One of the best things I have ever done is to get into the habit of reading through the entire Bible every year—or almost every year, at least. While this necessarily involves sacrificing some depth, it involves gaining breadth. As I have read and re-read the Bible, I have come to a greater familiarity with the Bible’s big picture and the way its many pieces work together to form a cohesive story.
Yet as I have done this, I have often wished for a guide to help me—a guide that would assist me as I attempt to identify themes, as I try to make sense of the many characters, and perhaps most of all, as I search for the promise and presence of Christ in every book. It is easy to get confused and muddled as I make my way through such a long book and one whose content is often arranged repetitively and non-chronologically.
I’m glad to say that I’ve found just the right resource in the new The One Story Bible, edited by Greg Gilbert. In his preface, Gilbert expresses that the Bible needs to be understood as a sweeping, engrossing, and enthralling epic. Yet “it is not a simple story, at least not in the sense of a reader’s being able to exhaust its depths and meaning in one sitting. No, the story of the Bible is beautifully complex; dozens of themes and hundreds of symbols weave together like a symphony until they all come to rest on the shoulders of one man, a carpenter named Jesus from a little town called Nazareth. And then, just like those who saw him with their own eyes, we begin to realize that this man has been the goal of everything, right from the very beginning. The promises are about him; the crown has been forged for his head; the prophets have spoken about him. As the last prophet himself cried out, ‘Behold! … This is he’.”
The purpose of The One Story Bible “is to help us read the Bible with a greater understanding of this grand story.” It does this by offering running notes that are interspersed throughout the text. These notes continually remind the reader of the Bible’s big story and the place this particular book of the Bible or this particular story within the Bible is meant to take within it. The notes help with the chronology of events, since it is easy for a person reading the Bible to be confused, for example, as to how the historical books and prophecies relate to one another. Hence,
The notes take us through the books of the Bible in an order that will place each book into its chronological place in the overall narrative. So, for instance, as we encounter the history of Israel in the books of Samuel and Kings, the notes will encourage us to turn to the various Minor Prophets at the places in the story where those prophets were actually preaching. Likewise, many of the New Testament epistles were written amid the events narrated in the book of Acts, and so the notes will encourage the reader to turn to those epistles at appropriate points in the Acts narrative.
One thing I particularly appreciate is that the notes, though always serious in tone, are written in a style that is somewhat informal when compared, for example, to a study Bible. This makes it seem as if Gilbert is reading the Bible with me, coaching me through it as a friend or mentor. It’s an ideal and effective format.
Beyond those textual notes, which sometimes appear many times in a longer and more crucial book (e.g., Genesis) or only a couple of times in a shorter and less pivotal book (e.g,. Philemon), Gilbert provides brief introductions to each book to explain how it functions within the scope of the whole Bible. Beyond that, there are two separate one-year reading plans. He suggests that readers adopt the one that follows the story of redemption chronologically across the various books of the Bible. (The other is just a straightforward Genesis-to-Revelation plan.)
The One Story Bible is an extremely helpful resource and one I’m glad to have learned about. I expect it will become a regular supplement to my annual journeys through the Bible for many years to come!
(Note: The One Story Bible was previously published with similar or identical content as The Story of Redemption Bible.)
