Someone recently asked me why we use 15 pictures to tell the story of the Bible. The simple answer – we use 15 pictures to tell the story of the Bible because it took 15 pictures to tell the whole story of the Bible.
We could have told the bottom line story of God and man with only four pictures, similar to the Four Spiritual Laws tract that was popular back in the ‘70s. But we couldn’t tell the entire story of the Bible in less than fifteen.
See our related post: Bible StoryBoards Could Have Told the Story of the Bible with Just 4 Pictures
Our goal was to help people know and share the story of the whole Bible – from Genesis to Revelation. We want them to see how all the parts of the Bible fit together. We needed 15 pictures to do that since there are fifteen distinct eras in biblical history recorded in the Bible.
These are the pictures we settled on, which each represent an era in biblical history, which ended up totaling fifteen.
Each one tells a significant part of the story of the Bible (from left to right, top to bottom):
- Beginnings – God created people and a perfect world so we could walk in love with Him and each other…
- Sin – Mankind chose to go their own way instead of God’s…
- Chosen People – Through Abraham and his family line a descendant would come who would bless the world…
- Moses – God rescued His people out of Egypt…
- Wandering – Those who refused to trust God and follow Him died while wandering in the desert…
- Promised Land – The surviving generation did what God said and He gave them the land for their home…
- Judges – God sent people to rescue the Children of Israel over and over throughout years of faith and failure…
- Kings – Most of their kings led God’s people away from God, so He sent prophets to plead with His rebellious children to love God and follow His ways…
- Consequences – When God’s warnings were ignored, He allowed His children to suffer the consequences as they were taken into exile.
- Return – Eventually God brought His people back to the Promised Land.
- Waiting – Years of silence followed as God made final preparations for Jesus’ coming.
- Jesus – The promised Messiah was sent by God to die for our sins so we can walk with Him again, forever.
- Holy Spirit – A part of God Himself came to live within Jesus’ disciples, and all those who believed. He gave them the power to obey Jesus’ command to go into the world and make disciples.
- Making Disciples – The letters in the New Testament were written to help people come to Christ and become like Christ. This era continues to this day!
- New Beginnings – When Jesus returns one day in the future, life will be like God meant for it to be, forever!
That’s the story of the Bible in 15 eras, in 15 pictures. If you work with each one of these pictures and the storyline that goes with them, you’ll be able to understand what the Bible is all about and how it all fits together into one main story. And you’ll be prepared to share that story with others, so they can be changed by it, forever.
You can read the complete storyline in our Bible StoryBoards book. You can buy it now by clicking on the picture below.