The Bible is NOT About You | Matt Chandler

Matt Chandler is the Lead Pastor at the Village Church in the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas. He is also the president of Acts 29, a network of churches planting churches, and the author of many books and Bible studies including James, The Apostles Creed, A Beautiful Design, and The Explicit Gospel.

In this segment from the James: Faith/Works Study, Matt breaks down the misconception that the Bible is all about us instead of focusing on who the Bible is truly about: God.

The entire video is above, and the complete transcript is below.
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Did you hear like, “This is the roadmap to life”, right? Now I don't want to dog on that because there's some maps back here, okay? So I'm not dogging out the roadmap to life idea. 

Except here's my problem with it: The Bible is not primarily about you. 

Now it will reference you, but this is not the Lord kind of stroking your hair, going, "Man, you are so amazing. I mean, I just want to talk about you all the time." 

That would be soul-crushing. 

The Bible is about God because what we need most is to see Him behold His glory, get transfixed by it, and be led into the deep end of the pool. That's how this works. That's primary. That's what we need. That's what we were created for. 

We call this salvation. 

That the Holy Spirit opens up our heart to believe upon the person and work of Jesus Christ, reconciling us to God the Father, and allowing us to behold the magnitude of the grace and mercy of God, rescuing and ransoming sinners from death.

[thetruthshallmakeyoufree]

Bible Study 📚 101:

1. Who’s talking
2. Who is it talking too
3. And when & where is it taking place

All the Bible is for us but all the Bible is not written specifically to us nor all about us the church the body of Christ

[Anna-gjts]

I had this stuck in my head after watching Americain gospel. I get what he means if you look at theme of a book as a whole. The theme of the bible is Jesus but you could apply stories to you but then they might be out of context for the book as a whole.

[jonathandavid]

"About" statements tend to be excessively restrictive when directed to a richly-purposed Bible - which is *about* MANY things: Yes, God AND his redemptive plans for his greatest creation, made in His image: Mankind.

[putjesusfirst]

No God meant that for each of us.

He went to the cross an died for everyone who Believed in Him.

It was wrote for us. Because God says to deny ourselves pick up our cross an follow Him. An when we do this we are His & He is our God.

You do disservice to God teaching the Bible isn’t for people.

Or they are not David.

We are all a David that is a sinner in need of a Savior..

The Bible is an awesome Word an very very deep but people don’t get this. Because they teach like this.

[laragreene]

No preachers needed. God has it all covered!!! "No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, 'Know the Lord, ' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest."Heb 8:11

[brianhyde]

"Grace" was for the man of Israel being delivered from flesh-dependency. The man of Israel needed God's sufficiency (Grace) to meet his insufficiency (flesh-dependency) in fulfilling the works of the Law of Moses.  Once he realized his intrinsic union with God sufficiency through the Spirit, then he no longer needed "Grace". That was his journey, not ours. We should learn from it.

[brianhyde]

The Jewish Bible is about Ancient Israel ONLY.

It is about an ancient people (descendants of the race of Adam) and their land and a world within-a-world, a world created under direct covenant to God. Their status and positional standing before the God of Israel was framed up under sin and law and death inherited "in Adam". They were "the dead".

UNTIL that is, Jesus, their Messiah (Gk Christos) came and delivered his people (Israel) from their sins, making the law vanish, and an end of death (Dan 9, Heb 8). They were made dead (and buried) to their old covenant self "in Adam", by the Cross of Christ, and they were made alive (and raised) to their new covenant self "in Christ", by the Resurrection of Christ (Romans 6, Colossians 3), thereafter their status and positional standing before the God of Israel, was one of righteousness and grace and life inherited "in Christ". God reconciled the people to himself, no longer holding their sins against them (2Cor 5, Rom 5). They were "the living".

In AD 70 the old covenant world of Adam and all Israel (once all the Israel gentiles of the Dispersion had been been "gathered in") was judged. Then came the end. The old covenant status and positional standing before God was no more. Sin and law and death and the world of Adam, was no more. It had been destroyed. Ancient Israel under direct covenant to God was no more.

THE HEBREW AND JEWISH BIBLE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYBODY LIVING TODAY. We inherit nothing but the story from which we can learn important spiritual lessons.

After AD 70, a pagan cult came along and had the gall to hijack the Hebrew and Jewish narrative, to reformulate it into a theological syncretic mess, which perpetuates sin and law and death indefinitley, thus denying and undermining the finished work of Jesus as Israel's Messiah. This pagan cult calls itself "Christianity".

[cnault]

"The Bible is NOT About You"

Great! That means I was not born a sinner....which is a good thing, since ( if the Bible is not about me) it would mean Jesus didn't die (temporarily) for my sins.

[bigcountry]

The Bible is ISRAEL ONLY

Many people think that Matthew 24 was only about the destruction of Jerusalem. But it also talks about the gathering of the elect from the 4 corners of the earth. Jesus died for the lost sheep of Israel - both in Judea and also the scattered sheep in the nations. James, Peter, Paul and Revelation all write to the scattered Israelites - both jew and gentile. The Gentile is the descendant of Abraham and Israel's 12 tribes who became uncircumcised. Revelation is filled with Jewish language - so how could some random pagan understand it unless they were Israelites. The Bible is FULL of CRYSTAL CLEAR evidence that the salvation was only for the Israelites - the 12 tribes and nobody else.

[jwalterscomedy]

The bible is all about you my friend. We are god. You can't take it literal. Peace and love to everyone

[laragreene]

oh mercy another member of the Millionaire fake preacher club! Its like roaches coming out of the wordwork!!! Thanks for the warning! 🤣🤣🤣

[laragreene]

Everybody has the word, the Bible....and the kingdom of God is
within....so these dime a dozen fake preachers are sheep
know my voice, a stranger they will not follow!!!