The Bible as Novel?

Once a month there is a gathering of Evangelical Pastors in the Tri-State area (calling ourselves the Evangelical Christian Leaders Network). This is a great time of food, fellowship, and encouragement from other men in the trenches of ministry for the same area. Usually we have a few different guest presenters sharing their ministry or concept. Sometimes a counselor sharing needed skills for counseling, other times it's a Christian School sharing their vision for connection with local churches.

Today was a presentation by representatives from Zondervan Publishing about their new resource called The Story. Their advertisment says,  "The Story is an exciting all new church-wide experience that unites and equips participants, as they engage the Bible, reading like a novel as a seamless, compelling story." With the book you can get a plethora of information to use in small groups, Sunday School, children's ministry, and youth ministry. There are even sermons that you can use along with the book.

Let's make sure we understand this...this is a book that reads like a novel but is to help people engage the Bible. While this is definitely an interesting concept, what struck me most was the reason for this book...Bible illiteracy...that people actually aren't reading the Bible. Some find it too difficult, others boring. So this book is supposed to help those people be engaged in the Bible.

But things got difficult for me when local Pastors using The Story curriculum and book started describing their experience. For some it was an "awesome experience watching their church fall in love with The Story." Or "people that would never open their Bibles are now reading The Story." In fact, every Pastor pointed out that they loved the sermons that were based out of The Story curriculum.

I left there totally confused...We actually help Bible illiteracy by giving them a novel? Instead of teaching people how to study the Bible or what actually is in the Bible, we use a novel based "Bible" to make it easier for them to understand. It's like giving a teenager a picture book to read for English class. The way to help Bible illiteracy is to actually teach the Bible. Tell His Story...not preach a novel called The Story.

Please understand, i'm not saying there is anything wrong with creativity and helpful Bible aids. And honestly, I believe Zondervan probably has pure motives behind this book (it was originally tested by Max Lucado and Randy Frazee). In fact I actually love the flow of the topics of the book...it truly is a journey through the story of the Bible. This sounds great as a small group or Sunday School, but using this as a main source of the teaching ministry of the church...I believe lacks greatly. What do you do when you finish the 31 week study? Where do you turn then? Back to the Bible no one understands? Maybe the better option is too actually teach people the Bible. In fact, maybe that's why there's Bible illiteracy...because they aren't learning from the Bible in the first place. Instead we should teach them how to fall in love with the actual Book. Yes, appreciate the novel, but love the Book.