S1 E1 - The world began with words!

When God made the world and all that is in it, he spoke.

When God stretched out the heavens to distances beyond our knowing, he spoke. When he slung the stars and planets into the night sky, he did it with words. The world began with words. “And God said…” led to the seas teaming with life and great herds roaming the plains. God is a God of words, the God of the Bible is a God who speaks. He has a voice that causes a children to be born and forests to shed their leaves. We can look through telescopes and microscopes and join with King David in the 29th Psalm as he says, “The voice of YHWH is powerful. The voice of YHWH is majestic…”

God speaks. He has a voice, and he uses His to do wonderful things.

But God doesn’t just say “Let there be…,” he is a story-teller, a master story-teller. His words are alive and active and they take the shape of a Grand Narrative that sweeps across human history and pries open the inner chambers of the human heart. By his word the great Story-Teller brings life and light into his spoken world!

My name is Kenneth Padgett and this is The Story of God Podcast, presented by Wolfbane Books.

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In Psalm 78 we read that the wondrous deeds of God have been passed down from previous generations. And the people of God declare: “We will not hide them from children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of YHWH, and his might, and the wonders that he has done.”

The great story, the true story of the whole world, that God began “in the beginning” is still playing out to this day. This podcast is designed to be a resource for those seeking to understand this God-breathed Story. And this first episode is designed encouraging you in your efforts to pass that story on to the next generation.

But before we get into God’s grand story, I’d like to tell you a little bit of the story that led to this podcast.

In seminary, years ago, I met a fellow named Shay Gregorie. We live near each other, and started hanging out a good bit. We’d have long discussions about the Bible, theology, and the great stories that had shaped us and were shaping our families. It didn’t take long before we developed a lasting friendship around formational storytelling.

We’re both in the thick of family life, and that means that we’re also in the thick of discipleship. We both do morning Bible time and evening read-alouds with our families on most days. But a challenge we were facing at the time, and maybe you’re facing right now, was allowing our children to experience the story of the Bible in one sitting. And I don’t mean a sort of bullet point retelling of creation/fall/redemption, but a rich and compelling summary of the story of the Bible that actually has a coherent and easily accessible vision of who God is and what he’s up to. There’s this great truism floating around that goes something like this: If you want a child to know the truth, tell them the truth, but if you want a child to love the truth then tell them a story. We needed a resource that would allow us to hear and see God’s story unfold in a way that cultivated biblical literacy in our home while also nurturing a love for God in our hearts.

Now we seem to be living in the golden age of storybook bibles. There are really great storybook bibles out there, and we have used them and still use them in our homes, but even those retellings of the biblical story take a good while to get through. The advantage of hearing the story in one sitting is that it allows a family to orient themselves around the biblical story. It gives everyone a common framework and language for understanding God’s great story.

Here’s something to think about.

Think about your favorite stories or story. Could you give a compelling synopsis of that story in one sitting? Could you get someone excited about the book or movie in just a few minutes. I think you probably could, I feel like I hear people do it all the time. I could retell the story of Star Wars, The Wingfeather Saga, The Green Ember, or The Hobbit with no problems. I love those stories and they’ve had a profound impact on me. What about you, I bet you could do the same with some of your favorite stories. But can you do that with the biblical story? Maybe there’s a little hesitation because you don’t know what to leave out, or what exactly to add? Of course Jesus, right? But what about that long part before the book of Matthew? What about the end of the story? It can be intimidating. But the value of being able to retell the story of the Bible to your children, grandchildren, and neighbors, or even yourself is immeasurable.

So, a few years ago Shay and I set out to retell the Story of God in one sitting. How would we do it? What do we add and what do we leave out? A good answer to these questions had actually already been proposed in the world of biblical scholarship. You see, in seminary and in my doctoral studies we were introduced to what is called Biblical Theology. Now bear with me while we nerd out for just a moment. Biblical Theology is kind of an unfortunate name because it sounds a little vague, it doesn’t merely mean theology that is biblical or theology that is true. But Biblical Theology is a good phrase to know. Practically speaking, Biblical Theology is the act tracing a theological theme through the story of the whole Bible. I mentioned earlier that we were living in the golden age of storybook bibles, well we’re also experiencing an explosion of accessible resources in Biblical Theology. If you’re familiar with BibleProject, Biblical Theology is what they’re doing in every one of their theme videos. Notice that each one starts in Genesis and ends in Revelation. InterVarsity Press has a series of books called Essential Studies in Biblical Theology, likewise, Crossway has a series of small books called Short Studies in Biblical Theology, and each book traces a theological theme from Genesis to Revelation, so every time you read a book that’s doing Biblical Theology (or watching a BibleProject theme video) you are running over the story of the Bible while staying focused on one theological theme. This is a very helpful way to learn about who God is through the Story he is telling in the Bible.

While all of these new resources in Biblical Theology were coming out for adults, it was, and still is, hard to find BT resources for children and families. So, this is what Shay and I set out to do. And in the fall of 2021 we released a large picture book, designed specifically for family discipleship, called The Story of God with Us.

This first season of the Story of God podcast will follow the flow of that book, scene by scene, exploring the foundational theological thread that is woven through Scripture from beginning to end, from Creation to New Creation, from the Garden of God in the opening chapters of Genesis to the Holy City of God at the end of the book of Revelation. And that foundational theological reality is God’s unrelenting desire to be with his people. The heart of the story, the central assumption that holds the narrative of the Bible together, is that God has made a people for himself, and he wants to dwell in their midst as an everlasting source of life and light.

In every act, on every page, in every moment, God is seeing to it that his people will dwell in his presence. This was God’s goal in creation, it’s the purpose of the tabernacle and temple in the Old Testament, it is the very mission of Jesus, Emmanuel, God with Us, and it’s the gloriously satisfying end of the story in the final chapters of the Bible. The Psalmist says that in the presence of God is the fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore.

I’m inviting you to listen to season one of the Story of God podcast with wide eyes and hopeful hearts as we gaze out on the vista of the biblical story and identify some of it’s most majestic and soaring peeks.

May your heart be filled with joy and may your affections for him multiply as we explore God’s good goal for of all creation: That he would dwell with us, and we with him, always and forever world without end!

This episode of The Story of God podcast was presented by Wolfbane Books. Please visit us at wolfbanebooks.com or on social media at Wolfbane Books.