Read the Bible Like a Coach: The Skybox Cam

In part one of this article, I made the bizarre claim that watching football can actually help us be better Bible readers. As I unpacked the first two camera angles: (1) The coach cam (the close or immediate context) and (2) the endzone cam (continuing context); I hope my initial claim now seems more plausible. But in case you need a little more proof, let me explain our third and final lens through which we ought to read Scripture.

The Skybox Cam

The coach cam and the endzone cam provided us with vital information, but there’s one more perspective a coach needs in his arsenal for game day: eyes in the sky. Coaches in the skybox are able to focus on the strategic elements of the game without the distractions of the sideline. They watch for shifts in the opposing team's formations, personnel packages, coverage schemes, or blitz patterns and relay that information to the play-callers on the sideline. We could say that they have the most complete picture of the game. The third step in learning how to read the Bible well, requires a similar perspective. The skybox cam seeks to understand a given passage of Scripture in light of the whole Bible’s message centered on Jesus Christ. There are two primary ways in which the Bible pulls together its diverse threads into one unified story centered in Jesus: promise and fulfillment, and typology. 

Promises Made and Promises Kept

As we’ve already seen, the Bible moves from promise to fulfillment in Christ through the biblical covenants. As the covenants unfold from Adam to Christ, we discover how God’s initial promise of the serpent crusher (ultimately Jesus the messiah) in Genesis 3:15 is accomplished with greater clarity. Even the simple distinction between the Old and New Testaments shows us the promise-fulfillment structure of the Bible: promises made (OT) and promises kept or fulfilled (NT). Sometimes this looks like direct fulfillment of prophecy like Micah 5:2 and Matthew 5:6, the prediction of the birthplace of the messiah. At other times, it’s more indirect, or we could say it has a typological fulfillment.

Typology: The Bible’s Promise-Shaped Patterns

What is typology? Andy Naselli offers a simple definition, “Typology analyzes how NT persons, events, and institutions (i.e., antitypes) fulfill OT persons, events, and institutions (i.e., types) by repeating the OT situations at a deeper, climactic level in salvation history.” The two key features of biblical typology then are, as Jim Hamilton notes, “God ordained and designed historical correspondence and escalation.” The biblical authors draw attention to certain things by incorporating into their writings, “repetitions of key terms, quotations of phrases or whole lines, and presenting similar sequences of events,” in order to, “establish patterns they intend their audience to notice.” A few examples will be helpful:

• Adam was a type of Christ: “Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come” (Rom 5:14). Where Adam failed as God’s image-son and priest-king, Jesus succeeded. Or as Sam Storms puts it in the context of Romans 5, “Adam ruined us. Christ renewed us. As we are condemned for the sin of the first Adam, we are justified for the obedience of the last Adam.”
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• When Paul describes to the church at Corinth the wilderness wanderings of Israel, he says, “Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come” (1 Cor 10:11). The word “example” is typikōs in Greek, meaning, Israel in the wilderness is the type; the Christians in Corinth are the antitype. Here’s why that’s significant. Remember the coach cam (close context) is important too. Look at what Paul teaches us just a few verses earlier, of which 1 Corinthians 10:11 is a summary:
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• The Passover lamb was a type that pointed to an even greater spotless Lamb (Jesus Christ) who would be slain to rescue the people of God through an even greater exodus (Exod 12:1–13; John 1:36; 19:36; 1 Cor 5:7–8; 1 Pet 1:19; Rev 5:6). 
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• Finally, I want to emphasize that all types ultimately find their fulfillment in Christ. The book of Hebrews presents perhaps the clearest example of this reality. In chapters 5–7 the author, “explains how Jesus fulfills the priesthood and replaces it, and in Hebrews 9–10 the writer elaborates on how the death of Christ on the cross is a better sacrifice, fulfilling the sacrificial system and bringing it to an end: 
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  • New and better Moses 
  • New and better David 
  • New and better Priest 
  • New and better sacrifice 
  • New and better law 
  • New and better covenant”16

Conclusion

I hope that this crash course on how to read and understand the Bible as one unified story that leads to Jesus has been helpful. You may never be able to watch a football game without thinking about these things (you’re welcome!). But more importantly, I sincerely hope and pray that this framework helps equip you with tools for fruitful Bible study for years to come.