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This is
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TheStoryGuide
Participant Edition
2nd Edition, Volume 1
story
It’s not just another
ry
—It’s The Sto
For additional resources,
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©Copyright 2011 Spread Truth Publishing
P.O. Box 3171, Bloomington, IL 61702. All rights reserved.
www.SpreadTruthPublishing.com
ISBN: 978-1-61226-002-0
Printed in the USA.
CAN BE USED IN VARIOUS CHURCH
& MINISTRY SETTINGS:
Church Training Seminars
Small Groups
1-on-1 Discipling
Classroom Settings
LAUNCHING
1
April 18, 201se
r purcha
* Available fo th.com
at SpreadTru
The Leader’s Edition Guide
contains leader supplements,
notes, PowerPoint presentations,
and videos to help you teach and
train God’s story!
Includes USB Thumb Drive
4
The Story
Key Words
Watch for these key words throughout your guide. These will alert you
to group discussion points and personal application questions.
Explore—furnishes discussion points to help you process and
internalize a particular topic
Mirror—outlines personal application sections to consider where
you are personally in regard to the Gospel and The Story’s
approach to living and sharing the Good News
5
“I had always felt life first as
a story and if there is a story
there is a storyteller.”
G. K. Chesterton
Author and Apologist1
6
Contents
Foreword
8
Introduction
10
The Story Equipping Tools & Resources
11
Section 1: Living in the Story
13
Understanding the Story
15
The Creation
43
The Fall
59
The Rescue
77
The Restoration
97
Section 2: Sharing the Story
113
The Story We Share
115
God’s Story
144
Memory Verses
145
Notes
146
Answer Key
151
7
Foreword
What is the Gospel?
There is perhaps no more crucial question facing the Church in the 21st century. As postmodern
thought continues to spread and many are questioning whether there is such a thing as truth,
the Bible stands as an unchanging and infallible source of all things pertaining to life and godliness.
The Bible is true truth! And the Bible not only contains the Gospel, but at its very foundation is the
redemptive message of God—which is the best news ever communicated. While many have been
guilty of reducing the Gospel message, the team at Spread Truth is committed to putting forth the
Gospel message with an unyielding submission to the inerrancy, infallibility, and sufficiency of the Bible.
This guide, as well as all of the resources from Spread Truth, is meant to help churches communicate
that timelessly relevant message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As you journey through The Story
you will notice two synergistic characteristics at play:
First, you will see that it has been put together with the understanding that the
Bible has one overarching story—a grand metanarrative. The lack of biblical literacy
both outside and inside the Church has often led to a faulty approach to the Bible whereby the
stories contained within are understood as being disjointed and sometimes unrelated.
This guide combats that faulty approach by recognizing all 66 books and 1,189 chapters of Scripture
have one underlying, foundational purpose: to communicate that God Almighty is on a mission
to rescue humanity from its fallen and idolatrous condition. This fact has massive implications for
the way the Church has traditionally evangelized in contemporary culture. Whereas churches have
become accustomed to presenting the Gospel as a list of propositions derived from various verses
of the Bible, the Scripture itself is redemptive in its very nature. We should labor to communicate
the whole message so that its parts can be properly understood.
8
The Story
If the Gospel is the true story of God’s redemptive plan (and it is!), then we in the Church must
become master storytellers heralding this Good News both near and far. So in the chapters of this
guide, you will find a summary of the four key points of the Bible’s grand narrative: Creation, Fall,
Rescue, and Restoration. For these reasons, this resource is not only helpful in evangelism, but also
provides a fantastic tool to help in making disciples whose lives are built upon the Bible that stands
as its basis.
Second, you will also note that this guide has been designed to help you
communicate not only the broad story of the Gospel as told in the Bible, but also
key verses of Scripture that highlight the truths foundational to the narrative.
We would all do well to memorize these verses, as well as others that you will surely discover along
the journey. You will note that these key verses appear in their respective chapters, as well as at the
end of the guide to help you prepare to communicate God’s story of redemption more effectively.
In short, the team at Spread Truth has done a masterful job in The Story of helping the Church
communicate the unchanging message of the Gospel in a manner that is faithful to all of the Bible.
I commend this and other resources from Spread Truth to you as biblically faithful, theologically
sound, transculturally relevant, and practically applicable. This guide is a gift to the Church from
our great God and Savior that drives us, once again, back to the Bible and its Good News story.
George G. Robinson
Assistant Professor of Missions & Evangelism
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
Wake Forest, N.C.
9
“Know the story
you profess to
be participating
in. Know it well
and tell it with
enthusiasm.
Tell it like
other stories
that excite and
compel you. . . .
When you first
learn to tell the story, get
the shape right.
Then fill in the details.”
—Charlie Peacock,
New Way to Be Human 2
10
The Story
Introduction
Welcome to The Story! There is nothing more important than
grasping the power and beauty of the Gospel—the story—of Jesus Christ.
An ever-deepening understanding of the story God is telling privileges
believers to live vibrantly within the pages of redemptive history. As believers
become empowered, God’s story grows and captures even more followers
for His name’s sake.
That is why we’ve developed materials to help you see all of life through the
lens of redemption. Through this guide, you’ll find your perspective shifting
in just about every aspect of your life. And you will find that you can’t help
but speak conversationally and naturally about God’s story of redemption.
This guide is split into two sections. The first, Living in the Story, teaches about The Story and how
understanding it makes all the difference in life. The second section of this guide, Sharing the Story, contains
practical applications for telling the world about the story God is telling. You may want to use one or both sections
as the basis for a small group study or Sunday school class. Some groups may want to use the second section
for an evangelism training session. Feel free to use the material in whatever way meets your group’s needs.
The Story Equipping Tools and Resources
This approach may be different than you might expect. But the Bible
Equipping Tools
demonstrates that the Gospel needs to be clearly communicated both
Facilitator’s Guide
outside and inside of the Church. This is ultimately achieved as the
Leader’s Kit
local church equips all believers to articulate the Gospel in a biblically
The Story Guide
faithful and culturally understandable manner.
PowerPoint/Media Support
Sharing the Good News can be natural and conversational, not
complicated or confusing; it should be the joy of every believer,
not merely a practice for an elite few; and the Gospel has the power
Resources
The Story Booklet—
designed for the believer
and the unbeliever
to reconcile people with God when communicated in the Spirit.
Conversation Card—
to get the conversation going
To that end, a wide array
iPhone and Mobile Phone
App—utilizing your mobile
device to share The Story
of resources and materials
has been developed to
support you in telling
TheStoryTraining.com
ViewTheStory.com
others how God’s story
has made your story
something worth sharing.
11
12
Section 1:
Living in
the Story
13
“ Many people know stories
from the Bible but do not know
the story of the Bible. That’s like
having a handful of pearls with
no string to link them together.”
Colin S. Smith
Unlocking the Bible Story 1
14
Understanding the Story
15
Understanding the Story
The way you view the Bible determines the way you look at life. Christians tend to view
the Bible one of two ways.
The Reference Book Perspective
One approach is to view the Bible as a series of individual stories that are often hard to
piece together. The Word of God is often then reduced soley to a reference book that only
answers the many questions we have on how to live. While this is true and can be helpful,
a danger in this approach is that the focus can often become me-centered.
“Most people begin to learn individual parts of the Bible without understanding the whole. This fragmented grasp
of the Bible has aided people in not seeing the big picture.”
—Charlie Boyd, “What God Wants”2
Whether it is advice on relationships or finances or decision making, the
Bible no doubt contains wonderful wisdom for living. But this “reference book”
perspective often misses out on seeing the whole Bible as God’s unfolding story
of redemption.
16
The Story
The One Single Story Perspective
The Bible is nothing less than the grand narrative of history—history written by God
Himself. It is the story, the one God has been telling throughout the ages, detailing His
loving plan for all of creation.
There are four important aspects of this story:
1. The Bible is one _____________ story.
2. The story has a ___________________ (Creation, Fall, Rescue, Restoration).
3. The theme of this story is God’s __________________: Jesus’ rescue of sinners
and redemption of the world.
4. We are all ______________________________ in this ongoing story.
This approach to the Bible sees everything in it—all the accounts, all the poems, all the
prophecies, all the parables—as a unified whole that points to the redemptive plan of God.
Like all good stories, God’s story has a plot line that moves from Creation to Fall to Rescue
to Restoration. The climax and center of this story is the life, death, and resurrection of
Jesus Christ.
God’s story includes a host of characters. God uses people just like you to tell of His
redemption and to move His story along to its glorious ending. That’s right—we are part
of God’s story.
So if you approach the Bible as the story God has been telling since ages past . . .
as God’s story with a definitive plot line and purpose threading throughout . . . as a story
that God wrote to include everyone ever created . . . that changes things. This perspective
places God at the center. The Bible is all about God and what He is doing, rather than
about man and what we are doing.
Now that is a story worth knowing.
Understanding the Story
17
“
The Bible isn’t mainly about you and what you should be
doing. It’s about God and what he has done. . . . The Bible
is most of all a Story. It’s an adventure story about a young
Hero who comes from a far country to win back his lost
treasure. It’s a love story about a brave Prince who leaves
his palace, his throne—everything—to rescue the one
he loves. It’s like the most wonderful of fairy tales that
has come true in real life! You see, the best thing about
this Story is—it’s true. There are lots of stories in the Bible,
but all the stories are telling one Big Story. The Story
of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them.”
—Sally Lloyd-Jones, The Jesus Storybook Bible 3
Your view of God’s story—recorded in the Bible and authenticated in the life of Jesus
Christ—shapes everything else you see. As you grasp God’s amazing story with all
its breathtaking beauty, you will begin to see the Bible as the most stunning story ever
authored. You will begin to see how it is woven into creation and history and how it
threads through every life. It whispers truth about God and man and all that is real
about this world: love, war, darkness, light, danger, rescue, alienation, and redemption.
This is the story that tops all stories. It is the story of God’s loving pursuit of us.
18
The Story
Explore
In which ways have you looked at the Bible as a reference book or one big story?
Why is it important to see that all the stories of the Bible are tied to one big story?
Understanding the Story
19
The Story Believers Need
The point of knowing God’s story is not just to know the storyline and the order of
events found in the Bible, though this is certainly helpful. No, the primary reason we
should learn the story is to know the Author, who has revealed Himself throughout
history with absolute intent. And it is in the story of Scripture that He provides us
with the Good News: the Gospel.
The Gospel has been purposefully and lovingly woven from Genesis to Revelation
with the climax being Jesus’ perfect life, substitutionary death, and victorious resurrection.
It is in the Gospel that we find the justification, forgiveness, acceptance, and love we
desperately need.
Yet the default mode of our hearts is a works-based acceptance by God. Therefore,
we (believers!) must continually speak the Gospel to ourselves as reminders that our
acceptance is by grace through faith in the One (Jesus) who earned our acceptance.
We (believers!) must continually rely on the Holy Spirit to empower us. And we (believers!)
must continually understand our lives in the context of God’s big story.
When believers grasp the beauty and power of God’s story, they will be equipped,
empowered, and enthusiastic to share God’s redemption with each person they encounter.
Does The Story equip believers to speak readily of God’s redemption to non-Christians?
Definitely! But it also continues to help believers grasp God’s story so that we can live
Spirit-empowered lives grounded in His Word. We must understand God’s story has been
written for the believer and the unbeliever. The Gospel is a message both believers and
unbelievers need to hear—and believe.
20
The Story
The Power of Story
Why God used story to unfold His redemptive purposes for man.
The World Has Lost Its Story
Have you ever walked into the middle of a story? A television
show, perhaps, or a movie—and even though you’ve
missed the beginning, you decide to sit down to watch.
But the story is already in progress, so you have a hard
time understanding the basic plot line. You feel completely
lost. Why is that? It’s because, for you, the story is
lacking foundation. Your only hope is that someone
will pause the show and explain what is happening.4
Do you believe th
e world
has lost its story
?
This __________________________________
is the ever-increasing reality we must address to
make sense of the story we are in.
Lack of context comes from a loss of story. It is evident that the world today suffers
from that loss of story, which is meant to serve as the anchor for all we experience in life.
We are part of a growing generation who ______________________________
of the Bible. Many in our generation have not grown up going to Sunday school and
church; therefore, we are not familiar with many common stories of the Scriptures. Many
have probably heard of God, Jesus, the cross, and the resurrection but have no idea how
those pieces fit into the context of the bigger story.
Understanding the Story
21
Stories Give Context
Eudora Welty said, “If you want people to hear truth, tell them. If you want people to know
the truth, tell them a story.”5
Propositions are the key summary points of any story. Previous generations, with their
knowledge of the Bible’s storyline, needed only to hear the propositions of the Gospel to
then connect the dots for understanding God’s story. For those with this biblical foundation,
these propositions can still be effective today in grasping the story God is telling.
However, for those who do not have that biblical foundation, when these statements stand
alone in a bulleted list they are often stripped of their context, their heart. Without this
context, propositions are not as effective for helping us grasp the story of God’s redemption
and how we are to live because of it.
When the foundation of the Bible’s storyline is missing, a better approach for sharing
God’s redemption would be to weave these important propositional truths into the context
of the biblical story.
J. D. Crowley, a missionary to the people of Cambodia, offers an interesting insight to this
discussion about putting the Gospel in context:
“Propositions save people. Truth saves people, even truth that is separated from
Combat y
literac
biblical il g and
atin
by medit e verses
ing th
memoriz e Story.
from Th
ng on
See listi .
5
page 14
22
The Story
the storyline of the Bible. I’m sure thousands have come to faith in Christ through
propositional evangelism . . . but these days? Fewer and fewer. In Cambodia, almost
none. Why? Because when we strip-mine the amazing forests and mountains and
valleys of the biblical storyline in order to extract bare propositions, it only works if
the person already knows the storyline and has already bought into part of it.”6
What has been true in Cambodia is becoming reality right here in the United States.
Although people used to know the storyline of the Bible and could grasp
meaning from propositional truths, this is often no longer the case.
Explore
What if The Lord of the Rings was boiled down to a list of facts? How interesting
would that story be to you?
What are the propositional truths of the Gospel?
Why would mere propositional truths—about The Lord of the Rings or the Gospel
or any story—cause a sort of disconnect in people who do not know the rest
of the story?
Understanding the Story
23
“When people do not discern the presence of a meta-narrative,
the Bible just appears to be a bunch of stories. This is one reason
why Bible reading is declining in the postmodern era. When many
Christians read the Bible, they do not understand it in terms of
the whole. This, in turn, makes them into weak thinkers. But
more than this, the whole Christian worldview depends upon a
clear understanding of a meta-narrative. Without it, the Christian
worldview no longer makes sense in a postmodern world.”
7
Our Vision and Desire for The Story
With biblical literacy on the decline, it is our desire to put the message of salvation into
_____________________________________________________________.
D. A. Carson, seminary professor and author of countless theological works, states,
“In short, the good news of Jesus Christ is virtually incoherent unless
it is securely set into a biblical worldview.”8
Carson later goes on to pinpoint creation, humanity,
fall, redemption, and culmination as key
aspects of the Bible story.
Good Read
Bible,
Storybook
s
u
s
e
J
e
h
T
-Jones
Sally Lloyd
24
The Story
The Role of Story in Everyday Life
The good news is that everyone loves stories! It’s how we communicate.
We love movies, plays, television, and books because we love stories.
The Drama of Scripture asserts:
“In order to understand our world, to make sense of our lives, and to make our most important
decisions about how we ought to be living, we depend
upon some story. . . . This does not mean that every
story is as important as any other. There are a great
variety of stories. Some merely entertain us; others
teach what is right and good or warn us of danger
and evil. But there are also stories that are basic or
foundational: they provide us with an understanding
of our whole world and of our place within it. Such comprehensive stories give us the meaning of universal history. . . . To frame and give shape
and meaning to our experience of life, all of us
depend upon some particular story.”9
Think about it: Stories have influenced us from our earliest childhood memories and they
continue to shape us throughout our lives. There are lessons embedded in stories
that would never train us if spoken otherwise.
So everyone loves and lives by stories, and everyone has been influenced and shaped
by stories. Really, if you think about it, everything we communicate is some sort of story.
We are natural storytellers.
Understanding the Story
25
Explore
Do you believe everyone depends on some story for life to make sense?
y
What stor
ss
a
will you p s
r
on to othe
today?
Give an example of how our everyday communication is filled with story.
What stories, books, or movies have had a significant influence in your life?
26
The Story
The Elements of Story
All powerful stories contain undercurrents of truth and follow a series of components
called a plot line.
There are four crucial stages in the development of a plot line:
Stage 1— __________________________________________
This is where it all begins! In it, we find the:
n
Setting—where the story takes place
n
Protagonist—the hero, the main character
n
Antagonist—the villain who opposes the hero
n
Supporting Characters—help move the story forward
Stage 2— __________________________________________
The stage has been set, the characters introduced, and the story’s premise has been
explained. The characters are playing their parts and moving the story to the high point.
Stage 3— __________________________________________
This is the high point of the story, where the agendas of the protagonist and the
antagonist collide. Here the conflict rages and then is resolved when the hero wins.
Stage 4— __________________________________________
The conflict has been laid to rest, and the end of the story unfolds. The protagonist
has won; the supporting characters quickly fade.
Understanding the Story
27
The Bible Is the Story
George Robinson states, “God is the master communicator and He chose to use a narrative
(story) as a means of disseminating the gospel.”10
The Bible is one big, complete story, which can be referred to as a ___________________.
It is God’s story given to all mankind that defines
us and gives meaning, hope, and purpose for our
existence. It tells how it all began, what went wrong,
if there is any hope, and how everything will end.
Timothy Keller, in his book The Reason
for God, comments on the truth of the
biblical metanarrative:
How do other worldviews
contrast with this one ba
sed on
God’s story?
“Which account of the world has the most
‘explanatory power’ to make sense of what
we see in the world and in ourselves? We
have a sense that the world is not the way
it ought to be. We have a sense that we are very flawed and yet very great. We have
a longing for love and beauty that nothing in this world can fulfill. We have a deep need
to know meaning and purpose. Which worldview best accounts for these things?”11
Only the Gospel takes into account these universal human longings and desires.
Glen Watson confirms this, saying: “The Christian metanarrative is still the only
story that can truly satisfy even a postmodern heart and mind. If not this
story, what other story would we tell?”12
This is the story we are called to live in, and the story we tell the world, because it is
God’s—the only true story. So let’s look at its plot line.
28
The Story
The Bible’s Plot Line
The biblical story not only contains truth—it IS truth. There is no error or exaggeration.
The biblical story provides a bedrock of the most important truths that exist for humanity.
Exposition— ____________________________________________________
God’s purpose for mankind—to fill the Earth with worshippers
Setting: Protagonist: Antagonist: Supporting Characters: Earth, the Garden of Eden
God
Satan
Adam and Eve
Rising Action— __________________________________________________
God’s purpose replaced—man chose to worship other things
Conflict:
God and Satan
God and Man
Man and Woman
Mankind and Creation
Climax— _______________________________________________________
God’s purpose made possible—Jesus rescues man from the bondage of sin
The Hero—God Himself—comes to rescue His creation
This is the heart of the story!
Resolution— ____________________________________________________
God’s purpose fulfilled—to fill the Earth with redeemed worshippers
New Heaven and New Earth
World filled with worshippers
Understanding the Story
29
Jesus and the Metanarrative (Big Story)
Redemption flows in the Bible from Creation to Revelation—every page drips with God’s
move toward the rescue and restoration of all creation. God is the ultimate storyteller!
Yes, this is the story God has been telling since the dawn of creation, but it’s gotten a bit
muddied along the way. As mentioned previously, there is a great need for context in our biblically
illiterate generation. What we need to grasp is the overarching message found throughout
Scripture—something called the metanarrative, or big story. George Robinson states the Gospel
“is best communicated in the form of a story. Fallen finite human beings need context in order to
determine meaning” and that “the whole canon of Scripture is in reality the Good News.”13
Jesus Himself used the metanarrative concept to teach His disciples and correct
faulty thinking.
One such account is found
“Beginning with Moses” is a reference to the
in Luke 24, after Jesus’
death and resurrection. Two
Book of Moses which was the Pentateuch—
disciples are talking about
in other words, Jesus was referring to the
all that has happened in the
beginning in Genesis 1:1, the Creation.
last few days. Then an unknown
man (who is, in fact, Jesus)
joins them and asks what they are discussing. Not recognizing Him, they
describe Jesus’ death and the mystery of the empty tomb and the disappointment that
Jesus did not fulfill their hopes for the political restoration of Israel. We see Jesus’ use of
the metanarrative when the Bible states, “beginning with Moses and with all the prophets,
[Jesus] explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures” (Luke 24:27).
You see, the disciples had the wrong story—they thought the Messiah was
coming for a political takeover. So Jesus begins at the beginning of the story
in Genesis, helping them see the overarching, all-consuming nature of the
story God is telling.
30
The Story
Explore
The disciples were living in the wrong story. In what ways do we find people
living in the wrong story today?
Understanding the Story
31
This is the end of the preview. The full guide
is 154 pages long. It contains two main sections:
Living in The Story & Sharing The Story.
Available for purchase at
SpreadTruth.com
What wil be available for purchase?
Participant Edition (Wired-book format and PDF format)
Leader Edition (Wired-book, extra notes, resources, etc.)
Media Kit (Presentations, Videos, Extras, USB Thumb Drive)
PO Box 3171, Bloomington, IL 61701
309.452.3213
LAUNCHING
1
April 18, 201se
r purcha
* Available fo th.com
at SpreadTru