Friday Night Message: The BIBLE – Past, Present, Future

April 26, 2024

Good evening brethren …

Tonight I would like to start a new series, and I would like to comment about the Bible. And so now you’re thinking …. “That’s really great, Fred. That really narrows it down, doesn’t it?”

I’d like to talk about the structure and purpose of the Bible … not from a scholarly standpoint of tracing the history and development of the OT and NT canons, not mentioning the various ancient Greek and Hebrew texts and how we came to have our modern-day English Bible with 66 books consisting of 1189 chapters and 31,124 verses.

Rather, I would like to describe God’s word in fairly simple terms, and put forth a relatively straight-forward structure for us to consider.

Years ago I remember Mr. HWA state that the Bible is approximately 1/3 history, 1/3 moral teaching, and 1/3 prophecy. I am not sure if such a concept originated with him or not. Regardless of the original source of this concept or analysis, it is fairly accurate.

There are some other categories such as prayers, praises to God, etc. But overall, it is a very useful division for the purposes of my messages for the next few weeks … which will become evident during the course of this new series of Friday Night Messages.

· Large sections of the Bible are primarily history ….OT books such as I & II Samuel, I & II Kings, I & II Chronicles, Ezra & Nehemiah, Esther, and the NT book of Acts.

· Another sizeable portion of God’s word is devoted primarily to moral teaching – much of the Pentateuch, the book of Proverbs, much of the four gospels and certainly the epistles of Paul, James, Peter and John.

· And prophecy makes up most of the rest … the major prophets of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the twelve minor prophets, the NT book of Revelation.

And while many of the books of the Bible are predominately of one type, there also a number of books that are a mixture of two or three of these elements of history, moral teaching and prophecy.

· The book of Daniel is part history and part prophecy. The book of Matthew contains a history of Jesus’ genealogy and life/death/resurrection, all of his moral teachings, and a fair amount of prophetic content in the Olivet prophecy and in some of the parables.

In this series of messages, I would like to take this concept of the Bible being divided into thirds, as Mr. HWA mentioned often, and view it from a somewhat different perspective.

I propose that God’s word is indeed approximately 1/3 each of those elements of history, moral teaching and prophecy. Yet even though these appear at first glance as three separate parts, there is also an underlying theme or a common thread that unites the three together into one cohesive message ….one overall, prevailing purpose.

And in the process of looking at the Bile in this way, I hope to raise our collective appreciation for God’s word … how masterfully it was put together to accomplish its divine purpose.

I would like us to view the Bible in the following way: Past, Present and Future:

· What is HISTORY, but the recording of things that happened in the past?

· What is MORAL TEACHING, but the instructions on how to live in the present?

· What is PROPHECY, but the foretelling of events yet to happen in the future?

The title of this new series of Friday Night Messages is The Bible – PAST, PRESENT and FUTURE

Happy Sabbath,

Fred Whitlark