Seeing the big picture
To help people understand the narrative of the Bible, Andrew created a large visual aid, which maps out the key turning points in the Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation. (Photo courtesy of Biblical Turning Points)
Although Andrew Bawden, founder and author of Biblical Turning Points, grew up in a Christian home with parents who fervently read the Bible every morning, he did not share their passion for most of his teenage years. At the age of 19, however, his new spiritual mentor set some rules that changed Andrew’s attitude permanently.
‘He said, “If you’d like me to mentor you, we’re going to read two chapters of the Bible a day and we’re going to set the reading for two weeks at a time,”’ Andrew recalls. ‘He also said if anyone hasn’t done it, we’re going to go back and read it again. That task seemed impossible to me. But that year, the Bible came to life.’
From then on, Andrew’s passion to learn more about the Bible grew. Yet, despite studying the Scriptures in detail as a Bible college student, he still felt there were parts of the story missing. While delivering an impromptu explanation of the Bible to some teenagers at a youth camp, Andrew realised, ‘This is such a good story to tell’.
‘I decided I had to find a way of telling the Bible’s story in a short space of time so people wouldn’t have to study for a whole year to understand it,’ says Andrew.
As a member of Melbourne’s Syndal Baptist Church, Andrew partnered with the leadership team to run a Bible walk-through course for the congregation in 2005. This course evolved into ‘The Bible—The Big Picture’: a school curriculum at Waverley Christian College, where Andrew teaches biblical studies, and a well-informed course for churches.
Today, more than 30 schools in Victoria, Western Australia and Queensland teach ‘The Bible—The Big Picture’, as well as another of Andrew’s curriculums, ‘The Kings and Prophets of Israel’*. Andrew has also taught several live courses in churches across Melbourne.
‘The Bible is a great big narrative that is grand and powerful,’ says David Tolputt, state director/CEO, Scripture Union Victoria, a partner with Biblical Turning Points. ‘If you lose track of that, it’s much harder to read the Bible. If you think about the time of Jesus, there’s a lot of presumption that the people of Jesus’ day knew the stories of the Old Testament. Andrew has created a learning framework that helps make the whole story understandable.
‘If the Bible is taught like dry, dusty history,’ he continues, ‘it won’t bite anybody’s life. It’s when the Bible is opened up as being powerful to today’s issues and the narrative speaks for itself, that you have a sense of identifying God at work throughout the whole story.’
A wider reach
‘The Bible—The Big Picture’, which is typically taught over eight weeks, includes topics from creation, through to God’s covenant with Israel, the life of Jesus and the new creation. For the past few years, it has been available only as a school curriculum and live course, but as David—who has run a few sessions—says, ‘We wanted the course to be available to more people’.
Thanks to a partnership with the Bible Society, ‘The Bible—The Big Picture’ was released on DVD earlier this year. Although the live course is still available, churches and small groups across Australia, especially those in rural locations, can now engage with the teachings.
To make it accessible to all Christian denominations, Andrew deliberately uses the Bible’s language, rather than adopting any particular theological standpoint.
‘“The Bible—The Big Picture” is not a narrative told as if it has no meaning, but it goes into biblical theology, which I think is important,’ David says. ‘For example, when you open up the story of creation, you learn that God created the world and that human’s have a particular place in it.’
‘We’ve also tried to shape the course around the average person in the church,’ says Andrew. ‘It would be better not to run it than have people think, “I could never understand this”.
‘Our aim for the program is to empower people to read the Bible,’ Andrew goes on. ‘People actually want to like the Bible and Bible study should be transformational. One of our catch phrases is “Allow God’s story to transform yours”. We also say, “We’ve got the best story to tell, we need to tell it well” because we don’t want to “kill” the story or cut out the bits that are in there for a reason.’
‘If you are trying to make sense of a broken world and you’ve been taught that the Bible is all sweetness and everything is about love and joy, it’s hard for people to bring their faith to play into those deep and dark questions of life,’ adds David.
As a Salvo from Brimbank City Corps (Vic.), David recognises the importance of God’s mission for The Salvation Army being shaped by God’s Word. And yet, research from a National Church Life Survey suggests that only 19% of believers read their Bible daily.
‘The Salvos were born as a people of the Word. That’s our heritage; we’re an evangelical Christian movement,’ David says. ‘God’s Word is the base on which the church knows its life and calling in the world. Apart from the concern that people can’t grow in their faith without the Word, it’s dangerous to have God’s people not reading God’s Word. My heart is to see The Salvation Army engaged with the Bible. I have a hunger to see young people not just passionate for activism, but passionate for the root that keeps them grounded in that activism.’
With a strong passion for people to truly understand the Scriptures, Andrew is willing to speak with anyone needing assistance in running the course in their area of ministry.
‘We just want people to love their Bible,’ he says, speaking of the partnerships formed with Scripture Union, the Bible Society, Syndal Baptist Church and other church pastors. ‘We all want to see a revival in Bible teaching.'
For more information, or to order a copy of the DVD and course book for ‘The Bible—The Big Picture’, visit biblicalturningpoints.com.au
Coming Soon... ‘The Kings and Prophets of Israel’ church course and DVD
Story by Julia Hosking, used courtesy of On Fire magazine.
*‘The Kings and Prophets of Israel’ was the first course Andrew ran at Syndal Baptist Church and is currently taught as a school curriculum. An epic, 14-session course that targets one of the most complicated periods of the Bible, Biblical Turning Points plans to offer ‘The Kings and Prophets of Israel’ to churches and release the teachings on DVD in the near future.
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