No Greater Love: The Bible in 60 Minutes

By Terence Elseberry

The entire Bible's story of God's love for all human beings distilled to a 60 minute read.  Summarizing stories from the Old Testimate through to Christ's resurection in the New Testament.  It's the story of how God makes Himself known to the lives of human beings - people like you and me.  Originally written for Reverend Elsberry's family who requested a distilled version of the bible they could read in a single daily commute.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Mar 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9780578395470

Book preview

Let's start at the beginning...

The Bible says God created the world in seven days. That’s what sparks the perennial controversy, the argument between the Bible and science. But why should the two not co-exist? God can do anything. He is capable of creating the world in seven days. Scientific evidence would indicate that the whole process took a lot longer. God created the world. Science explains how He did it.

The same is true of people. The Bible says God created the first man, Adam. Then He put Adam to sleep, and while he slept, God removed one of Adam’s ribs and from it fashioned Eve. Science describes the lengthy process of human evolution. But what’s important to our story is that God created us. He created us for intimate friendship with Him.

The love story of God with His people begins with Adam and Eve. It begins in a garden called Eden.

The Garden of Eden was located in the southern part of what we call Iraq. The Garden of Eden was the most beautiful section of all God’s beautiful planet earth. It was surpassingly lovely. Imagine the most spectacular scenery you’ve ever seen, magnify it by a thousand, and you have some idea of Eden’s beauty.

It was also perfect. And life for Adam and Eve in the garden was perfect. They enjoyed open and personal interaction with God on a daily basis. He came down from heaven and walked and talked with Adam in the cool of the evening. God gave Adam and Eve meaningful work to do. He let Adam name all the animals God had also created. Adam and Eve oversaw the animals and the garden. They enjoyed an ideal mix of responsibility and freedom.

Their work was bliss. The food was plentiful and delicious to eat. There were no weeds, no floods, nor droughts. Also Adam and Eve had an ideal marriage—no conflict, no stress, no competing agendas. And they were so pure of spirit, they walked around naked, because they felt no shame or embarrassment before each other or before God. The human body was another of God’s perfect creation.

Everything stayed perfect for a long time. Then came the day when it all fell apart. It’s the day heartache came into the world. It’s the day Adam and Eve felt pain for the first time. It’s the day of the first conflict, the first suffering, the first time human beings had to feel guilty for something they’d done.

It came about because Eve and Adam made the wrong choice. They knew what was right. They knew what was wrong. They chose to do the wrong thing. The Bible calls what they did that day sin.

God had always told them they could have free reign of the garden, which included eating all the food growing in such profusion.They were welcome to eat all the food, that is, but one.

God said, You may not eat from the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Because if you do, you will know everything. You’ll have all knowledge, as we have all knowledge.

We? Who are the we God is talking about? He was referring to the mysterious, hard-to-fathom reality that God is actually one Person with three Personas. He is at the same time God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

God said something else. He told Adam and Eve that if they ate the forbidden fruit, they would one day die.

Here’s how it happened. All this time, unknown to Adam and Eve, they had an enemy living with them in the garden. His name was Satan. On this fateful day, Satan assumed the form of a serpent. Originally, snakes had legs. The serpent sidled up to Eve and in a seductive voice encouraged her to eat