Tonight I’m reading the 1689 Baptist Confession, which makes a striking claim about Scripture: one piece of evidence that the Bible is, in fact, the Word of God is its “scope”—the direction in which the whole book is moving. Scripture, as the confession says, has as its great end (focus) the glory of God.

It is easy to pass over a phrase like that. “The glory of God” belongs to the familiar vocabulary of Christianity, and familiarity can make even enormous ideas seem small. But the confession is making an unusually ambitious observation. The Bible was written across centuries, by different men, in different circumstances, in different literary forms. It contains law and poetry, genealogy and prophecy, biography and correspondence. Yet, for all this variety, it keeps turning the reader’s face in the same direction. It is a profoundly God-centered book. I just laughed with my daughter tonight about how, when we get on a subject we’re interested in, we both can’t quit talking about it. That’s what Scripture does. The book of God, in a sanctified way, can’t quit talking about God, not because He is just a subject of interest, but because He is the subject of all reality.

That realization changes the way we read Scripture.

If the scope of Scripture is the glory of God, then one of the questions we ought to bring to the text is not merely, What does this say about me? but, What does this show me about God? We are often tempted to approach the Bible as though it were a mirror held up to our own lives—a source of encouragement, guidance, correction, or answers. It is all of those things. But before it is about us, it is about Him.

Consider two of Scripture’s most familiar passages. The Ten Commandments begin not with human obligation but divine identity: “I am the LORD thy God.” The commandments proceed from who God is. His authority stands behind them; His holiness gives them their shape. Even the moral life of man is placed beneath the majesty of God.

The Lord’s Prayer works in much the same way. Jesus teaches His disciples to begin not with bread, danger, debt, or temptation, but with the Father: “Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.” Human need certainly appears, but it appears in a universe whose center has already been established.

That is very different from the atmosphere of the world around us. Our age is relentlessly man-centered. We are encouraged to construct identities, advertise ourselves, cultivate platforms, pursue fulfillment, and interpret nearly everything according to its usefulness to us. Modern life has made self-reference almost an norm. It is a norm for the natural man.

Scripture interrupts that instinct.

Its authors differ remarkably from one another, yet none finally directs our attention toward himself. Moses does not become the center. David does not. Isaiah does not. Paul does not. Even the great heroes of the biblical story are shown to have their weaknesses, sins, and failures. Scripture seems almost determined to prevent us from mistaking the servant for the Master.

And perhaps this is part of the confession’s point. The remarkable unity of the Bible is not merely that its many books tell one coherent story. It is that, from Genesis to Revelation, they share one great horizon. Without casting a shadow upon God’s character, Scripture continually displays His holiness, justice, mercy, wisdom, sovereignty, and grace.

And everywhere we look, the story bends toward His glory. And at the center of that story stands Jesus Christ, the goal toward which Scripture moves and the One in whose face the glory of God is most fully revealed.