Epic: The Storyline of the Bible

By James L. Nicodem and Phil Vischer

To many people, the Bible is a series of incongruous and confusing stories. It jumps from one person or place to the next leaving the reader scrambling to keep up and make sense of it all. That’s a tall task.

Epic provides a big picture view of the Bible to explain how its individual pieces fit together. Is it really possible that the Bible’s collection of 66 books actually has a single storyline? Yes! The theme of that storyline is redemption, and Epic traces it from Genesis to Revelation.

Discover in the opening chapters of the Bible why redemptionbecame humanity’s desperate need. Learn how God set this rescue effort into motion through promises He made to Abraham. Follow the unfolding of these promises through Old Testament history. Note the role of the prophets, from Isaiah to Malachi, in the overall drama. Witness Jesus Christ bringing redemption to a climax.

Perfect for believers at any stage, small group leaders, and those discipling others, Epic will open your eyes to the way all the different parts of scripture contribute to a single story that can change your life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Moody Publishers
• Release date: Mar 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9780802484055

Book preview

series

Introduction:

A Grand Storyline

EVERY STUDENT who has ever taken a high school or college literature class holds one name in high esteem. The name is not Shakespeare, Dickens, or Tolstoy. It is not Hemmingway, Chaucer, or Milton. The name that I’m thinking of is … uh … Cliff. Cliff is known for his great literary works: CliffsNotes.

Now, in case you’re not familiar with these masterpieces, let me briefly (pun intended) explain that CliffsNotes are condensed versions of famous novels. For example, the nine-hundred-page Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens is reduced by CliffsNotes to a thirty-five-page quick summary. (We’ll call it Nick.) The CliffsNotes of War and Peace, a mammoth novel by Leo Tolstoy, can be read in half an hour.

English teachers hate CliffsNotes. But if you’re a student, cramming the night before a big test, on a book you have only partly read, CliffsNotes can be a lifesaver. (Of course, you lose the awe-inspiring benefits of reading a classic work.) On the other hand, the worst thing you could discover about your unread book is that it’s not available in CliffsNotes! (You’re in trouble.)

Wouldn’t it be great if the Bible, the greatest book of all time, was available in CliffsNotes? It actually is. But the CliffsNotes version is 224 pages long! The fact is: it’s tough to find a brief summary of the Bible’s contents. Even the condensed Reader’s Digest Bible (and believe it or not, there is such a thing) is 767 pages long.

Wrapping your mind around a book this long is a daunting task. But that is just what you’re going to do in this opening book of the Bible Savvy series. Epic is a comprehensive-but-concise presentation of the Bible’s grand storyline.

Redemption Prompted

I NEED TO SEE the big picture—especially when I’m trying to figure out travel directions. If I am about to drive through New York City, for example, the two- by three-inch GPS picture on my iPhone of the immediate vicinity will not suffice. I want an AAA road map of the entire city at a glance—the kind that opens up to three feet wide and can never be refolded the right way.

God has given us a road map for our lives. It’s called the Bible. God’s Holy Word. The Bible is the best place to turn for direction for our lives. But we need to have a sense of the Bible’s big picture in order to understand its individual parts. So, how are we going to get a sense of that big picture? We won’t find it summarized in a couple of paragraphs on the back cover of our Bible, right above a picture of the book’s author. (God won’t hold still while His photo is taken.)

No, the Bible is not like other books. In fact, the Bible is not a book. It’s actually a compilation of sixty-six books in one. Sixty-six books that were written over a period of 1,500 years, penned by forty different authors. And those forty different authors lived in ten different countries, worked in more than twenty different occupations (including king, shepherd, general, tax collector, fisherman, and doctor), and wrote in three different languages (Greek, Hebrew, and