A well-liked retelling of the Bible in comedian guide type simply hit a serious milestone, promoting greater than three million copies within the United States.
“The Action Bible,” first launched in 2010, continues to dominate Amazon bookselling charts, remaining within the prime 100 amongst all books.
Brock Eastman, senior director of The Action Bible model at David C. Cook, stated he believes the undertaking’s success is rooted in its distinctive strategy to bringing the Gospel to younger and rising generations.
“What strikes people that read ‘The Action Bible’ is just the beautiful, full action-packed [presentation] and our illustrations that really bring the story to life,” he stated. “And we like to think about … bringing the Bible to life in a different way.”
Eastman continued, “For this generation, specifically, who is involved with graphic novels, this Bible appeals to them because they like that kind of, ‘Oh, I can see the images of the story moving,’ and there’s a narrative, like a paraphrase narrative of the Bible story that’s easy to understand and sounds like a conversation.”
This all creates what Eastman known as an “inviting” expertise that permits younger individuals to totally immerse themselves on this Bible model, together with 230 tales from Scripture and extends to 830 pages.
The roots for “The Action Bible” have been set within the Nineteen Seventies with a previous undertaking referred to as “The Picture Bible.” With younger individuals diving into the comedian guide world — and with new methods of evangelizing rising — “The Action Bible” was seen as an progressive device to construct upon successes with “The Picture Bible” and ship timeless fact to a brand new era.
As a dad of 4 youngsters himself, Eastman stated, “The Action Bible” does two essential issues: it seizes upon the curiosity of youths in graphic novels whereas additionally delivering hope to youths who desperately want it.
Many of the favored graphic novels and comics of the day merely don’t supply “hope,” he stated.
“Those stories don’t provide the hope and the beautiful story that God does and the redemptive story … of the plan of bringing Jesus and our salvation,” Eastman stated. “And, so, the Bible does that.”
This is particularly essential proper now, as younger individuals in Generation Alpha — these born between 2010 and 2024 — lately handled the COVID-19 pandemic and different struggles. Hopelessness, for some, has been a results of the chaos, with Eastman believing “The Action Bible” holds energy and sway to assist ease a few of this ache.
“Something like ‘The Action Bible’ that has these graphics that the kids … are drawn to, telling this narrative of this beautiful story of redemption, of hope, of stories and the characters in the Bible that are just like them — people who struggled with things, who had fear but overcame it with courage because they were empowered by God,” he stated. “These fantastic stories that kids are connecting to. They’re like, ‘I see myself in that story and I can be that.’”
“The Action Bible” has fastidiously labored to make sure it retains “true to what God’s word is.”
“There’s a lot of careful effort put into not only the language and the words, but also the imagery that took those pages and basically … brought them to life,” Eastman stated.
The influence of “The Action Bible” has been plain, with the undertaking being translated into 108 languages across the globe. While the guide has bought 3 million copies within the U.S., the worldwide quantity is “much larger.”
“In the last four years alone, we’ve sold 1.1 million action Bibles around the world,” Eastman stated, explaining that is along with the three million bought in America.
Ultimately, Eastman stated the mission of “The Action Bible” — to deliver Jesus’ story to the plenty — is being acknowledged, with tales of the undertaking’s influence persevering with to succeed in his workforce.
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“This is meant to be an evangelism tool because that’s our goal,” Eastman stated. “‘The Action Bible’ is a significant tool, and it’s for parents, it’s for churches, it’s for all to get that to a young person and say, ‘Hey, the Bible is pretty interesting. There’s some really awesome stories in here.’”
He stated youngsters all around the world are being impacted by the Bible. For occasion, a 6-year-old from Nairobi, Kenya, wrote in to say “The Action Bible” has “nice pictures and stories.”
The youngster continued, “I like it because it is from God and teaches us good manners, and has taught me to forgive others. It has taught me to love other people.”
Eastman stated this is only one of a whole bunch of influence statements from younger individuals. He hopes “The Action Bible” serves as an introduction to youngsters — and that they go deeper with different extra full types of Scripture.
“We always tell kids, ‘Hey, your next step is: you graduate to one of these study Bibles … you get a study Bible and you go into God’s word as a whole,’” he stated.
”The Action Bible” and extra assets will be discovered right here.
