Tim Keller writes:
Ed Clowney points out that if we ever tell a particular Bible story without putting it into the overall main Bible story (about Christ), we actually change the meaning of the particular event for us. It becomes a moralistic exhortation to 'try harder' rather than a call to live by faith in the work of Christ. There is, in the end, only two ways to read the Bible: is it basically about me or basically about Jesus? In other words, is it basically about what I must do, or basically about what he has done? Example: If I read David and Goliath as basically giving me an example, then the story is really about me. I must summons up the faith and courage to fight the giants in my life. But if I read David and Goliath as basically showing me salvation through Jesus, then the story is really about him. Until I see that Jesus fought the real giants (sin, law, death) for me, I will never have the courage to be able to fight ordinary giants in life (suffering, disappointment, failure, criticism, hardship). The Bible is not a collection of "Aesop's Fables", it is not a book of virtues. It is a story about how God saves us. Any exposition of a text that does not 'get to Christ' but just 'explains Biblical principles' will be a 'synagogue sermon' that merely exhorts people to exert their wills to live according to a particular pattern. Instead of the life-giving gospel, the sermon offers just one more ethical paradigm to crush the listeners.
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I totally agree but sometimes pastors just use bible stories as illustrations the same way that the apostles can seemingly grab from the OT to make a point with no regard to redemptive history.
True, since theologically the Bible is the Word (Jesus), but I would hesitate to say that David and Goliath is about salvation through Jesus, or “real giants.” In the much bigger picture Jesus comes from the line of David, but in the passage itself isn’t the point that no one can defy the living God (1 Sam 17:26)? Thus David doesn’t defeat Goliath because of slick skills or incredible courage, but because God will not allow his name to be defied and the battle belongs to him (17:36, 45-47).