PART 3 – EXPLORE THE PLOT LINES
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Chapter 17 - PARALLEL PLOT LINES
In chapter 15, we looked briefly at the parallel plot lines in the story of Joseph, from chapter 38 onwards:
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The story of Joseph in Egypt: in Potiphar’s house; in prison, falsely accused of adultery; raised to the position of chief minister and in charge of preparing the land for the coming famine.
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Judah having left home and married a Canaanite wife, and Tamar’s efforts to secure a son to continue the line of her husband Er.
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Jacob and family in Canaan (re-joined by Judah and family) and their response to the famine.
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As we would expect, the different strands converge later in the story, culminating in Joseph revealing himself to his brothers, and bringing the whole family to live in safety in Egypt.
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This is a common strategy in secular novels. I recently enjoyed reading All the Light we Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr. In this there are two main strands of narrative.
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The first strand revolves around Marie-Laure LeBlanc, the daughter of a locksmith, who has been blind since the age of six. Her father builds her a miniature of their Paris neighbourhood so that she can learn to navigate her way home. But when the Nazis invade, they flee across country to Saint-Malo for safety.
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The second strand tells of Werner Pfennig, a German orphan, naturally good-natured and intelligent, who is drawn into the degrading and dehumanising activities of the Nazi Youth Movement and becomes a radio operator in the Nazi war machine.
Throughout the novel, we anticipate that the two strands will eventually converge, and indeed they do, with Werner redeeming himself in an act of kindness and courage to ensure Marie-Laure’s salvation.
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The Biblical narrative as a whole contains many different strands that weave together throughout the Old Testament, begin to converge with the story of the Gospels, and finally draw together with the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ. Many Christian scholars and authors have sought to identify the different interweaving strands of the Biblical story. Andy Croft and Mike Pilavachi in Storylines identify 6 major threads (not necessarily exclusive!).
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Notice how all of these threads come together in the Gospel narratives, and in the person of Jesus Christ.
The Jesus Thread
From the promise in Gen 3:15 that the ‘seed of the woman’ would bruise Satan’s head, we find numerous types and prophecies that bring us ever closer to an understanding of the nature of God’s promised Messiah.
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Jacob, in blessing his sons, speaks of the ‘Lion of the tribe of Judah’
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Moses tells the people of Israel that God will raise up ‘a prophet like me’
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Melchizedek provides a type of Jesus as eternal high priest
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David gives us an example of Jesus as coming King
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Isaiah gives us the picture of the Suffering Servant
All of these, and many other types and prophecies, reach their fulfilment in Jesus the Messiah.
The Covenant Thread
God makes a succession of Covenants with Noah, with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and with David.
The prophets (especially Jeremiah and Ezekiel) foretell that God’s covenant with the people of Israel will be replaced by a new covenant, written on the heart, not on tablets of stone.
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This storyline reaches its culmination in the New Covenant established by Jesus at the last supper, guaranteed by the body and blood of Jesus given on the cross.
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The Presence Thread
At the beginning of the OT story, God’s people are influenced by the beliefs of the surrounding nations in territorial gods. Abraham lies to the King of Egypt about his relationship with Sarah because he fails to appreciate that God is present in Egypt as well as in Canaan.
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The presence of God’s glory appears above the Tabernacle in the wilderness, and the Temple in Jerusalem, but the exiles in Babylon still need fresh visions from God to convince them that He is also present and reigning in Babylon.
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So we see a growing understanding of the fact that God is not just present and reigning among his people in Jerusalem, but is present and reigning over the whole earth. Jesus’ life on earth is the ultimate demonstration that God desires to dwell with us in every place and every circumstance. After all, Jesus himself is Emmanuel (‘God with us’).
The Kingdom Thread
Joseph’s family go into Egypt as an extended family, and come out as a nation. God provides them with a political structure, a set of commands and regulations to live by, and a Promised Land to dwell in.
The OT Kingdom goes through various stages, led at first by Judges, then by Kings, reaching their high point under David and Solomon, but then disintegrating, with both Northern and Southern kingdoms falling into sin, destruction and exile.
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In Babylon, and in diaspora among the nations, God’s people learn that being a member of God’s people does not depend on geography or even on the availability of Temple worship.
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Return from exile under Ezra and Nehemiah shows a return to spiritual principles and increased dependence on the Scriptures, but by the time Jesus is born, the nation of Israel is in disarray, occupied by the Romans, and people are looking for a Messiah who will free the land from oppression and return them to the days when David was King and Israel was great among the nations.
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But Jesus has come to bring in a different kind of kingdom, one that ‘is not of this world’. Gradually he leads his followers to look for a heavenly kingdom, in which righteousness and justice triumph over power and earthly possessions.
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The Salvation Thread
As early as Gen 15, we find the concept of salvation by faith (‘Abram believed the LORD, and the LORD counted him as righteous because of his faith.’) But the OT religious system focuses on salvation through the rituals and sacrifices administered by the priesthood, especially formalized in the book of Leviticus.
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Later prophets emphasized the symbolic nature of religious rituals, and emphasized that God was more interested in the attitude of the heart than the performance of religious rites. But the sacrificial system was important for its symbolism of Jesus’ sacrifice, which was yet to come.
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Isaiah 53 provides perhaps the most powerful OT description of Jesus’ atoning sacrifice for sin, and clearly prophecies the fulfilment of that sacrifice at Calvary.
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The Worship Thread
The base line for this strand is laid down by the first commandment - "You must not have any other god but me. You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea. You must not bow down to them or worship them…” (Exo 20:3-5 NLT)
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God rescued his people from Egypt in order to worship Him, and he commanded them to separate themselves from the surrounding nations in order that they would not be drawn into their sin and idolatry.
But they dramatically failed, despite examples like Abraham, Moses and David, who served and worshipped God with their whole heart.
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We have David and other psalmists to thank for wonderful examples of praise and worship in song, Elijah to thank for confronting the prophets of Baal, and prophets like Isaiah and Ezekiel to thanks for amazing visions of God’s awesome power and holiness. But the vast majority of Israel turned their back on the true God and worshipped Baal and other false gods.
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Jesus emphasizes that true worship depends on what comes from the heart. He condemns the Scribes and Pharisees for their hypocrisy, and tells the woman at the well: “For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.” (Joh 4:24 NLT)
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But Jesus himself provides the ultimate example of a life lived, and laid down, in worship and obedience to his Heavenly Father.
NB: the summaries of each narrative thread are my own. I would recommend you to buy the book and read Andy Croft and Mike Pilavachi’s much more thorough analysis for yourselves.
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For further study
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Choose one of these strands. (Or you may prefer to choose a different topic that is of particular interest to you or your study group.)
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Using a concordance, or a Bible handbook, identify Old Testament passages that help you understand how this particular strand changed and developed during the period of OT history.
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How does your exploration of this theme in the OT narrative increase your appreciation of Jesus’ example and teaching on the subject?
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How does Jesus add to, or clarify the OT understanding of the topic?
As a further suggestion for studying the topic, I would recommend an excellent study book from the Good Book Company, entitled Promises Kept: the Whole Story of the Bible. This study consists of 9 lessons, beginning with Creation, and progressing through several major OT landmarks (including God’s covenant with Abraham, the Exodus, the reign of King David) and traces how the promises which God made to his people in the Old Testament have been fulfilled in Christ.
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