Five Things We Must Understand (But Often Don’t) about the New Testament (Summary)

1.       No one reads the Bible without blinders; blinders make us need each other.

2.       God’s purpose or endgame in creation is NOT some “saved” individuals spending forever in some place other than earth (that is, heaven) and in some other kind of existence than bodily (that is, immaterial, quasi-angelic). It’s just NOT!

3.       Did You Know You Are a Royal Priest?

4.       What in the Heck are “Principalities and Powers”?

5.       Between D-Day and V-Day.

Obviously much more needs and should be said about each of these matters and others as well. But I contend without these five in place one cannot even make a good start at grasping the New Testament or the Bible as a whole. Unless,

-we know our task is to read the Bible together in light of the realities and questions of our day, that is, to always read it anew. Jesus said, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” We cling to old, of course, but in order to read it anew in new conditions and facing new issues,

-we know what the Bible is really all about,

-who we are,

-what the opposition is, and

-what the conditions under which we do battle are,

we will fail to “rightly divide the Word of truth” and default on the mission entrusted to us.