'This Beautiful Book': Museum of the Bible Founder on Why the Bible Matters Today

WASHINGTON – As president of Hobby Lobby and the founder of the Museum of the Bible, Steve Green is a lifelong student of the scriptures and in his new book, zooms out to look at the big, beautiful picture they paint. 

This Beautiful Book: An Exploration of the Bible's Incredible Story Line and Why It Matters Today examines the scriptures as a whole, not focusing on one particular story or character.   

"It's easy for us to read some of the stories and not understand the bigger story that the Bible is telling and when you understand that, it is a beautiful story," Green explained in an interview with CBN News. "It tells the story of a loving God that sent His son to pay the price that we might have our relationship that was lost restored."

Green said he wrote the book to encourage readers to engage with the Bible. 

Understanding how We Fit into the Bible Narrative

"It is our story as well and understanding how we fit in that story – knowing that there is this good creator God that created all things and it was good and because of our disobedience that relationship was lost – and if we don't understand how that God paid the price to have that relationship restored, we may miss it." 

He said his love for the Bible is something that was passed down from his parents and grandparents and when it comes to Hobby Lobby, the family business, it's the scriptures that inform their decisions.  

"The first statement in our statement of purpose is to operate our business according to Biblical principles," he explained. "That's what we strive to do every day."

Standing Firm on Biblical Principles

Back in 2014, the family and company took a firm stand on those beliefs in a landmark case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. The court ruled in Hobby Lobby's favor, striking down the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act. 

Fast forward to the 2020 term and religious liberty again looks to be a benchmark issue, a concern for many business owners. 

CBN News asked Green what advice he might have for other business owners facing compromising situations.   

There's No "Happily Ever After" in Life

"I remember watching the movie, 'Amazing Grace.' It's kind of the William Wilberforce story, and in the end it's kind of this, and they lived happily ever after," Green started. "Slavery was abolished and it was a great movie – I love the movie – but the problem was, there is never a 'they lived happily ever after.' There is always a need for a William Wilberforce in our time and in our day because there are always evils that are coming against our culture and against our society. And while we won our Supreme Court case, that didn't cause the issue, it didn't end at that point."

He says it's important that Christians be vigilant and continue to "fight the good fight." 

When he's not at the Museum of the Bible or at Hobby Lobby headquarters in Oklahoma City, Green is busy with his growing family. 

The Goodness of God in the Trials of Life

The day he sat down with CBN News, his newest grandson had just been officially adopted. And not long before that, his family welcomed another granddaughter, Zion. Shortly after Green's daughter and her husband brought Zion home from China, though, doctors gave her a scary diagnosis. 

"They were doing an MRI and they found that she had a tumor on her liver," explained Green. "So not the journey that they had thought or hoped or planned but they immediately were told they needed to come down and have it checked and about a week later they were having some serious surgery where they took the tumor out and took part of the liver which can regenerate itself and she seems to be doing very well from recovering from that but they did determine it stage-one cancer and that she needed to do some chemo." 

A little more than one month later, Zion is cancer-free. 

God is good. That's the message in Zion's story, in Green's book and of course, the Bible. Sometimes it just takes zooming out and seeing it all from a broader perspective. 

"It is a story of a loving God reaching out to us."