What Part of the Bible Do I Read First?
Have you ever thought about reading the Bible? If you’ve ever had questions about what God is like, the meaning of life, or you want to grow your relationship with God, then you might have heard that it’s a fantastic place to start. The question is where do I begin?
You may have seen that the Bible has 66 books, and there are chapters and verses. It’s also divided into 2 parts; the old and new testaments. Is reading it going to take forever, or are there better ways than reading it from front to back?
I have good news! The Bible doesn’t need to be boring or difficult. In fact, the best place to start is with the Gospels; which literally means “good news”.
The Gospels are in the New Testament and include the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. These books give you a first-hand account of who Jesus is, what He is like, and what He did when He was living here with us on Earth.
You might wonder why we don’t start by reading the first book of the Bible – Genesis, and reading on from there. The reason is, although all books of the Bible are super important, Jesus is the climax of the whole Bible. Before then, in the Old Testament, we see that humanity had a major problem. They had broken their relationship with God, and so had separated themselves from the love and hope that comes from God. Fortunately, God never gave up on humanity, and continued to find ways to reach out to people. We see God’s ultimate plan to rescue us when Jesus enters the scene. He deals with the root cause of the problem; sin.
In the Gospels God’s plan for humanity is uncovered and we get a clear picture of what He is all about, making sense of everything that happened in the Old Testament. If you’re not too sure about diving straight in and reading all 4 Gospels, don’t worry. Start off by reading the book of John.
From there, how about having a read of other books, like 1 John (which is different from John, and a lot shorter), Ephesians, Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians and Romans. These books are actually letters written to people, to teach them about the love of God, the hope Jesus gave us, and how to live a good life where we can love God and love others. All of these messages are still relevant and can change our lives today.
Psalms and Proverbs are fantastic books if you prefer reading only a small section at a time. In these two, most of the verses are written in small chunks as either songs, poetry, or sayings. Proverbs is great for learning how to make good life decisions, and Psalms is a great example of what it looks and feels like to follow God in the ups and downs of life.
Have you ever wondered, “why do I exist?”, or “what did God create the world to look like?” Genesis is a good place to find how everything started, as well as providing a backstory for the rest of the Bible.
Whether it’s the story of humanity, understanding what God is like, or you’re just interested to see if God makes any difference for your life today, you can be sure to find it in the Bible. If you’ve never picked up a Bible before, why not give it a go today. Here’s a link for the Bible that you can download for free.
Meaning of Life - Find out why you exist