If you've been in the kids's section of any Christian bookstore, you've seen them. If you've ever worked in the Church nursery, you've probably picked one up from time to time. And if you're a parent of a young child, chances are you own one or more of them. Yes, Childrens' Bible Storybooks are everywhere these days. They seem to a huge hit with all Christians. In fact they are so ubiquitous, it's shocking that Jon Acuff didn't include them in his bestselling book, Stuff Christians Like.
But as much as Christian parents and nursery workers love these Bible Storybooks, most of them have an inherent flaw - they treat the events of the Bible like every other storybook. Many reduce the various pericopes of the Bible (particularly the Old Testament) down to little more than a Christian version of Aesop's Fables - a collection of various parables, each of which can be boiled down to a terrific little morality lesson for the growing child.
The problem of course becomes worse as these children move into adolescence and then into adulthood still believing that the events of the Bible should be viewed as tales of morality instead of what they really are - episodes in the grand story of redemptive history. And that's what our new Sermon Series at Cleveland Road Baptist Church is all about - showing how these storybook narratives of the Old Testament all point forward to one culminating event in the Coming of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of the World.
So we invite you to come to Cleveland Road, or listen in on the internet as we seek to understand how talking serpents, tall towers, angry brothers, loud trumpets, strong men, and weak kings all point us to the reality that Jesus Christ bore the guilt and shame for sinners like you and I. And hopefully the Bible will open up to you like a child reading an amazing story for the first time. I promise, it will be worth the journey!
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Here's links to each of the sermons. I will try to add more as the sermons are preached each week. So if you are interested, you can bookmark this page and check back regularly:
The Scriptures Speak of Me - An Introduction to the Adult Bible Storybook Series
The Power, Perfection, and Priority of God in Creation
The Fall of Man and the Rise of Christ
Cain, Abel, and Faith in Christ
