We were searching for a birthday present for my nephew yesterday at the bookstore and I stumbled upon this wonderful children's Bible. To be honest, I actually only picked it up because I thought it was a bit hokey. It is entitled "The Jesus Storybook Bible". I rolled my eyes as I reached for it, thinking that it was yet another marketing ploy and probably a poorly executed one at that. What will there be next, a God-The-Father Bible and then a compendium Holy-Spirit edition... no, wait, that already exists!! Anyway, I thought it was going to be a badly written, out-of-context, bible story book full of cheese!
I couldn't have been more wrong! It is a beautiful book - excellently written with feeling and sincerity. The premise behind it is that there are echoes of Christ throughout the whole Bible, so this is a kids bible that aims to show how Jesus is for-shadowed throughout the whole Bible and how the Bible works together as a whole to tell a bigger story of redemption and God's unfailing love for His creation. In the middle of the bookstore, I flipped it open to the end of the creation account and found myself welling up as I read! Here's an extract:
"God looked at everything he had made. 'Perfect!' he said. And it was.
But all the stars and the mountains and oceans and galaxies and everything were nothing compared to how much God loved his children. He would move heaven and earth to be near them. Always. Whatever happened, whatever it cost him, he would always love them.
And so it was that the wonderful love story began..."
Lloyd-Jones brings out some interesting historical contextual information in the stories. Because it is a story-book version of the bible, rather than a translation or paraphrase, she is able to use the original images of the biblical text while explaining the meaning right in the telling of the story. See this example from the Noah's Ark story:
"And the first thing God did was make another promise 'I won't ever destroy the earth again'. And like a warrior who puts away his bow and arrow at the end of a great battle, God said, 'See, I have hung up my bow in the clouds.' And there, in the clouds - just where the storm meets the sun - was a beautiful bow made of light. It was a new beginning in God's world. It wasn't long before everything went wrong again but God wasn't surprised, he knew this would happen. That's why, before the beginning of time, he had another plan - a better plan. A plan not to destroy the world, but to rescue it - a plan to one day send his own Son, the Rescuer. Go's strong anger against hate and sadness and death would come down once more - but not on his people, or his world. No, God's war bow was not pointing down at his people. It was pointing up, into the heart of heaven."
Wow! I don't think I can ever look at a rainbow again the same way!
I'm sure that the kids won't grasp all the depths of what is written here, but at least it attempts to explain the significance of the different bible stories and how they relate to Christ and therefore how they relate to our faith today. And it is not all heavy, deep thinking, there's plenty of funny parts and kid-friendly language too(she calls David the "teeny, weenie true king"!)
I am so excited to read this book myself... the hardest part is not getting all choked up when I read it to the kids!
