Reflection: Biblical Teaching – Part 2

As we continue with our Holy Habit of Biblical Teaching, I would like to suggest that the Bible is a bit like a school mathematics text book. In the front of the text-book are all the problems, and in the back are the answers.

However, in the case of the Bible, there is only one problem and one solution.

The problem is sin and the Old Testament describes this in terrible detail, and the answer is Jesus’s death on the cross, which we see in the New Testament.

A drastic solution to an intractable problem that only God Himself could solve.

In the Garden of Eden, as soon as Adam and Eve sin, we start to see consequences. It had never bothered them before that they were naked, they experienced fear, they hide from God, and enmity is born, pain is increased, work becomes toil. In the next generation, we see envy and murder (Genesis 3 and 4).

All of the world’s problems are ultimately the result of sin. Ever since then, men and women everywhere have been unable to return to that original sinless state which is necessary for a relationship with a perfect God.

Before the creation of the world, God had planned the solution to the problem that He knew would come. He knew what it would cost, and only Jesus could carry it out.

“The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many” Matt 20:28.

We cannot even believe without the Holy Spirit within us, we are so helpless to save ourselves.

Let’s worship God for His gracious kindness in rescuing us.

​Kevin Haigh