The Story Before the Story is a straight forward presentation, which provides the reader of Scripture a simple but compelling introduction to reading Scripture as a story. This book interacts with four important concepts: foundationalism, fragmentation, story, and kingdom. Reading with a foundationalism concept without knowing it leads to a reduction of the text into principles, which produces patchwork followers of Jesus. The author believes that reading fragmentively produces fragmented lives in the followers of Jesus. Reading Scripture as a story is the antidote to foundationalism and fragmentation. Kingdom theology is the glue for the reader that holds the story together. This book is an invitation to read Scripture with both eyes open.
God’s EPIC Adventure
ISBN 0979907608
412 Pages
Foreword by Leonard Sweet …[This] book is an invitation to the party of your life.
Afterword by Brian McLaren …a solid and inspiring presentation of the Biblical storyline.
Book Summary
You sit down to read the text of Scripture. When you look at it on the page, it looks like some kind of a strange technical manual with all those large and small numbers that break up the text. Because Scripture is presented this way, readers have learned to read and memorize those small fragments and that has led to fragmented lives amongst the flock of the followers of Jesus. We have become versified mutts, suffering from what Dr. Winn Griffin calls versitis. What is the antidote to this serious, potentially deadly problem? Learning to Read and Live in God’s Story.
God’s EPIC Adventure provides the reader with a basic background of how we find ourselves in our present position of reading Scripture in such a fragmentized way. In God’s EPIC Adventure, Dr. Griffin uses Bishop Tom Wright’s five-act-play model as a way of presenting Scripture as a full-length Story in order to assist the reader in a better reading experience of Scripture’s text. Thinking and reading Scripture as Story can result in a follower of Jesus learning the art of living in the Story that Scripture presents, rather than applying fragmented parts of it and becoming a theological quilt. Dr. Griffin presents the gluing themes of Covenant in the Old Testament and Kingdom of God in the New Testament as two ways of saying the same thing, namely that God has invaded this present evil age with his rule.
In the Prologue, he helps the reader discover how we ended up in this theological fix of reading Scripture in such a fragmented way. Then, he presents the Story in a chronological storyline from Genesis to Revelation. In the last section of this book, he presents a way of thinking about how we as actors in God’s Story can use our imagination and improvise our part in God’s EPIC Adventure. Dr. Griffin keys God’s EPIC Adventure to the New Bible Dictionary and The Books of The Bible so that the reader can get more information about the text and can read the text without all the human additives that have been placed in the text that hinder its reading. Readers will find ways to use this book that they have never thought of before!
Author Profile
Winn Griffin is President of Seeing the Bible Live Ministries, Woodinville, WA. He received a B.A., a M.A., a D.Min., and a second D.Min. from George Fox University. The first three degrees are in Biblical Studies, the latter one is in Leadership in the Emerging Culture. He teaches at Bakke Graduate University, Seattle, WA, and is Academic Dean of Missio Dei Learning Community, Monroe, WA. He and his wife, Donna Faith, live in Woodinville, WA, and have two adult children, Jason and Jeramie Joy. They participate with Vineyard Community Church, Shoreline, WA.
