Individuals, small groups, Sunday school classes, pastors, college ministries, people intimidated by traditional Bible studies, etc.

No, but if you’re teaching through the book, it will certainly help, since it includes Teaching Guides, Discussion Questions for the group, charts, extra context, and connection information. Plus, it includes free downloads of printable materials. If you want to get the most out of it, grab the Digital Resource Pack. I put everything I had into it for anyone who wants to teach or lead a group.

I&I is a Bible study style book written with the Bible as a single narrative in mind. It breaks that story into sections covering the big-picture stories, with the human stories in focus. Each chapter gives the Narrative, Context, Interpretation, and Perspective. There are two versions: Study & Teaching.

Myth, fable, and Scripture are often unfairly reduced to their simplest definitions.

We commonly use myth to mean something false and fable to mean a made-up story with a lesson. Historically, however, stories like these have done much more. They preserve memory, communicate shared wisdom, explore questions about human life, and help communities understand who they are.

Scripture also comes to us through the world of story. Much of the Old Testament has roots in oral tradition—stories remembered, told, retold, preserved, and eventually written down.

That does not diminish Scripture. Recognizing the importance of story helps us pay attention to what the biblical writers were trying to communicate about God, humanity, creation, community, faith, and our relationship with one another.

The important question is not simply, “What kind of story is this?” but also, “What truth is this story trying to communicate?”

Story is one of the primary ways we understand ourselves.

Our stories include where we came from, what has happened to us, the people who have shaped us, the choices we have made, and the experiences that have changed us. Together, those things help us understand who we were, who we are, and who we are becoming.

Scripture works in much the same way. Across its larger narrative, we encounter the stories of individual people and communities trying to understand God, themselves, and the world around them.

Their lives are remarkably human. They experience success and failure, faith and doubt, joy and grief, obedience and rebellion, grace and redemption.

When we pay attention to their stories, we often begin to recognize parts of our own.

Scripture is not always simple, obvious, or easy to understand.

Some passages comfort us immediately. Others challenge us, confuse us, or even make us uncomfortable. Wrestling with those texts is not a failure of faith. It can be an important part of growing in faith.

Serious engagement with Scripture asks us to slow down, ask questions, examine context, consider different perspectives, and resist settling for an easy answer simply because it is familiar.

Sometimes that process really does feel like a wrestling match.

But wrestling with Scripture allows us to move beyond simply reading the words toward understanding what they may be asking of us. We may not always walk away with every question answered, but we often walk away changed.

We begin by remembering that Scripture was not originally written to us.

The biblical writers lived in particular places, cultures, political systems, religious traditions, and moments in history. They wrote to people who understood things about their world that modern readers may not immediately recognize.

That does not mean Scripture has nothing to say to us today. It means responsible interpretation begins by asking what the text meant in its original setting before asking what it might mean for us.

We try to understand what the author was communicating to the original audience. Then we can look for the larger theological ideas, human experiences, and enduring truths within the text.

Application comes after interpretation.

When we begin there, we are less likely to force our own assumptions into the text and more likely to hear what the text is actually saying.

Absolutely.

The humanity of the people in Scripture is one of our strongest connections to them across time.

They are not simply heroes and villains arranged neatly into categories. They are complicated people. They make wise decisions and terrible ones. They act courageously and selfishly. They trust God and doubt God. They succeed, fail, hurt one another, receive grace, and sometimes begin again.

Their flaws, failures, fears, and hopes make them recognizable.

Seeing that humanity also helps us notice something important about God: God continually works through imperfect people.

That should give us both humility and hope. The biblical story is not filled with flawless people accomplishing extraordinary things. It is filled with human beings whose lives become part of God’s larger work despite their limitations.

No. Asking whether a passage is literal or figurative is only one part of interpretation.

Scripture contains many different kinds of writing: history, poetry, law, wisdom, prophecy, parable, genealogy, letters, songs, visions, and stories. We naturally read those forms differently.

For example, we do not read a poem in exactly the same way we read a legal document, and we do not read a parable as though it were a newspaper report.

Recognizing figurative, poetic, symbolic, or theological language does not make a text less meaningful. In many cases, understanding how the writer is communicating helps us appreciate the text more deeply.

The goal is not to force every passage into either a “literal” or “nonliteral” category. The better questions are: What kind of writing is this? What is the author doing? What did the original audience hear? And what truth is the text communicating?

Context helps us understand what a biblical writer was trying to communicate.

Every passage comes from a particular world. Geography, culture, politics, religion, language, social customs, and historical events can all shape the meaning of a text.

Without that context, it is easy to read our own assumptions into Scripture.

Learning what was happening in the world of the text gives us a better chance of hearing the passage the way its original audience may have heard it.

Context does not answer every question, but it gives us essential information for interpreting Scripture responsibly.

Before asking, “What does this mean to me?” it is worth asking, “What did this mean there?”

The word agenda can sound a little sinister, but that is not how I am using it.

Whenever someone writes something, they have a reason for writing it.

Even something as ordinary as a grocery list has an agenda: it exists to help you remember what you need at the store.

Biblical writers also wrote with purpose. They selected stories, arranged material, emphasized particular themes, addressed problems, preserved memories, encouraged communities, challenged assumptions, and communicated what they believed about God.

Often those purposes are not stated directly.

Part of interpretation is asking why a writer may have chosen to tell a story in a particular way, emphasize one detail instead of another, or place certain passages together.

Calling this an “agenda” simply means recognizing that biblical texts were written intentionally. Their authors were trying to communicate something.

All of us bring our own story with us when we read Scripture.

Our experiences, relationships, traditions, disappointments, hopes, beliefs, and assumptions influence what we notice in a text and how we understand it.

Becoming aware of our own story helps us recognize those influences rather than pretending we approach Scripture without them.

It also helps us connect with the people we encounter in the biblical story.

When we look carefully at our own lives, we can often recognize moments of change, uncertainty, grace, failure, hope, and growth. Sometimes we can even see ways God was working that we did not recognize at the time.

Knowing our own story helps us encounter Scripture not simply as information about people who lived long ago, but as the stories of human beings whose experiences can still speak into our own.