TIP of the day: the bigger story

MJ. Smith

1. There are two primary ways that the Bible stories taught to children are strung together into larger stories:

• the life story of a character
• the overarching story of salvation

This is a typical graphic organizer showing how to move from the action orientation for small children to a character orientation.

2. Character's lives are often laid out in timelines - the character equivalent to the story episode story board technique. This is an example of the Logos interactive Bible People Visual Timelines.

3. A second type of timeline broadens the focus to all the major characters of the story rather than focusing on a single character. These are the Logos interactive Narrative Character Maps. Note this explicitly maps to Biblical Events.

4. The Factbook provides an overview of the information on a character available in your library.

5. And the interactive Visual Timelines are also available as Faithlife Study Bible Infographics ...

6. An one can filter the timeline to get approximate dates for the Biblical character's major events.

7. Gray, Tim, and Jeff Cavins. Walking with God: A Journey through the Bible. West Chester, PA: Ascension Press, 2010. is one of a set of resources designed to present the Bible as a single, continuous narrative i.e. the second method of stringing the individual stories together.

8. Walton, John H., and Kim E. Walton. The Bible Story Handbook: A Resource for Teaching 175 Stories from the Bible. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010. is a story resource that emphasizes placing the story within the context of the bigger story.

9. Smith, Colin. Unlocking the Bible Story Study Guide Volume 1. Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2004 is the first of 4 volumes of adult Bible study workbooks that works through the big picture through the sequential presentation of the stories.