Your Beautiful Bible

Your Beautiful Bible.

You are new to reading the Bible, eh?  Well then, congratulations on finding a true source of inspiration, history, wisdom and a path to knowing all about God and his heart for us.  But it is daunting to know how to ‘attack’ the Bible, and all that it holds, so some fundamental understanding is most valuable.

If you are clasping your closed Bible in your hands, your left hand grasps the Old Testament, and your right hand, the New Testament.  The Old Testament spanned more than a thousand years, while the New Testament just 80 – 90 years.  

Old Testament

-It is a written record of the history of Israel, written between 1440 B.Sc. and about 400 B.Sc.

  It is important to remember it is not ordered chronologically.

-There are 39 books in the Old Testament, which can be classified as:

   The Law of Moses – first five books – the Torah

   The Prophets – Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel +          

         12 Minor Prophets

The Writings – Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah and Chronicles

-The Protestant church accepts identically the same Old Testament books as Jesus and the apostles accepted.  The Roman Catholic Church, since the Council of Trent in 1546, includes 14 books of the Apocrypha

-There are 400 years between the testaments—sometimes called the ‘400 years of silence’

New Testament

-Writing finished before 100 A.D. (knowing that is critical to supporting the veracity of Scripture) contained in 27 books:

   The Gospels – the four gospels record the birth, life, death, resurrection   of Jesus Christ, and his training of the disciples

   History - the establishment of the early church and its spread through Mediterranean lands

  Letters – After Paul’s conversion on the Damascus Road in Acts 9, we are   able to read his letters to the churches—the ‘epistles’, including the three letters written to individuals: 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus.

  Apocalypse – the book of Revelation, written by the apostle John when he was on the Isle of Patmos                                                              

The NT was written by the apostles of Jesus Christ, or companions of the apostles.  This means that the authors were either eyewitnesses of the events they described or they recorded eyewitness firsthand accounts      (if you are interested, take a look at: 2 Peter 1.16; 1 John 1.1-3; 1 Corinthians 15.6-8; John 20.30,31; Acts 10.39-42; 1 Peter 5.1; Acts 1.9; Acts 2.22; Acts 26.24-28)

It is valuable to know that the first three gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) were written at a time when many were alive who could remember the things Jesus said and did . . . and many would still be alive when the fourth one was written as well.  The gospel writings would have been refuted and the writers discredited if they recounted or represented falsehoods.

Note:  Scripture is defensible.  While the Bible is inspirational and useful for instruction and application to our lives, it can be defended!  You now have one arrow in your quiver when talking to a skeptic—the gospels were written when people were alive who could have refuted them, their claims about Jesus’ life, death, miracles, resurrection—they didn’t, that’s because they were true. 

David loved God’s word~

“Your word, O Lord, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens.” Psalm 119.89

To which I say, O yes, it does.

Christine

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