Max Lucado and Randy Frazee - two of today's most read and most respected Christian writers. What an awesome combination to team up on a book!
The Story comes in a thick hardback with a simple white cover and the words, THE STORY in bold at top, and a crown with a shadow of a crown of thorns under it. It presents a look of a novel.
Lucado and Frazee and a novel?
The drool of excitement and anticipation of a potential good read hit you, right?
Then you notice that Zondervan published it and then you read the small print above and under "The Story."
At top it reads, "Selections from the New International Version."
Another man's version of the Bible? You groan. How many ways can someone interpret God's word - when it was only meant to be interpreted one way - His way.
But knowing Lucado and Frazee, you study the cover once again.
Under the book title, and you are cautious of calling it a book, it reads, "The Bible As One Continuing Story of God and His People."
Well, duh. Isn't that what the Bible is anyway.
Curiosity leads you to open it, and pretty soon, you are engrossed in story after continuing story in easy to read format - a continuing saga, if you dare.
There is no paraphrasing, no fiction here, and you are thirsty for more - even more so than when you read a John Grisham and a Nicholas Sparks novel.
But wait, it is the Bible - the oldest book, the book most of us take for granted. It is what it is.
Here though, Lucado, Frazee and Zondervan took God's commandment to reaching and teaching (Go and tell, Jesus said.), and meeting the masses at their level, their "street."
There are questions about each story in the back of the book - reminding one of a Book Club's guide, and each character is described in the back.
And God has to be smiling.
No word changing, no explanations, nothing, just the stories of His work and His people and His promises being told.
Check it out, you might be surprised.
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