Part One

introduction

God's Big (Small) Idea

One Big Idea. Four Small Words.

Let's be honest: The Bible is not an easy book to read. It's one complete work broken into two distinct parts, containing 66 different books written by 40 unique writers over the period of 1,600 years! It was written in several different styles: biographical accounts, historical accounts, poetry, wisdom writings, prophecy, personal letters, and letters to churches. It was originally written in three different languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. And it has been translated into more languages than any other book in human history.

This is a book that has been printed roughly six billion times (and that is before it became an app!). It is a book that wars have been waged over, and a book used to bring peace. A book read at the inauguration of presidents and the coronation of kings, and a book read at the execution of death-row inmates. It is a book that has been the source text for much of humanity for the last 3,500 years. It is a book so complex that people have dedicated their life's work to studying it, and yet so simple that even a child can understand it.

As if all of its unique features weren't enough to contribute to its complexity, the content itself can at times be ... well ... quite complex. Outside of the eyewitness accounts of those involved in the events of the Bible and the oral history that echoed after them, the Bible is one of the primary ways that God conveys His message to the world. Some verses are so deeply layered with transformational truth that some 2,000 years later they are still a mystery yet (if ever) to be fully understood. There are books and chapters and verses and even single words that are to this day held up like a precious gem, each turn revealing a fresh ref lection on God and us. This is no ordinary book.

My Name in Gold

Do you remember the first time you came into contact with a Bible? I do. I remember my very first Bible. I got it when I was seven. It was a gift from my Sunday school teacher — Mrs. Dopart. She got a Bible for each of the kids in our Sunday school class. What made Mrs. Dopart a cut above the average Sunday school teacher was that she had my name engraved in gold letters on the front of the Bible. Gold letters! Do you realize how big of a deal that is to a little guy? It made me feel so special. And I always knew that if times got tough, I could burn the Bible and melt down those gold letters to cover the cost of my next Star Wars action figure.

My gold-laden Bible was more like a "mini-Bible." It was just the New Testament and was small enough to fit into the back pocket of my Toughskins Jeans. It was a sweet gift considering that I was just learning how to read, and it was