We live in an image-based culture in which we increasingly rely upon visuals to help us understand new and difficult concepts. Infographics convey data, concepts, and ideas in fresh new ways.

God used visuals to teach truth to his people. The tabernacle of the Old Testament was a visual representation of humanity’s distance from God and God’s condescension to his people. The sacraments of the New Testament are visual representations of humanity’s sin and God’s response. Even the cross was both reality and a visual demonstration.

Bible Gateway interviewed Tim Challies (@challies), who, along with Josh Byers (@joshbyers), is the author of Visual Theology: Seeing and Understanding the Truth About God (Zondervan, 2016) (website and @visualtheology).

Why do you begin a book about theology with a story about going to the gym?

Tim Challies: I began the book with a story about going to the gym for two reasons. The first is very practical—I wanted to draw people into the book with a story or illustration. This is the same reason so many sermons begin this way—it’s a helpful communications technique. The second reason is spiritual and significantly more important—I wanted to help people make the link between physical health and spiritual health. It was the Apostle Paul who said, “Train yourself for godliness” (1 Timothy 4:7); he also saw this link and wanted people to pursue spiritual health with the kind of commitment an athlete brings to his sport. My decision to go to the gym to get physically healthy helped to illustrate the need for all of us to go to God to get spiritually healthy.

How would you characterize your book: a book of Infographics supported by text or a text-based book with visual illustrations?

Tim Challies: Our approach was text-first. We created the text first and then used illustrations to support and enhance it. However, I should back up a little more to say that before the book was text, it was a teaching series at my local church. Through a series of afternoon and evening meetings, I taught this material to the people of my church as a means of promoting their spiritual growth and spiritual strength. It was prepared with real people in mind and that teaching series became the basis for the book. Once the book was in place, Josh began to illustrate it. So in that way, this is a book that’s supported, strengthened, and improved with visual illustrations.

What are the four pursuits you divide the book into and how did you narrow the Christian life to those four?

Tim Challies: As I prepared the teaching series meant to promote spiritual growth and strength, I came to realize that most books for new Christians were essentially short systematic theologies. In other words, when people become Christians, we immediately want to teach them the facts of the Christian faith. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course, but I came to see in my church that in many cases we had new believers whose theological maturity was outpacing the maturity of their Christian living. For that reason I wanted to prepare a book that would provide consistent instruction on how to live the Christian life. One component of that is growing in our knowledge of the faith through pursuits like systematic theology, but there’s far more to it than that. I divided the book into the four pursuits of growing close to Christ, understanding the work of Christ, becoming like Christ, and living for Christ. These four pursuits involve a personal relationship with Christ, knowledge of Christ and his work, conformity to Christ in godly character, and then living for the glory of Christ in this world. My hope is that this provides a well-rounded perspective on the Christian faith.

You write that the book began with a desire to teach how to live as a Christian. Why, then, is the title Visual Theology instead of something like Visual Discipleship or The Visual Christian Life?

Tim Challies: Visual Theology began as a series of posters and Infographics that were meant to teach truth about God by displaying it in illustrations rather than words. This is hardly a novel idea—God himself has often used illustrations to teach truth; beginning all the way in the Garden of Eden with the two trees, one of which illustrated joyful submission to God and one of which illustrated sinful rebellion against him. Once Adam and Eve chose to rebel against God he banned them from the Garden and put cherubim with flaming swords at the gate to the Garden, illustrating that the way to God was barred. Later he gave instructions for a tabernacle and each element of that tabernacle, from the embroidering on the curtains to the altars was meant to illustrate some truth. Thus visual theology has a good grounding in the Bible itself and was, to our minds, a good title for a book.

What were the logistics involved in producing this visually creative book?

Tim Challies: I generally created the text first. Sometimes, though, I would merely suggest an idea to Josh and he’d go ahead with the graphical work before I’d actually completed the words. Each of us is creative but each in our own way, and we found it a joy to work together in a variety of ways.

You write that God speaks today through the Bible, creation, universal law, and conscience. What is the Bible and what does it do?

Tim Challies: The Bible is God’s Word to us, his instruction to us on who he is, who we are, and how we are to live in this world to his glory. The Bible is the means God uses to speak to us today. But it’s even more than that! The Bible is the authoritative collection of God’s words to humanity, it’s made up of two testaments, it’s a story, it’s all about Jesus, it’s complete, it’s without error, and it’s trustworthy. And even then we’re only just getting started in exploring all that it is and all that it means to us. If we ever need proof that God loves us, we simply need to open our Bibles and marvel that the God of all the universe deigns to speak to us; to mere sinful mortals. It’s a precious, precious gift. No wonder, then, that Christians dedicate so much time to reading it, to praying it, to preaching it, to singing it, to meditating on it, and to sharing it with others.

Why did you decide to depict the books of the Bible in the manner of the periodic table and what is the significance of the rows and columns?

Tim Challies: An older version of this periodic table is the very first graphic Josh and I worked on together, though we completely overhauled its design for the book. We were looking for an interesting way to display the books of the Bible at a glance and realized that the periodic table of the elements was already well-known, and that it brilliantly displayed a great deal of information. Not only that, but it displayed groupings and categorizations of information. We decided we’d imitate it. Our graphic is divided into two parts: showing the Old Testament and the New Testament. Each of the rows and colors displays one of the biblical genres. Then each one of the books (or elements, if you will) displays a little bit of information about its dating and authorship.

What do you mean when you write about the drama of God?

Tim Challies: Most of us are familiar with the category of doctrine, of theological truth about God and man. But many of us are less familiar with the category of drama; of what God is accomplishing in this world. I believe that a healthy and growing Christian ought to have knowledge of both doctrine and drama; of who God is and what God is doing. Knowing that this universe is the stage for a great drama gives us great confidence that God is the ultimate storyteller, that we are players in this drama, that there is a plot to all that’s happening here, and that there will be a great conclusion to it all. We need to diligently pursue our role in it all.

Explain your section on ‘putting sin to death’ and describe the flow chart you include.

Tim Challies: No matter when and how we begin the Christian life, we begin as sinners; as people who are drawn to sin rather than righteousness. The Christian life is a long life of obedience; a long life of becoming progressively conformed to the image of Christ. The way we do this is by putting sin to death and coming alive to righteousness. Using biblical terminology, we put the old man to death and bring the new man to life. No one has done more for my understanding of putting sin to death than John Owen and much of this chapter is drawn from his definitive work Overcoming Sin and Temptation, a book I’ve read and re-read. The flow chart is meant to be an aid to understanding Owen’s wisdom on identifying sin, putting it to death through the power of the Holy Spirit, and then replacing that sin with holiness.

How did you create the expressive tag cloud where “love” is the largest by far of the relationship virtues? And what do you hope this communicates to readers?

Tim Challies: This is one of my favorite graphics and I love what Josh did with it. The graphic was drawn from the many “one another” commands of the New Testament—the many places where the Bible tells us how to live (and how not to live) in relationship with other Christians. The cloud serves to display that the overarching command is love—we’re to love one another. That love then manifests itself in all these other ways—through the bearing of burdens, through prayer, through patience and agreement and confession and so much else. This is one case where the illustration serves powerfully to display at a glance what would take many more words to explain. That’s because the sizes of the circles are mathematically proportional to the number of times that command appears.

What are your thoughts about Bible Gateway and the Bible Gateway App?

Tim Challies: I’ve written a number of books over the years and one of them dealt specifically with life and faith in a digital world. My research for that book helped me see how Christians have always been quick to seek and find opportunities to use new technologies for the glory of God. Digital technologies are no exception! Bible Gateway has long been a leader in taking hold of this new technology and using it for the best purpose—the carrying out of the Great Commission. For that reason I’m so thankful for its work and its long example of obedience to God.

Bio: A pastor, noted speaker, and author of numerous articles, Tim Challies is a pioneer in the Christian blogosphere. Over 20,000 people visit Challies.com each day, making it one of the most widely read and recognized Christian blogs in the world. Tim is also the editor of DiscerningReader.com, a site dedicated to offering thoughtful reviews of books that are of interest to Christians. Tim is the author of The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment and Sexual Detox: A Guide for Guys Who Are Sick of Porn. He and his family reside near Toronto, Ontario.

Josh Byers is a pastor, speaker, author and noted artist. His work has been featured in a wide variety of places from The Gospel Coalition to The Tonight Show. His biblical Infographics and art have been translated into multiple languages and downloaded thousands of times over. A normal day includes playing Nintendo with his family, the Denver Broncos, photography, too much coffee, Arsenal, designing fun and beautiful things, and purchasing just about anything that Apple makes. Josh, his wife, and four children reside in Carlisle, Iowa. You can find more at joshbyers.com