Bible Overview

한

0/67 read

StartWhat kind of book the Bible isStart

Introduction

  1. What kind of book the Bible is The Bible is a library of sixty-six books in two testaments, yet one story from creation to new creation, with Christ at its centre. This course gives each of its books a lesson.

The Law

  1. Genesis: the beginning of all things Genesis, the Bible's first book, tells how the heavens and the earth, humankind, sin and God's promise of salvation began. Chapters 1–11 tell of all humanity's beginnings, chapters 12–50 of Abraham, whom God called, and his family.
  2. Exodus: rescue and covenant Exodus tells how God brought Israel out of slavery in Egypt, bound them to himself in covenant at Sinai, and came to dwell among them in the tabernacle. It is the Old Testament's great story of redemption.
  3. Leviticus: living with the holy God Leviticus teaches how a sinful people could live near the holy God who had come to dwell among them: through sacrifice and priesthood, the Day of Atonement, and a holiness that reaches every part of life. Its offerings and priests point to Christ.
  4. Numbers: forty years in the wilderness Numbers follows Israel from Sinai to the edge of the promised land. The generation that would not trust God died in the wilderness, yet God stayed faithful and brought their children to the border.
  5. Deuteronomy: on the edge of the land Deuteronomy gives Moses' last words to Israel on the plains of Moab, before they entered the land. He remembers the journey, teaches the law again to a new generation, calls them to love the LORD with all their heart, and sets before them life and death.

History

  1. Joshua: into the promised land Joshua tells how Israel, led by Moses' successor, crossed the Jordan, took the land God had promised, shared it among the tribes and renewed the covenant. Not one of God's good promises failed.
  2. Judges: when there was no king Judges tells of Israel in the promised land after Joshua's death, turning from God and back again. Each time God raised up a judge to rescue them, yet the people sank lower, and the book ends waiting for a true king.
  3. Ruth: loyal love in Bethlehem Ruth tells of Naomi, who lost her husband and both sons in the days of the judges, and of Ruth the Moabite, who would not leave her. Through Boaz's kindness and a kinsman-redeemer's duty God cares for two widows, and from their family comes David.
  4. 1 Samuel: a people asks for a king 1 Samuel tells of Samuel, the last of the judges, of Saul, Israel's first king, and of David, whom God chose by looking at the heart. The people asked for a king like the nations; God raised up a king after his own heart.
  5. 2 Samuel: the kingdom of David 2 Samuel tells how David became king of all Israel and built his kingdom, received God's promise of a throne for ever, sinned greatly and repented, and saw the sword come into his house. The everlasting promise is kept in David's son, Christ.
  6. 1 Kings: Solomon and the divided kingdom 1 Kings tells how Solomon asked for wisdom, built the temple and prospered, then turned to other gods and fell; how the kingdom split into Israel in the north and Judah in the south; and how the prophet Elijah stood before Ahab, who served Baal.
  7. 2 Kings: two kingdoms fall 2 Kings runs from the ministry of Elisha, Elijah's successor, to the fall of both kingdoms, Israel to Assyria and Judah to Babylon. A people who would not hear the prophets came under the covenant's judgment, yet God did not forget his promise to David.
  8. 1 Chronicles: David and the temple prepared 1 Chronicles retells Israel's story from Adam to David for the people back from exile, showing God's faithfulness to David's house and to the worship of his temple. David brings the ark to Jerusalem, receives the promise of an everlasting throne, and prepares the temple his son Solomon will build.
  9. 2 Chronicles: the temple and the kings of Judah 2 Chronicles opens with God's glory filling the temple Solomon built and follows the kings of Judah through reform and unfaithfulness until the temple burns and the people go into exile. It closes with the decree of Cyrus king of Persia, sending them home to build the house of God again.
  10. Ezra: the return and the temple Ezra tells how, by the decree of Cyrus king of Persia, the exiles came home and rebuilt the temple, and how Ezra the scribe came to turn the people back to God's law. God moves even a foreign king's heart to keep the word he gave through his prophets.
  11. Nehemiah: the wall and the covenant renewed Nehemiah, cupbearer to the king of Persia, goes home to Jerusalem, rebuilds its broken walls, and with Ezra renews the people in God's law and covenant. It is the book of a leader who prays as he works, and of a people who understand God's word and rejoice.
  12. Esther: God at work, unnamed Esther tells how a Jewish woman who became queen of Persia risked her life before the king and saved her people from Haman's plot to destroy them all. The Hebrew book never names God, yet through ordinary-looking events his hand keeps his people.

Poetry and Wisdom

  1. Job: faith in suffering Job is the story of a righteous man struck by suffering he cannot explain, who cries out to God, argues with his friends, and at last meets God in the whirlwind. It does not explain every sorrow, but shows a faith that holds on to God in the dark.
  2. Psalms: the book of prayer and praise The Psalms are Israel's hundred and fifty songs and prayers to God, gathered in five books. They teach us to bring God joy and grief, repentance and thanks, and these songs, which Jesus himself prayed, sing of Christ.
  3. Proverbs: the wisdom of fearing the LORD Proverbs teaches in short, memorable sayings how those who fear God may live wisely day by day. Wisdom's call (chapters 1–9) is followed by the sayings of Solomon and other wise men (10–31).
  4. Ecclesiastes: vanity under the sun, and God In Ecclesiastes a wise king searches out everything under the sun and finds that a life grasped without God slips through the fingers like breath. At the end he teaches us to fear God and to receive with joy the days God gives.
  5. Song of Solomon: the song of love The Song of Solomon, or Song of Songs, is a poem of love between a man and a woman, who long for each other, meet, lose each other and are one again. The church has read it both as a song of the married love God gives and as a song of Christ and his church.

Major Prophets

  1. Isaiah: the Holy One and the suffering servant Isaiah proclaims the Holy One of Israel, who judges his people's sin and comforts them, saves through a suffering servant, and will create new heavens and a new earth. Few books of the prophets are quoted more often in the New Testament.
  2. Jeremiah: the weeping prophet and the new covenant Jeremiah is the book of the ‘weeping prophet’, who called Judah to turn back for more than forty years and lived to see Jerusalem fall. In the midst of judgement God promises a new covenant, his law written on his people's hearts.
  3. Lamentations: laments for a fallen city Lamentations is five poems of grief for Jerusalem, destroyed by Babylon in 586 BC. They pour out sorrow before God without hiding it, and at their centre confess God's mercies, new every morning.
  4. Ezekiel: the glory departs and returns Ezekiel is the book of the visions and messages of a priest taken captive to Babylon. God's glory leaves a temple defiled by sin, but God promises a new heart and a new spirit, raises dry bones to life, and at last returns in glory.
  5. Daniel: God reigns in a foreign land Daniel tells of Daniel and his friends, faithful in the courts of Babylon and Persia, and of visions in which God's everlasting kingdom outlasts every empire. It shows one like a son of man coming with the clouds, and speaks of the resurrection more plainly than any other Old Testament book.

Minor Prophets

  1. Hosea: love for an unfaithful people Hosea is the story of a prophet told to love an unfaithful wife, a living picture of Israel running after idols and of God, who will not let his people go. It is the first of the twelve Minor Prophets.
  2. Joel: the day of the LORD and the Spirit poured out Joel sees in a plague of locusts the coming day of the LORD, calls the people to return to God with their whole heart, and promises that God will pour out his Spirit on all people.
  3. Amos: let justice roll down Amos, a shepherd from Judah, was sent to the prosperous northern kingdom to say that God will not accept the worship of people who crush the poor. After its words of judgement, the book ends with God's promise to raise up David's fallen tent.
  4. Obadiah: a word against Edom Obadiah, the shortest book of the Old Testament, announces that God will bring down proud Edom, who stood by and plundered while its brother Judah fell, and that in the end the kingdom will belong to the LORD.
  5. Jonah: God's mercy even to enemies Jonah is the story of a prophet who ran from God's call to go to Nineveh, an enemy city, and of the God who spared Nineveh when it repented and then questioned his angry prophet.
  6. Micah: justice, mercy, humility Micah, a country prophet of Judah in Isaiah's day, rebukes the sins of Samaria and Jerusalem, and promises a ruler from Bethlehem and a God who casts our sins into the depths of the sea.
  7. Nahum: the fall of Nineveh Nahum announces the fall of Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire that had crushed Israel and oppressed Judah. The God who is slow to anger will not leave cruelty unpunished, and he is a stronghold for those who trust in him.
  8. Habakkuk: the righteous shall live by faith Habakkuk is a prophet's questions to God about a world full of violence, and God's answers. Told that "the righteous will live by faith", the prophet ends with a prayer that rejoices in God even when the fig tree does not bud.
  9. Zephaniah: the day of the LORD and the remnant Zephaniah announces the day of the LORD on Judah and the nations, and promises that a humble remnant will be sheltered. A book that opens with judgement closes with God singing for joy over his people.
  10. Haggai: build the house again Haggai called the exiles who had come home from Babylon to rebuild the temple they had left in ruins. His four messages of 520 BC tell them to consider their ways, and promise that the latter glory of the house will be greater than the former.
  11. Zechariah: the coming king Zechariah prophesied with Haggai to encourage the rebuilding of the temple. His eight night visions comfort the returned exiles, and his later oracles look ahead to a humble king riding on a donkey, and to a shepherd pierced and struck.
  12. Malachi: I will send my messenger Malachi records six disputes between God and a weary people after the temple had been rebuilt. In our Bibles the Old Testament ends with its promise of a messenger to prepare the way, and of Elijah.

Gospels and Acts

  1. Matthew: the promised king Matthew tells of Jesus as the Christ, the son of David, the king the Old Testament promised. It opens with his family line, gathers his teaching into five discourses, and ends with the risen king sending his disciples to all nations.
  2. Mark: the Son who came to serve Mark, the shortest and swiftest of the Gospels, tells how Jesus, the Son of God, came to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. It runs from the miracles in Galilee to the cross and the empty tomb in Jerusalem.
  3. Luke: the Saviour who seeks the lost Luke is a Gospel written by Luke the physician as an orderly account from eyewitnesses. It tells how Jesus, the Saviour born in the town of David, came to the poor, to sinners and to all who were lost, and it is the first volume of a story that goes on in Acts.
  4. John: believe and have life John, the fourth Gospel, comes from the disciple whom Jesus loved. Through signs and long conversations it shows Jesus as the Word who was in the beginning and became flesh, and it was written so that its readers may believe that he is the Christ, the Son of God, and have life in his name.
  5. Acts: to the ends of the earth Acts, the second volume of Luke's work, tells how the risen Jesus made his disciples his witnesses by the Holy Spirit, and how the gospel went out from Jerusalem towards the ends of the earth. It begins at Pentecost and ends with Paul, under guard in Rome, preaching without hindrance.

Paul's Letters

  1. Romans: the righteousness of God in the gospel Romans is Paul's letter to the church in Rome, which he had not yet visited. The longest of his letters, it sets out step by step the gospel that all have sinned and that God justifies them by faith in Christ.
  2. 1 Corinthians: to a divided church 1 Corinthians is Paul's letter to the church he had founded in Corinth. To its quarrels and sins, and to its questions about marriage, food offered to idols, worship, gifts and the resurrection, he answers with Christ crucified and with love.
  3. 2 Corinthians: power in weakness 2 Corinthians is the most personal of Paul's letters, written after a painful time with the church in Corinth. It tells of the gospel of reconciliation entrusted to frail people like jars of clay, and of Christ's power made perfect in weakness.
  4. Galatians: the freedom of the gospel Galatians is the sharpest of Paul's letters, written to churches in Galatia that were turning to a different gospel. A person is justified not by works of the law but by faith in Christ, Paul says, and lives by the Spirit in the freedom Christ has won.
  5. Ephesians: one body in Christ Ephesians is a letter Paul wrote as a prisoner. It praises God for every blessing given in Christ, for salvation by grace, and for the church in which Jew and Gentile are made one body, and it teaches how to live worthy of that calling.
  6. Philippians: the letter of joy Philippians is Paul's thank-you letter from prison to the church that had helped him. In chains he rejoices in the Lord, and he calls the church to the mind of Christ, who humbled himself, and to count everything loss beside knowing him.
  7. Colossians: Christ over all Colossians is Paul's letter from prison to a church he had never visited. Christ, in whom all God's fullness dwells, is over all creation and every power, so the church needs no philosophy of rules and powers: raised with him, it is to seek the things above.
  8. 1 Thessalonians: waiting for the Lord's coming 1 Thessalonians is Paul's letter to a young church under persecution. He gives thanks that they turned from idols to God, calls them to holy lives, and comforts them over those who have died: the Lord will come, and all who are his will be with him for ever.
  9. 2 Thessalonians: do not be shaken 2 Thessalonians is a second letter to the persecuted church at Thessalonica. Paul tells them not to be shaken by talk that the Day of the Lord has already come, but to stand firm in what they were taught and to work quietly while they wait.
  10. 1 Timothy: in God's household 1 Timothy is Paul's letter to Timothy, the young co-worker he left at Ephesus. It tells him how to stop false teaching and set prayer, worship and the church's offices in order, so that God's household may live in godliness.
  11. 2 Timothy: finishing the good fight 2 Timothy is Paul's last letter, written from a Roman prison as death drew near, to Timothy, his beloved son in the faith. Do not be ashamed of the gospel, he urges; guard what was entrusted to you, and preach the God-breathed word.
  12. Titus: sound teaching and good works Titus is Paul's letter to the co-worker he left on Crete. Appoint elders in every town, he says, and let sound teaching show in good works at every age and station; for the grace of God that saves us also trains us.
  13. Philemon: welcome him as a brother Philemon is a one-chapter letter from Paul in prison to Philemon of Colossae. Paul sends back Onesimus, a slave who has come to Christ through him, and asks Philemon to welcome him no longer as a slave but as a beloved brother, and to charge any debt to Paul.

General Letters and Revelation

  1. Hebrews: the high priest of a better covenant To believers tempted to turn back, Hebrews shows Jesus the Son, greater than the angels, Moses and Aaron: the high priest of a better covenant, who by his own blood secured redemption once for all.
  2. James: faith that works James, the leader of the Jerusalem church, wrote this letter of wisdom to scattered believers: endurance in trials, a faith that does the word as well as hearing it, a tamed tongue, justice for the poor and the prayer of faith.
  3. 1 Peter: living hope in suffering The apostle Peter wrote 1 Peter to believers scattered like exiles across Asia Minor. He calls them to hold to the living hope that Christ's resurrection gives, to bear suffering for doing good as Christ did, and to live as God's own people.
  4. 2 Peter: false teachers and the day of the Lord 2 Peter comes to us as Peter's last charge before his death. It urges believers to grow in grace and knowledge, warns them against false teachers, and explains that the day of the Lord waits on God's patience, for he wants all to come to repentance.
  5. 1 John: light, love and life 1 John teaches that God is light and God is love, and was written so that believers may know they have eternal life. Walking in the light, loving one another and believing in Jesus come in the flesh return again and again.
  6. 2 John: walk in the truth 2 John is a thirteen-verse letter from ‘the elder’ to ‘the chosen lady and her children’. It urges them to walk in truth and love, and not to welcome teachers who deny that Jesus Christ came in the flesh.
  7. 3 John: fellow workers for the truth 3 John is a short letter from ‘the elder’ to his friend Gaius, praising him for welcoming brothers who travelled for the truth and rebuking Diotrephes, who shut them out. The early church's mission depended on homes like Gaius'.
  8. Jude: contend for the faith Jude urges believers to contend for the faith entrusted once for all to the saints, against those who make God's grace an excuse for sin, and closes with praise to the God who keeps them from stumbling.
  9. Revelation: the triumph of the Lamb In Revelation John sends the visions he saw on Patmos to seven churches in Asia. It shows the Lamb who was slain reigning from the throne and overcoming all evil, and God dwelling with his people in a new heaven and a new earth.