Taylor's Day Off (And the Jesus Storybook Bible)

So I'm taking the day off today. Many others I know are taking time off this week too, so I thought, "Perfect timing for me as well!" So here I am. What do I do when I have a free alone day with nothing planned? I read. I dream. I blog. I wander. Ok, well, honestly, those are the things that I want to do. But often free days are taken up with napping, running errands, and getting those little needed things done.

But since my wonderful husband has helped me get a lot of those little needed things done and I did plenty of wandering on Sunday (Powells= one of the best wandering places when it's cold), today is a reading and blogging day. Four years and one month ago I started this blog. It was a pretty lousy post, but it began a report on my new post-college life in Eastern Europe. The blog quickly turned into my reflection spot and eventually my place for theological processing as I went through seminary. Now it's place is still to be determined, but most likely it will be my preaching and processing outlet. That way my dear husband doesn't have to hear all my muddled thoughts, ardent spiritual reform ideas, and preaching topics in every evening.

Well, my reading list is long. The stack is high. (Matt has refused to buy me another book until I work it down.) But, I will prevail. I started "The Jesus Storybook Bible" last night and finished it this morning. I have given it out to friends but still haven't read it. I'm trying to stop that practice...

So that our parents don't get too excited, I want to clarify that I am not reading

a children's bible because we want children anytime soon. (Patience, Claudia.) Rather, a couple of my professors talked about the great biblical theology Sally Lloyd-Jones weaves through her stories, and the unity she produces pointing to Christ. Man, I'm interested in ways of telling the story of the Bible in understandable ways, showing the themes and the connections. I have tried twice to write the story, both times directed at friends who did not know Christ or have much Bible literacy. If we could do this better, if we could understand the whole story, if we could express it well, I think it would move our hearts to love the whole plan of God. It would draw us to our Bibles even more. And it would allow those who don't know Him to see clearly what He has been doing.

Well, a lot of what you see in this book is from Tim Keller's teaching, which isn't surprising as I believe Sally attends his church. I wasn't sure what to expect from the themes she would choose to develop. Most sharply I see her pulling out our need to know that God loves us. That is probably her most consistent theme throughout the whole book, beginning in her story of Adam and Eve, weaving it into how that caused them to not trust God and sin, in the stories of the Old Testament heroes knowing that God loved them, in David's 23rd psalm, in the prophets' messages, in the message that Christ tells the disciples to spread-- God loves them so much to die for them, and finally in the end when God will be with them. The way she does it has a very Kelleresque ring to it. We need to be the people God made us to be by knowing we are loved more than we ever imagined. I appreciate the theme, but admit that it is probably not the way I would have expressed it. I would have perhaps focused on His love that does all of these things, but not as much on the importance and transformation needed in knowing His love.

I loved the way she brought each story to an end pointing to Christ. I couldn't help but smile and sigh as I got to the end of each chapter, often tearing up a bit. Yes, the Better One, the Fulfillment was coming. There were a couple times that I wanted to jump in and add a small hermeneutics lesson saying that you could say that Jesus would some day be the Forgiving Servant and the Message, but that story of Naaman's servant girl and Jonah in the Bible was probably not written with that in mind. They were to teach other things about God... but I agree that when we teach, we do need to end with Christ. And she is writing to children with little space. So she takes them there. Using types perhaps more than I would... but probably classically Tim Keller.

I do love her use of "never stopping, never giving up, unbreaking, always and forever love." I need to hear that. It makes me think of חסד, God's faithful, covenantal love. I love the way she pushes her theme of God's making all things right. As classic Keller, she weaves sin and brokeness and sickness and sadness all together into what God did on the cross and what He was going to fix. At first I was wanting more emphasis on sin and justice and substitution (I know, classic Western Christianity thinking), but she did hit it well in the garden and at the cross.

I was moved to think about the faith steps that so many of the OT heroes took. They trusted God and obeyed over and over. They risked their lives, reputations, and families. She told the stories well, so that I wanted to trust God like them. Yet in each story, it was God who was the hero, as it should be. Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David, Daniel might have trusted God, but it was God who saved the day. His love and power never ended.

Overall, I'm so grateful for her book. Next children's book: The Child's Story Bible by Catherine Vos... if I can find one. The literal next book... I have to pick from the stack.