Newbie's guide: Roadmap of the Bible
If you have been reading this guide from the beginning, you may have noticed just how much I mention and make reference to the Bible. As mentioned in the prayer section, the Bible is often referred to as God’s Word or as Scripture. It is the biggest collection we have of God’s words, thoughts and voice. More than just an old book, the Bible is “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12 ESV). Even though it was written over 2,000 years ago, its words have a way of still being highly relevant to us in our modern world today. The Bible is, by a large margin, the #1 bestselling book in all of world history (Guinness World Records). It has outlived people, nations, kingdoms, and entire world orders. It is the eternal word of God, and as Jesus Himself said (in the Bible, of course), “it will never pass away” (Matthew 24:35).
Reading and understanding the Bible is a major key to the Christian life. Many seasoned Christians are people who were raised going to church and following Christian customs, believing that would satisfy both God and them. But very often these Christians find that they aren’t able to truly connect with Christianity or make any sense of it until they read the Bible and understand it for themselves.
There are so many good reasons to read the Bible — from finding guidance and advice for different situations, getting closer to God and learning his voice, or even just learning from the many good and bad examples therein. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
The truth is, though, that while the Bible is the incredible and infallible Word of God, it is also a very big and old book that can be very confusing for the first-time reader. It covers a good 1,000-2,000 years of world history within its pages. It has around 50 different authors, all with different styles and subject matter, and was written when the world order was very different from what it is today. The 66 books range in length from one chapter to 150 chapters. The subjects covered range from exciting battle stories and detailed poems, to letters written from jail, to genealogies and long accounts of people’s names. It can be pretty overwhelming for a newbie to know where to start or how to make sense of it all.
That’s why this part of the guide is here, to help you begin to make sense of the Bible and also learn how to study it well so that you can experience it fully. This first section will serve as a bit of a roadmap, summarizing the contents of the Bible, as well as giving suggestions on where to start. The next section covers how to get into reading the Bible regularly, and the third section covers the different versions of the Bible and finding a Bible that you understand.
Roadmap of the Bible
As mentioned, the Bible has 66 different books (+ 5 more if you’re Catholic) which were written by several different authors. It is usually divided into the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament consists of the books of the Bible that were written before Jesus came to the earth. The New Testament covers Jesus’ life, death and resurrection along with the establishment of the Church and the period immediately after that.
Within the Old and New Testaments, we find several “groups” of books that fit with each other. Below is a short-ish (okay, maybe on the longer side) breakdown of all the books of the Bible.
If you’re not in the mood for a long explanatory breakdown, feel free to skip to the bottom TL;DR section.
The Old Testament
The first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) are called the Torah (or the Pentateuch in Greek). They are believed to have largely been written by Moses, the great Jewish leader who led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. They cover the creation of the world, the establishment of the nation of Israel, the Israelites’ period of brutal slavery in Egypt, their subsequent liberation by God, their time in the wilderness, and their eventual rebellion against God in the wilderness and failure to enter their Promised Land on time. They also cover the establishment of the Law, which told how humans (especially Israelites or Jews) were supposed to relate to God before having full atonement for all their sins. The Torah (along with all of the Old Testament, but especially the Torah) is highly revered by Jews and is regularly read and studied in synagogues. As Christians, we have plenty to gain as well from reading and analyzing the Torah.
The next 12 books (Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther) are sometimes called the Historical Books. They cover the history of the nation of Israel, which eventually splits into the nations of Israel and Judah. These books contain some of the most well-known stories and characters in the Bible, such as Joshua and the battle of Jericho; David and Goliath; the story of queen Esther and Mordecai; the prophets Elijah and Elisha; and many others. Some of the stories in here are the most exciting you’ll find in the entire Bible. But overall, the historical books have a sad theme, as the Israelites (and eventually the Jews) continually fall short of God’s standard and often run away from Him, and end up in progressively more calamity as a result. Eventually, both nations are destroyed and taken over; Israel is destroyed by Assyria, and Judah by the nation of Babylon.
The next 5 books (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs) are sometimes called the Wisdom Books. They are very different from each other, but each book is full of beautiful poetry and good advice that can be applied to one’s life. The book of Job is the story of a man who served God and yet still suffered, so its major topic is suffering. The Psalms are a collection of songs written to God to praise and extol Him, but also to pour out the writers’ feelings and heart to Him. Proverbs is a book of easily digestible advice on how to live God’s way. Ecclesiastes was written by King Solomon, who had all the wealth, women and wisdom that he desired but was not satisfied. It covers the futility of a life lived without God. Song of Songs was written by Solomon to his first lover, and is unashamed in its expression of erotic love; it shows erotic love in a context which is not hidden, but open and celebrated.
The books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel and Daniel are called the books of the Major Prophets. (“Major” simply means that their books are longer than those of the “minor” prophets.) In the Bible, prophets are people who hear from God directly and speak His words directly to people. As you can imagine, it is a distinction given to very few people; those who have this gift have to be wholly dedicated to God and his Word. The prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah (the writer of Jeremiah and Lamentations) and Ezekiel lived in Israel and Judah during a time of moral and political decay, when very few people in those kingdoms were following God wholly, if at all. They were ordained by God to inform the people of Israel and Judah of the dire consequences that they were going to suffer by rejecting God for such a long time. However, they were also ordained by God to tell their people of the redemption that would eventually come to them. Isaiah in particular talked a lot about a special hero who would come and redeem the nation of Israel and the whole world from all of their sin and decay. (As a Christian, you can pretty easily guess who this person is!) The prophet Daniel lived and worked in Babylon after the Jews were forcibly taken there, and his book covers the trials and victories that he had while living there as well as the prophecies God gave him not only about Israel and Judah, but also about the rest of the world at that time.
The last 12 books of the Old Testament (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi) are called the Minor Prophets. (Again, they themselves are not minor; their books are just short.) Like the Major Prophets, these prophets were ordained by God to warn the nations of Israel and Judah, as well as many of the nations around them at that time, about the consequences of their sin. These books are often very heavy and sad, as the nations of the earth keep sinning and falling farther and farther away from God, and God keeps sending the prophets to implore people to return to Him. But interspersed between the sadness are hopeful prophecies too, like the books of Haggai and Zechariah, where the nation of Judah is encouraged to rebuild the Temple of God in Jerusalem despite heavy opposition. Overall, the Minor Prophets are sobering books that remind us of the consequences of sin, but also of God’s desire to be near to people and have true relationship with them, something that wasn’t truly possible before Jesus came.
The New Testament
Just as the five books of the Torah begin the Old Testament, the first four books of the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) are called the Gospels, and they begin the New Testament with a bang! These are the four accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ while he was on the Earth. They tell about His birth, His life, His ministry, His death and crucifixion, and His resurrection from the dead and triumph over sin, death and the devil. They recount the greatest sermons that He preached while He was on the earth, and recount all of the great miracles that He did. All of the Bible is worth reading, but for a Christian, the Gospels are especially worth reading!
The Acts of the Apostles (Acts for short) is one book that covers the birth of the Church and the establishment of Christianity. The Church begins with Jesus’ 12 closest followers and friends, often called the “apostles” (sent-out ones) or the “disciples” (students). With the help of the Holy Spirit, they establish the Church in Jerusalem, and despite persecution from the Roman government and from the Jewish establishment, the Church grows like weeds and spreads like wildfire. The Church starts as an offshoot of Judaism called “the Way”, and then grows to include non-Jews (like an Ethiopian scholar in Acts 9, and an Italian army commander in Acts 10). The new movement is finally named “Christianity” in chapter 13, and the name sticks. One major person who gets caught up in this new faith is Paul of Tarsus (born Saul), a zealous Jewish scholar who studied under one of the greatest rabbis of his day. He begins as a fierce opponent of Christianity, but comes to know Jesus after an encounter with Him. After that, he turns all of his mind and energy towards spring the message of Jesus across the known world, and is extremely effective despite persecution and imprisonment.
The next 14 books of the New Testament (Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon) are all letters from Paul of Tarsus to Christians in many different cities in the Roman Empire. You may hear them referred to as the Epistles. Paul spent most of his life establishing churches in different cities in the Roman Empire, and then writing letters and going back to encourage the people in these churches. The books are usually named after the person he was writing to or the city of the church he was writing to (so for example, Ephesians is written to the church in Ephesus). In these letters, Paul explains how all of the promises of God that were proclaimed in the Old Testament are now fulfilled in the New Testament by Jesus Christ. He also explains the significance of Christianity, the function of different members within the Church, how Christians are supposed to behave and how individual churches are supposed to be run. He doesn’t give a one-size-fits-all approach to the Christian life, but instead gives central principles that should be followed by all Christians, while giving liberty to Christians to choose how to live in other areas of life. Paul’s letters are very important to read, but they can also be hard to understand at first as they are written with all the literary brilliance of a learned Jewish scholar. Very often a mere half-sentence of the Epistles can contain more than a whole essay!
The next 8 books (Hebrews, James, 1 and 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, and Jude) are letters to churches as well, but they are written by other followers of Jesus, not Paul. With the exception of Hebrews, which is simply named for the Jews, these books are named after their writers. They are also called the Epistles (from the Greek word “epistolos” — letter), and like Paul’s letters, these books explain the significance of Jesus Christ and of Christianity and give instructions on how to live the Christian life effectively.
Revelation, the last book of the entire Bible, truly ends the Bible with a bang. It is a recounting of a series of visions that the apostle John saw while in exile on the island of Patmos in Greece, courtesy of the Roman government. These visions and prophecies are crazy, to say the least. To cover just part of it, he sees Jesus in all of his glory as THE King of Heaven (with flaming eyes and a “voice like many rushing waters” to boot); a series of natural disasters that God sends to the Earth as judgment for all of their sin and moral decay; a period of intense persecution of all Christians; and a period of severe judgment where God punishes the world (except people who put their trust in Jesus) for all of the sin and moral decay, and eventually restores the world to its original, heaven-like state. Many, if not most, of the events in Revelation are believed to not have happened yet, and as the book says itself, “no one knows the day or the hour” that they will happen. But despite the craziness, one theme remains true; God will establish his Kingdom on the earth once and for all, and he will protect his beloved ones!
Whew! I know that was a lot, but I hope it helps you get an overview of what the Bible contains and gives you an idea of where you might want to start or what stories you may want to start reading!
TL;DR: Where do I start, mate?
There is no one-size-fits-all rule on where you should start when reading the Bible, but if I have to give a suggestion, any of the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and/or John) are a good place to start. At its core, Christianity is about following and modeling our lives after Jesus Christ, and these are the four accounts that we have of His life and ministry while on this earth. Practically speaking, Jesus’ teachings are also fairly easy to understand and to apply to one’s life, and the stories in the Gospels are engaging enough that even people who aren’t used to reading big books can get into them.
If you want to start with the Old Testament, Psalms and Proverbs are usually the most suggested books. Again, this is because they are the easiest to read for a beginner who hasn’t really read the Bible before. Psalms is a book of songs (or psalms) written to God. It is a relatively long book, with 150 psalms (or chapters), but with a few exceptions, each psalm is relatively short. The Psalms serve as a model for how to praise God regardless of mood or circumstance, and they are the inspiration for many of the songs you’ll hear in church. Proverbs is a short book, only 31 chapters, and it’s full of wise and timeless advice on how to live a life for God. It’s a good introduction to how God thinks, and how the way He thinks is different from how the world thinks.
Some people will also suggest the Epistles, Paul of Tarsus’ letters to the Church, as a good place to start, since they explain what Jesus has done for us and how to live the Christian life. All of his letters are short, but they are power-packed and dense with advice and revelation.
You may also find it easier to start reading the Bible by using a devotional or a Bible reading plan that is devoted to a certain topic, like anxiety, relationships, or finding God’s peace. You can find these plans all over the Internet, in books, or on the YouVersion Bible App (available in the App Store for free!). These plans, written by other Christians, will give you a couple of verses or a chapter to read per day, and will then give you a short passage that the author wrote that applies those verses to the topic you’re reading about. These are especially good when you’re starting out and haven’t really read the Bible before, or when you’re looking for help from the Bible on a certain topic.
Again, there are no rules on where to start — you can really start anywhere that piques your interest — but the above books and methods are probably the easiest to read and study as a beginner.