Jesus: The Purpose, Center and Interpretive Key to Scripture

I'm reading a book entitled "The Bible Made Impossible" by Christian Smith and am finding it very liberating for one who was raised in 20th century evangelicalism with a particular mindset related to the Scripture. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_15?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the+bible+made+impossible&sprefix=the+bible+made+ Although my mindset has been changing along these lines for some years now, this book is giving me language and confidence related to this topic. In this week's post I am sharing a portion from chapter 5 of this book which, for me, makes this book worth buying (though I must add that the entire book is wonderful...)!

The chapter title is "The Christocentric Hermeneutical Key", and it is the author's attempt to underscore that the primary purpose God has given us the Scriptures is to reveal Jesus (and not to do and say many other things we try to make the Bible do and say), and he hammers away at this relentlessly in this chapter. The following are portions from it:

"The purpose, center, and interpretive key to scripture is Jesus Christ...(Luke 24:44-48) Jesus opened the disciples' minds to truly understand the scriptures precisely so that they would see the (good news) of the gospel of Jesus Christ behind, in, and through all of scripture. If believers today want to rightly understand scripture, every narrative, every prayer, every proverb, every law, every Epistle needs likewise to be read and understood always and only in light of Jesus Christ and God reconciling the world to himself through him...

"...God's truest, highest, most important, most authoritative, and most compelling self-revelation is the God/Man Jesus Christ. It is Jesus Christ - not the Bible - who is the 'image of the invisible God.' (Col. 1:15)...The Bible is of course crucial for the Christian church and life. But it does not trump Jesus Christ as the true and final Word of God. The Bible is a secondary, subsidiary, functional, written word of God, the primary purpose of which is to mediate, to point us to, to give true testimony  about the living Jesus Christ..."

The author quotes Peter Enns who says of the Bible: "We believe not only that the Bible is the word of God, but that Christ himself is the word...The written word bears witness to the incarnate word, Christ...The Bible bears witness to Christ by Christ's design. He is over the Bible, beyond it, separate from it, even though the Bible is his word and thus bears witness to him. Christ is supreme, and it is in him, the embodied word, that the written word finds its unity."

A few more quotes from other authors that are in this chapter:

• John Stott: "Whenever we read the Bible, we must look for Christ. And we must go on looking until we see and until we believe."
• G.C. Berkouwer: "Every word about the God-breathed character of Scripture is meaningless if Holy Scripture is not understood as the witness concerning Christ."
• Geoffrey Bromiley: "...if we go primarily to see Christ (John 5:39), i.e., to learn what the Bible has to tell us about Him and our new life in Him, we shall be brought together at the one true center of the church and its unity." 
• Donald Bloesch: (Heb. 1:10) "The true or comprehensive picture of God's dealing with humanity is hidden from us until the text becomes for us a window to the light of the glory of God in Jesus Christ...The Bible comes alive when it is read in light of the cross of Christ..."

May the Spirit of the Living Word lead you to Him this week as you look into the written Word. Next week I will continue along this topic. God bless you!