Participants in the Biblical drama

It means that when Jesus says to the disciples, "Who do men say that I am?" that is a question that is being directed at us as well. Who do we say that he is? We are being asked to decide, just as the disciples were being asked to decide.

It means that whether Jesus says, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-laden," or whether he says, "You also outwardly appear righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity," he is talking to us as well as to his first century audience.

We become actors or participants, then, not only by knowing something of the historical situation in which a word is spoken or an event takes place, but chiefly by seeing that word or that event in relation to our own situation, so that the word becomes a word addressed to us, the event an event charged with meaning for us. We take part in the demands and the promises made by God, and in the hopes and fears of his people as they walk across the pages of this book. Their story is now our story. As they are "his people," so are we.

Here's one example of how it works. Shortly after Holland was overrun by the Nazis in World War II, a group of Dutch Christians were put in jail by the Gestapo. Months later, when one of them was to be released, he offered to take a message to the families of the others. What should they say? One of them finally produced a letter, which in rough translation went as follows:

Please try to understand that what has happened to us has actually worked out for the advancement of the gospel, since the prison guards and all the rest here are coming to know Christ. In fact, we hear that many of you on the outside have gained courage because of our imprisonment and are speaking the truth more boldly than ever before.

We hope that we shall not need to be ashamed because of our witness but that we may be bold enough so that Christ's influence will be spread by us, whether we live or whether we die.

Now those sentences should have a familiar ring. For what the writer of the letter had done was to take portions of a letter which Paul had written while he too was in prison, 1,900 years before ( Phil. 1: 12-20), and make them his own. The Dutch Christians, in sending this letter, were testifying that the experience of Paul was their experience, the message of Paul was their message, the God of Paul was their God.

They were participants in the Biblical drama.