What is Scripture’s major theme and purpose?

This is the my answer to the first of the “24 Theological Questions”

The central theme of the Bible is God’s work at creating for himself a unified family of people who worship and love him. He does this despite the repeated efforts of people to run away. In theological terms, the story of the Bible is Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Re-Creation.

Therefore, the purpose of the Bible is for God to reveal to people his plan for loving them and to teach them how to love him back.

Specifically:

• The Old Testament describes how God created people, how they rejected him and became enslaved to sin. It also tells how God started fresh by focusing on the creation of just one holy family—Abraham and his descendants—through whom he would reach out to all people.
• It describes the many ways they proved unfaithful and the many ways God remained faithful to them.
• It also records the many prophecies of a coming King who would rescue the people from their own unfaithfulness and pave the way for everyone to have a relationship to God.
• The New Testament shows how Jesus was the fulfillment of those prophecies and how by his death on the cross he purchased people back (redeemed them) from their slavery to sin and made the new relationship with God a possibility.
• It teaches that all who believe in Jesus are adopted into this new family.
• Finally, it teaches what life in the new family of God is supposed to look like, what God is doing to re-create the hearts of those in his family, and what God plans to do in the future to re-create the world into what it was supposed to be from the beginning.