Biblical Metanarrative Essay PDF

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Essay about the biblical metanarrative...

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Lane 1 Margaret Lane Professor Whyte THEO 104 03 September 2021

The Bible is comprised of sixty-six short stories that were written by different people over thousands of years. Even with the diversity of authors and the long span of time it took to write, the Bible still reads a one big story, also called a metanarrative. The complete biblical metanarrative, or grand narrative, covers four distinct plot movements. These plots include the creation, the fall, the redemption, and the new creation of humanity. It is easy to think of the Bible as play and these four plots as different acts that are within the play. Throughout all four movements we continue to see God’s undying love for His creation and the power of faith. According to the video presentation, Understanding the Metanarrative, a metanarrative “is just a fancy word for the overarching story that unites it all together.” As stated before, the Biblical metanarrative is a culmination of a bunch of stories that were not written by the same person. Even though they had different authors, the stories all fit together because the Bible is God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16.) Our textbook says that “the words of the Bible are not merely human words. The words that are in the Bible are the very words of God” (Gabriel Etzel 2015 pg. 37.) God is acting through all the authors of the Bible, which is how it all fits together to form a metanarrative. Throughout all four plots of the Bible, you continue to read about the love that God has for His creation. Our textbook says that “the idea of God being love means he seeks the good of

Lane 2 others and he is self-sacrificing” (Etzel Small 2020 pg. 43.) “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16.) When thinking about how God showed His love, most of the time people instantly think about God sending His only Son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins. Nothing is more selfsacrificing than Jesus living a sinless life and then dying for the sins of everyone else in the world. We also see love in the very first book of Genesis when God created everything. God first created the heavens and the Earth. He then created Adam and Eve. God showed His love by arranging a perfect place to be their home. Even when Adam and Eve sinned against God, He provided them with clothes to protect and comfort them. As Christians, it is important for us to have faith in God and what He has planned for all of us. The Greek word for faith is, pistis, which means the conviction that something is true (Gabriel Etzel 2015 pg. 9.) The idea of having faith can easily be found in the Biblical stories. In Genesis, Noah had faith in God’s instructions to build an arc. In Samuel, David said to Goliath “you come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied” (1 Samuel 17:45.) With David’s unwavering faith in God, he was able to defeat Goliath. When you put your faith in God, no matter how big or scary the challenges may seem, you can accomplish great things. When reading the Bible, it is important to remember that even though when you first look at the book it may seem like it does not flow together. However, because God was working through all the authors it is evident that there is a bigger picture, and it all fits together. Through the four major plot movements we continue to read about God’s love for us all and how having faith can make the impossible possible. Even when everything in the world seems to be going

Lane 3 wrong, remembering that God is always there and will always love us can make it all seem just a little less scary. Works Cited

Bible gateway passage: 1 thessalonians 2:7 - English standard version. Bible Gateway. (n.d.). https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Thessalonians+2%3A7&version=ESV. Everyday Theology: Exploring the Christian Faith. Nashville, Tennessee [Etzel Small (2020). (p. ii). ii.) Retrieved from https://app.wordsearchbible.lifeway.com] Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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Team, S. (2021, March 18). Top 10 examples of faith in the bible for Sunday school. Sharefaith Magazine. https://www.sharefaith.com/blog/2016/08/top-10-examples-of-faith-in-thebible-for-sunday-school/. Theology Applied: A Living Faith 2012 © by Gabriel Etzel and Ben Gutierrez. Database © 2015 WORDseaWORDsearch. [Gabriel Etzel (2015.) Revised Ed.. B&H Academic. Ret Retrieved from https://app.wordsearchbible.lifeway.com] rieved What happened after the resurrection? Bible Gateway Blog. (2020, January 28). https://www.biblegateway.com/blog/2011/04/what-happened-after-the-resurrection/....