As Evangelicals continue the (entirely right) process of “getting high“, a recent book nudging that trend along is Kevin DeYoung’s Biggest Story: Advent. Not only is this a book about Advent (and hence a nudge in the liturgical direction), but it is a not-very-traditional approach to Advent (so DeYoung tells us) that focuses on the Old Testament pointing towards the coming of Christ, rather than the traditional Christmas readings from the New Testament.
In both it is a nice little addition to the Biggest Story franchise (I think we can call it a franchise at this point, and I fully expect to see spin offs coming our way). The main bit that makes me pause isn’t the content of the book but a feature: the ‘life-the-flap’ features. I don’t mean this is a problem in terms of imagery (though we certainly have brothers who would object to that). Rather, the age range where that is useful is such a narrow target that I’m not sure it helps, even if it is traditionally Advent-y. At least if the children I know of are typical, you move from “they will destroy this feature” to “they are uninterested” so quickly that if your kids aren’t the right age exactly when Advent rolls around, this feature won’t be of much use.
That said, the book is an excellent little devotional and very useful for family readings or to have in your church library. It might be a challenge to use in a Sunday School class (again, see the age issue) but it is a nice little volume and one I’m happy to recommend.
Dr. Coyle Neal is co-host of the City of Man Podcast an Amazon Associate (which is linked in this blog), and teaches Political Science and History in Southwest Missouri.
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