The Bible

      Blessed is the one who reads the words of God’s message, and blessed are the people who hear this message and do what is written in it. The time is near when all of this will happen. (Revelation 1:3, New Century Version)

I’m just wondering how many of you read your Bible? Or do you even have one? Maybe not a physical, paper copy, but at least a Bible app on your phone?

Are you familiar with the Bible? The difference between the Old and New Testaments? How the books in both Testaments are organized?

It just feels like I’ve always known those things. I can’t remember if I learned about the Bible in Sunday School or Confirmation Class, or just picked things up as I went along. Know what I’m saying?

Are there people reading this who don’t know that when you see John 3:16, the verse is in the book of John, which is the fourth book in the New Testament and the final book in the Gospel? And that the 3 is the number of the chapter and 16 is the verse. It makes it easy to find verses that way.  And if you didn’t know that, don’t feel bad. When I was teaching Sunday School, one of my students knew what those numbers meant, but when she was reading her Bible, all those numbers in the middle of the words threw her off.

Anyway, I know I have shared a lot of Bible verses here over the years, and I hope some of them stuck with you. I hope to share a lot more verses in the coming years. For now, though, I want to delve more into the Bible – who wrote it, what we know about those people, what texts were chosen to be included in the Bible and why, and why some versions of the Bible have more books in it than others. 

I’ve told you many times that I’m not a Bible scholar, but I think that we can all stand to learn a little bit more about it. Let’s see where this leads us – starting next Sunday. 😉