The Bible is a book that meets the need of all mankind. It has stood the test of time, and no book has been studied as vigorously by people of all times. Such a book could be given to man only by God, who created man and who knows the human weaknesses and strengths of the creature He created. The subject of the Bible is the redemption of mankind for those who believe, and the judgment for those who reject God's offer of salvation. The Bible is our road map or guidebook for living with Godly wisdom.
Psalm 119:105 says “Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
Without its instructions, men flounder and lose their way. An in-depth study of God's Word helps us to find treasures which will bring solutions in times of crisis. With God's help and the power of His Word and the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit is the means of transforming our lives into all that God wants us to be in our homes, our communities, our nation, and in our world. The Holy Spirit cannot tell us what the Bible means until we know what the Bible says. Our responsibility is to read the Word of God with great anticipation and prayerful diligence.
II Timothy 2:15 says "Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
Colossians 1:9-10 says "....and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God"
Can you think of other reasons we should study our Bible?
The Bible - A Living Book
The book of Genesis gives us an outline of the entire Bible. Without the first eleven chapters of Genesis we would be at a loss to know what the remainder of the Bible is about. These chapters are the reason for the whole of the Bible. During the progress of the human family, God revealed Himself to man and made plain the message of Genesis. Book was added to book until the Word of God was complete in a volume of sixty-six books. Through these volumes God has revealed His purpose and plan for us. It is the only authority by which we can know our origin, history and destiny.
God created the world, and then made man and gave him dominion over all He had created. In the beginning, the entire human family was under one universal government, but man failed to respond to God and His Word. Following this, God called a family, through which He chose to reveal Himself as the Redeemer of the world.
Beginning with Abraham, this family developed and became a nation known as the Jewish nation. God made conditional and unconditional covenants with this nation. The greater portion of the Bible is given to show this nation's origin and the history of her faithfulness as well as her unfaithfulness and her final destiny. The Jewish nation failed in what was entrusted to her, resulting in her being scattered among the nations.
A remnant of the elect of God was worthy to be used to bring about the Church. Paul, the writer of the epistles, became a bitter enemy of the truth and a persecutor of the Church. He met the Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus. From this experience and encounter with Christ, he became one of the most faithful followers, writers and expositors of the truth. He became a chosen vessel, a revealer of the Lord Jesus Christ, and under the direction of the Holy Spirit, was able to write the letters which are so meaningful to us today for instruction in Christian living.
Ignorant of God's plan and purpose, the Jews rejected Christ as the Redeemer of the world. They had established their own system of religion, by-passing what God had promised the nation through covenant. They were unprepared to receive Christ whom God had revealed to them in the Old Testament.
John 1:11-12 tells us, "He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name."
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS
The great theme of this book is the gospel of God – the good news concerning the way in which God, in His infinite love, has provided for sinners to be saved and for everything this free and full salvation includes. This theme is unfolded in the scope and divisions of the book. God reveals man’s true condition as being destitute of all righteousness. The whole world is found guilty before God; Jew and Gentile are lost. It is on this bleak and dark background that God writes the story of His great love.
Both the source and center of all is the sacrificial work of Christ, in which the righteousness of God is made manifest – no longer condemning the guilty sinner, but covering every sinner who believes in Jesus Christ. Justification is by faith, and faith in Christ is counted for righteousness. Justification is also based on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Being justified by faith, the results are that we have peace with God, a standing in grace and hope of the glory of God. We are therefore no longer to live in sin. Sin shall no longer have dominion over you. Christians are, in faith, to act upon this as one dead to sin and alive in God.
Romans 6:11-13 says “Likewise you also, reconcile yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteous sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God”
THE OLD TESTAMENT
Genesis, the book of beginnings, tells not only of the beginning of the universe and of man, but the beginning of sin, the beginning of the line of the Messiah Jesus Christ, the beginning of a line of believers and a line of unbelievers, and the beginning of the Jewish people.
Exodus, the book of redemption, gives a historical account of the deliverance of the nation of Israel from bondage in Egypt. At the same time it records the story in such a way that it becomes typical of God's redemptive plan for all mankind.
Numbers, the book of wandering, tells of the 40 years the children of Israel spent wandering in the wilderness because of their unbelief. This, too, is typical, picturing the unhappy state of a believer who refuses to walk by faith.
Joshua is the book of conquest. It tells about the Israelites who entered the Promised Land and possessed their possessions, and is a picture of the victorious Christian life.
Judges, the book of apostasy, points out what happened because of incomplete obedience. God told the Israelites to wipe out completely the Amorites and Canaanites and other people in the land; but they failed to do so, and the remaining heathen people led them into idolatry.
Then, beginning with I Samuel, there are four books that tell about the age of the kingdom in Israel: I Samuel tells of preparation for the kingdom, II Samuel the establishment of the kingdom, I Kings the division of the kingdom and II Kings the loss of the kingdom.
Then there was a 70-year exile, a period of time during which the people of Israel were taken away and held in captivity.
Ezra tells of the return of a group of former prisoners to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.
Nehemiah is the story of others who returned to rebuild the walls of the city.
Now, the other 28 books of the Old Testament can be fitted into time sequence. They do not advance the historical account, but rather each of them was written at some point during the history.
Job, one of the books of poetry, was written during the time-period covered by Genesis. Its theme is suffering.
Leviticus was the handbook of the priests. It has to do with the worship of God, and is filled with typical meaning concerning Jesus Christ.
In Deuteronomy, a book of review, God through Moses reviewed the law with the generation of Israelites who were about to enter the Promised Land.
Judges is a book of relationships. It points out that God always has His faithful ones, even in the midst of apostasy. Ruth is a story that occurred during this time.
Psalms, a book of experience, is a compilation of individual psalms, some of which had been written as early as Moses' time. However, since David wrote so many of the psalms, we place the book during David's lifetime, about the time of the book of II Samuel.
David's son, Solomon, wrote three books of poetry. Proverbs is the wise sayings of the world's wisest man. Ecclesiastes tells of the futility of life without God. Song of Solomon describes God's relationship to Israel, to the church and to the individual believer.
I and II Chronicles are placed under I and II Kings, for they cover the same period of time. The nation had been divided into Israel, the northern kingdom, and Judah, the southern kingdom.
The books of Kings recorded the history from the point of view of the north, Chronicles from the point of view of the south.
The story of Esther took place about the time of Ezra. It demonstrates the sovereignty of God and His protection over the nation of Israel.
The books of prophecy were all written shortly before, during, or shortly after the time of Israel's exile. Thus we classify them as pre-exilic, exilic and post-exilic, because this helps to explain their messages. The pre-exilic prophets warned of impending judgment unless Israel would change its ways. Their books include Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk and Zephaniah.
The exilic prophets, Ezekiel and Daniel, encouraged the captives by telling of their future restoration and kingdom. The post-exilic prophets revealed more concerning the coming of Christ and the establishment of His kingdom on the earth. They wrote the last three books of the Old Testament, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.
This gives us a brief overall view of the Old Testament.
THE NEW TESTAMENT
Like the Old Testament, the New Testament has sections of books grouped according to subject matter. It opens with four biographical books, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Of course the Gospels do not give the whole biography of Jesus Christ. Perhaps we should call them memoirs. They give highlights of His life. It may appear that they repeat each other, but actually each of them presents Jesus Christ in a different way. Matthew presents Him as King of the Jews, Mark as the Servant of God, Luke as the perfect Man, and John as the Son of God. Matthew's Gospel was written to the Jews, Mark's to the Gentiles, Luke's to the whole world, John's to the church. Matthew's is prophetic in nature, Mark's practical, Luke's historical, John's spiritual. The four Gospels do not record all events in the same order. But this is because none of them, except Luke, were intended as historical accounts. Matthew, for example, in presenting the kingship of Christ, was interested in His kingly acts but was not interested in the chronology of them. Mark, in the same way, dealt with Jesus' servant like acts. John told very little of what He did, but repeated many of His words. Luke dealt historically with the work of Christ, and so was the most accurate in chronology.
Acts is a book of history. It records the story of the New Testament Church. Remember that Acts is historical, and not doctrinal. It simply tells what happened, how believers made the transition from worshipping God in shadows and types (as the Jews had) to worshipping Him in Spirit and in truth. The place to look for doctrinal truth is in the epistles. Confusion results when people try to form doctrinal statements from the history in the book of Acts. For example, some today are assuming that Pentecost, described in Acts 2, is a repeatable experience. But it was a historical event, that happened only once, just as the death of Christ as historical and cannot be repeated.
The section of epistles includes 21 books. Fourteen of these were written by Paul. They are Romans, I and II Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, I and II Thessalonians, I and II Timothy, Titus, Philemon and (probably) Hebrews. They were written to refute error and establish doctrine for believers in Christ. Therefore we can find in them information on the manner of life intended for us in the present age.
The general epistles begin with James and I and II Peter, which were written to Hebrew Christians, as was the book of Hebrews. I, II and III John were written by the same John who wrote John's Gospel. The writer of Jude, like James, was a half brother of the Lord Jesus. These, also, give us doctrinal truth. II Peter, II and III John and Jude warn against false teaching.
The New Testament's one book of prophecy is the book of the Revelation. It is the capstone of all other prophecy. It ties together, and brings to consummation, all that was prophesied in the Old Testament. This is why people fail to understand it if they do not understand Old Testament prophecy. For example, suppose that a person misunderstands the Old Testament and believes that God is done with Israel. That person is at a loss as to what to do with the book of the Revelation; for that book tells of how God is going to purge the nation of Israel, bring the Jews to trust in Christ, and establish them under Christ their King. Jesus Christ is going to sit on the throne of David and fulfill every promise God made to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and David and the nation of Israel. He is going to bring all things under His dominion. This is what the Revelation points out. The last two chapters tell of the eternal state and of God's bringing into being a new heaven and earth.
We should regularly study our Bible, the Holy Word of God with much prayer and dedication.
Colossians 3:16 says "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord."
