Guard the Good Deposit

Section III: How Do We Guard the Good Deposit? • 37

The Creed also provides a map for the Story of the Bible, so we can see how the parts fit together. It puts the story of the Bible in a very small package that we can read quickly. If you think about a map, it is a bird’s-eye view of a place that helps you see where you are and where you are going. It gives you a view that you could never get from where you stand. A map, however, can only convey so much. It can tell you where a river is, but it cannot let you see its beauty or hear its roar. It can show where a forest is, but it can never help you smell the rich soil or feel the density of life. In the same way the Creed gives us a bird’s-eye view of the Bible. It cannot convey the majesty of Isaiah standing before God’s throne (Isa. 6), nor can it help us feel the agony of Jesus’ prayer before his arrest (Luke 22.39–46). It does give us the story of the God who created everything, who sent his Son to save the world and establish a never-ending Kingdom, and then sent his Spirit to lead his people into a new creation. While the Creed may appear to leave out much of the story, it clarifies that Christ is the subject of the Scriptures and their central theme. It is his life, death, and resurrection that sum up everything in the Bible. To make sense of the Bible, we must see it all as the story of Christ and his Kingdom!