This brings a challenge to us when we do evangelism today. We use our church language and expect that people know what we are talking about...but they often don't.
Case in point (I'll spare details for the sake of privacy), I was having a conversation with two other people. One was a mature believer, one is just beginning to seek Christ. The seasoned believer encouraged this young sister to read her Bible...and not to forget the Old Testament...that's important too. Now, I agree with this mature assessment about the necessity of the Old Testament for the life of a believer. I mean, I've spent years studying Hebrew and got half way through the coursework for a PhD in Old Testament. Believe me, I affirm the need for the Old Testament. Later...when it was just me and the new seeker...I brought this up again and asked..."Do you know the difference between the Old and the New Testaments? The answer was no. When we've been in church so long we often take little things like this for granted.
I spent the next 5 minutes trying to give an explanation of the contents of the Old and New Testament. I started with the New, and I explained that it begins with the 4 Gospels. Each of the Gospels tells the story of Jesus life and ministry through his death and resurrection. I told her that they aren't in chronological order, but rather they each tell the same story from 4 different perspectives. Next comes Acts. This is the story of the next 30 years or so after Jesus ascended into heaven. It tells the story of the apostles taking the message of Jesus throughout the world. Next come letters to specific churches and individuals that are intended to address specific situations. Finally, Revelation is probably the most difficult because it is filled with symbolic imagery and it is about the things at the end--things in the future.
Then I turned to the Old Testament. I didn't take the time to break down the divisions of Law, Prophets, and Writings. Rather, I just told her that the Old Testament is important because it is how we know that Jesus didn't just plop out of the sky one day from nowhere. Rather, it was the unfolding of God's plan throughout thousands of years. I told her that it tells the story of God working among the Jewish people, promising a Messiah who would one day come. I concluded by saying that the two parts of the Bible can basically be summed up with Promise and Fulfillment.
Imagine, if you were an alien from a distant planet and you came here. Assuming this is in the world of Star Trek where all planets speak English, you are familiar with literature, but only one genre--Children's Books. When you arrive here on earth you quickly find a library and randomly pick up a book assuming that it will be a children's story; however, you soon find the book difficult and give up because it was actually a technical manual for repairing an automobile. This technical manual does not follow the rules of the children's book genre, so you give up, assuming that it is too difficult and you can never understand what is so entertaining about the story.
This is what reading the Bible can be like. When we come to the Bible, we have to realize that it is written in several different genres over the course of thousands of years. There is great diversity within the biblical corpus, and it is an ancient document that is very foreign to modern readers. For those of us who grew up with the Bible stories in Sunday School from our childhood, we can navigate the Bible with some level of ease. At least we know what it is we're looking at. But think of what it must feel like for someone coming to the Bible for the very first time without any knowledge at all of what it is all about.
People have to have a reference point. We have to have some kind of idea of what it is we are reading before we can understand what something big and complex is all about. When a child is leaning to read, they always look for the pictures to get some idea of what it is they are looking at. Children's books are filled with pictures. This isn't something that is necessary for children only. It can be very helpful for adults as well. I'm not saying that we can be content with just a children's book, but how about instead of telling new believers to start with the book of John, we get them a copy of the Jesus Storybook Bible so they can at least have some idea of the big picture of what the Bible is about.
So I recommended it. I recommended the Jesus Storybook Bible to an adult, just beginning to seek Christ. And I would suggest, that when you have conversations with others that have limited understanding of the Bible, you might want to do the same thing. Start with a children's storybook Bible that can sketch the main story line of the Bible. We all have to see the big picture before we can make sense of the details.
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