we're gonna see what they're about and how they all fit together.
The Bible is divided into two major sections
- The Old Testament (which looks at the relationship between God and the nation of Israel) and
- The New Testament (what Jesus did and what his followers did and taught after him).
The Old Testament books there are 39 books .The Old Testament is much larger than the New Testament although 39 doesn't sound like that much more than the 27 books that are in the New Testament the Old Testament makes up about three-quarters of the Bible in terms of just volume that's because a lot of these books are really long.
The Old Testament in the Christian Bible is split up into four different sections.
- The books of the law. God making promises to the nation of Israel and also making a special relationship with the nation of Israel. God says that while all the other nations worship all these other gods and all they have all these Pantheon's. Israel must be exclusively loyal to God and God will watch out for them, he'll protect them, he will make them great.
- The books of history talk about how that relationship plays out and it does not go so well for Israel.
- The books of poetry have a lot of worship and wisdom, literature a lot of good stuff for an ancient Jewish person to know.
- The books of prophecy are messages that God gave to his people at various points in history through human messengers.He would give a message to a human prophets and then they would give that message to the people.
Individual view on each books.
The book of Genesis- which starts everything off you have God making some promises to a man named Abraham saying I am going to bless all the nations through your descendants I'm going to give your descendants a special land and I am going to give you a lot of descendants there are going to be a lot of people that come from you and that starts getting fulfilled.
The book of Exodus- a lot of people come from Abraham he has a lot of descendants but they're enslaved in Egypt so God sends a prophet named Moses and he goes and he leads the people of Israel out of Egypt and takes them to this mountain where they make this pact with God and that's where God says I will be your God and you will be my people.
The book of Leviticus-God is very sacred and very powerful being. He is holy and if people were going to be in close proximity in close contact with such a powerful being then they also needed to be sacred they needed to be reverent and needed to be holy and holiness
The book of Numbers- in the beginning of the book Moses counts all the people and at the end of the book Moses counts all the people again because a lot of people died between those two counting's on account of 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.Before entering the promised Moses gave big speech in the book of Deuteronomy.
The book of Deuteronomy- means second law because his speech was essentially Moses told people to enter the Promised Land and they need to remain loyal to God, need to remember the law so Deuteronomy means second law because in many ways.It's the second time that the law is given to the people of Israel.It's just a new generation now once you have the law finished. The people enter the promised land.
The book of Joshua- Joshua was Moses's right-hand man and he leads the people into the Promised Land after Moses dies and they occupied their residences and territories in the Promised Land and everything's good until the book of Judges.
The book of Judges-terrible stuff happened in the book of Judges.
The Book of Ruth-one person who is not an Israelite a woman named Ruth who is so loyal to her mother-in-law who is an Israelite that she converts to the Jewish faith she moves back to Israel with her mother-in-law named Naomi and starts a new family there with her and a man named Boaz. Ruth becomes the ancestress of a man named David whom we meet in the books of Samuel David becomes this mighty King and he is a very very loyal to God. David sets up a temple for all the people in honour of God.He is just this really great legendary figure in Jewish history.
The books of Samuel,The books of kings,The books of chronicles -tell the story of David's descendants you know how did that Kingdom play out and it didn't play out so well because after David died just kind of the same sort of story like you have in Moses and Joshua dying and then in Judges everything starts crumbling David dies and then things start devolving in Israel as well the people over the course of a few centuries abandon the law they are no longer loyal to God and so they are carried away into captivity.
The book of Ezra-people rebuild the temple.
The book of Nehemiah- the people rebuild the walls of the city where the temple.
The book of Esther-She was brave woman who is not in Jerusalem and she saves all the Jews from this genocide.
The book of Job- we have a good person who has some really bad stuff happening to him so it's a long poem about why does God allow terrible things to happen to good people.
The Book of Psalms- this is a book of worship and have a hundred and fifty different songs and poems that the Jews used to worship God.
The book of Proverbs-have many wisdom sayings these are things that Jewish people would teach to the young to the younger generations and say this is how we make good decisions.
The book of Ecclesiastes- the Bible Ecclesiastes looks at and what is life really all about and what's the smartest way or the wisest way of dealing with the the hardships.
The book of song of songs or the song of solomon -is a love poem and it's kind of a steamy love poem.
The books of prophecy -we have God speaking to his people through these human prophets and our books of prophecy in the Christian Bible are loosely divided into two groups.
- The major prophets Isaiah,Jeremiah, lamentations, Ezekiel and Daniel.
- The minor prophets and in the Jewish Bible these are treated as just kind of one book the twelve because there are twelve of them.
Major prophets.
Isaiah deals with God's judgement and then the comfort that awaits the people of Israel after God's judgement will come.
Jeremiah is speaking to the people and warning of they're about to go into captivity because they were not loyal to God they didn't keep his law.
lamentations is a book of poems that mourn the fall of Jerusalem it's very connected to and that captivity that happens in the books of history.
Ezekiel was a captive himself and so that book deals with messages for the people of Israel during that time.
Daniel has not only a lot of good wisdom for ancient Jewish folks but some insight into what God's perspective on world empires past present and future in it.
Minor prophets.
God is going to deal with the non Hebrew nations and how is he going to restore the world in peace and justice and order and so they these all discuss that in in various nuanced ways with this books.
- Hosea
- Joel
- Amos
- Obadiah
- Jonah
- Micah
- Nahum
- Habakkuk
- Zephaniah
- Haggai
- Zechariah
- Malachi.
New Testament.
New Testament there are about this is a tiny little gap but there are about 400 years that transpire between the events of the Old Testament and the events of the New Testament.
New Testament we have two major groups of books we have the Gospels that deal with the story of Jesus and then we have letters that are written by Jesus's followers exploring what do we do with Jesus life and teachings
we have four Gospels Matthew Mark Luke and John Matthew Mark and Luke cover generally the same material and so they are called the synoptic Gospels.
Matthew presents Jesus as the king of the Jews he is that rightful Messiah and the heir of good King David good King David designed the temple that his son Solomon built and Jesus comesing and in Matthew he is the son of David he is this righteous that this righteous king of the Jews.
Mark and Jesus is presented as the servant of all he is the suffering servant who comes in and he suffers on behalf of his people it's the shortest of the Gospels.
Luke wrote two books of the New Testament the Gospel of Luke and then the book of Acts which is a work of church history Luke trying to get all the facts about Jesus and lay them out in chronological order and so that's what the book of Luke is about it's it's very educational to teach one person in particular who Jesus was, what he did and what he said.
John is very focused on teaching the Jesus is God focuses on Jesus's divinity that's what the Gospel of John is it's all about getting you to believe Jesus.
Acts like I mentioned before it's part 2 of Luke it tells the story of what happened after the Gospels in Jesus performs miracles, he dies and he rises again act says well what happened after he rose and so it follows this group of close followers of Jesus the Apostles and tells the story of how the good news of Jesus spread throughout the ancient world.
Letters are grouped into they fall into a couple of major groups the first 13 letters are called the Pauline epistles are written by the Apostle Paul and so the first large group of these letters are addressed to churches in certain areas and they're named after the areas that they're addressed to Paul talks about what the gospel is and how it works.
When he writes to the Romans when he writes to the Corinthians both times he's addressing concerns and questions that they have and that he has with them because they had some problems.
Galatians Paul is writing about how the gospel works specifically how does the good news of Jesus apply to people who weren't Jewish so they didn't have this history of a relationship with God.
Ephesians Paul talks about how the church works and what does it look like to walk in a manner worthy of Jesus.
Philippians Paul's writing from prison and he's talking about how to rejoice and the joy that can be found in Christ.
Colossians Paul is telling the people of colossi how to live with the mind of Christ and what does it what does it mean to set your mind on the things of Jesus in his letters.
Thessalonians he talks about Jesus return and how to live in a manner that anticipates Jesus coming.
Timothy was a church leader and Paul is giving him instructions on how to run the church in an orderly fashion same deal in his letter Titus.
Philemon Paul is talking about how should a Christian leader deal with a runaway slave that became a Christian really really fascinating book there in a very short book
Hebrews is interesting in that we don't know who wrote it and there are a lot of very strongly held opinions about who wrote it but the content itself is very important it talks about how the person of Jesus and the relationship that we can have through Jesus is so much better than the relationship that was made available through the law through the the first five books of the Bible fascinating book about Jesus as as the the high priest for Christians.
Catholic epistles and Catholic doesn't mean they're for Roman Catholics Catholic means they're universal they're for everyone.
James talks about how the Christian faith works out practically in the letters.
Peter talks about the suffering that Christians are experiencing in the world and also the glory that will come when Jesus returns but he wants to remind people to be loyal to Jesus and remember his teachings and remember the truth.
We have three letters that are attributed to John that's 1st 2nd and 3rd John and
John is writing about the love that Christians should have for each other and the obedience that they should have to Jesus.
Jude talks about contending for the faith he wants Christians to be aware of false teaching that's coming in there are some people that are trying to twist Jesus's words and Jude says look out for these people.
Revelation which is an apocalyptic book but it is also kind of like a letter to a group of churches and revelation gives this grand vision of Jesus returning and setting up a new order in which everyone is ruled in peace and justice and fairness and light it's a really great happy ending to the whole Bible.
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