Telling God's Story (Olive Branch Books)

Telling God's Story is Peter Enns's three-year chronological Bible curriculum, published through Olive Branch Books, the faith-curriculum imprint of Well-Trained Mind Press. It is the rare ecumenical Bible program that families across mainline, evangelical, Reformed, and Catholic homes adopt without first having to edit around denominational assumptions.

Last updated: 2026-04-24 · Every Homeschool Editorial Team

At a glance

Method	Literature-based, narrative, discussion-driven
Worldview	Christian-ecumenical
Grades	1-8 (three two-to-three-year sequences)
Formats	Print instructor text, print student activity book
Cost tier	Budget
Parent intensity	3
ESA-common	No
Accredited	No
Established	2010
Website	welltrainedmind.com

Our scoreboard (1-5)

Criterion	Score	One-line reason
Academic rigor	4	Written by a credentialed biblical scholar, not an illustrator
Ease of teaching	4	Scripted lessons, modest prep, readable in the margin of a busy week
Content quality	5	The narrative retellings are unusually well-crafted
Flexibility	5	Works as a spine or a supplement, pairs with almost anything
Value for money	5	A full year's Bible program for the price of a children's hardback
Worldview scope	4	Ecumenical register acceptable in most Christian traditions
Visual/design	3	Clean, text-forward, no illustration program
Support resources	2	Minimal, text, workbook, and the author's introduction

Who the publisher is

Telling God's Story is authored by Peter Enns, a biblical studies professor who holds a PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard. Enns is best known among scholars for his work on the Old Testament and on questions of biblical inspiration. His professional history, longtime faculty at Westminster Theological Seminary, later at Eastern University, places him broadly within the evangelical and Reformed theological conversation, though his published work has moved him toward a more ecumenical register over time. Families evaluating the curriculum should know this; the program reflects a scholar-theologian's voice, not a Sunday-school writer's.

The publisher is Olive Branch Books, an imprint of Well-Trained Mind Press, the publishing arm of Susan Wise Bauer's classical education empire. Well-Trained Mind is best known for The Well-Trained Mind (the foundational classical homeschool manual) and for The Story of the World (the widely used elementary history sequence). The Olive Branch line specifically houses faith-oriented titles that Bauer's team wanted to publish without putting them under the flagship classical-curriculum banner. Telling God's Story was among the imprint's first releases.

The program is modest in scope and modest in ambition. It is a three-year Bible survey divided by audience: Year One (Meeting Jesus, designed for roughly grades 1-2), Year Two (a New Testament overview for grades 3-4), and Year Three (an Old Testament survey pitched at grades 5-8, with adaptations possible). Each year's instructor text contains approximately thirty-six scripted lessons, one per school week, and is paired with a separate student activity book. There is no video, no app, no online portal. The product is a book.

The core pedagogy

Telling God's Story teaches the Bible by telling the Bible, a choice that sounds obvious but is rare in the genre. Most children's Bible curricula lead with an extraction: a moral, a memory verse, an application exercise. Enns flips the structure. The instructor reads or paraphrases the biblical narrative to the child, asks open discussion questions written for the child's age, and only then turns to the activity book for drawing, coloring, copywork, or short writing. The arc of a lesson is narrative first, application second, and the application is usually modest, a question the child answers in a sentence or two, not a workbook drill.

The age-banding matters. Year One (Meeting Jesus) is pitched at early readers; it opens with the life of Christ rather than Genesis on the theory that young children grasp persons before they grasp cosmologies. Year Two widens to the broader New Testament, the apostles, the early church, the letters. Year Three loops back to the Old Testament and takes on the harder material (the patriarchs, the Exodus, the prophets, the exile) at an age when children can hold historical complexity. The reversal of the conventional Old-Testament-first ordering is the program's signature pedagogical choice, and it is defensible on both developmental and theological grounds.

Signature mechanics: (1) Narrative retellings written to be read aloud. Enns wrote the lessons in a voice that performs from the page; a parent who is not a trained storyteller can still read them well. (2) Age-appropriate theological questions. The discussion prompts are calibrated to the student, not to a seminary classroom. (3) Minimal doctrinal commitment. The curriculum works from the biblical text itself, avoids denominational systematics, and does not require subscription to a particular confession. (4) Activity book as option, not anchor. The workbook adds copywork, short written responses, and illustrations, but a family pressed for time can use the instructor text alone and still complete the year.

A day in the life

A third-grader using Year Two starts the lesson seated with a parent, who opens the instructor book and reads the assigned narrative, usually three to five pages of Enns's prose retelling the week's New Testament episode. Reading aloud takes ten to fifteen minutes. The parent then asks the two or three discussion questions printed in the lesson, and the child answers verbally. The child opens the activity book, copies a short verse, draws the scene or completes a short comprehension question, and closes. Total time: twenty-five to thirty-five minutes, typically two to three days per week.

A seventh-grader using Year Three works more independently. The parent may still read the opening narrative aloud for continuity, but the student increasingly reads silently, writes responses in the activity book, and brings questions back to a short discussion at the end. The activity book at this level includes brief writing prompts that can function as weekly composition exercises. Total time: forty to fifty minutes per session.

What they do exceptionally well

Prose quality. Enns's retellings are written, not compiled. The sentences have rhythm. The vocabulary is accurate without being condescending, reverent without being stilted. Families who have read aloud from generic children's Bibles and then moved to Telling God's Story notice the difference in the first session.

Ecumenical accessibility. The program works in Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, Reformed Baptist, and Catholic homes without editorial adjustment. Families from traditions that hold firmly to a specific confession sometimes layer a denominational catechism alongside it; the curriculum does not fight this, because it is not trying to teach a confession. It is trying to teach the Bible.

Low floor, high ceiling. A parent with no theological training can run the lessons. A parent with a seminary degree can extend them. The text itself does not require expertise, but it rewards it.

Price. A complete year, instructor text and activity book, from Well-Trained Mind Press runs roughly $30 to $45 depending on the year and the combo bundle, as of April 2026. That is the lowest per-year cost of any named Bible program in mainstream homeschool use.

What they do poorly

Sparse visual presentation. The books are text-forward. There are no full-color illustration plates, no maps, no photographs of the Holy Land. Families who want their children immersed in visual Bible content will need to supplement with an illustrated Bible or atlas.

Minimal teacher support. There is no parent-prep video, no online community, no teacher forum. A parent confused about a lesson has the introduction and the author's website to consult, and that is all. This is unusual in a market where most publishers offer substantial scaffolding.

Three-year ceiling. Once a family finishes the three years, there is no Telling God's Story high school continuation. Families who want a Bible curriculum through twelfth grade will need to transition to something else. Veritas Press's Omnibus, a church-based catechesis program, a Catholic curriculum like Faith and Life, or a family-run reading plan.

Theological positioning the author does not hide. Enns's own scholarship takes positions on inerrancy, biblical authorship, and historical criticism that more conservative evangelical families may not share. The curriculum itself is measured and does not polemicize, but families who want a curriculum whose author aligns with Chicago Statement-style inerrancy will find Enns's broader body of work is not that.

Who it fits / who it doesn't

• Pick Telling God's Story if: you want a Bible program written by a credentialed scholar rather than a curriculum writer; your family spans denominational backgrounds and you want a text without a confessional overlay; you value narrative and discussion over workbook drill; your budget for Bible instruction is modest; you want a program that finishes cleanly in three years and hands the next stage back to the family or church.

• Skip Telling God's Story if: you want a catechetical program that teaches a specific confession (Westminster, Heidelberg, Baltimore); you want a fully illustrated, full-color children's Bible experience; you want digital, video, or online-community scaffolding; your family is strongly attached to young-earth creationist framing (the curriculum does not advocate a particular view but is written by a scholar who is not a young-earth advocate); you want a single publisher to carry you from K through 12.

Cost honest assessment

Per the Well-Trained Mind Press product pages as of April 2026, each year's instructor text runs approximately $19 to $22, and each year's activity book runs approximately $15 to $17. A full year (instructor text plus activity book) is typically $34 to $39. Buying all three years at once brings the total to roughly $105 to $115 for a curriculum that will cover seven to eight years of a child's education.

Compared to Veritas Press Self-Paced Bible at roughly $199 per year and Answers in Genesis's homeschool Bible offerings at roughly $80 to $120 per level, Telling God's Story is the budget option in the category. What the family does not get at that price is video, interactivity, or built-in assessment, any of which would push the cost up.

ESA eligibility notes

Bible curricula face uneven ESA treatment. Some states' marketplaces (Arizona's ClassWallet, Florida's Step Up For Students) have historically approved religious curricula from major publishers; others restrict faith-based materials depending on the fund's legal structure. Well-Trained Mind Press is not a major ESA vendor, and Telling God's Story specifically is not commonly listed as pre-approved on state marketplaces as of April 2026. Families using ESA funds should verify with their state administrator before purchase and may find out-of-pocket purchase simpler given the modest price point.

Alternatives

• Veritas Press Self-Paced Bible, a family would choose Veritas over Telling God's Story if they want an interactive online portal with memory songs, animated lessons, and built-in assessment rather than a text-and-discussion format.
• The Good and the Beautiful Bible, a family would choose The Good and the Beautiful if they want full-color illustrated materials with a softer visual aesthetic, accepting that the publisher's worldview positioning is distinct.
• Faith and Life series (Ignatius Press), a Catholic family seeking explicit catechesis would choose Faith and Life over Telling God's Story's ecumenical register.

How we verified this

Our editorial team reviewed the Olive Branch Books catalog page at Well-Trained Mind Press, the sample lessons posted for each year, and Peter Enns's published academic work and public writing. We cross-referenced against Cathy Duffy Reviews' published review of the program and the HSLDA publisher directory. Prices and availability verified April 2026.