How to Read Your Bible 101Sample

Let's talk about the Bible, an amazing book that is meant to change and shape our lives. The Bible is the story of the loving, almighty God who created us and saves us from our sins. The Bible covers the story from the beginning of creation to the end of the world. It is a collection of 66 books, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, as He moved through people to write down the things they saw God do and the messages He gave to them. The Holy Spirit was empowering and guiding them to write in a way that accurately and faithfully represents the truth about God and His desires for us. The Bible is God’s Word.

2 Timothy 3:16 ESV - All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

Even though the Bible was written over a period of more than 1,000 years, it is still one story. Let's walk through the big-picture story the Bible tells together.

The Bible opens up in the book of Genesis with creation. We see God created the heavens and the earth. God created mankind to be in fellowship with Him. He wanted to walk with His people on a beautiful earth unaffected by sin, death, or decay. He gave Adam the authority over all His creation. But in Genesis 3, the story takes a turn. Satan, a fallen angel, convinces Adam and Eve to disobey God. When they chose to listen to Satan, they surrendered the authority that God had given them to Satan. Giving him their power and letting sin, death, sickness, decay, and perversion into the world. As the evening comes, God came for His walk with Adam and Eve. Even though they had messed everything up, God didn’t give up on them. Even as He dealt with them sinning we received a promise that God would fix all that had been broken. He said that one day One would come, through the line of Eve, that would crush Satan. God’s promise and plan were underway. He called out a group of people to be set apart to bring the promise to pass. He called out Abraham and his descendants who would later become the Israelites. The promises of the one who was to come continued to be given. God promised that through Abraham’s line, the world would be blessed and saved. As time went on, God rescued the Israelites and made a covenant with them, setting up the law. The law was the framework for God’s plan. In the law came an understanding of sin, sacrifice, and redemption. Even though God had done so much for the people they were still unfaithful. We see times of them serving and walking with God, enjoying His blessing then rejecting God, creating a mess before calling back out for God’s help. There is much of this cycle throughout the Old Testament. The promise keeps coming that One will come who will deliver them. We see heroes who trust God and make stands with and for God, and Prophets who call out warnings for sin and promise the Messiah, The Savior who was to come.

The Bible is marked as we reach what we call the New Testament by the arrival of the promised Messiah. Jesus came from heaven to be born as a human to live a sinless life and die in our place, for our sins, as our sacrifice. Yet death couldn’t hold him. On the third day, He rose from the dead. In His life, He brought the message of the kingdom of God, and in His death and resurrection, He made a way for us to enter into the kingdom. After His resurrection, He sent out His disciples to share the good news. He went back to heaven having promised to return and set up His kingdom on the earth. We see the disciples and the early church spreading the good news. In the final book of the Bible, we see the restoration of God’s original plan. After He judges the world and throws Satan into Hell we see a new heaven and a new earth where God will be with man, and man will be with God. It is back to the plan from the beginning. There will be no more sickness, pain, or death. We will be with God in fellowship on a perfect earth.

When we see the whole picture, we see that God never gave up on His plan for us. From one garden to the next, God’s plan is and has always been to be in fellowship with us. Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil, to set us free, and to restore our relationship with God, our heavenly Father.

Walking in fellowship with God doesn’t have to wait until His final return to begin. It's God’s desire to walk with us each day. That is part of what we get to do in reading our Bible. We are able to spend time getting to know God, getting to read what He has done, reading His thoughts, and letting them transform us.

When Jesus called the disciples, the first purpose listed wasn’t the tasks He had for them. It was that they might be with Him Mark 3:14 ESV - 14 And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach. In John 15 Jesus tells us to abide in Him. In verse 7, he gives some insight into how to do that. John 15:7 ESV - 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.