The Bible can be a difficult book to read. It’s contents are not organized chronologically. Parts of it, like the genealogies, can be downright boring. Other parts can be quite puzzling. Still, people of faith have continuously found in its pages the words of life. We keep reading it, believing that the living God meets us as we do.

Consistent studying of the Bible makes us wise for salvation and equips us to do God’s work in the world (see 2 Timothy 3:14-16). We can and should read small portions of the Bible in depth. We also benefit from taking in the big picture on occasion.

My own Bible reading has been impacted by Kevin Vanhoozer’s description of the Bible as a five act play. His outline helps me better understand my place in the larger story that the Bible tells.

• Act One: The Creation and Fall
• Act Two: God’s Calling of Israel
• Act Three: Jesus’ Life, Death, and Resurrection
• Act Four: God’s Calling of the Church
• Act Five: Christ’s Return and the Redemption of All Things

Vanhoozer argues that we have most of the script for this play in the pages of the Bible. Our lives happen in the fourth act. Part of this act is written out for us in the pages of the New Testament as we read about the early church. The Bible also tells us where the story is headed. Our exact lines for this moment in time are not written. We must lean on what we know of God’s story and trust in the Holy Spirit to faithfully improvise our lines today.

It’s like we’re great Shakespearean actors who find a long lost play of the great bard, only there’s a problem We’re missing most of the Fourth Act! We know how it starts, we even read most of the climax, and we have a few pages of the ending. What comes between? We don’t know, but we dare not lot let the story remain untold, so we commit ourselves to learning the story as best as we can. We already know all of Shakespeare’s other works by heart. And we simply give it our best shot. We use our faithful imaginations to imagine what Shakespeare would have written to get us from the middle of Act Four to Act Five.

In Vanhoozer’s metaphor, we are the current actors on the stage. Our lives are the missing part of the story.  How do know what comes next?  By immersing ourselves in the stories we’ve been given in the scriptures, and then with creativity and faithfulness, improvising that narrative in our daily lives so that our lives fit into God’s overarching story. Paul put it a little differently to Timothy challenging him to continue in what he’d learned so that he might be equipped to do every good work (see 2 Timothy 3:14-16). 

There’s one big difference though between the metaphor and the reality. Shakespeare’s dead and gone. While his work remains, his spirit is of no help to us.  The One who inspired the works that now make up what we call the Bible, he is alive and living in each of us who call on the name of Jesus Christ. 

What comes next in this story?  Let’s read, study, and live.