A Bible Timeline Presents A Creative Mode To Help Teach Bible Events And Characters And Truths
In our Bible group some years ago, one person who had been a Christian and laboured in the Church for many years, made this statement,"Yes, but Abraham had the Law and so he understood about......" (they were not talking about the pre-Moses law) I wonder just how many Christians would actually notice the error in this statement. Moses came about about five hundred years after Abraham and so it is not possible. I have since compiled a Bible history timeline and shown more visually the time period of men and women and occasions.
Regrettably, a large number of preachers and teachers in our churches go on and preach flimsy, shallow, light weight, superficial sermons and their congregation scarcely grow in biblical knowledge. Preachers love to give us'moral essays' and'warming affirmations' because supposedly, if we really love our people this is what we'll do. Regrettable it seems, if God's people are falling through the cracks'for an absence of knowledge' so long as we are positive and loving to all. In reality, the more relevant we become to this world, the less relevant we are to this world.
Some years ago, I was preaching on the death, burial, resurrection and life of Christ Jesus, and a retired minister and powerful preacher of the Bible, who had been in the ministry for 40 years, came to me and reproved me smartly over some interesting points I made and he mentioned 1Ti 1:4'Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do.' I quietly asked him if I had been saying anything of a heretical nature in any way, to which he said"No". I continued to explain that in the case of that particular verse, it wasn't referring to exploring the Bible but to the false teaching and school of thought of Gnosticism, but he would not accept it. Let me ask, how can a 40 year minister & laborer in the Gospel, not understand and know about something that possibly 1/2 the books of the New Testament refer to?
How can he study and preach the Bible clearly without being familiar with something that was so influential in the New Testament church? And then how can the congregation hope to figure out these things and be able to interpret their Bible effectively, if they're not informed?
Why do we get stuck in a rut of our pet themes and sugar coated preaching?
We teach on a verse from Romans and a narrative about Solomon and a theme from the book of 1 Samuel and then the faith of John or the strength of Samson - parts from here and there, but we do not put it all together in a clear understandable, easy to remember, perspective with a decent Bible TimeLine with Church History as well. Constantly we are bombarded with new books, modernist ideas, a number of them dangerously edging toward Progressive doctrine, when if we were to be coached the fundamental principles of Church history, we then would not be so doomed to repeat it.
Let's us as tutors and preachers stitch together the fragments of God's Word and God's plan into a seamless tapestry that our people are able to draw on for the remainder of life, helping them to figure out God, His Eternal Plan, the role of the Church and ways to better translate the Bible to live by.
It's not hard to do, and it's not boring if we are prepared to put in a bit of study and prayer and fervor, and just maybe you can employ a Bible Timeline as well.
For more information about a Bible TimeLine go to our Bible TimeLine Chart site and see the biblical study resource.
Related to bible timeline events: