The Divine Narrative

A narrative is a story, and the Divine Narrative is God’s story, told from beginning to end as one cohesive account. If you search the internet for an engaging Divine Narrative that tells the whole story of God chronologically without cutting or changing important people and events, you won’t find one. iBIBLE is filling in that gap.

Why is the Divine Narrative important?

Today, in missions, we often hear the term “orality.” It is the speaking of God’s Word in story format. It has been stated that orality has become more and more popular and effective in missions since the 1980s. In fact, it is only in the last few centuries that the printed Word became more popular than the spoken Word because of the invention of the printing press. This trend toward oral teaching is really a return to the original method of ministry.

Reading, studying, hearing, and repeating God’s Word has been the system of propagating truth and evangelism for centuries. When Jesus told His disciples (as recorded in Mark 16), “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to all creation,” what Gospel was He speaking about? He wasn’t speaking about the Gospels in the New Testament, as they had not been written yet. He was instructing them to teach all that they had seen and heard, and to obey the commandments Jesus had given them. He was instructing them—and us—to use orality.

While the average Christian family may have five or more Bibles on their bookshelf at home, much of the world still does not have access to the Bible in their language. It is also well-accepted among mission leaders that more than 50% of the unreached world cannot read, and a great majority would have extreme difficulty comprehending a print Bible even if they owned one.

RevelationMedia’s iBIBLE project is designed to provide God’s Divine Narrative to the world orally and visually, especially to those who cannot read the Bible for themselves.

What does it mean that iBIBLE is “chronological”? 

If you have read much of the Bible, you are probably aware that it is not always presented in chronological order. Sometimes this is obvious, and other times it can be less clear. The goal of iBIBLE is to reveal the one narrative of Scripture from Genesis to the final Revelation. 

For example, when we read the four Gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we see that they each cover the life of Christ in their own way. Each writer, while telling the same story, included different events or details about the same events of Jesus’s life. As we create iBIBLE based on the Biblical Narrative, instead of presenting the narrative of each Gospel separately, we will combine the four Gospel accounts to reveal the events of Jesus’ life in chronological order.

However, sometimes passages of Scripture are less obviously out of chronological order, like chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis. In chapter 1, God created mankind in His image. He created them male and female, and then instructed them to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:27–28, ESV). Then, in chapter 2, God created Adam out of the dust of the earth, placed him in the garden, and brought all of the animals to Adam so that he could give each animal a name. Toward the end of chapter 2, God removed a rib from Adam and created Eve.

When assembling a comprehensive Biblical Narrative, chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis have to be intertwined because they are not in chronological order. Chapter 1 gives an outline of what happened in creation, while chapter 2 fills in the details.

Placing the events of the Biblical Narrative in chronological order has its challenges. However, it is an important goal because it helps the viewer understand events in Scripture much easier and gives greater depth to the story.

When we combine all the details revealed to us in Scripture, the events come to life in animation like never before. Before there were printing presses and computers, the Word of God was often passed down from generation to generation through storytelling. 

What a beautiful picture. Imagine a father telling his children the story of the Bible, complete with all the details and full of adventure! Today, we recapture that same spirit by creating a visual and animated narrative of the entire Word of God and by using every possible detail to present the Bible as one cohesive story!

What's our role in the Divine Narrative?

Too often, we look for ways to bring God’s Word into our lives rather than bringing our lives into alignment with God’s Word. Do we look to God to play a role in our story, or do we seek to play a role in His plan to preach the Good News to all His creation?

The Bible is not a collection of teachings and instructions, but an amazing presentation of God’s plan for mankind—a plan He has invited us all to play a role in! All the riches in the world could not replace a single ounce of this reality.

We are so excited about iBIBLE. It is the world’s first visual presentation of God’s Divine Narrative, and it will reveal the entire story from Genesis to Revelation in animation, dramatic audio, and text. It will be available to translate into any language of the world and will be freely distributed. Through these methods, our goal for iBIBLE is to share God’s Word as a Divine Narrative with all the people to the world.