The New Edition of The Bible Course by Bible Society was launched on 19 May 2025. It consists of eight videos (available for free), a beautifully illustrated Guidebook (£9.99), and loads of resources on the Digital Hub (also available for free). Videos are accessed via the Digital Hub, or the first two are available on YouTube.
I haven’t tried it in a group setting yet, but my impression of the videos and the book is that they are exceptionally good.
Here’s the introductory video:
The back cover of the book explains something of the purpose of the course:
Explore God’s big story one step at a time
Using a unique Storyline, The Bible Course illustrates how all the books, characters and events in the Bible are part of God’s big story, from Genesis to Revelation.
As Bible introductions go, I would say it strikes a healthy balance between paying attention to the Bible’s unity and the Bible’s diversity. It helps people to encounter the Bible in all its rich variety, explaining the different kinds of literature we find in the Bible, and how the Bible speaks into our lives in all sorts of ways. But it also seeks to trace the ‘big story’ from creation to new creation, centred on Jesus Christ. Reading the Bible well always involved zooming out and zooming in – trying to see the big picture, while also paying attention to the details – and this course helps people to do both.
The Bible Course is written and presented by Dr Andrew Ollerton, ‘a theologian, pastor, author and presenter who makes complex ideas simple and relevant’.
This has been my first encounter with The Bible Course, but it is a tried and tested resource going back well over a decade. The ‘New Edition’ is actually the fourth edition. I don’t know when the first edition was released, but the second edition dates from 2013, originally as a set of DVDs with a printed manual, with the videos made available online in 2014. The partnership with Bible Society began in 2015, who republished the manual in 2016, and the third edition was released in 2018.
The course could be completed simply by watching the videos alone, but it is ‘best experienced with others’ (p. 7), and the sessions include Bible studies and questions for group discussion (with a dedicated host area on the hub). There is also a Daily Bible Plan, with readings that help set the scene for the next session.
The eight sessions cover the Bible’s story in chronological order, but with different biblical themes also highlighted in each session, as is clear from the session titles:
- Introducing the Bible
- Genesis: The Story Begins
- Exodus: The Story of Freedom
- Kings: The Story of Power
- Exile: The Story of Loss
- Jesus: The Story of Rescue
- Acts: The Story of Mission
- Revelation: The Story Completed
We are planning on running The Bible Course in my churches as our Lent course this year, with six sessions during Lent and two after the Easter break. I’ve been perhaps overly excited to find that it fits in very well with the readings in the Church of England’s Sunday lectionary for this year (Year A), especially the Old Testament readings from Lent 2 to Lent 5, providing the opportunity to make connections between Sunday sermons and the course sessions, while still following the lectionary:
- 2 before Lent: Genesis 1:1 – 2:3 (creation-themed Sunday)
- 1 before Lent: Exodus 24:12-end (transfiguration)
- Lent 1: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
- Session 1: Introducing the Bible
- Lent 2: Genesis 12:1-4a
- Session 2: Genesis: The Story Begins
- Lent 3: Exodus 17:1-7
- Session 3: Exodus: The Story of Freedom
- Lent 4: 1 Samuel 16:1-13
- Session 4: Kings: The Story of Power
- Lent 5: Ezekiel 37:1-14
- Session 5: Exile: The Story of Loss
- Palm Sunday: Matthew 26:14 – 27:66
- Session 6: Jesus: The Story of Rescue
- Sundays after Easter: Acts
- Session 7: Acts: The Story of Mission
- Session 8: Revelation: The Story Completed