Bible Resources
I Want to Read the Bible, Where Do I Begin?
A 30,000 Foot View
The Bible is composed of 66 distinct books categorized into two testaments, old and new. It seems so complicated at first! Where do you begin? Should you start on page one in Genesis? What even is a testament anyways?
While the Bible is incredibly vast, in a nutshell it encompasses the message of redemption—that is how we can be made right with our Creator, God.
The Old Testament reveals God’s initial creation of the world, the infiltration of sin and suffering into God’s good creation and how God planned to fix it. God chose a specific man, Abraham, and his family, and promised to bring blessing to all the nations of the earth through his descendants and ultimately through a chosen descendant—Jesus Christ.
This man’s family slowly grew into a nation, Israel (named after his grandson), and the rest of the Old Testament details Israel’s history as a nation in covenant with God, their failure to keep God’s covenant, how they were conquered as a result, and God’s faithfulness to them despite their faithlessness to Him.
All of this was in preparation for the coming of a Messiah, a Savior who arrived “at the fulness of time” that would bring about salvation for the whole world.
The New Testament then reveals the long-awaited coming of Jesus into the world, His atoning death for sin, and His resurrection from the dead on the third day.
With this, I would recommend you start with the Gospel of John, the fourth book of the New Testament. In the New Testament there are four “Gospels” (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) which are simply four distinct accounts of the life of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of the World.
John wrote his account specifically:
“so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (Jn. 20:31).
For this reason, it is probably most helpful to start there and to learn about who Jesus was and what He did for us.
The fifth book of the New Testament, Acts, records the continued works of Jesus by the Holy Spirit through His apostles (disciples). They were specially chosen “sent” ones who were entrusted with Jesus’ message after He was gone.
Then the rest of the New Testament is filled with letters written by those apostles to churches or individuals in the first century A.D., explaining to them what Jesus has done for us and how we ought to live in response.
The New Testament then closes with the book of Revelation. This is a prophetic book concerning the future and is an unveiling of who Jesus is in His present glory. It also gives us hope that He is coming again to set up His Kingdom and closes with the recreation of a new heaven and new earth that believers will enjoy with God for all eternity to come.
Getting Started:
Dive into the Gospels to learn about the life of Jesus.
Read the book of Acts to see how Jesus was faithfully building His church through the disciples you already read about in the Gospels.
Then read Romans (the sixth book of the New Testament) and Galatians (the ninth book) which make the gospel, the message of “good news” incredibly clear. These were both written by the apostle Paul (Saul of Tarsus), whom you will meet along the way in Acts 9.
These books will show why what happened to Jesus wasn’t just an ordinary historical event, but the predetermined plan of a sovereign and loving God to bring about salvation by grace and a hope of eternal life for all who put their trust in Jesus.
That will help you get started on the journey for now. I pray that God speaks to you through His Word and encounters you in a powerful way and that if you do not know Christ as Savior and Lord that you will meet Him along this journey.
Bible Reading Plans
New Testament in One Year
This is the plan that my writing is following in 2025. It requires reading one chapter from the New Testament each day, on weekdays only, with weekends to catch up. It’s a great plan for people looking to build a discipline of Bible reading.