A well-worn Bible is a well-read Bible
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Getting to Know the Bible
OK, I assume it is unrealistic to expect that you all read Dr. Wright’s trilogy on the Old Testament. I hope you will – it will change your life by helping you better appreciate how God used the Old Testament to fully prepare and support the message of the New Testament.
On a more basic note, I hope we’ll all agree that the Bible is a book well worth studying. Yet, how well do we really know it? Discovering all that God has put between its covers is a life-long challenge. I’m always looking for ways to appreciate better and understand more fully what God has given us in His Word. Recently, I came across a study called, “Survey of the Bible,” by Bruce Wilkinson that I thought had an excellent way of introducing the Bible’s message. Bruce Wilkinson is a Christian preacher, speaker, and writer. He is best known for his book “The Prayer of Jabez.” Check out the link below for an intorduction to this study. If you’re willing to invest ~30 minutes of your time, I think you’ll begin to see the Bible in a new and exciting way. Bruce has a way of boiling down complex concepts into simple ways to remember the key points better than anyone I have ever seen!
Survey of the Bible: https://get.revelationmedia.org/tensurvey-2?_hsmi=275412707&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_-0C6x8ixgzXEWFfG6zSHoZ3qyasVqvcgELqJPPPEKy5t3BH8s4dBbOWiex358Zae1wT8ankKV0uBPJYWfBwgPGTz7Dg
For example, we now know that the Bible contains 66 books. But how many are in the Old Testament, and how many are in the New Testament? Bruce has a simple way to remember the answer:
The words, “Old Testament,” consist of two words:
“Old” = 3 letters
“Testament” = 9 letters
And, the Old Testament consists of 39 books.
Now, you can either do the math to get the remaining number of books in the New Testament, or you can remember:
The words, “New Testament,” consist of two words:
“New” = 3 letters
“Testament” = 9 letters
And if you multiply 3×9, you get 27 = The number of books in the New Testament.
The Miracle that is the Bible
See, Bible study can be fun! But think about how all this came about. There were no TV’s when the Bible was written. There was no instant communication. Each “book” (or scroll) had to be written by hand — for every copy that existed! And the timeframe between the first and last book was ~1,500 years! How could such a work get written unless there was someone who oversaw and inspired all the diverse people who wrote these 39 books? This is a miracle of unprecedented proportions! That is why so many scholars have concluded that the Bible is the “holy inspired work of God.” No one else could have accomplished such a work.
Moving on, I’d like to go back to trying to establish a basis for believing that what God tells us in the Old Testament is reliable. We will need a firm foundation of trusting what God did in the Old Testament if we are to understand His plan for His Chosen People in the New Testament.
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