In this first‑person narrative, a Bible storyteller travels to a small Seventh‑Day Adventist school in Mildura, Victoria, to teach a series of classes on the Golden Rule. The principal arranges for him to address every grade, from Year 10 down to prep, prompting him to adapt the message for each age group. He frames the Golden Rule historically, tracing its expression from Buddhism, Confucianism, Jewish rabbi Hillel, and finally Jesus, emphasizing a shift from merely ending suffering to actively bringing joy. While teaching the Grade 7 class, two local newspaper reporters request an interview; the storyteller proposes conducting it in front of the students, turning the interview into a teaching moment. The students share personal reasons for reading the Bible, ranging from belief in its truth to a desire for spiritual immersion. The reporter then asks the storyteller how he would persuade a non‑believer; he answers by urging people to "give the Bible a chance" and to read for the story and truth it contains, likening it to extracting moral lessons from fictional works like Spider‑Man. He reflects that God often supplies the exact words needed for a given moment, underscoring the importance of being ready to tell the story when called.
Chapters
I was traveling to Mildura, Victoria, which is a country town a long ways away from everything else in Victoria, about 6-hour drive from Melbourne. And on my way, before I went up there, I called the local school and said, I'm coming up to preach on the Sabbath and do a children's church. Is there anything I can do at your little 7th-day Adventist school there. And they said, "Oh, if you could come a day early, it would be fantastic to have you come and visit some of our Bible classes and you could take the class." And I said, "That would be fine, that would be good fun." So when I got up there and I checked into my motel room for the night and checked my emails to see what it was they wanted me to teach the next day, the principal had sent me a list of every single class and they'd lined up the whole school so that I was able to start with the year 7s and go through the high school and then go down to the grade 1s and preps and 2, 3, 4, and go through the whole school. Every period I had a different class. And so that night I thought, oh, if I'm speaking to the whole school, you know, it's, it's one thing to go and talk in a chapel program to the whole school, but to talk to each grade at their level, I thought, what will I talk about? And there was a message that God had been putting on my heart during that time about the Golden Rule and about understanding that to do to others what we would like to do to ourselves is one of the greatest teachings that has ever existed. And I had done this as chapel talks, and I'd done it as sermons at various churches, and I thought, I'll work it into a presentation I can do for different grade levels in school. And so when I went to the school the next morning, I started with the grade 10 class, and I had them first, and we talked about the Golden Rule, and we did kind of a history exploration of the Golden Rule and how it actually has been involved in religions for Basically, from about 600 BC, there's been the Golden Rule in one way or another, but it's always been phrased like this. It's always been, look for what's going wrong in the world, look for suffering, and then end the suffering. And that's how Buddhism phrases it. Confucianism says, whatever causes other people to— causes you pain, make sure that doesn't happen to other people. And Judaism has the Old Testament, and When Jesus was a little boy, there was a Jewish rabbi, a teacher in Jerusalem whose name was Hillel. And the historians, Jewish historians tell the story of Hillel where when he was a very old man, a young man, a teenager came up to him and said, "You want me to believe in God, don't you?" And he said, "Yes, I do." And he said, "Well, I don't." And he said, "Well, I wish you would." And he said, "Well, I will." And he said, "Wait a minute, you just said you don't believe in God, now you say you will?" And the young man says, "I will believe in God if you can do one thing for me." Old Hillel said, "I will do whatever I can if it will help you believe in God." And so the young man said, "I want you to recite the entire Torah," which easily a rabbi could do, "while you are standing on one foot." And he was making fun of Hillel. But Hillel did something amazing. He lifted one foot up and he said, "You ready?" And the young man, I imagine, was thinking, "Oh no, now what's going to happen? I have to listen to this guy for 5 hours while he recites the entire Torah." And he looked at the young man and he said, "Whatever hurts you, don't do that to other people. That's the whole Torah. The rest is just commentary. Go and study it." Now, an old rabbi wouldn't have put the entire Torah into a nutshell like that unless he believed that that's actually what it meant. But when Jesus walked onto the scene and he began teaching, he also said the Golden Rule, but he said it in a way that nobody before him has said it. Jesus didn't say, "Here's suffering over here, end it." Jesus said, "Think about what you wish people would do for you, and then go and do that for them." So Jesus didn't say just end suffering and make everyone normal. He said, "Look for joy. What joy can you bring to other people's lives? What joy do you wish other people would bring to your life? Well, go and do that for other people." And so this was the kind of the idea of what I was running the kids through in each class. We were talking about the Golden Rule and we were having discussion about it and how can we put that into practice. Jesus in our lives. After the grade 10s left, another grade came in, and then on the third period, the grade 7s came in. As they came in, the principal showed up at the window, and she had two ladies with her that I didn't recognize. She beckoned me over, and so I came over and I said, "Yes, what is it?" The two ladies said, "Look, we're from the local paper, the Sun-Rajya Daily, and we'd like to interview you." I said, "Why?" They said, "Well, you're You're a Bible storyteller, aren't you? And I said, yes. And they said, well, that's something that our readers would find very fascinating. I don't know if a Bible storyteller has ever come to Mildura before. And for them, this was a unique creative idea that here I was telling Bible stories. And she said, also, you've written books for children, haven't you? And I said, yes. And she said, Bible story books. And I said, yes, that's right. She said, well, see, this is— you're very fascinating. We'd love to interview you and write an article about you for the local paper. And I was completely blown away. This had never happened to me before. And I said, "Well, so you want to do it now?" And they said, "Well, you have to teach a class right now. We'll come back at lunchtime or whenever. You just say a time, and we need about 15 minutes." And I had this idea. I said, "Well, would you be willing to do the interview in front of the grade 7 class? Because they probably have never seen an interview. What do you kids think?" And the kids are like, "Yeah!" And I said, "Is that okay?" And she said, "Oh, that'd be a lovely idea." So she came in, and we sat facing— kind of facing each other and also facing the kids. And she got out her little pad and started asking me questions. And the photographer waited on the side, and after she asked me all the questions, they pushed a bunch of kids and me together and took a photo of us. And the questions she asked me were the questions I would have been telling the kids in my introduction. Who are you? Why are you here? Why do you value this Bible story so much? Why is it important to tell the Bible stories? You know, you're giving a big part of your life to this. Why? Why? Why? You know, and so I answered all of her questions. And then she was able to do something that she hadn't planned to do. She turned to the kids. And she said, "So how many of you," remember, 7th graders, "how many of you like to read your Bible?" And I thought, "Oh boy, that's a dangerous question." But you know, about half the class put their hands up. And she said, "Wow, really? Why?" And she pointed at one kid, "Why do you like to read the Bible?" And this little boy goes, "Because it's true, and we know that whatever it says is true, and so we don't have to kind of wonder about whether things are true or not, because if the Bible says it, then God said it, and that's true." And she said, "Okay, true." And she wrote that down on her notepad. And the next kid said, "Well," and she was a girl, she said, "Well, because it tells me how God wants me to live my life, and it's like God made us, and then he made these rules that make us able to live a happy life. And so if we follow the rules, we'll have a really happy life." And she wrote that down. And then the final kid said, another girl, she said, "Because when I read the Bible, I just don't want it to ever stop." And she said, "What do you mean by that?" She said, "Well, I just want to go inside of the Bible and I want to just stay there forever." And she said, "So like escapism?" And she said, "No, no, not escapism." She said, "Well, what do you mean?" She said, "Well, I wish that when I go in the Bible, Jesus is there and he's healing people and he's telling stories to people and he's making the world a better place. And I just wish that the world where Jesus was was like the world where we are. I wish I could keep that world alive in my world too." And so she wrote that down, and after doing the interview, I said, "Well, I'll walk out to you to the car, and I'll give you some copies of my book so you can use them for preparation for the article." And she said, "Thank you." And we had barely even left the classroom, we were still standing on the sidewalk right in front of the classroom, and she stopped me and she said, "Can I ask you another question?" And I thought, "Oh boy, here it comes, the big one." And she said, "You really, um, 'You really think it's important for people to read the Bible, don't you?' I said, 'Oh, absolutely.' She said, 'Well, what would you say— look, most of the people in Mildura are not Christians, so they don't even believe in God. So they're certainly not going to believe the Bible is important to read, and they're not going to believe it because they don't think it's true. So what would you say to someone—' and then she slipped, she said, 'What would you say to someone like me who doesn't believe the Bible is true?' I thought and sent up a prayer, and then I said, 'You know what I would say? Just give the Bible a chance.' Read the Bible for the story that's in it. Start with the book of Mark and just let the story speak to you. And she's taking notes and she said, let the story speak to you, tell me more about that. And I said, well, people aren't really— the real reason why people aren't reading the Bible isn't because it's not true. People read things that aren't true all the time. They go to the movies, they read novels. Truth is not the problem. I said, what the problem is, I said, imagine Spider-Man. Nobody goes to the Spider-Man movie and comes out thinking, "Hey, boys can shoot webs out of their wrists if they're bit by spiders." But everyone who's been to see the movie and paid attention comes out saying, "With great power comes great responsibility. Where do I have power in my life? How can I be more responsible to use that correctly?" That's the truth that's in that movie, even though it's not a true story. While I believe the Bible is true, and so it adds to the truth that's there, you can read the Bible just for the truth that's there. You can read it for, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." That's a great truth. You can learn, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." That's a great truth. And both of those are in God's word, in the Bible. I would challenge you just to open it and read it and let the story speak to you and find the truth that's in it for you. And after we had the conversation, I thought to myself, Where did that come from? Sometimes God just puts answers into your head and he says, "This is a time that you need this information. You're in this place for this time so you can share this story." It's so important in our lives to be willing and ready and say, "I have a story to tell. I'm ready to tell it." God will put— he promises to put the words in our mouth when they're needed.
