Best-selling children’s author Marty Machowski’s beautifully illustrated storybook captivates young readers with the heart of the gospel. In this easy-to-read children’s book, families are invited to see Jesus clearly in the people, places, and events of the Old and New Testaments.
The Gospel Story Bible points to Jesus, helping families and kids identify Christ as the hero of every story. While it’s easy to forget Jesus in the midst of frantic schedules, family squabbles, and conflicting priorities, Machowski reminds families of God’s plan of salvation in Christ, which is continually on display throughout the Bible.
This gospel-driven resource orients the minds of children toward the wondrous works of God, encouraging them to see Jesus in a larger context of redemptive history. As a treasure for both parents and young children, The Gospel Story Bible traces the gospel through the Bible with clarity and traction for all ages.
As you share these engaging Bible stories together, you and your family will meet Jesus and learn a new, life-changing way of growing in intimacy with him. Vibrant illustrations, child-friendly discussion questions, and Scripture references accompany each narrative to help you lead in effective family Bible study.
You will be delighted to discover how easily even a young child can understand the original text of a story he or she has already come to love. Ideal as a storybook for your preschooler, a devotional for your grade school student, a refresher for the adult believer, or an introduction for the new one.
The Gospel Story Bible is a companion resource to the Gospel Story Curriculum, Long Story Short, Old Story New, the Old Testament Gospel Story for Kids Coloring Book, and the New Testament Gospel Story for Kids Coloring Book. Each bible story corresponds to a lesson in the Gospel Story Curriculum, a coloring page in the coloring books, and a week of devotions in Long Story Short and Old Story New.
AUTHOR
Marty Machowski is a Family Life Pastor at Covenant Fellowship Church in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania, where he has served on the pastoral staff for over thirty years. He is the author of The Gospel Story Bible, Long Story Short, Old Story New, the Gospel Story Curriculum, the Prepare Him Room advent devotional and curriculum, Wise Up family devotional and curriculum, Listen Up family devotional and curriculum, Dragon Seed, and The Ology. He and his wife Lois have six children and two grandchildren, and they reside in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
"I could speak at length about how much I recommend Marty Machowski's books to churches—and indeed I do, along with books from a long list of other authors. But Marty's resources for families and children also appear on a far shorter list that places them in a more significant category for me—they are books that I actually use in my home. Again, Marty has provided us with a God-centered, Scripture-grounded, gospel-driven resource that orients the minds of children toward the wondrous works of God."
Timothy Paul Jones, PhD, Associate Professor of Family Ministry, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; editor of The Journal of Family Ministry
"Marty Machowski gets the gospel and knows how to transfer it to kids in a way that delights the soul and engages the mind. The Gospel Story Bible is a treasure for parents of young children. But it's not just for children, Marty traces the gospel through the Bible with crystal clarity and traction for all ages. Few pastors I know are this skilled in making the glories of Scripture so accessible in narrative form. It's a must-buy."
Dave Harvey, DMin, author of When Sinners Say "I Do" and Rescuing Ambition
"Machowksi does a great job of keeping the essential details of the stories intact while keeping the language accessible. This is no easy feat. Many storybook Bibles tend to be a bit too complicated or a tad too over-simplified. Machowski strikes the right balance between accuracy and age-appropriate comprehension, and for this I’m grateful. This is perhaps most noticeable when touching on a serious topic like God’s wrath and judgment. This is something you don’t see in a lot of storybook Bibles, even pretty decent ones like The Jesus Storybook Bible. Machowski doesn’t shy away from the hard truths of Scripture, but there are no scare tactics. He speaks plainly and appropriately, always returning to the hope found in the gospel. Perhaps the greatest feature of this storybook Bible is its versatility. It can be used for bedtime stories for the little ones, dinnertime discussion with the older kids, and as a basic primer for the parents in telling the story of Jesus in a way that kids will understand. Of all the storybook Bibles we have, I’d say The Gospel Story Bible is the best. The stories are concise and faithful to the Scriptures, the artwork is engaging, and the discussion questions are extremely helpful. I’d encourage any parent to get a copy of this book to share with their children."
Aaron Armstrong, Author, blogger at BloggingTheologically.com
"If you want your children to grow up loving the Bible, then introduce them to The Gospel Story Bible. Here you have a simple, readable, understandable, and engaging account of 156 of the most powerful stories in the Bible. Every story is of manageable size, and even the most energetic child will be able to remain attentive for an entire story. In fact, you may be pleasantly surprised that your children will want to hear more than one story. The most important feature of the book is that Pastor Machowski sees the gospel in every story! Listen to how his book opens: "God's gospel story starts at the very beginning!" I assure you that it doesn't end there. The gospel permeates every chapter of this book. I highly recommend it."
Nancy E. Ganz, Author of Herein Is Love: A Commentary Series for Children
"Reaching the generations with the gospel requires an enormous amount of parental wisdom and intentionality. Marty Machowski has provided a great tool to aid parents in their primary task of discipling their children. Not only that but The Gospel Story Bible presents the grand story line of Christ in all of Scripture. Every parent should have a copy."
Randy Stinson, Dean, School of Church Ministries, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; Former President, The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
"With hints of Marc Chagall, Marty provides more than the requisite 1,000 words with his depictions of biblical stories. The accompanying questions provide a great starting point for discussion with children of all ages, while the illustrations evoke even more stimulating thoughts for reflecting on the story of God's people. See the story again for the first time!"
Dr. Phil Schroeder, Church Consultant - Associate Director of Connectional Ministries, North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church
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This Bible would be best for upper elementary children and up. One of the great things about this retelling is that it includes 156 stories Ð 78 from the Old Testament, and 78 from the New Testament, and each is directly tied to GodÕs character and GodÕs plan to send Jesus for our salvation. Each story fits on one page, which unfortunately means there is only one picture for each story. There are discussion questions at the end of each story that would help a family devotion time, and there are even family devotions designed to go with this Bible in a pair of companion books (Long Story Short and Old Story New). The writing is less poetic and more informative in nature, but definitely trustworthy and enlightening.
I was looking for a Bible for my seven year old that had more detail and more stories than her Beginners Bible (my favorite Bible for preschoolers) or her Jesus Storybook Bible (beautifully written,but a definite lack of stories). And I'm so pleased with the Gospel Story Bible. Yes,the illustrations are a bit more odd than I am accostomed to,but the richness and depth of the material more than makes up for it. I LOVE that word for word Scripture is spinkled on every page. I love the DETAIL of the narrative and all the important questions that are being asked by my second grader. Every story has a final paragraph that ties into the New Testament and Jesus,often with a verse from Paul. Although much of this is lost on my child,I know it is important for her to hear and that it will eventually become more clear to her. I highly recommend this Bible as that final,important stepping stone from the world of Children's Bibles to the first,whole Bible that you give your preteen.
If you love the true Gospel message that it is Jesus and only Jesus that makes us right with God, as opposed to good behavior (which is an understandable but heretic message communicated implicitly or explicitly by far too much of children's Christian literature), this is the story bible for you! We LOVED the Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones, but after a few years, our kids practically have it memorized. And as our older kids have gotten even older, it became boring to them. The Gospel Story Bible is like the next step up, more advanced in reading level, many more stories from scripture, discussion questions, and similar to the Jesus Storybook Bible, interesting and different artwork, rather than the usual cartoonish and saccharine illustrations you commonly find. Each story also includes how it relates or points to Jesus, which helps us all (adults included) understand the Bible as one story about God's great love for us, expressed through Jesus's life, death, and resurrection. We find this the most usable of the story bibles we have encountered for Advent, Christmas, and Easter readings, as the stories are more in-depth and less condensed. I would say the only "bad" thing I can say is that because each story is simply two facing pages, and therefore only one picture, and no page turns, it doesn't hold younger kids' interest well. Break out the Jesus Storybook Bible for that.
The book content is wonderful, but I'm really disappointed in the quality of the book itself. The pages started falling out after very little use and the little that we have used it has been gently done. Other friends with the same book have had no problems with theirs. I was hoping that Amazon would honor their product by allowing an exchange, but I don't see a way to do an exchange. Anyone know if this is possible?
I'm very excited about this book. It was recommended to me by some trusted friends, and I am confident that it is worth everything, including the shipping I paid to have it sent to me in France. I only wish it had a permanent ribbon bookmark in it. Regular bookmarks fall out of the pages when children are permitted to look at the book and magnet bookmarks tend to cause the book to tear. Other than that, thank you Mr. Machowski for your labor over this book, and for your desire help parents to teach their children the gospel from early on. This book is invaluable!
Our church has started using these books for Sunday School. I have a 4yo and a 6yo and teach the 4yo class at church. The idea is that all grades use the same text, which sounds nice, but its very hard to keep little kids attention. Each story has just one picture and a big block of text. I find I have to come up with a lot of other ideas to get them to pay attention during the story. The Jesus Storybook Bible is much better for preschoolers. My 6yo is not too into the book, but if it were just him he'd probably be fine. I would probably use for 6 and up.
My daughter is finally reading the bible. She is 16 and mentally and developmentally delayed. (7 in her mind) SO this is a wonderful bible for young children and those who seem young for their age. I think I like it too.
While I have not read through this entire bible with our children, I did read through some crucial stories to see if the content was accurate to the Scriptures. So far, so good. Of course, no children's bible being in condensed form can hold a candle to the full of God's written word. I'm excited about the content and questions to enhance discussion. The reason I give it four stars is because I'm really not a fan of the extravagant artwork. It's too showy and not realistic at all. It could have been done in the same colors, but with realistic pictures....abstract art does not at all portray an accurate scene.
My husband is a non-denominational pastor and started reading the ESV Bible to our baby girl the night she was born. Needless to say, he was not a fan of the basic baby books of Bible stories that we received as gifts. I wanted something that would engage her a little more with more manageable lengths of stories though so bought this after reading many positive reviews. So far, we've made it through the Genesis stories (about 10 stories) with our 4 month old and my husband and I have only had to skip one story due to disagreement with interpretation of the scripture. I count that as a huge success compared to the other theologically weak Bible story books on the market that we were skipping 90% of the stories. I also really am impressed at how seamlessly this book ends every story with the Gospel message; that's something I have a hard time doing on my own with adults so having this as a resource with the Gospel stories written in words kids can understand is worth so much to me. Obviously, I don't expect my 4 month old baby to understand the stories yet but the stories are short enough that she stays interested by listening to us read and looking at the pictures and I definitely can see us reading this with her for many years to come. So minus the occasional scripture disagreement (something that occurs pretty much every time the Bible gets condensed or translated, and something we will teach our daughter to discern anyway), this is an excellent addition to any child's library.
Started off reading story book Bible to him at <1 yr old, then Jesus Story Book Bible, which he loved (read it to him ~10 times), and now we're on our second read through this one. He loves it, but not as much as the Jesus Story Book Bible. I think he'll really start to dig this one over the next year or 2 once his attention span grows, as each section is a bit longer and a bit more complexity added to each story (definitely, however, this one is very biblically sound with great summaries at the end of each section). I recommend, highly for 5+ yr olds.
