As Anglicans, “We confess the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments to be the inspired Word of God, containing all things necessary for salvation, and to be the final authority and unchangeable standard for Christian faith and life.”1 Because of what we believe about Scripture, we make Biblical Education an essential part of our life and ministry for all ages. This includes Biblical based preaching and Biblical Education in which the Word of God is taught and preached from a biblical-theological perspective with appropriate attention paid to the historical, cultural, linguistic, and geographical features of the text.
It is important to remember, however, that the Bible is not merely a collection of facts, poems, and stories to be read and studied. The purpose of reading and studying the Bible is to gain a deeper understanding of the metanarrative of Scripture and our role within it. The Bible contains the true account of God, the world, and God’s plan to restore the world. We read and study the Bible to better understand our role in that story. We are, to use an analogy, in the final act of a play, and we all have a part to play in the unfolding of this divine drama. Act 1 is God’s creation of the world (Gen 1-2). Act 2 is humanity’s fall (Gen 3). Act 3 is the story of the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (The OT). Act 4 recounts Jesus's birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension, through which he freed humanity from the curse and brought the story of Act 3 to a close (The Gospels). And now we are in the final act of this divine drama.
The final act began on Pentecost with the outpouring of the Spirit and the formation of the Church (Acts 2). The apostles were the first actors of this final act, and they set the path for all Christians who follow them. We know how the act will end, even more, how the whole play will end. There will be a new heaven and a new earth (2 Pet 3:13; Rev 21:1), a new creation (2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15). There will be no more sin (Rom 6:10), no more death (1 Cor 15:26), and no more tears (Rev 21:4), and weapons of war will be turned into gardening tools (Isa 2:4). And so, now, we study all that has come before and all that is promised of the end, not simply for knowledge about the play, but for knowledge about ourselves and about the role we have to play in this great drama, this great story of God and the world. Understood in this way, biblical education is not about the transmission of knowledge but the passing on of a way of life.