When Jesus meets the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24), He teaches the two disciples “everything concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” 

The Bible has one main hero – the anointed King – and one main plot – the suffering and glory of the King.

Yet, the Bible is also a “book about everything.”

Here’s what I mean: The Bible doesn’t merely talk about what we think of as “spiritual” or “religious” topics – communion with God, worship, prayer, forgiveness, following Jesus, receiving the Spirit, loving our Father. It doesn’t just talk about how we get to heaven.

Scripture addresses every conceivable topic and realm of life. Cornelius van Til, a great twentieth-century Christian thinker, liked to say, “The Bible is authoritative on everything it addresses. And it addresses everything.”

Scripture talks about being a child, becoming an adult, growing old. It tells us how to live our individual lives, but also teaches us how we relate to other people – parents, children, siblings, strangers, powerful people and weak people, simpletons, fools, and villains.

The Bible isn’t just a religious book that avoids controversial topics like politics or economics. It talks about work and money, loans and borrowing, care for animals, buying and selling, how we organize our time. 

It has a lot to say about public life – crime and punishment, war, justice, how to treat the weak and poor, about immigration and abortion, relations of men and women, sex.

And, in case it missed anything, Scripture includes universal commands like, “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” That doesn’t leave anything out. Whatever we do, we know at least one thing about it: It has to be done to the glory of God.

So, which is it? Is the Bible a book about Jesus? Or a book about everything?

It’s both, and it’s both because of who Jesus is. He’s Alpha and Omega (Rev 21:6; 22:13). Everything begins with Him and He will bring everything to its conclusion. 

Jesus is “before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Col 1:17). When we know Jesus, we know something about everything, and it’s the most important thing we can know. We know it’s from Him, and through Him, and to Him.

As we come to know Jesus in all the Scriptures, we learn about life, the universe, and everything.

Blessings,
Pastor Leithart