We’ve been learning about God and have discovered that He really does care about you and me. We’ve also learned that He enjoys communicating with us and hearing from us (prayer). This post is about the instruction manual for life that He gave us long ago and how we can learn more about Him, learn about promises He’s made to us, learn about why He created us, and discover the meaning for our lives, and much, much more!

If you’ve just dropped in and landed here, I encourage you to go to the first post, Does God Really Care About Me?, and read it along with Part 2 of the same title.  These posts build upon each other and this one does as well. You’ll understand this post much better if you’ve read the other two.

This instruction manual that God wrote for us is called the Bible. If you’re skeptical about the Bible or don’t know much about it, that’s Okay. If you’ve tried to read it in the past and just got confused, hopefully, this will help you, too.

First, a bit of history so you can gain a level of trust in this fascinating book called the Bible. Even though the Bible is referred to as a “book,” it is actually a collection of 66 separate and distinct writings (books) written by over 40 authors. Those 66 books were written over a span of more than 2,000 YEARS!! Wow, that is a very long time!  Even more, and the most important fact, there is only ONE message throughout.

Another important fact that proves that the Bible is truly written by God through men is that the prophecies in the Bible have an accuracy rating of 100%!  No other prophetic book can come even close. This gives us an immense picture into the nature of God–if He says it will happen, you can count on it.  Over 300 of the Bible’s prophecies have already come to pass. There are many more that pertain to the future that are yet to be fulfilled.

This is definitely one good reason to read it carefully.  If you want to know what will happen in the future, just read the Bible!

The Bible, also called the Holy Scriptures, or just Scriptures, written by more than 40 different men, over more than 2,000 years, has only one message that is consistent throughout. That’s why the Bible is considered to be God-inspired.  No other book “collection” has that kind of cohesiveness.

The main message of the Bible is this:  God loves you and He wants to have a relationship with you.

Think about that for a minute. The God who created the Universe (a simple term we use to mean EVERYTHING) wants to tell you, personally, that He loves you, personally, and He wants to have a relationship with you. That’s mind-boggling if you take the time to really think about it!

One internet site I’ve come to love is www.BlueLetterBible.org. I hope you’ll bookmark it so you can visit it often to help you in your study of the Bible. The link to Study Tools is the place to find some really great help. And, if you don’t have a copy of the Bible, you can also read online from this site.

Many people try to start reading the Bible like they would a novel, at Page 1, and they quickly get discouraged and conclude that they simply don’t understand it. For a new Believer, or for someone still searching to find out who God is, I would recommend beginning reading in the New Testament.  The Book of John is the fourth Book of the New Testament and it will introduce you to God, to Jesus Christ, and to the men who were the first followers of Jesus Christ.

BlueLetterBible.org allows you to select different versions of the Bible. The default is KJB which means King James Version. This can be a bit awkward to read so I suggest you select NASB (New American Standard Bible). The NASB is very accurate and is very easy to understand.

Basically the Bible is broken down into two “Testaments”; the Old Testament and the New Testament.  The Old Testament is simply those Books written prior to the birth of Jesus Christ.  These were the only Scriptures the early followers of Jesus had and these were the Scriptures that Jesus Himself referred to when He spoke about the “Scriptures.”  So, when you read something said by Jesus or the early Believers and they refer to the “Scriptures,” they are talking about the Old Testament.

The books we now refer to as the New Testament are writings by some of the early Believers; these were all written after the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

My recommendation is to first read through the New Testament as a whole. Pray before you read and ask God to open your heart and mind to what He has to say–after all, He wrote the Book!!  Just read a chapter or two each day and it won’t take long to finish. Don’t worry right now about what you don’t understand. If you think of it as a true and historical love story, it will read easier.

There are some terms that people use interchangeably that might be a little confusing. Hopefully, this will clear up any confusion.

Disciple:  Someone who believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, has been born again, and follows His teachings. A Disciple is also called a Follower or a Believer.

Apostle:  12 men who Jesus selected to be His special students. He had a close relationship with them and frequently spent time just with them teaching them in detail about the topics He was teaching larger crowds. These men were being groomed by Jesus to carry on His work after His death.

Scriptures:  In today’s conversation, it usually means the whole Bible.  If seen in the New Testament, it refers to the Old Testament.

The most important concept to keep in your mind is that God wants you to understand what He’s saying. If you don’t understand something, just ASK Him!! He’s delighted that you want to know Him better and He’s there to explain anything that is confusing. I’ve put this to the test many times over the years. He’s always given me understanding about a passage that was unclear. Sometimes I understood shortly after asking, sometimes I had to wait a bit.

Don’t give up on reading and searching; discovery is half the fun!

Many years ago, I heard somewhere the phrase “A Proverb a Day Keeps the Devil Away.” There are 31 Proverbs. Since many months have 31 days, it is quite easy to read a Proverb each day and then just read two on the last day of the month.  When I began reading a Proverb a day, it astonished me how appropriate it was for that specific day! Month in and month out, there was always something very particular in that Proverb that helped me during the day.  Give it a try and see what happens.

Many people have said that the Bible isn’t to be taken literally and that it is full of symbolism that simply can’t be understood. The longer I’m a Believer, the longer I read and study the Scriptures, the more literally I take the Bible, and the easier it is to understand. Think about it. If God really wants us to know Him, why would He talk in riddles? If you are trying to communicate something to your friend, do you talk in symbolism or do you say what you mean?

If God says something in the Bible that we don’t understand (or that the scholars don’t understand), it doesn’t mean it’s symbolism. It simply means we don’t understand it—-yet. Also, many prophecies in the Bible involve a man describing an event or an object from the future that he is seeing in a vision. His only frame of reference would be those things in his own time frame that he understands.

For example, John in the Book of Revelation describes many different “flying creatures”. They sound like strange sci-fi insects that have been exposed to radiation! However, if you lived in an age when people walked or rode mules and horses and the fastest thing on earth was a chariot, how would you describe a car or a helicopter? Would you describe a helicopter like a type of locust with many eyes?

The point is, when you come to a description of something truly strange, read it and try to form a picture in your mind from the writer’s perspective.

If you enjoy listening to teachers, we found one Bible teacher that is very knowledgeable, very down-to-earth, extremely accurate, and on YouTube. His name is Chuck Missler. The channel that seems to have most of his teachings in a complete presentation is 777brokenchains.

The MOST important point about Bible study is this: if a church, a preacher, priest, or pastor, contradicts the Bible, you’ll be safest siding with what the Bible says. This was a decision I had to make many years ago. Hmmmm, the church says such-and-such and the Bible says the opposite.  Who should I believe?  No brainer!! I go with God any day!

I pray this post has been helpful to you. When you became a follower of Jesus Christ, that was only the beginning of a journey. The journey is a lifetime of discovery of who God is, who we are in relation to Him, how we should live in this world, and where we go after death.

Be encouraged! Every person who follows Christ is on this same journey. We all have the same questions, problems, slips and falls. The important thing is that you continue the journey. When you fall and sin, don’t stay there! Repent and confess your sin to Christ, ask Him for help not to sin again, and continue the journey.

The first post in this series was about giving your life to Jesus Christ and becoming a Believer/Follower of Him.  The second post was about prayer; communicating with Jesus and with God.  This post is about The Bible and how important it is to read and study what God has to say to us. It is a Book of encouragement, love, discipline, and instruction.

May God bless you as you seek to know Him better and grow in wisdom and understanding.

Dottie