Bible stories
Each story is retold in plain words, set in its time and place, and read with the church’s teachers, from the early church to modern scholars. Every page ends with questions for discussion, a prayer, and a short retelling for children. Teachers will also find Sunday school lessons and children’s sermons.
Old Testament
Noah’s ark
God grieves over a world filled with violence and tells Noah, who walks with God, to build an ark for his family and the animals. The flood covers the earth, God remembers Noah and every creature in the ark, and the waters go down. Then God makes a covenant with every living creature and sets the rainbow in the clouds as a sign of the promise never to flood the earth again.
David and Goliath
For forty days the Philistine champion Goliath dares the army of Israel to send one man to fight him, and everyone is afraid. David, the youngest son of Jesse and a shepherd, comes to the camp with food for his brothers and trusts that the God who kept him safe from the lion and the bear will be with him again. He goes out with a sling and five smooth stones, the giant falls, and David tells everyone that the LORD saves without sword and spear.
Daniel in the lions’ den
Jealous officials trick King Darius into making a law that no one may pray to anyone but the king for thirty days. Daniel goes home and prays to God three times a day, as he always has, and he is thrown into a den of lions. In the morning the king finds him unharmed, because God sent an angel to shut the lions’ mouths.
Jonah and the big fish
God sends the prophet Jonah to Nineveh, but Jonah boards a ship going the other way, and in a great storm the sailors throw him into the sea, where a huge fish swallows him and he prays. Sent a second time, Jonah preaches in Nineveh, the whole city turns from its violence, and God shows mercy. Jonah is angry, and the book ends with God asking him to share God’s care for the people and animals of that great city.
New Testament
The wise men
Wise men from the east see a new star and travel to Jerusalem to look for a newborn king of the Jews. The star leads them on to Bethlehem, where they find the child Jesus with Mary, worship him, and give him gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Warned in a dream, they go home by another road.
John the Baptist
John the Baptist preached in the wilderness near the Jordan River, calling people to turn back to God and be baptized. He wore camel’s hair, ate locusts and wild honey, and told the crowds that someone greater was coming after him. In John’s Gospel he calls himself a witness to the light, and the light is Jesus.
The angel Gabriel visits Mary
The angel Gabriel comes to Mary, a young woman in the village of Nazareth who is engaged to Joseph, and tells her she will give birth to a son named Jesus, the Son of God. Mary asks how this can be, hears that nothing spoken by God is impossible, and says yes. The church calls this moment the Annunciation, from the Latin word for “announcement.”
Mary visits Elizabeth
After the angel’s visit, Mary hurries to the hill country of Judea to see her relative Elizabeth, who is expecting a baby in her old age. At Mary’s greeting Elizabeth’s baby leaps for joy, and Elizabeth blesses Mary and her child. Mary answers with a song, the Magnificat, praising a God who lifts up the lowly and fills the hungry with good things.
The Christmas story
Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem, where Mary gives birth to Jesus and lays him in a manger because there is no room for them in the guest room. Angels announce the birth to shepherds in the fields, and the shepherds hurry to see the child and tell everyone. Matthew adds Joseph’s dream and the name Immanuel, which means “God with us.”
Simeon and Anna
Forty days after Jesus is born, Mary and Joseph bring him to the temple in Jerusalem with an offering of two birds. Simeon, a devout man who has been promised that he will see the Messiah before he dies, takes the baby in his arms and praises God. Anna, a prophet of great age, gives thanks and tells everyone who is waiting for God’s help about the child.
The parable of the prodigal son
A younger son takes his inheritance, wastes it in a far country, and comes home hoping to be hired as a servant. His father runs to meet him, restores him as a son, and throws a feast, then goes out to plead with the angry older brother. Jesus told the story to show the joy of God over everyone who comes home.
Jesus heals ten lepers
Ten men with leprosy call to Jesus from a distance, and he sends them to show themselves to the priests. All ten are healed on the way, and one of them, a Samaritan, turns back to praise God and thank Jesus. Jesus tells him, “Your faith has healed you.”
Zacchaeus
Zacchaeus, a rich chief tax collector in Jericho, is too short to see Jesus over the crowd, so he runs ahead and climbs a sycamore tree. Jesus stops, calls him by name, and invites himself to his house while the crowd grumbles. Zacchaeus welcomes him with joy and gives half of his goods to the poor, and Jesus says that salvation has come to his house.