Several weeks as worship ended, one of the ladies at church who’s a hugger did the usual hug on the way out the door. She was wearing one of those nicely knit sweaters and I had my lapel microphone clipped on my tie. As she backed away from the hug we realized that we were still connected. The clasp on my microphone grabbed her sweater and didn’t want to let go. The farther she pulled, the more the sweater began to unravel.

As you can imagine all movement stopped until we could unhook the  intermingled microphone and sweater parts. But I’m afraid the damage was done. She had already backed far enough away that the pulled-sweater thread caused the rest of the sweater to bunch up and no longer look like it was supposed to look.

This summer at Living Word Galena we’re pulling the thread. Not the thread of a nice lady’s sweater. We’re pulling a thread that’s embedded in the pages of the Bible. It’s not a thread you’ll see when you go to the bookstore and buy a certain version. It’s a thread that’s woven into the fabric of every word on every page of the bible.

Think of it this way. Some bibles have certain words typed in red ink. These are the words of Jesus. They’re all found in the New Testament, and for some people (pastors included) these words are easier to read and talk about because we know Jesus said them. But what if these words of Jesus had their foundation in each and every black and white word in the Old Testament?

That’s the premise of this entire series. The goal is to simply pull the red thread and watch as the Bible begins to become a whole lot smaller, just like the beautiful sweater that Sunday morning not too long ago. We’re not taking parts out or eliminating anything. But when we pull the thread of these profound, yet simple black and white words, we begin to see that the bible is a whole lot smaller and simpler than we ever imagined!

We won’t have time to hit on every passage of the Old Testament but the thread is there. You just need to look for it. If you can’t find it, ask your pastor to help you. Sit down with him and ask for guidance as you trace the promises of God in the Old Testament into the real, life-giving words of Jesus in the new! If you don’t have a pastor, then feel free to contact me. I’d love to chat with you and help you pull the red thread and see what God does.

Feel free to check out the Living Word Galena podcast on iTunes for the latest messages in this series, or any of our archived messages as well!