The Picture in the Puzzle: This Information Scientist Trusts the God of the Bible

By Wayne A Andre

We have entitled the work “The Picture in the Puzzle.” This new and original work is the culmination of an effort to help adult Bible students understand the entire Bible using a holistic Christ centered approach. There are over 100 original diagrams that show the many ways that the Bible can be understood as an overall, consistent and expanding story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Apr 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9781664257399

Wayne A Andre

Wayne Andre has been an Elder, Bible Study Leader and Christian Ministries Team Leader for 30 years in two Christian mega-Churches. Wayne has an educational background in Engineering, Physics, Finance, Accounting, Statistics and Information Science. He had a 30-year career in Information Science in several major Fortune 500 companies. Wayne’s wife of 50 years is also an author and best friend. Wayne is the father of two mature adult children with spouses who are also best friends and who each have two children of their own. We have traveled the world and been on Christian missions to many countries. Bible study is more than an interest. It is a total life long commitment. My hope is that serious Bible Study will increase in quality and quantity throughout the world and that your personal study is both exciting and rewarding.

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Copyright © 2022 Wayne A Andre.

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and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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[Scripture quotations are] from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright ©

1946, 1952, and 1971 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the

Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International

Version® NIV® Copyright © 1973 1978 1984 2011 by Biblica, Inc.

TM. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

ISBN: 978-1-6642-5740-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-5741-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-5739-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022902919

WestBow Press rev. date: 04/20/2022

Contents

Foreword

1.   Introduction

A.   Life’s Big Questions

B.   One Holistic, Continuous, Expanding Bible Story

C.   The Picture in the Biblical Puzzle

D.   Use of Personal Pronouns

E.   Our Goals for This Book

F.   The Issue of Science

G.   Getting Acquainted

H.   Why Use Pictures?

I.   A Holistic, Christ-Centered Study of the Whole Bible

J.   The Unfolding Holistic Bible Study

K.   Let’s Get on the Road

2.   A Holistic Bible Study

A.   What the Bible Is

B.   The Bible’s Impact on Our World

C.   The Entire Bible Story

D.   Begin the Holistic Bible Journey

E.   The Overall Holistic Bible Study

F.   Summary of Our Holistic Bible Study

G.   Put Your Thinking Cap On

3.   Creation

A.   The First Major Bible Story

B.   What Was Created

C.   Comparing Science and the Bible

D.   Put Your Thinking Cap On

4.   Chaos

A.   The Second Major Bible Story

B.   Our Search for Answers

C.   Put Your Thinking Cap On

5.   Covenant

A.   The Third Major Bible Story

B.   History of the Old Testament

C.   Intermediaries in the Old Covenant

D.   The Old Covenant Feasts

E.   Put Your Thinking Cap On

6.   Christ

A.   The Fourth Major Bible Story

B.   Prophecies of Christ the Coming Messiah

C.   Who Jesus Christ Is

D.   What Jesus Christ Did

E.   Christ Foreshadowed in the Old Testament

F.   Christ Seen in the Old Testament Feasts

G.   Christ Seen in the Lives of Old Testament People

H.   Old Testament Appearances of Christ

I.   Put Your Thinking Cap On

7.   New Covenant

A.   The Fifth Major Bible Story

B.   Our New Covenant in Christ

C.   What We Become in the New Covenant

D.   Our Mission

E.   Put Your Thinking Cap On

8.   New Chaos

A.   The Sixth Major Bible Story

B.   A Sign of the Times

C.   Satan’s Three Deceptions

D.   The World of Religions and Philosophies

E.   Deception #1—No God or Not the Biblical God

F.   Deception #2—Man Can Take Care of Himself / Herself

G.   Deception #3—Christ Is Not the Biblical Christ

H.   Our Communication Challenge

I.   Put Your Thinking Cap On

9.   New Creation

A.   The Seventh Major Bible Story

B.   Preparing for Christ’s Second Coming

C.   The Final Judgment

D.   Revelation—Past, Present, Future

E.   The Expanding Picture of Christ

F.   Our Future Lives in Heaven

G.   Put Your Thinking Cap On

10.  Life’s Big Questions

A.    What Is Truth?

B.   Is There Ultimate Truth?

C.   Does God Exist?

D.   Why Does God Seem So Remote?

E.   What Does My Life Mean?

F.   Why Is There Evil in the World?

G.   Is God Concerned with Me Personally?

H.   What Happens to Me When I Die?

I.   The Holistic Bible Summary

J.   Put Your Thinking Cap On

11.  Conclusion

A.   Where We Are

B.   Back to the Beginning

C.   Final Motivation

Appendix A—The Veracity of the Bible

Appendix B—More Models of Christ

A.   The Water and Blood Model

B.   God’s Firstborn Model

C.   The Impossible Birth Model

D.   The 1, 12, 70 Model

E.   The Testament Model

F.   The Covenant Model

G.   The Punishment by Water and Fire Model

H.   The Tree of Life Model

Appendix C—At the Speed of Light

Appendix D—Biblical Creation or Random—Chance Evolution

Appendix E—The Tabernacle and Christ

Appendix F—The Models of Heaven

Appendix G—Scripture References

Appendix H—Index

Foreword

Which is right, the Bible or science, when it comes to the subject of the creation story? Chapter 3 of The Picture in the Puzzle is a lengthy discussion of this issue. I must first state that both the Bible and science contain truth, but each approaches the subject with different objectives. The Bible stresses subjects of ultimate cause and effect that concern our lives from a moral point of view. Science deals with the natural world that must be both testable and measurable. First, let me say that both are admirable topics. I admire the Bible because it deals with ultimate spiritual questions:

1. Is there a God?

2. Where did I come from?

3. What does my life mean?

4. Is there a right and wrong?

5. What will happen to me when I die?

6. How can we improve the quality of our lives?

I also admire science because it addresses some very practical questions:

7. How do physical processes work?

8. How can we improve these processes?

9. How can we improve the quality of our lives?

Notice that questions 6 and 9 are the same question, showing this discussion does have some subject overlap. Problems arise when we try to use science to answer ultimate questions or the Bible to answer what happens during a physical process. One of the biggest issues in society today is the fight for who is right and who is wrong. Both parties want to improve our lives, but both also have the potential to divide people into antagonistic groups. Both have scholarship and assumptions, and both have limitations. Each group claims the other leads to evil extremes.

One aspect of this debate is undeniable. Both have the laudable goals of creating a better life for our families, our world, and ourselves. Both have hardworking people who are smart and caring, but many of these same people have failings and limitations. I am no different. I have titled this work The Picture in the Puzzle, subtitled This Information Scientist Trusts the God of the Bible. My goal for this book is to help Christians not feel inferior to science, philosophy, popular culture, ethics, or anything else and to help scientists realize that scientific subjects require a faith that there are repeatable laws of nature in our universe.

We can obtain much from both the Bible and the scientific textbook. My hope is to help Christians obtain more from their study of the Bible and help the purely scientific understand that the Bible is very reasonable in its statements on scientific matters. Both seek truth. The heart of the Bible is the truth concerning Jesus Christ, the unique Son of God. The heart of science is truth about the natural world that we can both measure and test. As we shall see, both topics ultimately require faith.

It is not only possible, but essential that we be expert at our professional lives AND in our lives as a Christian to do our best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15).

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1 Introduction

A.

Life’s Big Questions

U sually when someone asks us, How are you? we don’t go into a metaphysical explanation of our being and purpose in life. We simply answer, Fine, and let it go at that. However, our whole lives really are a quest for the answers to these big questions. We really want to know if our lives have a meaning greater than a mere existence in a mechanical universe, whether we are more than just intelligent slime.

To set the tone for this chapter, I would like to relate a conversation between Mr. Conrad Hilton, the founder of the Hilton Hotel chain, and a media commentator. The reporter said, Mr. Hilton, you are now speaking to more than thirty-five million of your current and future customers. Is there anything you’d like to tell them? Mr. Hilton replied, Put the shower curtain inside the bathtub!

Like Mr. Hilton, let me give it to you straight. The Bible has credible and satisfying answers to all of life’s big questions, despite those critics¹ who have attempted to slam Christianity in the last three hundred years. My message here is clear: Christians today do not need to be ashamed or intimidated by science, philosophy, or anything. We echo Paul the apostle, who said in Romans:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. (Romans 1:16)

Like Paul, our very lives yearn for a meaningful existence. Paul was initially a very learned scholar of the Jewish law and possessed a burning hatred for Christ and his followers. Nevertheless, when he encountered the risen Christ on the road to Damascus in Acts 9, Paul finally began to understand that Jesus was not only the promised Old Testament Messiah but was also the complete fulfillment of all his own personal knowledge of the Jewish scriptures. What Paul and many others wrote—inspired by the Holy Spirit—is the Bible, the guide to our big questions. If the Bible then is the key to answering life’s most important questions, our quest to study the Bible and get the most from it is vital. In addition to the individual stories of the Bible, we must also understand it holistically—as a whole. That is what this work hopes to achieve.

B.

One Holistic, Continuous, Expanding Bible Story

Let us begin. We will show the following diagram more than once. On this occasion, just look at the majestic sweep of the total continuous and expanding Bible story.

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Figure 1. One continuous Bible story

The word holistic means to look at the whole and the interdependency of its parts. We propose that the Bible is one consistent, expanding, and continuing story from its beginning to its end. Figure 1 is one picture (of dozens we will use) of a holistic Bible study. God gives his plan, and humanity accepts or rejects it and people receive what they decide. At each step, the story increases in scope and size. We will return to this diagram and a more detailed discussion in the following chapters. A holistic study of the Bible recognizes many individual stories that assemble into one overall consistent and continuous story. Thus, the Bible is like a puzzle with many pieces—and one overall picture.

C.

The Picture in the Biblical Puzzle

The title of this book is The Picture in the Puzzle, a holistic, Christ-centered study of the whole Bible. Many people² take Bible study seriously. Unfortunately, many of these same people have trouble understanding the Bible as an overall story. For some, the Bible appears as a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle dumped out on the table. To add to the difficulty, the box’s cover showing the puzzle’s picture has been mislaid. Pick up one puzzle piece, and it is the story of Noah’s ark. A second piece is the birth of Christ. A third piece is Moses and the burning bush. The Picture in the Puzzle tries to answer the following question: how can a single story be composed of stories as diverse as a boat, a baby, and a bush? Does the Bible even have an overall consistent story? The answer is yes, and it is quite simple:

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Figure 2. Christ the picture in the biblical puzzle

Figure 2 shows that Christ is not just a part of the Bible story; he is the entire story from start to finish. You do not need to fully grasp this concept now or fully buy into it, but please be patient and read on with a student’s eagerness to learn.

D.

Use of Personal Pronouns

In this work, the word man may refer to humanity, mankind, humankind, all men and women, or all human beings but only rarely to the exclusion of women. In this study, we always consider men and women equally important. The New Testament in Galatians 3:28 emphatically states that in Christ there is no male and female. We are all one spiritually in Christ. God is the creator of human beings, and, as such, he alone transcends gender. In this work, when referencing God in third person, the uncapitalized he or him is used. This is consistent with its usage in the New International Version of the Bible.

E.

Our Goals for This Book

The goals of this book are:

1. Let scientists and Bible students alike realize that the Bible’s portrayal of science and scientific fact are reasonable.

2. Provide both summary and detailed pictures to show that the Bible is one continuous story centered on Jesus Christ.

3. Enhance each reader’s Bible knowledge and increase their faith to improve their Christian witness.

4. Compare the Bible to other areas of secular study and undo any inferiority thrust upon the followers of Christ.

We assume the following subjects because they have been adequately established elsewhere:³

1. The Bible is the Word of God.

2. The Bible we have today accurately reflects the materials originally written.

F.

The Issue of Science

This book is primarily a Bible study and is not intended to be a scientific textbook, but some scientific material is included for those who would like to understand that the Bible is authoritative and accurate when these topics (like the creation) are discussed. For this purpose, we have intentionally tried not to use jargon, and we will be emphatic to define our terms when discussing these topics. We sincerely hope that both the strident Christian and any exclusively scientific reader will temporarily leave their prejudices at the door and consider whether the material in The Picture in the Puzzle is both reasonable and factually supported.

In some parts of this work, we compare the Bible to scientific subjects. We have tried to limit the number of technical terms and numerical values, but a few scientific topics are discussed in detail. Nevertheless, the reader should at least become familiar with basic scientific notation used to express very large or very small numbers. Large numbers such as one million can be represented either as the actual number 1,000,000 or in scientific notation of 1x106 (1 times 10 to the 6th power) or by the notation 1E6. Conversely, small numbers such as one millionth can be represented as the actual number .000001 or by the scientific notation 1x10-6 (1 times 10 to the minus 6th power) or 1E-6.

G.

Getting Acquainted

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Figure 3. Reunited with God

I would like to start this work by giving my reader some appreciation for my background. Figure 3 illustrates this author’s personal journey, which should be readily familiar to any Christian. Within this diagram is the seed that led to the development of The Picture in the Puzzle and my wish to share this information with you. Allow me first to give you a first-person account of my testimony.

During the 1950s, I was raised in the Lutheran Church. Even from my earliest childhood, Jesus was very important to me. I wanted to be close to God, but I somehow knew my own disobedience created a gulf of separation that made a close relationship with God difficult. Up to my senior year in college, I knew a lot about Christ but did not have a personal relationship with him. Despite being positively inclined to spiritual things, I was spiritually asleep. One day, my college roommate suggested that I pray to God about a problem I was having. What? Pray myself about it? Suddenly all the pieces of my spiritual dilemma came together. I could never be good enough to approach God, but his Son, Christ Jesus, died for my imperfections and wanted me to accept his forgiveness. I felt like a bright light had come on inside of me. I began to realize that all the stories of the Bible and all the sermons I had ever heard in church were about me and my relationship to God. The only way I could cross the gulf of my own sin was over the cross of Jesus! This was the beginning of my personal journey that included a wife, a family, studying engineering, physics, statistics, business, finance, being an elder and Bible study leader in a large Christian church, and having a career in information science for a major company.

H.

Why Use Pictures?

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Figure 4. Left/right brain functions

There is evidence to suggest that our brain functions as two coordinated halves. Figure 4 suggests that our right- brain sees information as symbols and our left-brain as pictures. In the middle of our brain is an interface (corpus callosum) that quickly transfers what we study so that we can understand both the details and the concepts. In this way, words are the details, and pictures are the organization of that detail. We seem to learn best when we use both sides of our brain.

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There is evidence to suggest that Western culture (US and Europe) puts a premium on details (i.e., words and numbers), and Eastern culture (China and Japan) puts a premium on concepts (i.e., pictures). This is certainly true of English language phonetic words versus the traditional Chinese Zhōngwén picture words of our two respective cultures. Interestingly, Christians in Chinese underground house churches are using material from The Picture in the Puzzle. Pray for them because many governments are hostile to faith-based peoples. As seen in the Chinese pictorial word for come, it combines the symbols and literally means, come to the great man on the cross between two common men.

Thus, we want to use both words and pictures to illustrate our study of the Bible so that all cultures may benefit in learning to the greatest degree. We will study the words of God (the Bible) to see how they reveal the Word of God (God himself in Jesus Christ).⁴ This concept is very profound. Do not miss it.

I.

A Holistic, Christ-Centered Study of the Whole Bible

Our premise in this book is to show holistically how the entire Bible is a set of seven parallel, expanding major stories that center on the person and work of Jesus Christ the Messiah. Notice in figure 5 that we label the first three major Bible stories: creation, chaos, and covenant. The last three major Bible stories: new covenant, new chaos, and new creation are parallel to the first three stories, but told in reverse order. The fourth and central story connects the first three stories with the last three stories. We come back to this narrative many times, so do not feel you have to absorb this concept immediately. Again, the individual stories are the pieces of the puzzle that when assembled show the picture of Christ.

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Figure 5. The seven major Bible stories

J.

The Unfolding Holistic Bible Study

In figure 6, like a scroll, notice that the seven major Bible stories unfold from creation to Christ and then fold back up to a new creation in reverse order. We will develop this theme in subsequent chapters devoted to each major Bible story.

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Figure 6. The Bible from eternity to eternity

The Bible is more than history; it is really a love story. It is the story of when God’s human family chooses sin; God then chooses to come as Christ to restore his creation through his own great personal suffering and sacrifice. It is as if the entire Bible were the single story of the prodigal son, with God as the parent and us as his wayward sons and daughters. The Bible ends where it began, in eternity, except we have lived and made our choices for or against God’s plan. For our choice to be real, God allows Satan (an angel) to present a real alternative to God’s plan. Satan’s plan attempts to put himself as a substitute for God and Christ.

K.

Let’s Get on the Road

As we know, there are some famous roads in our world. Lombard Street (if you are familiar with San Francisco) contains a series of ninety-degree switchbacks as you drive down its forty-five-degree slope. Then there is the fictitious Sesame Street, the children’s educational television road to knowledge. There is also the yellow brick road with its lions and tigers and bears, Wall Street, our country’s financial center, and, turning to our own book’s subject, the Via Dolorosa (Latin: Way of Suffering) in Jerusalem, the road on which Jesus carried the cross. This brings us to the biblical story in Luke chapter 24 of the famous Road to Emmaus.

When he [Jesus after his resurrection] was at the table with them [the two disciples], he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the [Old Testament] scriptures to us? (Luke 24:30–32) (Brackets mine)

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As you and I walk the road of life, we should have our own Emmaus encounter with the Christ of the Bible. Will our eyes be opened by God’s biblical message of ultimate truth? Will we break bread with Christ in Communion? Will our hearts burn with joy as we understand the totality of God’s salvation through the Son of God? Will we truly have a life-changing encounter with the risen, living Christ?

We will if we stick to the basics: Bible study, prayer, fellowship with one another, and service by following the example of Christ and the filling power of the Holy Spirit. The Bible is one of the key ingredients for our success in this temporal life, so let us first consider a road map for Bible study that incorporates the Bible’s seven major stories with its central focus on Jesus Christ. Thus, we begin our holistic Bible study.

2 A Holistic Bible Study

A.

What the Bible Is

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Figure 7. The Bible words point to Christ the Word

T he English word Bible derives from the Greek word Biblíon, referring to a long roll of papyrus ⁵ and to the Phoenician port of Byblos ⁶ where this writing material was first prepared and exported. The Bible we hold in our hands today took some 1,500 years to write, is approximately two thousand pages long, is divided into sixty-six books, was written by some forty different authors in the three languages of Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic, and has been translated to most of the languages in use today. ⁷

Despite this diversity of composition, there is one consistent story throughout the entire Bible;⁸ men wrote the words, but the source is God himself. The agent between God’s revelation and man’s writing is God the Holy Spirit. The main Bible story concerns the relationship between God, the creator of everything, and human beings, whom God created in his image to have a loving, moral family fellowship. Figure 7 shows that the words of the Bible point us to the Word, who is Jesus Christ himself.⁹

The King James Version of the Bible contains some 823,156 words¹⁰ that encompass the statements of ordinary people (like you and me), people of high social rank (kings, prophets, generals, etc.), God himself, and even Satan, one of God’s rebellious angels who is the chief antagonist of the Bible story. Some Bible stories reveal lives of dedication, inspiration, and good, but others show the petty jealousies and hatreds of people who are otherwise living their normal lives. If the Bible is anything, it is the story of the lives of thousands of people: what attitudes and behaviors work and which do not.

The Bible’s true value is that it reveals the one true Creator God who created us so we could have a loving family relationship with him. This relationship has to be on God’s terms: we have to be holy like he is. Because God is perfect, he will not tolerate our sin. When we first knowingly sin, we are alienated from God immediately, die spiritually, and then ultimately die physically. In the Old Testament, God allowed his people Israel to substitute an animal’s death for a human’s sin. This could not continue forever, and the New Testament tells us that Christ came as the Son of God and became a perfect human sacrifice to pay for all humanity’s sin.

He [Christ] was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:10–14) (Brackets mine)

As we try to comprehend God’s message in the Bible, we must study all of it and see Christ in all of it. John 3:16–21 (NIV) below is this message in very simple, easy-to-understand terms that can be easily understood by both a ten-year-old schoolroom child but still challenge a seventy-year-old postdoctoral scholar. Especially if you are a scientist, you must look at the following data carefully, test it and draw conclusions. The following passage is only 148 words long and should take a normal reader no more than two minutes to study and evaluate.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. He who believes in him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does what is true comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God. (John 3:16–21)

B.

The Bible’s Impact on Our World

The New Yorker magazine¹¹ tells us that the Bible is big business, with twenty-five million copies sold annually at a value of $500 million. The article goes on to say that, 91 percent of American homes have at least one Bible and that 47 percent of Americans read the Bible each week. If accurate, the only answer that can account for this popularity is that many people feel the Bible provides relevant answers and hope for all people living in a troubled world.

One must also acknowledge that there are also strong opinions against the Bible. The Bible generates significant derision in certain media and antagonism in the minds of many people. Why is this? The answer is that the Bible raises the issue that people (left to themselves) are morally weak and need God. Some people see this as a gross insult. As an example, Western culture is continually trying to move towards a secular-materialistic utopia where God (if he exists) and the Bible are irrelevant and even dangerous outside of a church building. Unless the church adapts to face these challenges, it takes the risk of permanent marginalization. Let us look closer at this challenge.

Our modern, scientifically oriented culture wants us to acknowledge that we have outgrown the need¹² for God and that we are just a higher-order animal playing king of the mountain in a modern-day concrete jungle.¹³ The philosophy of humanism believes it has all the answers and all the tools necessary to understand reality¹⁴. This humanistic philosophy, which boldly states that God is not needed because man has all the answers, has been going on since Satan convinced Adam and Eve of the godlike advantages of eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

Because of this trend toward the secular, society has grown more liberal, and the bar for inappropriate behavior continues to plummet. Popular thinking today wants us to believe that all opinions are equally valid and all behaviors should be equally tolerated. This philosophy promotes peace at the expense of truth. Peace and truth must always be kept in balance, or we fall. Christ himself gives the church a very challenging, exciting, and eminently achievable mission. We must adapt this unchangeable message and use whatever means and technology currently available to spread God’s message of hope to follow Christ.

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matthew 28:19–20)

Adam and Eve listened to God’s plan and then to Satan’s plan in the Garden of Eden and unfortunately made an eternally impacting, deadly choice. We today have God’s plan in the Bible, but Satan’s message can also be heard. We and we alone are responsible for our answer and our choice.

C.

The Entire Bible Story

In the previous chapter, we proposed that the entire Bible is a unified story centered on Jesus Christ. In this chapter, we present several diagrams and models to support this claim. We have discussed what the Bible is and its impact on humanity. The following is a short summary of the entire Bible story.¹⁵ ¹⁶

God created man and woman so humanity could enjoy a loving family relationship with God. Because God is holy and perfect, this relationship had to be pure and based on God’s holy standards. In order for this relationship to be real, God gave man and woman the ability to choose whether to be a part of it. Sadly, this first human couple chose a mixture of good and evil instead of God’s holiness.¹⁷ This human sin proved to be incompatible with God. This willful choice of ungodliness brought Adam and Eve the tragic consequences of fear, pain, and death. Years later, God found faith in a new couple, Abraham and Sarah. Through them, God formed a new people he called Israel. God gave Israel his laws and declared peace between himself and Israel. Contact and communication with Israel was never direct but was administered through a complicated set of indirect intermediaries: the priests, the prophets, the Law, the sacrifices, and the Tabernacle (later the Temple). During the time of the Old Testament, God redeemed the Israelites by their presentation of numerous personal and public animal blood sacrifices.¹⁸ This Old Covenant would continue until one perfect human life could pay the debt of all human sin, past, present, and future.¹⁹ The only way a perfect human sacrifice could occur was for God himself to come and be that human being. This he accomplished in Jesus Christ, the unique Son of God. Christ lived a perfect life and offered himself as a perfect sacrifice to pay for all those who would accept his plan in a New Covenant. Through Christ, a direct relationship with God becomes possible (eliminating all intermediaries), and he now awaits our individual decisions whether to accept or reject his plan. To help us live a successful life, Christ gives each Christian his Holy Spirit (God himself), who in turn gives each Christian at least one spiritual gift. Christians must use these gifts to reach out, serve others, and at the same time equip the entire church to reach a full maturity in Christ. At just the right time, Christ will come a second time to take all of his people to live eternally with him in a world recreated by him, purged of all sin and imperfection. Those who reject God’s New Covenant will live now and forever without God. The Bible ends where it began. The difference is we have lived; we each fairly choose, and we