The Biggest Story
The Biggest Story: How the Snake Crusher Brings us Back to the Garden
Written by: Kevin DeYoung
Illustrated by: Don Clark
Seemed appropriate to do a book review of this book this week.
Holy week.
I’ve read this book several times now.
Twice by myself.
Two-and-a-half times with my buddy.
I’ll be honest and say I judged this book by its cover. I saw it on the shelf at the bookstore and new it had to come home with me. The illustrations on the cover were magnificently rich and intricate. Upon a quick flip through the pages, it was clear that the same detail was poured into every page of the book.
Every time I read the book I notice something else about the illustrations—its like it’s full of Easter eggs, just waiting for you to see and find them all. This intricacy is a mirror of how the Bible is for us adults—every time we read a story there’s another nugget of wisdom for us to glean, another Easter egg to be found.
This isn’t a children’s Bible. I am in no way suggesting you take this book and replace your child’s Bible with it. I will say that I find it to be incredibly well done, and does a great job hitting the major points of the story of how Christ came to save us—or how He brings us back to the Garden. It’s abbreviated enough that you can see the whole picture in a shorter time span (it took me one sitting, but two with my buddy the first time).
I love it clearly points to the coming of Christ with the Old Testament stories. And how the New Testament stories recall the incidents of the Old Testament. It ties it all together so well—which is not to say that the Bible doesn’t do this, it absolutely does. I’m more commenting on our method of delivering the stories to our kids… sometimes we compartmentalize everything so much that it’s hard to see the common thread it all. But this book does an excellent job following the thread with the story and the illustrations.
When I read it with my buddy we got to chapter 8, and there’s a page that reads,
“But the biggest surprise to everyone was that the Chosen One to God was chosen by God to die.
It just didn’t seem right that the One destined to crush the Serpent would be crushed himself. So when Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the living God, died on the cross that Friday afternoon, it seemed a shocking evil beyond belief.
And it was. The worst thing that’s ever happened in the world.”
He paused where he was coloring and gasped. (He usually draws and colors while I read to him.) He said, “Miss Schuett, that’s really sad. Why would they do that?”
I could barely contain myself, I could see the wheels in his head turning, could see the seeds being planted. I said, “Just wait, there’s hope.”
So we turned the page and read,
“But it was also the best thing that’s ever happened in the world. Just as we would expect from God. And just as God planned it.
We break promises, so God keeps his.
We run from God, so he comes to us.
We suffer for sin, so the Savior suffers for us.”
And the quiet that settled over my buddy made my heart pound in my chest until he gave a quick nod, like he understood and he asked me to keep going.
So I kept reading until we got to the end of book. And the promise of what’s coming got him excited—and it got me excited too.
If nothing else, it’s a great supplemental read and it’s beautiful.
So beautiful in so many ways.
