The subject line starts with a simple, one sentence question that could easily take a lifetime to answer.
Now don’t panic, I’m not going to write the longest article ever written. Instead I’m going to share 2 shortcuts that will answer this question beautifully for you and hopefully help you muster up the courage to actually read the entire Bible someday.
Before I dive into the shortcuts let me just throw out there that the entire Bible is really about one thing:
God’s unfailing love for us. Demonstrated by sending His Son Jesus to take on the sins of all humanity thereby purchasing a way for all believers to avoid facing God’s wrath and have eternal life instead.
The Old Testament is the part of the story leading up to the greatest sacrifice ever and the New Testament is the story afterwards.
This is of course a very simplified description and there is plenty more to learn. The problem of course is that since the Bible is such a long book many (if not most) never end up reading it in it’s entirety and, as such, never really fully understand what it’s about.
The truly sad thing is that, as a result, most people end up making incorrect assumptions like:
- “The Bible isn’t relevant today”
- “It’s just a book of old stories”
- “It’s just a book of rules”
- … and so on
… even although they haven’t actually read it. So let’s solve this one shall we?
A great way to start your journey to understanding the Bible (and by extension God’s plan for your life) is to read books written by trustworthy authors who have actually read and studied it. Here are my two recommendations:
God’s Big Picture by Vaughn Roberts
I was introduced to this book by my pastor in a small group that he hosted and I was so grateful.
It beautifully summarised the main concepts in the Bible in a concise, unbiased and complete way. This made otherwise disjointed ideas (at least in my mind) finally come together into one cohesive narrative.
An excellent example was the significance of the temple being destroyed and the curtain being torn when Jesus died on the cross. I had no idea what that meant until I read this book, and it turns out that it was great news. If you don’t already understand this concept I won’t ruin the surprise. Trust me on this when I say it’s well worth understanding.
I can’t recommend this short read highly enough.
66 Books One Story
So this book solves 2 big problems:
1. If you’ve been looking for a simple way to share the Bible with your children and teach them the stories in a way that doesn’t make it seem too complex for them to comprehend then this is the book you’ve been looking for.
2. If you’re an adult who either wants to finally understand the Bible without having to spend the next 3 months reading it OR if you want an easy way to get a quick overview of particular books of the Bible without having to read the whole thing from the source then you’ll also appreciate the amount of work Paul put into compiling this book.
Ok, now that I think about it, there is a third reason to get this book and it’s essentially as a gift to someone who may be interested in reading the Bible but they’re just completely overwhelmed by the very thought of just opening up Genesis 1 and seeing how far they can get (a highly recommended exercise by the way).
Now please keep in mind that as great as these books are, they shouldn’t be considered replacements for the Bible. Who could possibly compete with a book authored by the Creator of all things?! But they are definitely books you should have on your bookshelf (physical or digital).
So please consider these books as a way to transition yourself into reading God’s Word and who knows? Maybe one day someone will write a blog post about the great book you just wrote on sharing the good news of the Gospel 🙂
Enjoy.