In my previous article, we looked into what the general point of the Bible is and what sections make it up. However, there is so much more to cover than what I could fit in to that article and now I’ll give a very brief explanation for when someone might want to read each book, and what these books are for. I’ll focus on the New Testament books because of relevance.
Disclaimer: There’s value in every book, I could easily write several articles about each book, this is a guide and not a summary.
Genesis is important to read early on. It begins with the creation of the world and humanity. There are many other histories in it, but if you want to know the origin of man then this is the place to go. It’s good to know the fundamentals of how people came to be in order to understand life, God’s character, and humanity’s nature.
Exodus-Esther are mostly histories. They’re good to go read and some of them get really exciting (Especially Judges, 1st and 2nd Samuel, and Esther). I definitely recommend them even as reading for entertainment along with understanding God’s character better by seeing His patience and how His world functions.
Job is about a man named Job who goes through a lot of terrible things. He loses children, property, wealth, his friends abandon him, and yet He’s faithful to God. Whatever happens to you, Job probably had it worse.
Psalms is full of beautiful poetry. It can be encouraging or relate to what you’re going through in times of doubt and things going wrong. It’s essentially the art in the Bible.
Proverbs is full of proverbs, little wise saying and pieces of advice that can help you make wise decisions through your life.
Ecclesiastes is another book of wisdom, it’s about life and the meaning of life and it’s philosophical and great.
Song of Solomon shows us what loving relationships should be like. It’s made up of love letters back and forth from lovers who have a healthy relationship. It’s another book of wisdom.
Isaiah-Malachi are the prophets. Prophets were people who God specifically spoke to who acted as God’s voice on earth. Their books are full of the lives of the prophets and what they went through during times of serious turmoil. There’s a lot that these guys go through. They’re usually countercultural and have to do things that are difficult, but right.
The New Testament
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are the four Gospels. They tell the story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Each of the four writers have different backgrounds and focus on different elements, however. Matthew was a tax collector before he met Jesus, he writes primarily to the Jews and focuses on the law, he has really good accounts of Jesus’ teachings. Mark was a fisherman and he focuses more on the action. Luke was a physician and writes from that perspective, including the Christmas story. John had a close relationship with Jesus and was the younger, his gospel focuses a lot more on feeling. When someone becomes a Christian, they’re saying that they want to follow Christ and live like Jesus did. Because of this, it’s important for new Christians to read the Gospels because they’re all about who you want to live like. Jesus lived a perfect life, and these books are where we go to see that example.
Acts recounts the events of what happened to the early church and early Christians when they no longer had Jesus to follow, because He returned to Heaven. There’s excitement, persecution, and the introduction of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Romans-Hebrews are known as the Epistles, or letters. Paul writes these to various Churches and Christians. These lessons still apply to us today, so they’re really good to read for everyday life. They all have different themes and they’re all amazing in different ways, but the fact that they were all written by Paul, a man who dedicated his life to killing Christians and trying to completely remove the religion before he had an encounter with Jesus, is truly amazing and shows that it’s never too late for someone to turn their life around.
James, 1st and 2nd Peter, and 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John and Jude are more encouraging letters. Whereas the names of the epistles showed who the letters were written to (Ex. 1st and 2nd Corinthians were written to the church in Corinth, 1st and 2nd Timothy were written to a man named Timothy and so on), these books are named after their authors. These are good to read like Paul’s epistles.
Revelation is a prophecy that John, the author of John had near the end of his life. He was exiled to an island towards the end of his life, and that’s when God spoke to him again, this time through visions of the future and how the world will end. Some of the imagery in this book doesn’t make sense because it was a man from around 90 AD trying to explain things that still may not have been invented, so he’s just doing his best to explain what he sees in terms of things he knows. It lists some signs of the end times.
Summary-
-The Gospels are great to start with. Know who Jesus is and what He does so you can do things like He does.
-It’s also important to read Genesis early because it explains how everything came to be.
-The letters in the New Testament are full of instruction and encouragement and they’re great to read for daily life.
-The Old Testament wisdom books (Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes) are great to read, some of the best books in the world that you can read, but they’re about understanding more than instruction.
-The Old Testament is full of cool stories and they all have lessons, but they’re more about learning than instructions on living.
-You’ll benefit from reading any of it, there’s always more to get from it.
