Let's continue with the clarification of the Bible.
Remember...
Bible study is important.
Make it a priority.
Be disciplined.
“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.”
You're getting the Big Picture. How it all fits together. This will be a great foundation for a lifetime of building your understanding of God and His word.
I really think it will help you as we continue to cover these 20 sentences to read them, study them, understand them, and memorize them. You'll soon be much more comfortable with the Bible.
Let's keep going. We're still in the Old Testament.
5. The Old Testament consists of 39 books written before the birth of Christ.
That sort of seems anticlimactic, doesn't it? You might say it's common sense. No real need for a further explanation here.
That's OK. Some of the later sentences are much more involved.
Pause and just relish the moment on the simplicity of this sentence.
Good. Now let's move on.
6. The 39 books of the Old Testament are divided into 17 Historical Books, 5 Poetic Books, and 17 Prophetic Books.
Remember...17, 5, 17. That number repetition helps you remember. 17, 5, 17. Say it out loud.
To continue, the two sections of 17 books can be further subdivided into easily memorable groups of 5 and 12. So the 39 books of the old testament can be grouped as (5, 12), 5, (5, 12). See below.
5 Historical Books (Torah or Pentateuch) - Genesis to Deuteronomy.
12 Historical Books (Israel) - Joshua to Esther.
5 Poetic Books Job to Song of Solomon.
5 Prophetic Books (Major) – Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, and Daniel. (Note: Written by 4 prophets.) Who wrote 2? Jeremiah
12 Prophetic Books (Minor) – Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.
When looking at the Prophetic Books, the difference between major and minor is, for the most part, the length of the book. However, Lamentations only has 5 chapters and Hosea and Zechariah each have 14.
A little more complicated than Sentence 5, but still pretty easy to comprehend. And memorize.
7. The key to understanding the Old Testament is to realize that the first 17 Historical Books cover the entire major storyline of the Old Testament, from creation to approximately 400 BC, while the remaining 5 Poetic Books and 17 Prophetic Books fit in at proper places within that storyline. This truth is absolutely essential to understanding the Old Testament.
A quick pause. I have a book recommendation: Thirty Days to Understanding the Bible by Max Anders. Here's a quote.
“My mistake was in assuming that the whole Old Testament was one long unbroken story and that the history would flow evenly and consistently from one book to the next until they were finished from Genesis to Malachi. Now I know that the whole storyline is contained in the first 17 books.” Max Anders.
(Note: I LOVE recommending books that I have found valuable. The Anders book really helped to put the layout of the Bible into perspective for me.)
Consider the chart below. From left to right is chronological time. At a high level, the chart lines up when the various Old Testament books fit into the Old Testament storyline in relation to each other. For example, Job fits into the storyline about the same time frame as Genesis. Ruth fits into the storyline about the time of Judges. The Prophets are scattered in the storyline from Samuel/1 Chronicles through Nehemiah. Make sense?
That's it for this post. The next part of Clarifying the Bible was really enlightening for me!!
Remember...
Bible study is important.
Make it a priority.
Be disciplined.
Note: In this series of posts, I am presenting material from Clarifying the Bible as I learned it in the Downline Institute, purposely giving credit to both Downline and Mitch Maher, the author of the study by the same name.
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