Questions about how to interpret the Bible abound. As modern readers of the Bible and, therefore, as interpreters of the Bible, many of the historical events the Bible records within its pages are not familiar to us, neither are the places where these events occurred, the people, or even their cultures and customs. There is so much to the Bible that appears strange. But even bigger interpretation problems arise for modern readers of the Bible when we actually start reading it!

• How did God make the World?
• Why does God allow people in the Old Testament to be slaughtered?
• What is the significance of the Old Testament law for Christians?
• Is the God of the Old Testament the same as the God of the New Testament?
• How does Jesus fulfill the Old Testament?
• What’s all of this got to do with me?

For the next 10 weeks, we are going to cover the whole of the Bible, in our series called 3 Trees: the story of the whole bible. In just ten weeks, which is even less than some weight loss programs, we are not going to cover the entire story of the Bible. But we are going to cover the story of the entire Bible. A story that begins with the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Creation), which takes us to the Tree of Calvary outside the city of Jerusalem (Jesus Christ) and ends with the Tree of Life in the New Jerusalem (New Creation).

Of course, in only ten weeks we might not get to your favourite story in the Bible and you might be surprised by the stories that we’ve left out. That’s not to say these stories aren’t important, but what we will see in these next ten weeks is that the Bible is one story.

For this series, in church, you’ll need your Bible. And to make the most of Growth Groups - as always - you’ll need your Bible. If you don't yet have a Bible, please let us gift you one. If you do have a Bible, please bring it. This series is all about the Bible, because the Bible tells God’s Big Story. But it also gives shape to your story. And ours. And the story of our churches. So in this series we’ll be doing our best to see how our shared life stories are included in God’s Big Story in the Bible.

In 2022, we did a series called ‘Big Words for the Church God Loves’ to prepare us for a long stretch in Romans. Those big words we learnt then, prepared us for Paul’s biggest letter straight afterwards. We’re doing similar prep work with this series: our ‘Story of the Whole Bible’ will prepare us for a big few years in the story of the whole Bible!

We’re doing this series now due to the place we find ourselves, as church families. We’re all at a hinge point in our preaching and teaching - in our learning from Jesus. In each of our churches (Stanthorpe, Mackay and Warwick) we are about to embark on a 7-part series in Matthew’s gospel. This will take years. However, because Matthew is the first book in the New Testament, the longest gospel, and so richly draws on the Old Testament, we won’t be going through it over those 7 parts consecutively. We’ll be breaking it up, by also journeying through the first 5 books of the Old Testament. We’re hoping these two teaching threads will work together, in tandem, or like hand in glove.

Because we’ve already learnt from Genesis in our ‘God’s Dysfunctional Family’ series, we’ll be pushing on through Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy - all 5 books of what the Jews called ‘The books of Moses’, and what Jesus called ‘The Law’.

So we’ll work through it like this: after this series, we’ll start term 3 in Matthew, followed by a series in Exodus in term 4. Then next year we’ll do a big stretch in Matthew, followed by Numbers, and so on for the next few years. Of course, we will have some other terms interspersed in there, ensuring we include some doctrine and topical series in our healthy diet of learning from Jesus, in the Bible.

So - that’s why we’re so keen to step back now, and get the big picture, by seeing the whole Bible as one big story: So that when we’re deep in some strange forest of the Bible, we can still see the forest for the trees!