46. Tracing God's Story

Tracing God's Story: An Introduction to Biblical Theology. Jon Nielson. 2024. 384 pages. [Source: Review copy] [christian nonfiction; theology] [5 stars]

First sentence: Biblical theology is a discipline that seeks to discover theology (truth about God and his work) through the gradual and progressive revelation of his saving plan in the story of the Bible. This is often done by tracing certain themes or ideas through Scripture from beginning to end--Genesis to Revelation. The core conviction of those who practice the discipline of biblical theology is that the Bible is a unified work--a book inspired by one divine author (God) and given to human beings to help them understand his broad saving plan, which ultimately was accomplished through the death and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ. 

Tracing God's Story is one of three books in an introductory theology series. Two have been published so far. The first book, Knowing God's Truth, I reviewed last month. It was an introduction to systematic theology. Though written by the same author, the approach, of course, is different. 

The book "traces" the big picture story of the Bible in eight scenes:

1) God's creation and a crisis

2) God's promise of a people

3) God's people grow

4) God's kingdom--rise and fall

5) God's people--captive and coming home

6) God's salvation

7) God's church

8) God's eternity

The tracing centers on redemption and salvation. It neither follows the structure of Genesis through Revelation nor a chronological approach. It is a blended approach. 

There are suggested memory verses for all sixteen chapters. Each chapter is broken into smaller sections or chunks. 

There are also suggested readings for each section of each chapter. These readings reminded me of the old school reading guides found in The Student Bible (and the like). It does not assign readers chapters from every book of the Bible. But it does at least assign chapters from all the major genres. 

The narrative style is accessible, well thought out, clear. 

I do think Tracing God's Story would be a good choice for curriculum. 

How does it compare to Knowing God's Truth???? Honestly, I like Knowing God's Truth better. Not necessarily because I love systematic theology more than biblical theology, but perhaps because I am personally already so familiar with the story of the Bible--reading it cover to cover--that I got less out of it. I do think it would still be great for almost every reader. The goal is not necessarily to have readers read every chapter of every book of the Bible in order to grasp the big picture. It picks a few chapters here and there from all the major categories and then summarizes how they fit together. Of course, it encourages readers to go back and read more, more, more. Perhaps this is enough so readers can taste and see. Whenever I see reading plans that pick and choose which chapters from individual books to read, I always can't help thinking but you're missing out on this and this and this and this and this and what about that how can you skip that. But again, I think this is a me problem. 

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible