Reading Scripture as One Story of Jesus

What if the whole Bible is one story with Jesus at the center? We open the text with that question and follow the thread from Genesis to Revelation, letting the Emmaus Road guide how we read, interpret, and apply Scripture. Rather than treating the Bible as a grab bag of inspirational lines or moral tales, we explore how Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms bear witness to Christ—and why that lens changes our daily walk.

We dig into the big themes that hold Scripture together: covenants that progress from Noah and Abraham to David and the promised New Covenant, the already-and-not-yet kingdom Jesus inaugurates, and the sacrificial system that finds its fulfillment in the once-for-all cross. Along the way, we map the patterns of typology—Adam, Moses, and David as signposts toward the true and better Prophet, Priest, and King. We also face common pitfalls: reducing stories to “be like” morals, reading with self at the center, fragmenting books from the larger narrative, or stopping at insight without obedience.

From Isaiah 53’s suffering servant to Genesis 3:15’s first gospel, we show how promises converge on the Messiah and how beholding him leads to concrete application—real repentance, deeper trust, and active discipleship. You’ll leave with practical questions to take into any passage: What does this reveal about Christ? How does this shape my worship, my holiness, and my love for others? And how can I teach this clearly to someone else?

If this journey deepens your love for the Word, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review to help others discover the show. Have a question for us? Email questions@pleasinggodpodcast.org and join us next week as we talk about cultivating friendship in marriage.

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting the Stage: Why Christ-Centered
• 2:10 Emmaus Road and Scripture’s Unity
• 5:56 Old Testament Witness to Jesus
• 9:20 Pitfalls: Moralism and Self-Focus
• 13:10 Fragmented Reading vs. One Story
• 16:20 From Promise to Fulfillment
• 19:20 Covenants as the Spine of Scripture
• 23:00 Types: Adam, Moses, David
• 26:40 Prophecy, Isaiah 53, and Hope

Transcript

Jonathan Sole: 0:08

Hi, and welcome back to the Pleasing God Podcast, a show focused on helping Christians to think biblically, engage practically, and live faithfully for the glory of God. I'm your host, Jonathan Sowell. And on our last episode, the two-part interview with my dad, and just reflecting on 23 years of pastoral ministry, uh, just the highs and the lows of theirs. So coming off of that episode, I wanted to talk about something that's really important to me. That's how we read our Bibles. And I'm not talking about reading our Bibles for simply information or uh inspiration or for encouragement, but reading our Bibles in such a way that we see Christ as the main point of whatever passage or whatever thing we are reading. So I've titled this episode Reading the Bible with Christ at the center. And again, like I said, this is something that is that I'm passionate about. And when I when I understood and started to see that the Bible points us to Christ, Old Testament and New Testament, it totally changed my uh understanding, my delight, my love, and my excitement for the Word of God. And so I hope that just talking about this, we can think about some practical ways in which we can engage the scriptures through the lens of seeing them pointing to Jesus that will just help you in your uh personal Bible reading, in your Bible study, whether you teach, uh, whether you lead a small group or your own personal just walk with the Lord, uh that you can see that all scripture is pointing and leading to Christ. And so I hope it's an encouragement to you. And one of the foundational passages when it comes to understanding that the Bible points us to Christ comes from Jesus Himself. And this is one of my favorite scenes, I think, in all the scriptures. After the resurrection, Jesus appears to disciples on the road to Emmaus. Question I often ask young people, and um, maybe I'm out on the trail hiking, something, just a conversation. If you could go to one scene, one place in the scriptures, and you could be a fly on the wall, or uh you could witness that event, what would it be? And some of the answers are, you know, the parting of the Red Sea, uh, maybe something with the plagues of of Egypt or uh Samson, uh, you know, usually something with the life of Christ, the resurrection, empty tomb, that Sunday morning. And while there are certainly all these great high points, I think if I could have been anywhere, the place that I would love to have been would have been on the road to Emmaus, walking with those disciples as Jesus appeared to them. Well, this passage comes from the Gospel of Luke in chapter 24. In Luke 24, verse 27, Jesus, the risen Jesus, who has been crucified, raised from the dead, and now as he's uh instructing these disciples, he tells them, or this is what is said here, and beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. So what's going on here in this setting, in this scene, is that Jesus is explaining to these disciples that the Old Testament was pointing towards him and his work, death, burial, and resurrection. Later on, Luke records in chapter 24, verse verses 44 to 45. Then he said to them, These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled. All right, when Jesus says Moses and then the prophets and then the psalms, he's talking about the threefold division of the Old Testament. In the English Bible, it's divided into five parts, but the Jewish Bible divided into the Jewish Old Testament or Jewish Bible divided into three main sections. You had the law, you had the prophets, and you had the writings, or the psalms, synonymous, the psalms being the biggest book of the writings. And so what Jesus is saying here is that Moses being the law, there's your there's your Pentateuch, the prophets that being the other major section of the Old Testament, and then the Psalms or the writings were bearing witness to him. So he's saying, All of the Old Testament bears witness to me. And then after that saying, after he says this, verse 45, then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. What an exciting thing that Jesus unpacks the passages of scripture in the Old Testament to show this one single story, the story of redemption, beginning in Genesis and ending ultimately in the revelation, but the finding its climax in the incarnation, the person and work of Jesus coming, living, dying, and rising again from the dead. What an awesome place to be. What a great experience that would have been to hear Jesus just unpack these passages, the the mystery, Paul would say, concealed in the old, revealed in the new. And then in John chapter 5, Jesus gives this again eye-opening statement to the Pharisees. And he says, You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. And it is they that bear witness about me. I think there's a warning we all must heed here right now is that we can read our Bibles. We can read our Old Testament, we can read our New Testament, we can read scriptures throughout. And if we miss Christ in the scriptures, we've missed the point. It's not about moral lessons, simply put, but it's about Jesus beginning in Genesis and ultimately in his second coming at the end of Revelation. So foundationally I want us to understand that the Bible's own testimony bears witness. The New Testament bears witness to Christ in the old. One of the most important things we can do when it comes to approaching our Bibles is not to read our Bibles as simply a collection of books, of 66 books, but to see it as one unified story, many different human authors, but one divine author. And an interesting thing to do in exercise would be to look at the first two chapters of the Bible, Genesis 1 and 2, and then compare those to the last two chapters of the Bible, Revelation 21 and 22, and just see how those book ends show us the whole story of Scripture. And it's a beautiful thing. So as the Bible testifies about itself, Jesus says, I am the key to understanding and unlocking the meanings of Scripture. There's pitfalls of reading the Bible without Christ. And I want to just kind of touch on these a little bit because we can dangerously fall into them without even understanding. And the first one is moralism, where we reduce biblical stories to a moral principle. It could come out to something like be like David or, you know, dare to be Daniel. And while there's in a sense, there can be application that draws from the life of David or the courage of Daniel, we shouldn't read those stories and isolate them from the big narrative concerning the person and work of Jesus Christ. When we read about David, he is a great example, but we also read that he is a flawed example. And the story of David, again, promised by God that one of his offspring will have an everlasting kingdom. And David is a true and good king, but he's a fallen king. And we need a better king, where Jesus, again, is the true and better David, the son of David, but the Lord of David. And so when we just think about these characters, we shouldn't reduce it to simply a moral lesson. But how do they point us to Christ? What can we learn from their lives? But where do they fit into this historical plan of redemption being unfolded progressively through the Old Testament? So we want to be careful not to reduce Bible uh accounts uh for as just moral lessons. Here's the second thing we want to be careful of and a pitfall to avoid is that we want to avoid self-centered reading. And what do I mean by that? Simply reading a passage, open it Old Testament, New Testament, and the first question to ask is, What does this mean to me? Or how can I apply this to my life? Well, we certainly want application that will result in conformity to the image of Christ. We shouldn't first begin with a self-centered reading of scripture as though this is all about me or pointing to me. The question we need to ask, again, while we're reading a passage is what does this reveal about my Savior? What does this tell me about Christ? Think of the first promise in Scripture, revelation of Christ, uh, concealed but a promise was in Genesis 3 15. Adam and Eve have fallen. The Lord looks at Adam first, rightly so. What have you done? And so here becomes the blame game. Adam looks and says, probably the greatest offen, one of the greatest offensive lines ever in Scripture. He looked at God and said, It was the woman that you gave me. The fact that Adam was allowed to breathe after that statement is an act of sheer grace. So Adam blames God and blames the woman for his sin. Well, God doesn't even address in his own graciousness, turns to the woman, What have you done? Well, she continues the blame game, and she looks over at the serpent and she says, Basically, the devil made me do it. God looks to the serpent and asks no more questions. And then we get this declaration in Genesis chapter 3, 15, where he says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. And that passage right there, the first gospel, if we're not reading Christ and understanding Christ in all the scripture, we'll miss the point of what was being stated there. God is promising from the woman a Savior who will defeat the serpent. His heel will be bruised. Well, there's the crucifixion, but the head of the serpent will be crushed. There's the resurrection, there's the vindication by the Spirit. There is Christ as Victor right there in his resurrection. It's not just a passage about sin has bad consequences, you know, try to do better. It's sin has devastating consequences, but God has promised to send a redeemer. And so Adam and Eve trust this promise, a mysterious promise. They don't know his name, they don't know his time. All they know is that from the woman will come one who will defeat the serpent. And so they have a gospel promise. And then the whole story of Scripture is just again unfolding this redemptive plan of God, the seed of the woman, to crush the head of the serpent. And so wherever we pick up our Bibles and we start reading, we should think about this framework. Instead of simply opening the Bible and saying, What do you got for me today, God? What does your word reveal about your son? And how does beholding Christ in Scripture transform me, not just my understanding of the Word, but my life? That's again just a pitfall to avoid is a self-centered reading. And then the third pitfall, which I've talked a little bit about, is fragmented reading, where again you you just you isolate in a section, whether it be your reading through Leviticus, all these laws for sacrifice, and you might be wondering, well, what does this have to do with me? I'm a new covenant Christian far removed from the Middle East, and you see it kind of fragmented not making sense of the whole. Well, understanding that even the sacrificial system is a type, is a is a shadow to things that were to come. And it's even there, it's pointing towards the consequences of sin, the fact that continual sacrifices must be made because they aren't a sufficient to cover sin once for all. And it causes us to long for and to look for an all-sufficient sacrifice, which the counterpart to Leviticus is Hebrews. Read that, and it helps us to understand why Jesus came and there is no sacrificial system anymore. And so important to see every book as a part of a whole, but not fragmented. And so, what is this book, passage, area of scripture teaching me or revealing or pointing towards concerning the person and work of Jesus Christ? Because remember, Jesus says all scripture bears witness to me. So we need to keep that in mind as we engage our Bibles. So when Christ is not at the center of our understanding, Scripture gets distorted and kind of flattened. But there is also, I would say, a fourth pitfall here. Is that we can get, and I want to be careful with this, but I think you all understand, we can get so focused on seeing Christ in the scriptures that there becomes no application to our lives. Is that the application is this is about Jesus. But how does this passage conform me to the image of Christ? How is the scripture transforming me as I am learning of Christ, reading my Bible properly? We need to keep that in mind, is to not be so Christological that we forget that God's word is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. While we read it, it reads us and it convicts, and it's to transform us. That we don't just become hearers of the word or christological readers of the word, but that we are doers of the word as we understand it properly, pointing to Christ and then calling us to deeper levels of devotion and obedience to Him. So, how do we read the Bible, practically speaking, here? How do we read the Bible with Christ at the center? Let me give you a few thoughts on that. Look for themes, understand certain themes. So when you're reading the Bible, terms like covenant, a question to ask is at what, whatever you're reading, what is the operational covenant of that time? Again, very important because God's revelation, progressive revelation plan of redemption, unfolds through covenants. I believe there was a uh covenant with Adam in the garden, though the scripture's not entirely clear on that. There seems to be very much covenantal languages and promises there, but whether there be a covenant of works with Adam or not, you do see with Noah there's a covenant. God makes this covenant, the sign of rainbow that he will no longer flood the earth. This is a covenant with creation. Some see that Adam and Noah kind of together form this kind of covenant of with creation. Uh unilateral God promises. It's not based off of any actions of humans, but that God who promises he will never flood the earth again, and the sign being a rainbow. Now, as that progress, you know, covenants progress, you get the covenant with Abraham. This is Genesis chapter 15 and 17, where God makes a covenant and promises him that he will have a great nation, that there will be a land, and that through his offspring will bring blessing. So there's land, people, and blessing. And as that covenant, that becomes really a covenant that uh progressively moves through the Old Testament, where from this Abrahamic covenant, the understanding people are looking for the land, they're being developed as the people, the nation of Israel, and uh they're looking for the offspring that will be the blessing. And the outworking of that covenant, you see in Moses, there's the people, there's the covenant of Sinai, the law is given, and into Joshua they take the land. So the people, the land, there's the covenant with Moses, which is often referred to as the old covenant. And then from Moses, there's a covenant with David. And with this Davidic covenant, here comes the promise of uh royalty, of a kingdom, of a king who will reign forever. And so, and each one of these covenants, there's more revelation concerning really who and where and what the seed of the woman is going to be. And so important to think in terms of covenant, then obviously when we get to the New Testament, well, Jeremiah chapter 31 promises a new covenant, not like the old covenant, not like the covenants of before, but where God will write his law upon the hearts of his people. And it's fleshed out further in Ezekiel. We talk about this regeneration, the spirit within us, renewal. Ultimately, it's fulfilled in Christ who inaugurates the new covenant through his death, burial, resurrection, sending of the Holy Spirit, so that all who believe in him, repent of their sins, and trust in Christ, are members of the new covenant. Understanding themes of covenant, kingdom, sacrifice, these are all ways in which we can read Christ at the center. And so the kingdom is to be built. It is here, but not yet, or already, but not yet fulfilled in Christ. When you think about sacrifice of the old, again, repeated sacrifices pointing us towards Christ, who is the once-for-all sacrifice for our sins. So these are some themes to think about when we read with Christ at the center, and then also patterns or or types or typology. And this is where characters I think are very important to understand. You have Adam, Adam being the first man, Adam being the innocent man. It's he was created good and very good according to God. Yet Adam is placed in the garden, Adam is to be the is the federal head of humanity. Adam is charged to be a king. He's charged to be a priest in the service of God, a king with his rule over all of creation. He's also charged to be a prophet because God gives him the word and basically do this and live. Don't do this and die. Eat of this tree. And so Adam is to spread this word as the spokesman for God to his wife, to his offspring, to everyone. So Adam fulfills the role of prophet, priest, and king, except he's a failure, right? And so it shows us even there that Adam points us to someone that we need as greater. And Adam all died. Paul leans into this in Romans chapter five to show and compare that Jesus is the true and better Adam, or the second Adam, whereby everyone who believes in him, he is their head now. Everybody who is in Christ is secure in him. Everyone dies in Adam, all are made alive in Christ. Seeing these connections here, so they're not just isolated individuals. And I could go on and on. We've got Moses, I mean, who was the closest person to God. He he was he walked with God. He was of anybody in the Old Testament, so close, yet he's another flawed character. And he points us to the need of a greater prophet, one who will ever live to make intercession for his people. And Moses did that, but Moses did not inherit the promised land. He could see it from afar. Well, Jesus is the one who not only inherits the promised land, it is his inheritance that he has given to us so that we are promised heaven based off of the merits of Christ. And so Adam, Moses, David, all kind of the Mount Rushmore of the Old Testament, they're pointing us to Jesus. They're not pointing us to themselves. There are great lessons to learn from their failures and their successes, but ultimately the point is that they are really just laying out the runway carpet for the coming of the Messiah. Another thing to read with Christ at the center is promises. When we read about promises of the Old Testament or prophecies, we see that their fulfillment is in Christ. Some of the promises are fulfilled in this Christ's first coming, some are fulfilled in his second coming. And one of the most explicit passages of scripture that point us to Christ from the Old Testament, I think, is Isaiah 53, where it's the suffering servant. He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. By his stripes we are healed. It's not talking about Isaiah specifically. This is pointing to Jesus and his suffering on the cross for our sins, so that we might find forgiveness, restoration in him. And so we think about promises. And I think that's a fine and helpful way to think about both testaments, both covenants, so to speak. That's where you're going to get a bit more of the application that, you know, is there a promise to believe? Is there a sin to confess? Um, you know, or is there an attitude to change, what it might be? And so that's that's gonna be based off of where you are in your own spiritual journey and your own walk with Christ. But first we want to see where's Jesus in this passage, and then how can I apply this passage in my own discipleship today? And I think this is very, very important because as we we begin to read with these Christocentric or Christological lenses, we read the Bible correctly. And in reading the Bible correctly, we can understand it better. And in understanding it better, we apply it better. And this is so important and helpful in our own walks and our own discipleship. Because as we understand God's word better, we're able to help others understand God's word better. There's an old maxim I heard from one of my mentors some years ago, and he told me, he said, if you can't teach it, you haven't learned it. And I stopped and thought about that for a minute. It makes pretty good sense. I might say it a little differently. If you can't articulate it clearly, you haven't learned it. In our own discipleship, we need to learn the scriptures so that we can articulate them clearly, so that we can teach them and instruct others in how to read their Bibles better and how to grow in this practical way. So here's the big takeaway: Jesus is at the center of scripture. And just as all roads led to Rome, all scripture points to Christ. And so let me just encourage you as you read your Bible, uncover these hidden gems, these mysterious nuggets. The Bible is God's story of redemption with Jesus at the center. So let me challenge you this week, as you get into the Word, whatever your passage is, ask the question: how does this point to Christ? And seek to trace that, seek to understand that. I'm sure it'll be worth your while, life-giving, and a true joy. Seeing Christ in all the scripture is key to discipleship and worship. I want to thank you for listening to the Pleasing God Podcast. Before we sign off, I just want to let you know on next week's episode, Caitlin and I are going to be together and we're going to be having a discussion on cultivating and maintaining friendship in marriage, something that every couple needs, no matter what season of life you're in. So I would encourage you to tune in to next week's episode and be encouraged by that. If you have any questions, I'd love to hear from you. You could reach out at questions at pleasing godpodcast.org. And remember, 1 Thessalonians 4 3 this is the will of God, your sanctification.