I just remember thinking, I just want to know the story of the Bible.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and this is Essentially Presents.

So when I was in high school, I remember, maybe I've told this story so many times, I remember getting my very first Bible. It was a, I was at the Crowing County Fair, and it got one of those little Gideon Bibles. It was the New Testament, Psalms, and Proverbs, and I think it was what it was. and I was so stoked.

I was so excited to have that Bible.

Later on, I think I might have been a junior, a senior, a senior in high school. One of my parents, for Christmas, I wanted a new American Bible that was one of those St. Joseph editions, a big chunk of change, you know, hunker. And I just wanted to like dive deeply into the Bible. When I went to college, I studied theology. And I took all these scripture classes And then, I was a missionary a little bit, this is a recap of my life, then came back

to seminary, a bunch of years of seminary. In seminary, I often thought about, do I want to, like,

focus? Do I want to get a special degree in sacred scripture? I didn't. But I just, I loved all those

scripture classes. I spent years diving into the Bible on my own. I didn't, but I just, I loved all those scripture classes. I spent

years diving into the Bible on my own. I spent years taking classes at the, at the college level

and the seminary, you know, postgraduate level. It wasn't until after I was ordained. And I

stumbled upon, I think it was, was it DVDs or it might have been VHS tapes, I think it might

have been DVDs of Jeff Kavens teaching the Great Adventure Bible Timeline. And I remember

watching these. I think they recorded it in the Church of St. Paul and Ham Lake, this kind

of random town in Minnesota. Perhaps you've been in a program like this. They get really excited

about reading through the whole Bible.

Read through the Bible in a year and start reading in Genesis and you go to Genesis through

Genesis and then right about March and quit. Why? You're in Leviticus. You are in Leviticus and you're reading about entrails and kidneys

and livers and monthly cycles. Where did the story go? And I would listen to Jeff just unpack the

story of the Bible. And I remember as I was going through it thinking, I took all these classes

as a college student. I took all of these classes as a seminarian. I never knew the story like I know the story now until Jeff Kavens taught me the Great Adventure Bible Timeline. It connected all of the dots. Every time he would come up with a new Bible study, be like, I'm going to get that one, I'm going to go through that one. And then what I would do here on campus at the University of Minnesota Duluth is I would go through his Bible study, the Great Adventure Bible Timeline, Gospel of Matthew, Acts of the Apostles, whatever it was. And then I would teach it here. I remember thinking, oh my gosh, I am learning more from this guy, this one guy, than, no offense to any other teachers, than every other teacher may be combined. But that's

not exactly the case. I learned a lot of stuff from all those other teachers. It was like this.

He finally told me the story. That DVD series, I think, came out 20 years ago, or maybe even

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