Facing the Storm
"You will know the truth
and the truth will set you free."
So You
Want to Study the Bible
Are you interested in
reading the bible but don’t know where or how to start? Are you
intimidated? Don’t know where to begin? Don’t know, really, what it’s
about?
Here’s a few tips for
you to get you started on your own adventure into God’s Word.
The bible is one
integrated story of God’s love for and mercy toward the human race. God
created the world, the universe and everything in it. Contrary to current
cultural norms it didn’t all create itself out of nothing (Note: check the
theory of evolution against the standard of scientific method and draw
your own conclusions).
The bible tells us
mankind was created in the image of God, which means we had certain godly
attributes including the capacity to make moral choices. Science can often
tell us what “is”. Science cannot tell us what we “ought"
We were designed by
God for a relationship with Him but with the delegated freedom to choose.
Mankind, in its earliest era chose
to go against God. They exercised their God given right to choose between
right and wrong. As a direct result of disobedience the relationship was
broken, sin entered the world and with it, death.
As fallen humans we
cannot fix ourselves or restore a relationship with a holy God. If I
choose to commit murder and spend the rest of my life making amends by
doing good deeds, at the end of the day the victim of my murder is still
dead. In short I cannot fix my own sin problem. Nor can you.
The bible, aka God’s
Word, shows us our sin and shows us our savior- the perfect blood
sacrifice to make amends for humanity. God has accepted the sacrifice of
Jesus as payment in full for our sin for all who come to Him in faith,
trusting God for our salvation and renouncing the sin in our lives. In
eternity past Jesus the Son of God stood before His Father. He pointed to
you and He pointed to me before I was ever born and said in effect:
“Father, My life for his; my blood for his.” A covenant, which is the most
sacred form of contract was entered into between God the Father and God
the Son whereby the Father agreed to accept the blood of His only Son as
atonement for sin and hence to restore the relationship between man and
God . This was guaranteed on oath by God and sealed by His Holy Spirit
indwelling all who come to Christ by faith.
God’s Word is broadly
divided into two “covenants”. The Old Testament (covenant) and the New
Testament (covenant).
The Old Testament
records the fall of man, the resulting chaos inflicted on the world and
the beginning of God’s plan to reconcile the world to Himself thru the
Person of Jesus Christ. Since people were making up their own rules and
fashioning their own gods as “comfort food” to soothe their consciences
God separated a people for Himself. He created the Jewish people and the
nation of Israel, gave them His perfect law to set an absolute standard of
right conduct against which standard the lawless world could not cope but
was forced to acknowledge. This served two major purposes. The first was
to objectively demonstrate that no mere man can keep God’s law perfectly
and save themselves. We all fall short. The second and most important
purpose was to create the environment into which Jesus, the Son of God,
would become incarnate, born to a
virgin to live out His life in perfect obedience to God and offer Himself
as the perfect sacrifice on our behalf, the God man. The bible calls Him
Emmanuel, “God with us”.
The New Testament is
the record of Jesus’ earthly ministry, death and resurrection from the
dead, the first born of many to follow. The New Testament goes on to
record the response of Christ’s followers and appointed apostles in
building His church after He returned home to “prepare a place for us”. It
also contains letters to the various new churches instructing them on how
to follow Christ in right living and acting and, of utmost importance,
exactly who Christ is and what Christians need to know, to believe and to
embrace concerning Him.
Finally, the book of
Revelation gives us a vision of Christ’s second coming, not as a
sacrificial lamb this time but as the Lion of Judah, the king who will
deal with sin and establish His kingdom.
In the New Covenant Christ meets the standard of perfection against the legal standard God required. He then offered Himself as the blood sacrifice as the price to cover our sin. The New Covenant for us is a standard of mercy and grace (God's unmerited favor), sealed in Christ's blood and available to all who accept it by faith.
If all this sounds
“other worldly” to you please consider this: we live in a four dimensional
universe of height, depth, width and time. As soon as we accept the
proposition that more dimensions exist, all things become possible.
Scientists are now postulating as many as ten dimensions. According to the
bible God stands above them all.
Where to start:
Here is my own
suggested reading in order:
New Testament
Gospel of Luke
Book of Acts
Book of Romans
Book of
Galatians
Old Testament
Book of Genesis
Exodus
I and II Samuel
Deeper study
Prophecy:
Daniel, Ezekial and Zechariah
For Comfort
All of us have hurts and
failures. Some of us are hurting most of the time. Others have been
traumatized and can’t find a way out of the grieving process; we end up
getting “stuck”.
The bible calls David “a
man after God’s own heart”. That’s high praise coming from God, Himself.
David was the warrior hero of Israel. As a youth he killed a 9 foot giant
and won a great battle for the army of Israel. He was God’s designated and
hand picked king to succeed King Saul. It was through David’s bloodline
that God promised by covenant oath to bring forth the Saviour and future
King.
Yet David, after he
killed Goliath, earned the jealousy of the current king Saul who spent
over ten years trying to kill him. As a result David spent much of his
youth on the run, as a fugitive, hiding in the desert, in caves and
mountain crags and finally retreating to a foreign land to become a paid
soldier for Israel’s enemy, the Philistines.
Eventually, when David
was age 30 Saul died in battle and David was able to prevail in a civil
war and become king, as God intended all along.
So this good and godly
man had it all. And then he sinned. He stole a man’s wife and had the man
killed to avoid being found out. Adultery and murder from “a man after
God’s own heart.” Ultimately David was forgiven by God and continued to
rule altho his sin had serious consequenses for his family for generations
to follow.
David was a warrior, a
king, a worshipper of the one true God and also the poet of Israel. As
such he wrote many psalms concerning his relationship with God, his trust
in God in dark places, his remorse over his sin and assurance of God’s
ultimate forgiveness and restoration. These psalms are a comfort to all
Christians in times of suffering, an assurance of Gods unfailing love for
His people and psalms which put voice to our praise to God for Who He is
and what He has done on our behalf.
Some of my favorites
are:
Psalm 51
Psalm 139
I personally hope you find this summary useful and that it helps trigger in you a lifelong fascination with the Word of God.