Chronological Bible Storying - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Chronological Bible Storying (CBS) is a method of orally communicating portions of the Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

by telling its stories

Storytelling

Storytelling is the conveying of events in words, images and sounds, often by improvisation or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation and in order to instill moral values...

aloud to listeners in chronological order.
For people who are illiterate, or members of pre-literate societies, CBS presents the Bible as oral literature

Oral literature

Oral literature corresponds in the sphere of the spoken word to literature as literature operates in the domain of the written word. It thus forms a generally more fundamental component of culture, but operates in many ways as one might expect literature to do...

in a narrative

Narrative

A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...

format in an attempt to make it easier to understand and remember.

The stories are presented in what is regarded as Biblical chronological order in an attempt to allow the listener to connect the stories together to form one frame of reference regarding the Bible

Bible

rather than just a series of unrelated stories.

CBS has its roots in Chronological Bible Teaching (CBT), which involves telling Biblical stories intermixed with teaching about the themes, significance, and message of the story. This form was popularized by Trevor McIlwain and used extensively by New Tribes Mission

New Tribes Mission

New Tribes Mission is an international, theologically evangelical Christian mission organization based in Sanford, Florida, United States. NTM has approximately 3,300 missionaries in more than 20 nations, second only to Wycliffe Bible Translators/SIL International David Hesselgrave, Executive...

since the 1970s. McIlwain's influence on John R. Cross led him to write "The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus", which presented the Bible in a chronological format. CBT proponentes argue that the Bible and biblical theology is best understood when one studies the content beginning in Genesis, studying stories, events, and themes in the order and context in which they took place.CBT is closely related to Biblical Theology

Biblical Theology

Biblical theology is a discipline within Christian theology which studies the Bible from the perspective of understanding the progressive history of God revealing Himself to humanity following the Fall and throughout the Old Testament and New Testament...

, and is often encouraged as an alternative, or complement to Systematic Theology

Systematic theology

In the context of Christianity, systematic theology is a discipline of Christian theology that attempts to formulate an orderly, rational, and coherent account of the Christian faith and beliefs...

.

CBS is unlike CBT in that it explicitly avoids mixing the stories with teaching. Instead CBS seeks to present Biblical stories as directly as from scripture as possible with minimal explanation

Explanation

An explanation is a set of statements constructed to describe a set of facts which clarifies the causes, context, and consequencesof those facts....

. Theological

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

truths are better understood in oral cultures within the concrete example of a story rather than abstract principles present in literate teaching styles.

CBS attempts to present a comprehensive overview of the Bible that provides the necessary background pre-literate people with no previous exposure to the Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

need to understand Jesus Christ and the gospel

Gospel

A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...

. CBS is often used for evangelization

Evangelization

Evangelization is that process in the Christian religion which seeks to spread the Gospel and the knowledge of the Gospel throughout the world. It can be defined as so:-The birth of Christian evangelization:...

, disciple

Disciple (Christianity)

In Christianity, the disciples were the students of Jesus during his ministry. While Jesus attracted a large following, the term disciple is commonly used to refer specifically to "the Twelve", an inner circle of men whose number perhaps represented the twelve tribes of Israel...

ship, and church planting

Church planting

Church planting is a process that results in a new Christian church being established. It should be distinguished from church development, where a new service, new worship centre or fresh expression is created that is integrated into an already established congregation...

as a way to establish an organized church within illiterate cultures , generally with the long term goal of promoting literacy and translating The Bible

Bible

into a language the group can be taught to read.

[This article may be biased in its presentation]

External links

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