The Epic Story of the Bible is meant to help them not only learn what they are missing but also help them to set out and complete that epic, beautiful, and rewarding trek. And I am convinced it will serve well in accomplishing that very purpose. I highly recommend reading it—and highly recommend buying a few extra copies to give away to others so they, too, can embark on a life-changing journey.

The Bible can be an intimidating book. I suppose any book of the Bible’s size can be intimidating merely by virtue of its page count. But then there’s also the claims people make about the Bible—that it’s a book that transforms lives, that it’s a book that reveals the mind of God himself, that it’s a book that is without error. And beyond that, there’s the nature of the Bible as a collection of writings that span centuries, peoples, cultures, and genres, not to mention the outsized importance of the Bible in shaping the Western world as we know it. For these reasons and many others, the Bible can intimidate people to such a degree that they read it without confidence or perhaps fail to read it at all.
It’s little wonder than that Christians have often written books meant to help introduce people to the practice of reading the Bible and to help them read it profitably and in its entirety. New among them is The Epic Story of the Bible: How to Read and Understand God’s Word by Greg Gilbert. Using his own trek to Mount Everest (base camp, not summit) as a backdrop and illustration, Gilbert says his book is meant to “give you a briefing about what you’re going to see, what you’re going to experience, what you should look for and look out for as you set off on the long trek of reading the entire Bible.”
The key to reading the Bible well, he says, “is to understand that all of those authors and books—all 1,189 chapters of them—are actually working together to tell one overarching, mind-blowing story about God’s action to save human beings from their high-handed rebellion against him, and from the effects and consequences of that rebellion.”
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Amillennials like myself have good reasons for great hope, a hope that fuels our passion in the daily hours. We aren’t defeatist, disengaged, and doleful. We smile in the light of Christ’s glorious victory and look expectantly, with the rest of Christendom, to his second coming.

Defeatist. Disengaged. Doleful. That’s a caricature of what theologians call amillennials.[1] But amillennials, I argue, actually have a wonderful hope to treasure. This isn’t an article meant to argue for a position. It’s meant to correct a misunderstanding out there and encourage the global church to rally around its one true passion: the return (whenever it may come) of Jesus Christ our Lord.
The Big Three
Without getting into great detail or exegetical intricacies, there are three common positions on the end times (eschatology).[2] Premillennials believe that Christ is going to return before (pre) a one thousand year period (or at least a long period of time; Rev. 20:6) in which we rule with him before the final judgment. Postmillennials believe that Christ will come after (post) a thousand year period, during which the church will grow in prominence and influence in the world. Amillennials believe that we’re currently in the end times right now, and that we’ll continue suffering with Christ until he comes again at the end of time for the final judgment.[3] Given that summary, it seems clear why the amillennial caricature emerged. Christ isn’t coming back to reign? Defeatist. We aren’t called to take over and influence culture, bringing heaven on earth? Disengaged. We aren’t waiting for an imminent return of Jesus so that we can reign with him? Doleful. Amillennials can seem stiff, joyless, and removed.
Reasons for Hope
But that isn’t the case. At least, it shouldn’t be the case for amillennials who know the good news of Scripture. Here are a few reasons why our hope should be blindingly bright. I’ll be drawing on the thought of Richard B. Gaffin Jr. And then I’ll end with something every Christian should be able to celebrate, despite our theological differences. Such celebration is critical in our times, when the unity of the church is needed to stand against the ravages of a hostile world.
Jesus Won and He Rules Now
We believe that Jesus’s victory over sin and Satan wasn’t provisional; it was definitive. The resurrection life that crowned his head when it emerged from the shadows of the tomb still shines. And it will shine until he comes again in glory. As Gaffin put it, “The entire period between his exaltation and return, not just some segment toward the close, is the period of Christ’s eschatological kingship, exercised undiminished throughout.”[4] Jesus won, and he rules. Smile. Nothing can threaten your King. You and I are now beacons of Christ’s reigning light. As the poet Malcolm Guite wrote,
We ourselves become his clouds of witnessAnd sing the waning darkness into light;His light in us, and ours in him concealed,Which all creation waits to see revealed.[5]
We Are Victors
If Christ began his reign in the resurrection, and our life is hidden with Christ on high (Col. 3:3), then we are victors with him. Regardless of how we may feel, we are victorious in Christ. Today. Right now. My father used to keep an old Joe Namath quote on the inside flap of his Bible: “When you win, nothing hurts.” Of course, that’s demonstrably untrue, but you have to smile at the sentiment. Eternal victory burns beyond earthly sorrow. If your eyes are fixed on Christ, they’re fixed on your Captain and King, and his victory over death should take your breath away.
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Every time you tell me about the great Russian painting, I will tell you about the peaceful Ukrainians shot in the back in the Makariv district. And before they could shoot, the orcs tied their hands. About hundreds of corpses on the streets of Bucha, Irpen, Gostomel. About mass graves in the yards of residential neighborhoods. Until recently, the mass graves of civilians were cozy and safe cities. Mass graves. In the 21st century. Here is what I will tell you in return about the great Russian painting.

Dear heartbroken Europeans and other connoisseurs of great Russian culture !!! (including Ukrainians), today I watch photos and videos from liberated cities and villages of Kyiv region all day. My native Kyiv region. And here’s what I want to tell you:
Every time you talk about the great Russian ballet, I will tell you the story of a young teacher from Brovary who was repeatedly raped in front of her parents and then kidnapped by Russian villains. About dozens, maybe hundreds of raped Ukrainian women. Often in the eyes of children. About 15-16-year-old girls from Borodyanka who suffered terrible violence from the Kadyrovites. About the bodies of five raped young girls who were killed and left on the road. About this abomination “we will spend * hohlushek” in interceptions. Here is what I will tell you in return about the great Russian ballet.
Every time you tell me about great Russian composers, I will tell you the story of a girl in front of whom and her little brother in the basement of Mariupol, their mother died more than once. And then with the corpse of a dead mother, the children were forced to continue to hide in the basement from the shelling. About a boy from Gostomel, in front of whom Russian soldiers shot his father. And then they wanted to kill their son, but he survived. About a girl who was shot directly in the face. About a kid who ran away with his grandmother in a boat. Grandma drowned. And the boy has been wanted for almost a month. Here’s what I’ll tell you in return about the great Russian composers.
Every time you tell me about the great Russian painting, I will tell you about the peaceful Ukrainians shot in the back in the Makariv district. And before they could shoot, the orcs tied their hands. About hundreds of corpses on the streets of Bucha, Irpen, Gostomel. About mass graves in the yards of residential neighborhoods. Until recently, the mass graves of civilians were cozy and safe cities. Mass graves. In the 21st century. Here is what I will tell you in return about the great Russian painting.
Every time you tell me about the great Russian theater, I will tell you the story of a woman from the Brovary district, from whose house Russian marauders retreated and removed metal tiles. About tanks and armored personnel carriers of the “Second Army of the World,” loaded to the brim with robbers in Ukrainian homes. Stolen phones, tablets, TVs, washing machines, carpets, jewelry, bottles of alcohol, pans, clothes, toys, shoes – everything that happened to these freaks. When they got to Belarus, they sent their loot to Russia in advance. About how they stole stolen goods in Belarusian bazaars. Here is what I will tell you in response about the great Russian theater.
Every time you tell me about the great Russian cinema, I will tell you about the brutally shot horses in the stables in Kyiv region. About the animals of the zoo in Yasnogorodka, frozen by hunger and thirst. About deer skin burned after the explosion. And now the maximum savagery… About the alabai killed and eaten by the Russian occupiers. Yes, alabai. Yes, dogs. Yes, eaten. Here is what I will tell you in response about the great Russian cinema.
Every time you tell me about the great Russian literature, I will tell you about dozens of interceptions of conversations of Russian soldiers with their mothers and wives. Conversations in which there is nothing but naya. Conversations in which wives order them to steal in Ukrainian homes. Conversations where mothers laugh when their sons tell how their cousins rape hohlushek. And if all mothers are thrown out of these conversations, they will be left with “hello” and “while.” Here is what I will tell you in response about the great Russian literature.
There is no longer any great Russian culture, literature, cinema, painting, theater and ballet. There is a country of freaks, marauders, rapists and murderers. Wild people who have no place in the civilized world!
And long-suffering new Russian dissidents in the cozy apartments of Berlin, London, Larnaca, Milan, Tbilisi, Astana, Vienna and other temporary shelters, let them follow the route of the Russian ship, proudly carrying in their hands the great Russian culture!
From a Ukrainian Woman on Facebook