Tim Ward explains how and why we can regard the Bible as a unified covenant book, notwithstanding the huge diversity found within its sixty-six separate writings.  How can it be said that God’s covenant is communicated in the narratives of Chronicles, say, or in the wisdom sayings of Proverbs?

‘Commandments declare the stipulations of the covenant.  Prophecy and epistles, in particular, expound and apply those stipulations in specific contexts; they are, in effect, the covenant preached in different contexts.  Narrative relates the unfolding events in which God’s people have successively trusted and rejected him, and through which God has faithfully enacted the consequences of his promises, whether in blessing or judgment…Psalms give exemplary forms in which a believer can address God in many situations in life while remaining faithfully within the covenant, whether one is full of praise for experience of blessing, or confused and despairing over God’s apparent failure to keep his promises.  And apocalyptic writing demonstrates graphically the full reality of the present and ultimate consequences of either blessing or cursing that follow from obedience or disobedience to the covenant.’

Words of life, IVP (2009), p57.