You need answers to these questions.
We will explore the Bible message and show that it is relevant to us in the 21st century. We will look in part 1 at what the Bible tells us about the meaning of life, then in part 2 we will look at the Bible message to us personally.
We will explore what the Bible tells us about the meaning of life in three sections:
We shall look at these three categories and see what we can learn.
The Bible tells of the power, greater than ourselves, that created our world and keeps it going:
the LORD who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited.
Isaiah 45 v 18
The natural laws which govern our world do not change. The same constant laws apply outside our earth. This indicates that the same power is in control throughout the universe.
I the LORD do not change.
Malachi 3 v 6
Because our Creator does not change, His message does not change either. When we are thinking of the vital issues of life and death, we need a message that is totally reliable so that we can put our trust in it:
You are God, and Your words are true.
2 Samuel 7 v 28
Because His message is true, the God of the Bible asks us to respect and obey what He says. He pleaded with the Jews:
Oh, that you had heeded My commandments!
Isaiah 48 v 18
The Psalmist makes it clear that God will bless those who obey him:
Blessed are they whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the LORD. Blessed are they who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart.
Psalm 119 v 1 and 2
Our Creator’s care for us is seen all through the Bible. He assures us that the natural cycles which support our lives will continue:
As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.
Genesis 8 v 22
The apostle John told us that we should show God’s love to others:
And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.
1 John 4 v 21
God has a plan to offer us life after death. The plan involves the work of God’s Son, Jesus Christ:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
John 3 v 16
We have seen that our Creator cares about us and has arranged a plan to enable us to have life after death. This must give us a real hope for the future, despite our present problems. Jesus Christ promised that those who believe in him will be given endless life:
For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day.
John 6 v 40
Problems can make our lives very difficult. Sometimes, however, they can make us think about our long term future. When a tower fell and killed eighteen men, Jesus said:
….do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.
Luke 13 v 4 and 5
Jesus was telling them (and us) to stop and think about the end of our lives. Suffering can be a warning that interrupts our normal routines. It can make us stop and think about the fact that our lives will end one day.
The book of Proverbs warns us not to rely on our own ideas:
There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.
Proverbs 16 v 25
Throughout the Bible, many verses talk of a future world order different from today’s. Here is just one example:
Give the king Your judgments, O God, And Your righteousness to the king’s Son. He will judge Your people with righteousness, And Your poor with justice In His days the righteous shall flourish, And abundance of peace…..There will be an abundance of grain in the earth, On the top of the mountains….
Psalm 72 v 1, 2, 7 and 16
The Bible assures us that some people will be raised from the grave and given endless life when Christ returns to the earth:
For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. .
1 Thessalonians 4 v 16
We can be involved in this peaceful worldwide kingdom on earth:
Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.
Revelation 20 v 6
We can help in solving our world’s problems.
We shall now look in more detail at the Bible message to us personally and how it can help us.
Early on in the Bible we read of promises that God made to Abram (later called Abraham), the father of the Jews.
Now the Lord had said to Abram: I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
Genesis 12 v 1 to 3
God makes it clear right at the start that everyone can be involved in the blessings on Abraham’s descendants. The rest of the Bible is the account of how God works out this promise.
We now want to look at how all nations can be blessed through Abraham’s descendants.
We find the answer in the New Testament in the letter that the apostle Paul wrote to the believers in Galatia, an area of modern Turkey.
He explains who the descendant (or seed) was who would bring blessings on all nations:
Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, ‘And to seeds,’ as of many, but as of one, ‘And to your Seed,’ who is Christ.
Galatians 3 v 16
This means that it is through Jesus Christ that all nations can be involved in the promises made to Abraham.
Jesus and the apostle Paul confirm the Jewish connection with God’s plan:
Jesus said: salvation is of the Jews
John 4 v 22
Paul wrote:
for the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain
Acts 28 v 20
A young man about to be baptised.
In Galatians chapter 3, Paul also explains how we can be involved in God’s plan:
….[God] preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, ‘In you all the nations shall be blessed.’ So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.
Galatians 3 v 8 and 9
It is those who believe and have faith in what God has told us who will be involved in His plan. When we understand and have faith in God’s plan, Paul explains what we should do to demonstrate our belief:
For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
Galatians 3 v 27 to 29
So by being baptized, people from all nations can be involved in the promises that God made to Abraham and his descendants the Jews.
If you would like to explore the Bible message further then have a look at the Learn more about the Bible message page.
