (though He is). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s also deeply personal and loving and compassionate and consistent and full of grace.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The God of the Universe is inviting us, mere humans, into a relationship. I think that can be overlooked sometimes, especially if you grew up in the Church, but that\u2019s a major deal. And His Word is the main place we look to understand His heart and fall more in love with Him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The more you read the story, the more you will trust the Author. You will stop seeing him as a distant God that is detached from our reality, and start seeing Him as the faithful Father that is inviting you into something beautiful. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. You Start to See Jesus on Every Page<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A lot of us spend the majority of our time reading the New Testament, because that\u2019s where Jesus shows up \u2014 or so we think. But did you know that he is also the thread through the entire Bible? You can find hints and shadows of Jesus in every single book<\/a> of the Bible, even thousands of years before he came to earth as an infant. He is the Passover lamb in Exodus, the substitute in Genesis 22<\/a>, the suffering servant in Isaiah, the fulfillment of the Temple in Exodus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few examples: <\/p>\n\n\n\n