The Bible is comprised of 66 books with 39 being in the Old Testament (Jewish history) while the New Testament contains 27 writings. No doubt, reading through the entire Bible takes more than a few hours, which is usually accompanied with a good bit of confusion and frustration, especially when encountering things like genealogies and the written law. 

The truth is, many people set out to read the Bible in its entirety, but few make it all the way through. But, what if there was another way to get a grasp of the biblical narrative without having to read the whole Bible? To note, I am not encouraging people to not read the Bible; however, I am saying there is a way to help you understand the Bible prior to reading it.

Most of us who grew up against the backdrop of Christianity learned many of the stories of the Bible such as God’s creation, Noah, David and Goliath, Jesus — and then repeat.

These stories were usually taught on Sunday morning where one week you would learn about Jonah and the whale and then the following week you would learn about Jesus turning water into wine. 

This is great, we are learning the stories of the Bible, but how are they connected to each other? Have you ever wondered that? They are connected right? Clearly, the answer is yes, but sadly—most don’t know how.

One of the issues that I have discovered is that many people have been taught the stories of the Bible as siloed events, which is to say they are independent of each other. Naturally, what this results in is a disconnect between the narratives of the Scripture. For example, the individual never learns how Jesus calming the storm at sea is actually an echo of the Jonah and the whale event and so the stories remain separate, which ultimately means the two never get to work together in our understanding—leaving a gap that is void of deeper meaning in our faith. And again, the problem is that we have learned these stories as siloed events.

So what do we do about it? I believe the first thing that Bible readers have to do is get a very broad picture of what the Bible is actually about — and this is done by zooming way out the detailed narratives to get a bird’s eye view of the whole narrative.

Before buying a book or going to see a new movie, what we typically do is get a broad understanding of it – and we do this by reading the back cover of the book or by watching a preview of the movie — and that is something that many of us fail to do when approaching the Bible. And listen, it’s not enough to just say – well it’s a book about God,  of course it is — but what is the overarching story of the Bible?  It’s not like the Bible has a back cover that tells you this. 

I believe that once you know the overarching story of the Bible — in other words, if someone asked — you’d be able to tell the story of the whole Bible in about five to minutes — then that will be the key to unlocking how the stories in the Bible are are working together – and I want to help you do that — that’s part of the reason for a Theological Revolution (aTR)  So, how do you do that? 

There is one book that I believe does this beautifully and the book is: The Story of God, The Story Of Us: Getting Lost and Found In The Bible, by Sean Gladding. In his book, Gladding tells the whole story of God from beginning to end by focusing on the main themes of Scripture, which results in you – the reader — finally getting a bird’s eye view of the whole Bible, which, again is the key to being able to eventually see how all those stories that you learned growing up—are connected to each other.

So, do yourself a favor — get this book — it’s not an academic book rather it’s a fun and compelling book that I think your going to enjoy very much. 

Note: The book recommendation above is simply a book recommendation and aTR does not recieve any commission from the sale of books.