What if the Bible tells a true story – a story that is still unfolding and on the move? What if you are uniquely equipped to play a part in this story?  What if you are being called into a more profound and meaningful experience of life – a call to fully awake plunging yourself deeper into the layers and mysteries of reality? Would you answer that call?

 

Welcome to Two Trees.  My thesis for this study is that the Bible is not a pasting together of random, disconnected tales.  Rather it is a grand story; coherently unified, richly connected, with each of its pieces snuggly situated within an overarching narrative, each piece offering its own contribution.   

 

By using the word “story”, I don’t mean to say that the Bible is the stuff of folktales.  Sure, sometimes we can use the word story in that sense: “Have you heard the story of the boy who cried wolf?”  But sometimes we use the word story to talk about events that really happened: “Have you heard the story of how I met my wife?”  By calling the Bible “story” I am using it in the latter sense.  The Bible relays events of a grand story which took place and is taking place in space and time, here and now.

 

Stories are important.  They remind us of our roots from which we came.  They help us organize and make sense of the present events of our lives and give us a sense of where we want to head in the future.  They have the power to persuade, challenge, bridge differences, mold values, connect, enlighten, sculpt, reinforce identity, heal and foster self-discovery and change.  But when stories are told well, they invite us to step in and see ourselves as participants in them.   

 

Within its covers, the Bible cradles a story. A true story of the cosmos and its origins and future.  It’s the story of One God who created a good world.  But through an unimaginable act of rebellion humans disrupted the relationship with their Creator ushering in evil and darkness.  Yet the Creator remained ruthlessly committed to His grand creation.  The rest of the story is of the One God who will not quit or give up but will relentlessly pursue and finally carry out His good purposes for humanity and all of creation.  And perhaps most mind-bending of all, He invites you and me to partner with Him in this great renewal project.  This means what I do, what you do – how we love, serve, listen, every thought and decision, whether we pray and how we pray, how we tend to our interior lives – it all matters for shaping the unfolding course of history.  

 

Two Trees is a survey of this story.  It begins in Genesis and ends in Revelation.  Of course, the story isn’t confined to these two endpoints.  It isn’t over yet.  It’s still on the move and we live somewhere between the pages of the ancient Scriptures.  My hope and prayers are that through this study you might find your place in this ongoing story.  And in finding your place, that you would play your part well.  After all, its Author is still inviting men and women, young and old, from every tribe, people, and language to pick up the mantle and carry it forward.  He’s inviting you.  To the degree we lean into God finding ourselves in Him, I believe we can hand the Story off to the next generation in better condition than we received it (though we will have to define just what that “better” is).       

 

Though you must know, with this invitation the question is never whether you will answer.  We are all answering in one way or another.   Rather the question is, “How will you answer?”  Will you continue to settle for the status quo? Will you embrace the human coping mechanisms of denial and distraction?  Will you ignore the stirrings in your soul? 

 

Or,

 

Will you take a risk?  Risk weighing the evidence?  Risk finding the real God?  Risk finding the real you? Risk putting your life into play for something (or better, Someone) bigger than yourself? 

 

So how about it?  Will you risk trusting?  Will you risk dying?  Will you risk living?  Will you risk facing the lie of your false self, shame, and disappointment?  Will you risk facing your beauty and dignity and seeking your true self in God?  Will you risk reawakening and exploring the longings that you have for something more, and defining what that “more” is?  Will you risk trusting that the true remedy may not be the removal of the present pain and frustrations of this life, but a secure hope in both a past and future event that can impart the strength to not only endure, but overcome these present days? 

  

If you’re willing to risk, and at this point I’m willing to bet you are, otherwise you wouldn’t still be reading, then it is my privilege to welcome you to Two Trees.  The God of the story in which we are about to immerse ourselves is a God of risks.  Very early on He calls a man from ancient Mesopotamia to risk leaving the safety and security of the familiar and take a step further into reality with no guarantees, no map or 5-year plan, only the promise that the God who called him would be with him along the way.  The man, Abraham, takes the risk, and it changes everything, not just for him, but for the world.  Now it’s your turn.  So if you’re in, or now merely curious whether there is more for you, then I invite you to take another step.

 

The video above provides a 30,000ft flyover of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.  It is the story you are living in.  This teach will help us get oriented with where the story began, where it's been and where it's going.  And since the Bible often presents the truth about the world in the language of visual imagery and repeated patterns, this will be an exercise in beginning to see and hear those patterns, before moving on to applying this knowledge to the patterns in our own lives, both as the church and as individuals.

​

May you find your part in this grand story, and play it well.