01.05.2025 / Volker Glissmann and Ruth Guinness
TEEnet is pleased to announce the publication of our first commissioned TEE course: The Story of God and His World: Understanding the Bible’s Great Story. The course is a six-week/six-lesson overview course of the meta-narrative of the Bible. The course is written in the tradition of a survey course but with a focus on both the telling of the grand narrative as well as the key themes that weave in and out of the biblical stories to form the grand narrative of Creation – Rebellion – God’s Promise – Christ – God’s Mission and New Creation.
The course is a foundational course, helpful for further Bible study, and valuable as a refresher for those who have done previous study or an introduction for newer Christians. Anyone who wants to see the big picture of the Bible and understand their part in it will benefit. Accessibility of theological learning for everyone-everywhere is one of the design features. The course was written in accessible English, expressing key theological ideas clearly and without theological jargon, which helps with clarity for all learners. It is written at a relatively low level but has also been tested with people with degree backgrounds who have found it helpful. The course is designed for six meetings of 1 ½ hours each, with home study by all participants of approximately 1 – 2 hours per week. Individual groups are encouraged to agree on arrangements that work for their context.
The course was commissioned to respond to the theological necessity for those who handle the Word of God to fully understand and engage with the overarching narrative of the Bible from Creation to New Creation, as the Christian hope is anchored in the promises of God to restore all imperfect relationships on earth. To understand the Christian faith, knowing how God will ultimately restore all relationships is essential. All God’s people strive when they have a clear (and memorable) understanding of why they are created, what their call is, how they participate in God’s mission. Ultimately, they need to know how the Christian story ends when Christ returns to establish his kingdom again on earth by defeating everything that opposes his reign. The course and the course title pay tribute to the overarching biblical theme of the earth being created for God’s glory and human flourishing. At the end of time, God’s presence on earth will be restored in the coming of the new Jerusalem, where God’s presence dwells with humanity again. Understanding this overarching narrative helps everyone who handles the Word of God to live faithfully within the story.
The course aims to show an overarching narrative to help Christians see how the Bible is one story, God’s story. The course shows how God works in his story, how the story develops, and how key ideas/themes reoccur at key junctions of the story but also adapt to the changing story until the story concludes in its grand finale. The story also shows how the people of God fit into God’s story. It has been said by the rabbis that “God so loved the world that he gave us stories.” The Bible (including Jesus in the Gospels) is full of stories. So, it is not surprising that biblical authors continuously engaged with the key elements of God’s story and tell a compelling story of how God engages with the World. God is a storyteller and chooses to use a grand narrative to tell His story as humans relate naturally to stories and learn the depth of God’s revelation in that way.
The course is part of TEEnet’s vision to make TEE courses and learning material available without restrictions to allow access and the use of courses where they are needed to build up the church. The course is a classical TEE course designed for individuals to study at home and then discuss in a group meeting. However, the course could also be used for group study in group meetings. The course is free and can be downloaded from teenet.org. So far the course only exists in English, but we hope it will be available in other languages so that many more can benefit from the course. Volunteers for translating the course are needed. A translation guide is available. The course is published under the “TEEnet contextualisable licence” that allows local contextualisation (for further information, see https://teenet.org/tee-courses/). If you would like to talk to one of the course writers about the above or to further discuss the course, please contact us at TEEnet directly ([email protected]).