Talking Points:

• The Bible begins with God taking the chaos of the uncreated universe and bringing about the order and beauty of life in the Garden of Eden. As his crowning achievement, God created humanity, who are made in his image, and gave them the privilege of ruling over the rest of God’s creation. Genesis 1:26
• A serpent tempts Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Good and Evil, the one thing God told them not to do. Sin enters the world separating Adam and Eve from God. Genesis 3:1-13
• From Abraham comes the nation of Israel. God gave Abraham three promises: land, descendants and a future blessing who was Jesus. Genesis 12:1-9
• The New testament tells the story of Jesus’ earthly ministry, his death and resurrection and how the early church began. 

Talking Points:

• In the Bible, understanding literary genres or literary styles is key to interpreting what you’re reading. You’ll miss out on a lot, or even draw incorrect conclusions if you treat a poem like a narrative or vice versa!
• Narrative makes up half the Bible, and this makes sense because it is the most common form of communication. By assembling these seemingly random events into a sequence, we are able to see the meaning and purpose of the events and realize that they aren’t random at all.
• Poetry/wisdom literature in the Bible falls into three main categories: poems/songs (Psalms, Song of Solomon), wisdom (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job), and prophetic (Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other Hebrew prophets). All of these sub-genres have different tones and goals.
• These are speeches, letters, or essays that form an argument requiring a logical response from the audience. This literature is found in the Law of Moses (“torah”), the wisdom literature, and the letters written by the Apostles, like Peter, Paul, and John.

Talking Points:

• One important facet of ancient Jewish literature is that it lacks many of the details modern English-speakers expect when they read. The Bible is not always attempting to answer the types of questions we are asking.
• The Bible is not a book to be read in one sitting, but a book to be read and reread over a lifetime: meditation literature.
• Psalm 1 describes the “ideal Bible readers” as someone who meditates upon the scripture day and night. In Hebrew, the word for “meditate,” (הָגָה, “hagah”) means to “mutter” or “speak quietly.” This holds the idea of slowly, quietly reading the Bible aloud to yourself and talking about it with likeminded people. Psalm 1:1-6

Talking Points:

• The basic elements of narratives (stories) are characters, settings, and events. Biblical narratives are about people doing things in places. How the events are selected and arranged by the author of the narrative is called the “plot.”
• Scenes must be understood in the context of the larger plot. A story can seem to have a very different point if you don’t know what is happening, when, and why in a narrative – and this happens all the time when people read the Bible. Judges 6:1-16, 36-39
• Gideon doesn’t trust God, and that’s the plot conflict of the beginning of his story. If anything, this story is a cautionary tale about how we should not test God, not a formula for ways to test God. Judges 7:1-20

Talking Points:

• Good stories have relatable characters with relatable struggles. This is important because stories are reflections of our own struggles. We see parts of ourselves in stories and characters, and the message a story conveys can have a profound impact on how we come away from the story.
• Biblical narratives develop characters differently than modern English narratives. For example, biblical narratives don’t often describe the physical appearance of biblical characters, but when they do, it’s crucial.
• Biblical narratives often refrain from providing moral commentary, telling us that one thing is right or another is wrong. Instead, the actions of the characters speak for themselves.
• Often the characters, even the ones we usually say are “good,” do bad things. They are a mixed bag of moral successes and failures, of faithfulness to God and faltering. King David is called a man after God’s own heart…yet he committed a murder. 2 Samuel 11:1-27, 1 Samuel 13:14