Biblical Theology in a Children’s Book? Introducing the Bible’s Big Story

I remember the first time someone presented to me, all at one shot, an overview of the Bible’s big story. It was in the famous Bible Study Methods and Hermeneutics class taught by Howard Hendricks and Mark Bailey at Dallas Seminary. That overview was so exciting to me I thought all Christians should go to seminary, because all Christians should be able to see the Bible’s inter-connectedness. What was so compelling about that presentation was the way it attempted to set out the big picture, the whole Bible, with its turning points and movements in thought (and, in that telling, changes in dispensations). To that point in my life, I had never been presented with an explanation of the whole story.

I’m convinced that the Bible does tell a unified story, that the later biblical authors were aware of earlier Scripture, and that they were consciously contributing to the developing revelation of himself God was giving. There is a big story in the Bible, and you shouldn’t have to go to seminary to hear about it! What if you could read it to your kids–in less than 5 minutes for less than $5–right there in your rocking chair?

Children’s books can be great fun to read and re-read to the kids–if they’re well written (I love the language in Little Cricket’s Song) and/or tell a great story (we never tire of Fool Moon Rising). Some of these books my wife and I are able to recite from memory. Children’s books can have a profound impact on parents: Tom Schreiner once said in a sermon at Clifton Baptist Church that Goodnight Moon was his favorite. That book has great rhythm.

A few years ago I felt led to select what I thought were the signposts at the major turning points, in the Bible’s big story, try to set them in rhyming couplets, and see if the result might become a children’s book. The goal was to produce something that would help parents and kids remember the high points of the whole story. There is value in being able to see the whole thing all at once, to behold about the unity of the Bible, and to cut a path through the neurons and synapses that will be walked and re-walked, run and re-run. We want to cut the Bible grooves deep in our brains, and we can do this with the wee ones as we read and re-read to them.

My oldest son was the original artist on the project, which we worked on together when he was four and five years old. I would ask him to draw a picture, not give him instructions beyond telling him about the event from the Bible that I wanted him to depict. He would bring the picture back, and I would scan it in and format it with the rhymes I had come up with. A few years ago (after we had been turned down by a couple publishers) I posted the result of our joint efforts.

Upon seeing that post, some friends encouraged me to continue to seek publication. There was a guy in Australia I’ve never met, my friend John Thacker offered to help in any way he could, my friend Adam Richardson cheered the project on, and Andy Naselli told me that his daughter loved to have the book read to her. So I mentioned it to a friend at Christian Focus, who gave me the name of the contact person there, and off we sent it again. Praise God, they decided to publish it, with new drawings by Tessa Janes, and recently hard copies arrived on our doorstep.

I’m not sure how all this works, but apparently the UK release date is about a month earlier than the USA release date, so I’m guessing that I’ve received advanced UK release copies. I’m assuming that means that it will be available in the US near the end of August or beginning of September (Amazon has the date of September 10).

My hope is that if you have little children, you will read many many books to them. I also hope you’ll read this one to them over and over, to the point that both you and your child have the rhymes memorized, which will enable you to take a mental stroll through the Scriptures, which I hope will enable you to meditate on them day and night, so you can be one of those trees whose leaf won’t wither.