What’s the Big Picture? (1)

 

 

I. Required readings

 

Psalm 105

Psalm 106

            Acts 7

 

The Apostles’ Creed

 

Christian Biography for the Day: Forty Martyrs of Sebaste
 

Tim Gray, “Seeing the Big Picture in Scripture.”    

            "Seeing White" Podcast, Episode 3 ("Made in America" 33 m)  

 

 

II. Quotation for the day

 

“The way we understand human life depends on what conception we have of the human story.  What is the real story of which my life story is a part?”

            --Lesslie Newbigin

 

 

III. Journal prompts

 

1. Do you agree with Newbigin’s assertion above that “the way we understand human life depends on what conception we have of the human story”?  Why or why not?

 

2. Do you understand your own life story as a part of some larger story or stories that give it meaning?  If so, what are these stories and in what specific ways do they shape and influence your own story?  How might the stories of faithful Christians across the centuries (such as the story of The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste recounted above) inform our own stories and our own understandings of what it means to be a follower of Jesus?

 

3. The psalms for today, the passage from Acts, and the Apostles’ Creed all recall  some of the important parts of the “big picture” of scripture.  If you were asked to give your own overview of the “big picture” of scripture, what would your account look like?  How would it be similar to or different from these biblical and historical accounts?

 

4. All of us aware that slavery was practiced in this land we now call the United States for much of its history.  But do we really know much about the history of slavery--the big picture of how it was practiced and institutionalized and its role in constructing "race" and "whiteness" in this country?  What did you learn in this episode that seems important about the institution of slavery and its role in creating and empowering "whiteness"?   How might this bigger picture iinform our own wrestlings with race today?  Do you think Chenjerai Kumanyika is right when he suggests that "the effort to get people to come together under the banner of whiteness has sort of always been about power and exploitation"?  Why or why not?  Can you offer counter-examples to the examples he offers?

 

 

IV. Links of possible interest

 

Jason Zahariades and Mark Feliciano, God’s Story.  Another helpful attempt (this one a little longer—it’s a 35-page pdf file that’s intended to be used in churches as a five-part study) to offer the “big picture” of scripture.