The Emmaus Road — How Jesus Read the Bible

Every great film has this moment where the protagonist finally realizes what the story is really about. For the disciples on the Emmaus road, Jesus gave them that moment.

Welcome to Your Story Revealed. I am Greg Cash and I have worked now in the film industry for nearly two decades as a professional videographer and storyteller. But I'm also a pastor. Theology and the Bible will always be my first love. And so this is a podcast where we're going to explore the Bible through a filmmaker's lens because once you see that structure, you'll never read the scripture the same way. And I thought a good place to start would be to start with Luke 24. It's such a critical passage. So I want to show today how Luke 24 is the key that shows how Jesus himself understood and read the entire Bible.

So, I want to jump right in into Luke 24 and I want to read it to us first just to make sure that we are reminded of all the story and all the context and all the details if you're not familiar. The context of Luke 24 at this point is that the crucifixion has already happened. Now, you got to think about this and you got to get into the moment here. Where are we at in the story?

Many of the Jews, even disciples and followers of Jesus, they had already put their trust and their hope in Christ. They thought this is the new Messiah. He's going to pull us outside of Roman control. He's already been doing incredible miracles. He's already done a lot of these things that give indication that he is the long-awaited Messiah. But then the unthinkable happens, right? There's this moment where they can't fathom, they can't put together that a Messiah would die.

In fact, if you think about Messiah, kind of the history of Messiahs in the Old Testament—here's where we want to differentiate between lowercase M and capital M. There were tons of messiahs. A Messiah is just an anointed one sent by God to do a thing. So, you think of Moses being a Messiah figure. You think of David or Samson. These are all Messiah figures. Gideon is another one. So, you have this idea of a particular problem happening in the nation of Israel in the history of Israel, and God sending a Messiah, a deliverer to deal with this particular issue.

And so this is what was perceived that Jesus was as well. What's the particular issue of the first century for the Jews, for the people of Israel? Rome. You have Roman occupation of God's promised land. The Jews want to live out their covenant realities, but now Rome is not allowing them in that sense to be a free nation. And so they have a particular problem. It's like the Philistines of old. And so they have a potential Messiah in Jesus that they think of, but they don't have a category for this idea that a Messiah would die, right? In other words, if a Messiah died before that mission, that's a failure. You are a false messiah.

So, you could really understand how they were struggling through this idea when Jesus would give his passion predictions in the Gospels to really make sense of what he was talking about. That goes against everything that they knew of what a deliverer would come to do. Imagine if Moses died while they were taking people out of Egypt. That would be a failure. And so they're struggling with this.

And Jesus now has been crucified. And now he is, from all what they understand, in the grave. And now you have these two disciples in Luke 24. They're walking away from Jerusalem heading back to Emmaus. And they're distraught and they can't figure out what has happened. And they're trying to make sense of what just went on.

So, I just want to read what happened here. This again is Luke 24 and it says this in verse 13: "That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus about 7 miles from Jerusalem and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, 'What is this conversation that you're holding with each other as you walk?' And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them named Cleopas answered him, 'Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?' And Jesus said to them, 'What things?'"

I love this reality. Imagine in your minds, you got two disciples who are distraught. They're walking away from Jerusalem. They're kind of talking back and forth with each other and then Jesus—or from their perspective, this guy—comes up and just starts walking with them and he's hearing them talk. And what I find fascinating is how Jesus unfolds the story. He just listens. He's there with them and he's letting them talk and they're kind of walking through everything and then Jesus just asks a simple question: "What are you talking about?"

And these guys are saying, "Could you be the only guy—where have you been, in a cave somewhere? You have missed everything that has happened in Jerusalem. This has been the talk of the entire nation. Where could you have been where you didn't hear this talk?" And Jesus comes in and he just says, "What things?" Right? He's letting them unpack their understanding of the story.

And so let's pick that up. He says again, "What things?" And then they said to him, "Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty indeed and word before God and all the people and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to be crucified." And then they start unpacking further details of the story—like now there's these talks of potential, like the women saw him alive and we've heard about angels, but their hopes are dashed.

But here's the clincher that I think you have to come to. Verse 24 says, "Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see." And he said to them—now in that moment, this is a critical moment in this dialogue. What do you think Jesus would say? Couldn't Jesus have said, "Hey guys, surprise, it's me!" Right? He could have said all kinds of different things.

But here's what he said, and this is interesting. He doesn't pat them on the back. This is a critical corrective to them. And he confronts them directly here. Listen to these words. Verse 25: "And he said to them, 'Oh foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?'"

So stop right there. He says, "You fools," right? You should have known. What story do you think you're living in? The prophets have been speaking about this from the beginning all the way back to Genesis 3. This is what the whole point has been. When this seed of the woman crushes the serpent's head in Genesis 3:15, he's also going to receive a wound. He's going to get bit on the heel was the way that it initially was described and then it progressed through the revelation.

But here is the point of this whole thing that I want you to see—especially it changed the way I view everything. Verse 27: "And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself."

What does Jesus do? In other words, how does Jesus read the Bible? Here's what he doesn't do. He doesn't start with "I'm resurrected." So many people today treat the Old Testament like it is irrelevant to the story. Or in other words, it had a moment when it was relevant during that day, but now that we're post-resurrection, now that we're in the new covenant time period, the Old Testament story doesn't matter anymore.

And Jesus does not hold that perspective. The resurrected Jesus Christ standing on this road to Emmaus with these two disciples starts back at Genesis. He doesn't say, "It's me. I'm resurrected. Forget the old covenant law. Now let's just walk through the new covenant realities." No, he says, "Let's go back to the story."

And so what you start to see is that Jesus unfolds the entire plot that God has been working out in human history that the Trinity devised before time began. He goes right back to Genesis. And that's what we have to do as well. What you will find when you do that is that there is one story. Get out of your mind this idea that there is "Bible times" and "modern times." You have to remove those categories, right? That's the way our culture describes things now. Like we're modern. But you got to throw out those categories because that is not the biblical understanding.

The Bible has no mindset like that. The Bible comes at this and says there is one story that God is unfolding. Right now as you're watching this or listening to this, you are living in the new covenant era. You're at this stage of God's story, but this is one continuous story. And that's how Jesus understood all of these things and he kind of walks back through.

And so as a filmmaker, as a storyteller, I live in film. And I started to recognize a few things when I was unpacking these realities. But what really started to bring it together for me was a man that I'm guessing most people don't know anymore, and his name was Gustaf Freytag.

Now, if you haven't heard of that name, that's not surprising to me. Although I will say I think you have benefited from him immensely. Gustaf Freytag started to recognize something. By the way, this is an old school German novelist and a writer. He was a playwright and he came in and he started to recognize something about story. Now he didn't come up with it all on his own. He had stood on some other shoulders before—you have kind of back into ancient Greece they had thoughts of a story and how it's structured—but Freytag came in and he started to recognize that all stories essentially have these same details.

So a story has a setting. A good story then has some sort of conflict and then from that conflict they have this rising tension. And then the tension will rise to such a degree that there will be a climactic point or the highest point of tension in any story. And then after that highest point of tension—what he called the climax—would then unfold into kind of a falling action moment. In other words, the conflict issue is being resolved after that highest point. And then eventually we will land in what is called a resolution.

Now this storytelling structure that he recognized famously became known later as Freytag's Pyramid. Now we all did this if you went to high school English class. We all understood Freytag's Pyramid even if we didn't call it that, but we knew about setting, climax, conflict, resolution—all of that.

So one of the questions that I wanted to think through as I was thinking through Freytag's Pyramid was: where did he come up with this idea about story? I mean, there's been plenty of storytellers, but how did he recognize that five-point structure? And it turns out that he didn't invent it. He was just recognizing what was already there because God from the beginning has been telling stories just like that.

And so we, being made in God's image—it's not by accident that we naturally kind of gravitate toward those kinds of stories. It's not by accident that we love it when there is a conflict and there's a bad guy that gets justice, or we love it when the oppressed get cared for. We love these natural things. There's lots of stories that try to reverse that but they are never as iconic, right? Because we are kind of wired in our DNA to want stories where righteousness reigns, bad guys get justice, and good guys win.

And so this is what Freytag was recognizing from the beginning. And long before storytellers could put language on it, God was telling this type of story from the beginning.

Now, there is this principle in film work that I've used multiple times. When I was first told about it, it kind of revolutionized the way that I thought about things. It also let me recognize some of the problems that we have in Christian film, and it's called the "two plus two" principle. In other words, here's how it lays out: give them two plus two but never give them four. Give the people the problem—two plus two—but make them work it out for themselves.

And what Christian film has been historically known for, the reputation that it had, was it was known to give everybody four all the time. Everything gets wrapped up in this nice Christian bow and everybody rides off into the sunset. And as we're watching that, we all recognize that it just doesn't happen like that, right? Life is not that way. And so they were giving us four all the time, and people kind of rejected that.

I don't think that's true anymore, by the way. I think that Christian film is really coming a long way in its cinematography and also its storytelling ability. So I'm excited for that future.

But this two plus two principle really is critical. And why does that relate to Luke 24? Well, I think that God does it this way, too. I really see the connection with what we try to do in film with how God has done this in his story that he's telling in history. So he gives these issues, he gives these cinematic and dramatic sections, and then he lets you over a time period—as we read about all these different things, all these different covenants, all these people in the Old Testament—we see that we are having to put the pieces together. We are working for the four.

I was told as a filmmaker that give them two plus two, never give them four, because people like to work for their meal. And here's the kicker though: they just don't want to know that they're doing it. In other words, we cover these things with art and with beauty and with dialogue and character development, all this stuff, so that people don't realize that they're having to work for their meal. And they will thank you for it at the end of the day if you do it well.

And so that's what we see in the biblical story. God has established this structure. He's given us two plus two, but now it's our role to work out four through the different narratives. And what's fascinating is when you think about how God tells a story, here's what we find: the story structure that God uses in scripture and throughout all of human history has always been covenants.

God is a God of covenants. There has never been a time in human history where a covenant was not in place—before the fall, after the fall. We're living right now in the new covenant era. And there have been six covenants that God has used in human history. And so that's what we see inside of the way God tells stories. He gives us two plus two, but he makes us work for it. In other words, revelation is always meant to be engaged with. You don't skim it and then just expect to have everything hand-fed to you. No, we work. We mine out diamonds that are down there. We work through these things.

It's really fascinating how God has told this story. And when you see it compartmentalized, you'll miss it just like you would do in a film. Here's what happens. The way I see people read the Bible is they will kind of be like, "This is my one verse." And they'll hold on to that. Well, fine. However, there's a context to that verse. There's an immediate context. There's a context for that book. There's a context for the covenant that book is in. There's a context for the entire scriptural canon that all of those books are in. And there's an entire context of the meta-narrative of the entire story that God is telling.

So how does Luke 24 not only fit inside of chapter 24, but also fit inside of Luke, and also fit inside of the entire New Testament canon historically and theologically? And then also how does that fit inside of the Old Testament canon? And then how do those fit together in the meta-narrative? This is all part of the story.

And if that sounds too complicated to you, I just want to say this: you do this all the time. I could give you many examples. Let me just pick a few. I am a son and I'm a father and I'm a husband. Okay, sure. But there's also greater context of my families. There's also greater context of the family I've married into. There's also all kinds of other context about where our families came from. I think in these categories all the time.

I watch a movie, I don't start three-quarters of the way through and go, "Yep, that one character and that line, this is my favorite part of the whole movie, and that's all that matters to me." No, you automatically think: Where did this guy come from? Why does this line make sense in the movie? Why is it funny or why is it sad or why is it dramatic? We always think in these categories, but when people come to the Bible, they tend to shy away from that, like it's too complicated.

Well, no, I don't think so. I think when you see the beauty of the structure and the fact that God's given you two plus two and you're working for four, I think that you will find that this is the most incredible story of all time. But it's also much deeper than that. Scripture is meant to be engaged with. You think about characters, you think about the themes of scripture, you think about the tension that's rising, you think about the initial conflict and the setting, you think about all these things.

But what I want to do on this podcast is give you a grid. And that's what we're going to work through in the next episodes coming up. I want to give you the grid that I use now to understand the entire story of scripture at a snapshot. And then if I'm working through a particular book—let's say the book of Proverbs or the book of Zephaniah—well, all I need to know is where is that at on the grid in the story line? And then I just plug in those individual details.

This is how a storyteller—certainly in film—how we approach a large-scale story. We think about it in terms of the overall structure and the meta-narrative, and then we can understand the individual parts within that larger narrative. If you don't do that in the Bible, not only will you miss the entire story and you'll fill in the gaps with things that you just think are right or good, but you'll also miss where your place in the story is.

Because listen, you have been written into the Bible story too. Don't think that the Bible times are over. No, this is all God's story and now you've been included. So have I in this time, in this moment, in the biblical history right now. The canon of the Bible is closed. There's no more canon. But I will say this: God's story is still being unfolded right now. We are awaiting Christ to return in the flesh. And so we are in the new covenant era. And I have been written into the story at this time. I could have been written in 1000 BC, but I've been written right now. So have you. And so we're in God's story.

And we have to understand that inside of this larger narrative, because we will never know how we fit in God's story—get this—if we don't know God's story. So we push in to the themes of the Bible. We push in to character development, the tension, the conflicts. We press in to all these things so we can understand where it all fits and then how I fit inside of it.

By the way, that's what happened in the Gospel of Mark. I want you to see this. A lot of people have gotten this wrong. If you go to Mark chapter 4, it's an interesting section—very famous passage about the parable of the seed and the sower. And a lot of people have thought about parables as though Jesus is such a good storyteller, right? Look at how amazing he is. He's taking real life examples and he's making them plain and he's making them easier to understand so that the entire populace—you don't have to be a scholar—the entire populace can track with what Jesus is saying and then make the connections.

Well, I know that's a popular teaching, but the question is: is that teaching biblical? Now, if we understand the story, you will see something else. But I don't even think you have to go too deep into the story. Listen to how Jesus describes the purpose of parables in the New Testament and in his ministry.

I want to read this to you. Now, this is after the seed and the sower. Jesus ends that in chapter 4:9 where he says, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." He's not just saying, "Hey, listen up." He's saying, "Throughout the thematic story, those who have been given ears, listen." Does that mean everybody equally? Well, I don't think so. And I'll tell you why.

Verse 10: "And when he was alone, those around him with the 12 asked him about the parables. And he said to them, 'To you—listen to these words—to you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God. But for those outside'—in other words, those who have not been given the secret of the kingdom of God—'everything is in parables. So that they may indeed see, but not perceive, and may indeed hear, but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.'"

Verse 13: "And he said to them, 'Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables?'" And then he starts walking through the explanation of the seed and the sower.

So, I want you to see what's happening here in Mark chapter 4 because you're going to find this kind of reality throughout the entire narrative of scripture. Parables were not meant to make things easier for the listener or for the reader. No, no, no. See, they're being used here in a two plus two fashion like a narrative device. So the parable makes you lean in and engage, but then it exposes your heart.

So if you've been given ears to hear—and those have to be given to you—the two plus two goes to the humble. But the proud get nothing. They're left on the outside. So they're not given any explanation. They're not given anything like these disciples get throughout the rest of Mark 4, which is a play-by-play description of how to understand these things. They were chosen to be given ears.

By the way, we see this in the Old Testament too. Imagine this: when God said that he was going to send his death angel into Egypt during the story of the Exodus, what do you find was going to happen? Listen, that angel was not coming for just the Egyptians. That angel was coming to kill all firstborn males. All of them. Now, what's the difference? It was only that the revelation was given to the Hebrew people as to how to escape that wrath.

It wasn't like, "Don't worry, Jews, you guys aren't getting the judgment." No, that's not true. It would have killed everybody. The point was: here's how you escape it. Get the blood over your doorpost, etc. You know the story. So my point is they were given, in that sense, ears to hear. They were given direct revelation.

We see Jesus doing the same thing here in Mark chapter 4. Think about it. Egyptians went to bed that night not having any idea that what Moses had said to the Hebrew people—none of that was going to be the worst night of their life. None of that was known to them. But the revelation was given to the Hebrews. And we see Jesus doing the exact same thing. God is using this methodology.

You have to see these realities when you read Mark 4. You have to see it in light of the entire meta-narrative, the structure of the story. That's what I want to help you understand and learn how to do. That's what Jesus did in Luke 24.

When I first saw this passage and you see the structure of the covenants, you start to see: oh, this is how you should understand the entire story of the Bible in a single setting. That's what Jesus did. He said to them on the road in Luke 24, "Let's go back to the beginning." There's a covenant here, a covenant of works. Genesis 3, we move forward with a covenant with Noah. We then move forward further with a covenant with Abraham and then to Moses and then to David and then now finally in Jesus's blood.

And so this is one giant story. And you are written into it. When you start to see the Bible in this meta-narrative and covenantal structure—that's what I want to help teach you how to do. See it like a filmmaker and how a filmmaker understands the entirety of a story. You will realize that the Bible is one story in one structure and it has one author writing the entire thing.

So we'll stop there today. I just want to say thank you for listening to Your Story Revealed. If this episode has helped you see things more clearly or you think that there's somebody that might benefit from this discussion, would you please share it with them? But I always want to leave you with this. I want you to remember this one thing: there are many stories that compete, but only one story defines reality. We'll see you next time.