The Divine Narrative
What is the Divine Narrative?
If you search on the internet, you will be hard-pressed to find a narrative of the entire Bible.
Today, in missions, we often hear the term “orality.” It is the speaking of God’s Word in story format. It has been stated that orality has become more and more popular (and effective) in missions since the 1980s. The reality is, we have NOT moved toward orality but rather moved BACK to orality as God always intended.
The fact is that while the average Christian family may have five (or more) Bibles on their bookshelf at home, much of the world still does not have access to the Bible in their language. And before the invention of the printing press in the mid-1400s, very few people ever owned a Bible of their own. It is also well-accepted among mission leaders that more than 50% of the unreached world cannot read, and a great majority would have extreme difficulty comprehending a print Bible even if they owned one.
Reading, studying, hearing, and repeating God’s Word has been the system of propagating truth and evangelism for centuries. When Jesus told His disciples (as recorded in Mark 16), “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to all creation,” what Gospel was He speaking about? Obviously, He wasn’t speaking about the Gospels in the New Testament, as they had not been written yet. He was instructing them to teach all that they had seen and heard, and to obey the commandments Jesus had given them. He was instructing us to use orality.
The addition of God’s printed Word for this time in history should serve to propel missions and the preaching of God’s plan for mankind as revealed in the Divine narrative of Scripture.
When we understand the Divine Narrative, the one story of the Bible, we realize our role in that plan.
Too often, we look for ways of bringing God’s Word into our lives rather than bringing our lives into alignment with God’s Word. Do we look to God to play a role in our story, or do we seek to play a role in His plan to preach the Good News to all His creation?
The Bible is not a collection of teachings and instructions, but an amazing presentation of God’s plan for mankind—a plan He has invited us all to play a role in! All the riches in the world could not replace a single ounce of this reality.
We are so excited about our new iBIBLE that is now in production. It will be the world’s first visual presentation of God’s Divine Narrative. It will reveal the entire story from Genesis to Revelation in animation, dramatic audio, and text. It will be available to translate into any language of the world and will be freely distributed.
What Does it Mean that iBIBLE is “Chronological”?
If you have read much of the Bible, you are probably aware that it is not always presented in chronological order. Sometimes this is obvious, and other times it can be less clear. The goal of iBIBLE is to reveal the one true narrative of Scripture from Genesis to the final Revelation.
When we read the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), we see that they each cover the life of Christ in their own way. Each writer, while telling the same story, included different events or details about the same events of Jesus's life. When creating iBIBLE based on the Biblical narrative, instead of presenting the narrative of each Gospel separately, the four Gospel accounts will be combined to reveal the events of Jesus’s life in chronological order.
However, sometimes passages of Scripture are less obviously out of chronological order. Take, for example, Chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis. In Chapter 1, God created mankind in His image. He created them male and female, and then instructed them to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:27–28, ESV).
Then, in Chapter 2 God created Adam out of the dust of the earth, placed him in the garden, and brought all of the animals to Adam so that he could give each animal a name. Toward the end of Chapter 2, God removed a rib from Adam and created Eve.
When assembling a comprehensive Biblical narrative, Chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis have to be intertwined because they are not in chronological order. Chapter 1 gives an outline of what happened in Creation, while Chapter 2 fills in the details.
The fact that the Bible is not always in chronological order can cause confusion and even debate among Christians and skeptics alike.
Placing the events of the Biblical narrative in chronological order has its challenges. However, it is an important goal because it helps the viewer understand events in Scripture much easier and gives greater depth to the story.
When we combine all the details revealed to us in Scripture, the events come to life like never before. Before there were printing presses and computers, the Word of God was often passed down from generation to generation through storytelling. Those telling the stories likely knew them in chronological order and with all the details revealed in Scripture.
What a beautiful picture. Imagine a father telling his children the stories of the Bible, complete with all of the details and full of adventure! Today, we recapture that same spirit by creating a visual and animated narrative of the entire Word of God and by using every possible detail to present the Bible as one cohesive story!