Genesis, the first book of the Bible, is God’s great introduction.
In the beginning, there is nothing.
Then into the nothingness, God speaks, creating a universe that’s beautiful and good because He is beautiful and good. He fills His magnificent world with a myriad of life, and patterns one honored creation—people—after Himself. He crafts human beings, us, like Himself for a very remarkable reason—so that we can know Him & experience His love. connecting with God is seen in the very beginnning.
But God has a vile Enemy—Satan. This Enemy hates God and sets out to sabotage everything. Satan creeps into God’s perfect, innocent creation in the form of a serpent. Then, he introduces evil to the first man and woman—Adam and Eve. Deceived by Satan, Adam and Eve disobey God. Their sin has disastrous consequences. The fatal disease infects God’s masterpiece, and the deadly curse captures it, succumbing to Satan’s kingdom of darkness. But the worst thing is that they—and all of the generations of people who are born after them—lose their close connection to God.
But while Satan smears sin and destruction all over God’s masterpiece, he cannot ruin God’s love.
With great compassion and patience, God zealously begins the long journey to rescue us and draw us back to Himself.
Generations of people are born sick with sin, under the authority of an evil tyrant, enslaved to a curse of death in a world of sickness & pain. The world is in a sad, sad state and people are becoming more and more wicked. It breaks God’s heart. In His sorrow, God destroys everything on the earth with a flood. He then begins to fill the earth with people again through Noah, a man who walks with God. A few generations later, a group of people at Babel attempt to reach God through their own efforts. But the people God has created are helpless to save themselves and disown connecting with God.
Into this mess, God begins His great rescue plan, and He chooses to do it through a family. The God of the universe speaks to a man, Abraham, telling him that He will make his family into a great nation, He will give them a piece of land of their very own, and He will be their God. God informs Abraham that he will bless all of the people of the world through him. Abraham chooses to follow this God whom he barely knows, and after many years, God honors Abraham’s faith in Him & takes a step in fulfilling His promises. He gives the 100-year-old Abraham a son, Isaac, just like He promised.
God makes the same promises to Isaac, and to his son, Jacob. God will raise up a nation from their families, He will give them a home, & He will be their God. Jacob has 12 sons, including his favorite son, Joseph. Joseph’s jealous brothers sell him into slavery, but what his brothers intend for evil, God uses for good. After time as both a slave and a prisoner in Egypt, God elevates Joseph to second-in-command in Egypt and gives him insightful dreams predicting a coming famine. When the famine devastates the entire Middle East, Joseph is in a strategic position to provide not only for Egypt, but also for his estranged family. After a beautiful reunion, all of Joseph’s 11 brothers and their families—including his elderly father, Jacob—move to Egypt. God has protected and provided for His people, and they survive the famine.
Through the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, God begins to show His captive people who He is. Broken and living in a broken world, they’re unaware that they’ve lost their connecting with God—or that they’re even meant to connect with Him at all. And while God’s people are getting to know Him, He’s setting the stage for His masterful and very personal plan to rescue the world.
Genesis shows us who God is, where we came from, and why the world is the way it is. We are deeply broken, yet we are all deeply loved. Through this first book in our story, we find that the foundational plotline of human history is one that’s written in the aches & longings of our hearts. Life doesn’t feel quite right, yes, but that’s because we’re captive. And our God, who loves us deeply, is coming to set us free.
Read through the Bible in one year with us! Make 2024 the year you read all the way from Genesis through Revelation; from the Tree of Life in Eden created to the Tree of Life in Eden restored. Read all about how God created the world and everything in it, how humanity sinned and fell, and how He has worked to redeem us back to Himself through His Son, Jesus.
Reading through the Bible will help you grow in your faith, in your relationship with God, in your journey with Jesus. An intentional plan will help you get into the regular rhythm of meeting with God every day, studying His Word, hearing His voice, and drawing closer to Him.
As you meet with God and read your Bible each day, your life will change. You will begin to love as Jesus loves. You will begin to see others through His eyes. You will view this broken world in a new way. You will begin to walk closer with Him, and so much more.
Because the Bible changes everything.
And it’s never too late to start reading.
If your New Year’s resolution is to read through the Bible in 2023, we can help! We have Bible reading plans, the Daily Walk Podcast, the Daily Walk Bible, and others tools and resources to help you stay on track. Maybe you resolved to read through the Bible this year. Maybe you’ve gotten stuck. Maybe you’ve read stories that you don’t understand.
At Walk Thru the Bible, we can help.
The Daily Walk Devotional Podcast will help you listen through the Bible in one year. Each day’s episode features a devotional thought and a guided journey through that day’s reading of Scripture.
The Daily Walk Reading Plan is a free, Bible reading plan that will help you read through the entire Bible in one year.
The Chronological Reading Plan will take you through the Bible’s grand story, the big story, so that you follow the storyline chronologically. This way you won’t get stuck in certain sections. Instead, it helps you see the big picture and how the Bible fits together.
The Daily Walk Bible offers a simple daily reading plan and tools to help you complete the journey of reading through the Bible in one year. It’s a tool you will find many ways to use—and a tool that God can use in many ways in your life. Each day’s reading has an OVERVIEW that provides a bird’s-eye view of your Bible reading walk for the day; a MY DAILY WALK section that encourages you to think carefully about and apply one scriptural insight from the day’s reading; and an INSIGHTS section that offers interesting facts about the day’s passage to help build your Bible knowledge.
We even have a Facebook group you can join to build community as we walk through Scripture together!
Don’t feel discouraged if you fall behind in your reading plan. Remember, the beauty of reading the Bible is getting to know the Lover of your soul, hearing His voice, and learning His ways.
For what the law was powerless to do … God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. Romans 8:3
IN WORD Have you ever really pondered the meaning of Christmas? Was it just God’s attempt to give us a good example to show us the way to live? Was it simply the birth of a great teacher? Did that innocent little bundle of flesh and blood in the feeding trough really hold the answer for us all?
We can never fully understand the depths of all of God’s mysteries, but we can understand a lot. He has revealed His purposes to us, so we know why Jesus was sent to this broken planet. As much as our proud society hates the idea of an atoning sacrifice, Jesus was sent into this world to die. Like the cattle around Him, the baby of Bethlehem was born for slaughter. He bore the brunt of a fallen world so we could escape its tragic direction. He descended deep so we could ascend high. He gave us the way out of the horrible implications of our rebellion.
God demonstrated for centuries that the human condition could not be fixed by humans. It could not even be repaired by an external work of God. No, there had to be a sacrifice to pay the price; there had to be a person to live the life; and it had to be perfect on both counts. Only God could do that. He clothed Himself in flesh to die, He was raised to live, and He put His Spirit within us. He doesn’t just give us life; He is our life.
IN DEED Long ago, we were created in the image of God. We didn’t know exactly what that meant; the image shattered and we weren’t able to see clearly. But in Jesus, we now see the Spirit of God dwelling in the image of God, and we know: We were made for glory. The glory we see in Jesus is offered to us freely—in Him. The earthen vessels that once walked with God in the Garden are now filled with the very God who made them.
Christmas is our assurance: Jesus came in our likeness to die our death, and He came in God’s likeness to live our life. In Him, the image of God and the image of man meet. And now He lets them meet in us.
Read: Romans 8:1-4
“Christmas is the day that holds all time together.” – Fulton John Sheen
Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, … for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Matthew 19:14). Yet many kids around the world have never heard the Word of God; they don’t know God’s Story; they don’t know Jesus.
The need for children to hear, know, and experience the Word of God is great. Studies show that a majority of believers come to faith in Christ between the ages of 4 and 14 (known as the 4/14 window).
At Walk Thru the Bible, we are helping kids everywhere live God’s Word. As part of a God-given vision, Walk Thru the Bible has launched a global kids’ ministry to teach children the big picture of God’s Word and how they can find their true story in God’s grand story, the Bible. We will reach at least 1.5 million kids around the world this year with the hope and truth of God’s Word.
otLIVE for Kids, Johannesburg
We are working in Bangladesh, Kenya, Togo, Nigeria, Ukraine, Honduras, the Philippines, Mexico, the UK and the U.S., countries in South Asia, and more, to teach the big picture storyline of Scripture to children in various settings—public schools, Sunday schools, private schools, community outreach programs, urban feeding centers, orphanages, Bible clubs, dusty playgrounds, and more. We have huge opportunities and open doors to teach God’s Word in public schools!
It takes just 50 cents to reach and teach one child with the big picture story of God’s Word. On this Giving Tuesday, will you consider a gift of $50 to reach 100 kids, $100 to reach 200 kids, or an amount of your choosing to bring the hope and truth of God’s Word to children around the world? Many of the children in these regions live in areas of intense persecution or extreme poverty. Their parents may be of different faiths or no faith. They may have never heard the Word of God.
The need for children around the world to hear, know, and experience God’s Word is great.
God has opened many doors of opportunity for us to reach children in many nations—the opportunities and open doors we’ve seen to teach God’s Word in public schools alone will have a huge impact on the now generation. The children are taught by trained Walk Thru the Bible kids’ instructors, and in their own culture, context, and language.
otLIVE for Kids, Honduras
We want to give this generation of children the hope of the Word of God and a purpose for the future He has for them. Will you partner with Walk Thru the Bible to help us give the gift of God’s Word to children around the world?
“The Walk Thru the Bible live event helped the children open their eyes, to reflect on their own lives,” says Pastor Sammy in Huruma, Kenya. “I have a number of them here who have given their lives to Christ. Walk Thru the Bible has helped them to embrace the love of God,” he said.
otLIVE for Kids, Philippines
With the global launch of our Walk Thru the Bible kids’ ministry, we can reach 1.3 million children this year alone. It takes just 50 cents to reach one child with the big picture story of God’s Word. On this Giving Tuesday, will you consider a gift of $50 (reaches 100 kids), $100 (reaches 200 kids), or an amount of your choosing to bring the hope, the truth, the gift of God’s Word to children in places like Ukraine, Togo, Honduras, Nigeria, Manila, Malawi, Davao, the UK and U.S., and more, this year?
Together, we can plant seeds in the lives of children around the world who have never heard the Word of God. Together, we can reach this generation with the hope of Scripture. Together, we can impact God’s Kingdom for eternity.
On this Giving Tuesday, you can help kids everywhere live God’s Word. Will you partner with us?
MULTIPLYING IN MALAWI: Teaching otLIVE in public schools
In one of the poorest countries in Africa, God’s inspired Word has breathed new life into schoolchildren. Walk Thru the Bible’s otLIVE (our live event that teaches the big picture storyline of the Old Testament), and soon ntLIVE, is bringing lifechange to children (and their parents and their teachers) in Malawi.
Walk Thru the Bible Global Trainer and Southern Africa Children’s Coordinator Lynnette Stander regularly communicates with WTB trainers, instructors, and classroom teachers in Malawi. They report that not only are the children turning to God, but the fruit of their growing faith shows up in their daily lives. Teachers, parents, and even the children themselves say that their behavior has changed. In addition, they’re excited about what they’re learning about God’s Word. Lynnette says, “The children want to learn more about the Bible, and they are asking meaningful questions.” kids in Malawi are eager for more.
And Walk Thru the Bible is answering kids in Malawi.
Small Window/Big God In keeping with one of Walk Thru the Bible’s growth initiatives for this fiscal year, WTB continues to reach and teach children who are biblically unengaged through our global children’s ministry. One country that has seen much fruit from teaching God’s Word to children is Malawi.
A small, landlocked country in southeastern Africa, Malawi is one of the world’s least developed countries. Its economy depends heavily upon agriculture. Most of Malawi’s families, struggling under the weight of crop failure, government corruption, and the HIV/AIDs pandemic, live on less than $1 per day. A majority of their children will not finish primary school. In fact, given the cost of secondary education and the high rate of adolescent pregnancy, Malawian girls have only a slim chance of remaining in school past eighth grade.
There’s such a small window of time for these children to learn. With God’s help, WTB is shining the light of Christ through that window for more Kids in Malawi each year.
This year, Walk Thru the Bible will reach and teach God’s Word to at least 1.5 million children around the world! We are helping kids in Malawi–and everywhere!–live God’s Word. And you can help!
Teaching the kids about God and His Word Throughout Scripture, God’s prophets encouraged His people to teach their children about Him and His ways, so they would know Him and what He had done for them. In the New Testament, Jesus made a point of gathering children to Himself, giving them inherent value by paying attention to them, something the current culture did not do. He encouraged adults to teach the children, to accept them as important in His kingdom, even pointing to a childlike heart as a model for adults.
It’s clear that God loves children. And in keeping with its global mission, Walk Thru the Bible is reaching at least 1.5 million children around the world this year with His Word, His truth, and His love.
One such area is the Southern Africa region. In partnership with Starfish Malawi since 2012, Walk Thru the Bible Southern Africa has been involved in the ongoing training of full-time otLIVE instructors in Malawi. These WTB-trained, local instructors teach the Bible in their home language, Chichewa, in 54 Malawian public schools where otLIVE is taught in weekly lessons to more than 8,000 children each year.
Karen Melby, a board member of Walk Thru the Bible, was able to witness the teaching in Malawi last year. There to visit some family members, she also wanted to see Walk Thru the Bible’s work in Malawi public schools. Karen and her daughter drove to Salima to the offices of Starfish Malawi and met Starfish Malawi’s Director Emmanuel, as well as Wiseman (a WTB instructor and trainer), and Sarah, another WTB instructor.
In partnership with Starfish Malawi since 2012, Walk Thru the Bible Southern Africa has been involved in the ongoing training of full-time otLIVE instructors in Malawi. These WTB-trained, local instructors teach the Bible in their home language, Chichewa, in 54 Malawian public schools where otLIVE is taught in weekly lessons to more than 8,000 children each year.
“Starfish Malawi ministry is a wonderful partnership that Walk Thru the Bible is tapping into to help implement its mission and vision,” Karen says, “which is teaching the Word of God and helping people understand and engage with it.”
The Starfish team took Karen and her daughter to Kalonga Primary School. As they waited for the teacher who would tea
ch otLIVE to the 6th graders, Karen asked, “How can you teach the Bible in a public school?” They explained to her that the department of education in Malawi has a Bible component to their national exams that children must pass. “They told me that the schools and teachers welcome these Bible lessons with open arms,” she says.
But God’s Word is not always initially well-received in the areas populated by people of other faiths. Three years ago, the Gideons placed Bibles in one elementary school in the Salima district, in an area where Christians are a minority. The reaction? The school principal not only refused to allow the Bibles to be used in the school, but also instructed the children to destroy the Bibles to make the point.
But this scene of destruction was not the end of the story.
A few years later, WTB Southern Africa tried a different approach: bringing otLIVE into that school to satisfy the curriculum requirement of Bible Knowledge. In a moment that can only be credited to God’s grace and His working, the principal at the school—who let the children tear up the Bibles just a few years earlier—agreed to allow WTB instructors teach otLIVE there in order to fulfill the Bible curriculum requirement. Not only that, but recently, when the Gideons brought Bibles to that school again, the principal allowed the children to be given the Bibles and to read them. Why? Because of a change of hearts.
“I am a changed person!”– kids in Malawi The kids in Malawi love otLIVE. They love the interactivity and movement of the teaching; they love the memory tools and how the teaching makes the Bible fit together. They love the Bible stories and some have even picked favorite Bible heroes. This is remarkable, since so many of the children come from the background of another faith. But now they are learning God’s grand Story of Scripture, of redemption, of hope.
Fifth-grader Patience says, “otLIVE and its lessons helped me to love my friends and change my behavior. I used to be involved in fighting and was rude to my parents. Now I am a changed person!”
For Chisomo, the Bible lessons have helped her not to fear the unknown. “God can use me in a mighty way as He used Gideon,” she says. “I don’t have to be afraid.”
One fifth-grade girl at Katelera Primary School has been particularly touched by the story of Joseph. Even though Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery, he ultimately forgave them and provided them with food during a severe famine. For children like her, who live in an area plagued by food insecurity, offering food, even after betrayal, is a powerful sign of forgiveness and blessing. “I have learned, through these lessons, that forgiveness and love go together,” she said. “I have learned to have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.”
A sixth-grader has also encountered Jesus through the lessons she’s learned from Walk Thru the Bible. And she also comes from a family of another faith. “I thought that in the Bible, in Christianity, that women aren’t important, that God doesn’t use them,” she says, but she’s discovered that indeed, to God, women are valuable and are entrusted by Him to do greater things. “I will keep going to these lessons to learn more of the good news of the gospel,” she says.
As her relationship with Jesus develops and as her understanding of Scripture deepens, she has chosen to remove herself “from bad influences,” as she says, and she has begun to share the gospel with her classmates.
After seeing the result of her child attending these Bible classes, her mother made a surprising decision. “I didn’t want my child to attend the classes on the Old Testament which are taught at the local school. A while later, I noticed such a change in her, and I remarked to her that I liked what I saw. She replied, ‘Mother, I did go to those Bible classes at school, and since then my life is different.’ I have noticed such a positive change in her that she now has my blessing to attend,” said her mother.
Multiplication lessons Excitement about learning the Bible has grown beyond the kids in Malawi and other schools where Walk Thru the Bible is present. Other schools are now approaching the WTB instructors and asking them to bring the otLIVE lessons to their schools, as well. The new schools have heard about what is happening in the schools where it is currently being taught. The instructors have heard comments like “What you teach is so much better than our religious education lessons.”
Walk Thru the Bible is responding to these requests by training more instructors for otLIVE and now, for ntLIVE. This excitement is an excellent opportunity to reach more children in Malawi than ever before. As one teacher pointed out, “otLIVE is teaching the children the gospel in a way that they can understand. It is a wonderful evangelism tool.”
Even children of other faiths are enjoying the lessons and being exposed to the truth of God’s Word and the gospel. And the numbers of people coming to Christ are multiplying.
After her trip to Malawi, Karen Melby shares this excitement. “Just to see the ministry firsthand in another part of the world makes it even more special. Walk Thru the Bible exists to help people everywhere live God’s Word. And it’s such an amazing thing that these children are learning the Bible at this young age. It was so beautiful to watch.”
