George Herbert, a 17th-century poet and English clergyman, used his literary gifts to encourage the church. His poem “The Holy Scriptures” stands as a remarkable love song to the Bible. Its stanzas express devotional zeal for God’s Word, which Herbert describes as the book “that mends the lookers eyes” because it’s “the well that washes what it shows.”

As Herbert argues, Scripture both shows our need for redemption and points us to redemption’s source. Similarly, in The Well That Washes What It Shows: An Invitation to Holy Scripture, Jonathan A. Linebaugh, professor of New Testament and Christian theology at Beeson Divinity School, shows that Scripture is much more than an artifact of an ancient culture or a rule book for daily living. He builds on Herbert’s metaphor to show that Scripture is instead the well that washes what it shows: The Bible reveals our need in order to then heal us.

As popular interest in biblical theology has spread, the number of good introductions to the Bible has grown. Linebaugh sets his invitation to Scripture apart with a clear focus on who the Bible’s story is about. He points through the Bible toward Jesus, proclaiming how Christ creates a new reality and how Scripture is best understood within the new community Christ creates.

Christ Focused

Cultural references abound in this book. For example, Linebaugh draws inspiration from Lucas Cranach’s painting Martin Luther Preaching. In the image, Luther is preaching to a group of people with one hand on an open Bible, while his other points to the crucified Christ. Thus, Linebaugh argues, “Whatever passage a sermon speaks from, what the minister finally and only has to say and to give is always and only the crucified and risen Lord” (7).

The Bible reveals our need in order to then heal us.

When the risen Jesus speaks to his disciples on the road to Emmaus, he tells them what (and whom) the whole Bible is all about. “Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets,” Luke writes, “he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). Linebaugh takes Jesus’s claim seriously. He argues that, through the Bible, “God speaks to reveal need for Jesus. God speaks to give Jesus” (14).

Given these statements, it’s no surprise when Linebaugh shows that Scripture’s story and shape are both Christocentric. The Bible’s story goes “from creation to new creation by way of the crucified and risen Jesus” (5). The shape of Scripture follows Christ’s trajectory of a descent to death, “but then, out of the ashes and from the dead, God raises up and brings to life” (14). Though Christ isn’t named on every page of Scripture, every story reflects the arc of his incarnation.

Reality Creating

Christians should never tire of finding the common theme in every section of Scripture: The God who spoke everything into existence also brings life out of death. Because the words of the Bible are God’s words, they have the capacity to do what they say. They’re “reality creating” (11). When God declares someone justified, she’s righteous. When God calls someone into new creation life, she’s born again. God’s words create a new reality.

The power of God’s words is especially evident in the Bible’s first pages. God speaks to create the world, and the world is created. Yet along with God’s power, we also see his grace in those first pages. The world God creates is very good, but then humanity plunges it into sin. But the story doesn’t end there; God promises to bring life out of the death that humanity brought into the world.

Every part of Scripture both reveals our need and provides the means for that need to be met. For example, the central question of the law is whether God’s promise is stronger than humanity’s disobedience and death. The answer is yes. Scripture shows this when we see God bringing his people out of Egypt and miraculously providing for them in the desert. Furthermore, the prophets trace God’s people’s descent into sin, but they continually demonstrate that “exile is not the end” (42).

The New Testament reveals how, through Jesus’s death and resurrection, God brings life out of death. He brings a new creation into existence within the hearts and lives of those who follow Christ. We see our sin reflected in the Bible’s storyline, then we receive salvation through the gospel it proclaims.

Church Centered

The danger of much academic writing on Scripture is that it pushes readers to focus on individual study. Biblical literacy is a good thing, but Paul hoped that the Christians in Rome would be “filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another” (Rom. 15:14). In the same spirit, Linebaugh concludes his panegyric on Scripture by pointing toward ministry in the local church.

When we love Scripture, we must do more than increase our knowledge of it. Knowledge must lead to real action (James 1:22). Linebaugh argues, “Ministry engages particular, real people and attends to what God, in the Holy Spirit and through the word, is doing to, with, and for them” (170–71). For example, we don’t call for repentance from those already crying for deliverance.

When we love Scripture, we must do more than increase our knowledge of it. Knowledge must lead to real action.

Ministry requires careful contextualization of Scripture’s unchanging content to serve the church well. Linebaugh’s book offers an invitation to do that as we live out Scripture’s narrative arc. He shows how the Bible illustrates the need for a contextualized ministry and provides the resources to accomplish it.

There’s a crowded field of introductory books on the storyline of Scripture. Books like The Drama of Scripture, According to Plan, and From Eden to the New Jerusalem remain helpful resources for a whole-Bible theology. Linebaugh’s approach complements these volumes. Like Herbert’s poem, The Well That Washes What It Shows overflows with affection for Scripture as it reveals how each part of the Bible’s story preaches the gospel of Christ.