Seeing the Gospel: An Interpretive Guide to Orthodox Icons

by Eve Tibbs

Publisher:

Baker

, 2025

Overview

Learning to read Orthodox icons is an opportunity to engage Holy Scripture with greater depth and understanding. It allows viewers to uncover fresh dimensions and encounter the Kingdom of God from within the created world. The meaning of icons, often referred to as “windows into heaven,” reaches beyond the limits of the natural world into the divine realm.

Eve Tibbs is an Orthodox insider and veteran teacher who has devoted her career to translating the faith for evangelicals. Her comprehensive yet accessible introduction to the history, theology, spirituality, and role of icons in Eastern Orthodoxy is followed by an immersive experience--a narrative journey through 18 pivotal events in the life of Jesus Christ as depicted in the New Testament Gospels. Each event is illuminated through the form and color of Orthodox icons accompanied by descriptions of the messages they convey. Here “interpretation” works in two ways: to guide the curious, artists, students and even the lifelong Orthodox in interpreting icons and to show how icons interpret the biblical text.

Seeing the Gospel presents a visual biblical language for a visual culture and even describes how icons can be used in other faith traditions. The book includes a foreword by Richard J. Mouw and features 90 full-color icons throughout.

Key Features

• Allows viewers to uncover fresh dimensions and encounter the Kingdom of God.
• Guides the curious, artists, students and even the lifelong Orthodox in interpreting icons.
• Presents a visual biblical language for a visual culture.

Contents

• Introduction
• 1. A Visual Biblical Worldview
• 2. The Iconoclast Controversy
• 3. Christ, the Giver of Light
• 4. Messengers of God
• 5. The Annunciation to Mary
• 6. The Nativity
• 7. The Meeting of Our Lord in the Temple
• 8. The Baptism of Christ
• 9. Ministry, Discipleship, and Revelation
• 10. Jerusalem before the Cross
• 11. The Cross, the Tomb, the Resurrection
• 12. After the Resurrection

Product Details

• Title: Seeing the Gospel: An Interpretive Guide to Orthodox Icons
• Author: Eve Tibbs
• Publisher: Baker
• Print Publication Date: 2025
• Pages: 224
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
• ISBNs: 9781493450992, 1493450999
• Resource ID: LLS:SNGGSPLRTHDXCNS
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2025-01-21T17:48:27Z

About Eve Tibbs

Eve Tibbs (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is affiliate professor of theology at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. She has more than twenty years of experience teaching Western systematic theology and Eastern Orthodox theology in academic and ecclesial settings. Tibbs is a member of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, the ministry lead for Christian education for the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of San Francisco, and attends Saint Paul’s Greek Orthodox Church in Irvine, California. She is the author of A Basic Guide to Eastern Orthodox Theology: Introducing Beliefs and Practices.