FAMILY GUIDE
Engage
What is the biggest jigsaw puzzle you have ever completed? Do you look at a picture of the finished puzzle when you put it together? Why or why not?
Explore
Give each family member a copy of The Story of New Humanity and read the following:
The Bible is a story that is full of echoes of the Story of God, Humanity, and Creation.
When we illustrated Genesis 1-5, we explored how if the Bible was a movie, it would have several different theme songs. These theme songs echo through the ups and downs of the Bible’s big story. Then, all of these theme songs come together in the Story of Jesus.
But the story doesn’t end there. Instead, Jesus invites us into the story. He invites us to recognize we are in a wild place. He invites us to follow him through the waters. He blesses us. He welcomes us into his covenant relationship with the Father. Then, he gives us his Spirit so that our bodies can be part of God’s temple – so that we can carry God’s presence. Jesus’s body is the new Garden where heaven meets earth – and our bodies get to be part of that soil.
Did you catch that? Jesus finally ends our exile from the Garden of Eden. Except Jesus invites us to a new and better Garden.
The Bible calls this “New Creation”. It starts with Jesus slowly transforming each one of us, so that we become more like him. We become a “New Humanity.” But it doesn’t end with us. As we carry God’s presence, the Spirit makes it possible for us to join Jesus in his mission to renew earth as God’s kingdom comes “on earth as it is in heaven.”
And yet, we talk about this New Creation being “already but not yet.” It’s like someone has given us a new puzzle, but it’s really, really big. We have the picture of what it’s going to looks like. We’ve connected enough puzzle pieces that we can recognize parts of the picture coming together. But our table is a mess. We have the pieces but the picture isn’t complete yet.
Our world is still a very wild place. And this wild place is full of choices. Like the humans in the Garden of Eden, we continue to decide if we’ll live by God’s desires or our own. But through the Spirit, God uses these opportunities to make us more and more like Jesus.
The really cool thing about New Humans is that our lives don’t end with death. Just like Jesus came back to life, he’ll bring us back to life, too.
The Bible points to when Jesus will finish renewing creation. He’ll finish the job God gave humanity in the Garden. He’ll tame all of the wild places of earth with the life of heaven. We’re watching a video on the New Humanity this week. It all leads up to how “The ending is a new beginning, with Jesus and the new humanity ruling in a united Heaven and Earth together.”
Practice
- Jesus lived out the Bible’s story. One way we practice the way of Jesus is by learning to find ourselves in the Bible’s story as Jesus did.
- This week’s worksheet is a storyboard of the Story of New Humanity. Remember that Jesus changed the ending to the Story of God, Humanity and Creation. This storyboard helps us see how Jesus invites us into that new story – the one with the changed ending.
- Guide your family in illustrating each box (see notes below).
- If you are compiling a Bible Binder, this page goes in the How to Read the Bible section.
Notes for each box:
Wild Places
- In the Story of God, Humanity, and Creation, we saw God invite Human and Life (Adam and Eve) to partner with Him in expanding the Garden of Eden to bless all creation. However, Humanity decide to rule according to our own wisdom instead of God’s. This led to a life outside the Garden. However, it looks forward to the New Human who will bring us back into God’s Garden.
- Every story in the Bible shows generations of humans all making this same decision. Humanity is caught in a cycle, and so earth is a very wild place. Instead of subduing the earth like God wants, humans make earth a wilder and wilder place.
- This all changes when Jesus changes the ending. He is the New Human, and he invites humanity back into the Garden.
Through the Waters
- John the Baptist came before Jesus to invite people to experience what we often call “a new exodus”. When he baptizes them, it’s a way of inviting them to identify with Noah, Abraham, Moses, and the Israelites in following God to a new garden-land.
- John also points to how Jesus will baptize us with the Holy Spirit. It’s the Holy Spirit who transforms us into new humans, like Jesus.
- Jesus asked John to baptize him and told his disciples to keep baptizing people. When we follow Jesus in the waters of baptism, we identify with Noah, Abraham, Moses, and the Israelites, too. It’s a way of saying we want Jesus to rescue us from the wild place.
Blessing
- The Bible is full of stories of Jesus blessing people. To bless someone is to give them a glimpse of what life in the Garden is like. It’s a way of giving people hope.
Covenant
- Remember that a covenant is a special type of partnership. From the very beginning God wanted to partner with Humanity to bless all of earth with the life of the Garden of Eden. We’ve seen how God kept inviting people into covenant partnerships for the purpose of blessing “all the families of the earth” and the earth itself.
- Jesus invited his followers into a New Covenant. He gave them wine and told his followers it was his life. It is Jesus’ life in us that lets us be partners in God’s plan to bless the earth. We get to renew this covenant whenever we take communion.
Garden
- The Garden of Eden was a place where heaven and earth overlapped and God was completely at home. Then the tabernacle and temple were designed to remind everyone of the Garden of Eden. So we can also think of the Garden of Eden as God’s first temple on earth.
- When Jesus called himself the temple, he was saying something huge. God’s Spirit lived in his body just like God had lived in the Garden, the tabernacle, and the temple.
- Genesis 1 and 2 also make a close connection between human bodies and the earth. Humans are living, breathing patches of earth that have the special job of being God’s image. This makes Jesus’ body the place where heaven and earth overlap. The entire story comes together in Jesus. He is the new Garden.
- When Jesus said we can live in him and that he will live in us, we can picture ourselves entered the Garden of Eden and breathing in God’s Spirit. When we “enter” Jesus, we get to join him in partnering with God to bless the entire earth.
Testing
- All of the stories we have explored feature a choice, or a test, even after God has brought them into a new Garden.
- Even though we think being a New Human should be easy, we still live in a wild world, and we still experience tests. However, Peter (one of Jesus’ disciples) wrote that we continue to be tested, just like fire tests gold to bring the impurities out.
Reveal
- Peter continues that this testing helps us become more like Jesus and helps us show the world that Jesus is King.
Promise
- The best part of the Garden, tabernacle, and temple is that God’s presence was there. This is what God has wanted from the very beginning: to be present with us. God wants to live with us. And this is exactly what Jesus assured us of when he ascended to heaven. He promised that even though we couldn’t see him, he is still with us. While we wait for his physical body to return, we get to live in his presence through the Holy Spirit.
New Creation
- The Bible ends with a vision of what life will be back when Jesus returns. It reminds us that Jesus is renewing the earth and invites us to imagine a Garden City that looks like a giant Garden of Eden that fills the earth.
- The last book of the Bible isn’t the only place that gives us pictures of what the New Creation will look like. Prophets like Isaiah and Ezekiel also describe a world full of God’s presence and peace.
Note: The boxes for each scene are well-suited for Instagram stories and reels. We’d love to see your students’ illustrations! If you’d like to share them, use the hashtag #onestorybible. You can find us on Instagram at @onestory.bible.
Keep Exploring the Story
Choose the path that’s the best fit for your family:
The Story of New Humanity is part of our Story of the Week series. Each week, we’ll zoom into one section of the storyline and email resources to help you explore this story with your family. You can also follow along with our Story of the Week journey on facebook and Instagram. Sign up to the receive the Story of the Week below.
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Next Story: The Story of Jonah and the Sailors (Coming Soon)
