Over the years I've dipped into listening to Desert Island Discs from time to time. Beginning in 1942 and therefore one of the longest running programs on the BBC surely just about everyone knows the format. A well known personality is interviewed to select the 8 records they would choose to take with them in the unlikely event that they were castaway on a desert island. After so many years of needing to find new people to interview I find many of these interviewees to be obscure rather than well known, but leaving that aside, the element I always find most interesting is what they would choose to take as reading material. I suppose the program is subconsciously in my mind when I ask groups of leaders that I have taught what 3 chapters of the Bible would they choose to take if they were to be marooned on a desert island?
The issue came to mind again recently when I read a helpful tweet giving the chapters one could read in the Bible which would give you the overall narrative of Biblical history. I responded to the tweet with the suggestion that you could add just 3 chapters that would also give you an overview of most Christian doctrine. These are Romans 8, Ephesians 1 and 2 Corinthians 5. These are the chapters I would take to a desert island, or to change the metaphor to mountains, to my mind these 3 chapters are the peaks that stand out the highest of all the chapters of the New Testament. And if I was to see one of these three as the Mount Everest then it would be Ephesians 1. We know that all of Scripture is God-breathed and useful, but that doesn't mean it's all equally useful. A chapter in Leviticus that gives instructions on skin diseases may have its place but doesn't exactly bring us the spiritual benefits of Romans 8 which begins by telling us that for those 'in Christ' there is no condemnation and ends with the assurance that there is no separation.
I find that for me these three chapters I have mentioned cover just about every truth that I find elsewhere in the New Testament and I believe could instruct my mind and warm my heart for a very long time of isolation and incarceration on the mythical island. We need to get Bible truth into our bloodstream and these 3 chapters flow through my veins pretty strongly. It took me 28 sermons to preach through these chapters when I had the opportunity to do so. But I'm particularly thrilled every time I climb the Everest peak of Ephesians 1 and finally read: And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. Now that really is an awesome view!