Links In A Chain

In John Piper's book Don't Waste Your Life, the author credits a college teacher with the following, "The verses of the Bible are not strung pearls but links in a chain".  A chain that tells a long story of salvation and redemption.  Picking off an occasional pearl misses the big picture. Being a bicycling enthusiast I can relate to the word picture.  You don't get anywhere on a single link - it takes the whole chain to get somewhere.

Newsweek decided to start the new year with a diatribe against the Bible.  A friend and former pastor of the church our kids grew up in shared the attached counterpoint article which I thought was interesting.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/06/living/newsweek-evangelicals/index.html

The article in Newsweek includes this statement.  "They wave their Bibles at passersby, screaming their condemnations," writes Kurt Eichenwald of evangelical Christians. 

I fail to read in the Bible where it encourages Christians - or anyone for that matter - to scream condemnations at passersby.

The wasted life is the life without a passion for being what God calls us to be.  There's no asterick after the great Commandment, "love God and love your neighbor", that says * "Except people who think like this".

Do what's right, avoid what's wrong and if you have any doubts, look to the Bible, not one pearl at a time but rather linking the whole picture.  Love God and love your neighbor.  Do it through action.

You can not pick through the Bible like a box of chocolates, choosing only the quotes that apply to the moment.  Reading the Bible as though links in a chain and not treating it like a string of select  "pearls of wisdom" would help us all understand God's design for our life better.