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If you walk into your local library to check out a biography about George Washington,
looking in the magazines won't help. And if you're looking for John Grisham's latest
legal thriller, the shelves of encyclopedias won't provide what you're after. Getting
to the library is only the first step. You need to know exactly where to look to get
your information.
The Bible works the same way. We usually think of it as one book, but it's really a collection of 66 smaller books. Each book has a different purpose and provides different information. It's not enough to let the Bible fall open to just any page. You have to know where to go to get the information that you need. That's why it's helpful to know what each book, or at least each section of books, is about — so that you can find the answers you need about how to please God. Otherwise, you might wind up lost in God's library. Let's take a look at the Old Testament library. The first book of the Bible is Genesis. It describes beginnings — the beginning of the world, the beginning of man, the beginning of sin, and the beginning of God's plan to save man from the consequences of sin — and the rest of the Bible shows how God solves the problem of sin. A Savior is first promised in Genesis 3:15, and God calls a man named Abraham to help bring the Savior into the world. The rest of the Old Testament deals almost exclusively with God's interaction with Abraham's descendants, usually called Israel, Israelites, or the children of Israel. In the New Testament, they're known as Jews. The books of Exodus through Deuteronomy show how God delivered the Israelites from slavery, led them through the wilderness for forty years, and gave them a law to regulate their religious and civil activities. Joshua describes Israel's conquest of the land God had promised them. Judges and Ruth cover the period when God raised up various men to deliver Israel from invading nations. First and Second Samuel introduce us to Eli, Samuel, David, and the first king of the Jews — Saul. The Israelites rejected God's way and asked for a king, which God gave them. After King Saul died, David ruled Israel for forty years. First and Second Kings and First and Second Chronicles are basically a history of the Jews from the time of David's rule until they returned from 70 years of captivity in the ancient nation of Babylon. After David's son, Solomon, died, the kingdom split into two parts — the north, called Israel, and the south, called Judah. Because of idolatry and other sins, the nation of Assyria took the northern kingdom into captivity in about 721 B.C., and they never returned. Later, the southern kingdom of Judah also sinned and faced removal and captivity in Babylon, roughly located in modern-day Iraq. But a faithful remnant returned to Judah and set up shop again a little over 400 years before Christ was born. The books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther discuss this return from Babylonian captivity. God gives His people practical advice in the books of "wisdom literature." Those are Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. Overcoming adversity, family duties, business practices, and married life are some of the topics they cover. And Psalms has been called the Jewish songbook because various men pour out their hearts in both praise and despair to God. The next section in the Old Testament contains the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, and Daniel. These are called the "major" prophets because their books are longer than the rest of the prophets. We usually think of prophets as people who predict future events. Although they did occasionally do this, their primary mission was to call the Jews to repentance and warn of coming punishment from foreign nations like Assyria and Babylon if Israel ignored their message. The last section of the Old Testament contains the "minor" prophets, Hosea through Malachi. Like the major prophets, these shorter works call God's people to repentance, warn of judgment, and foretell future events. Although the picture they paint is often bleak, many of these spokesmen give us a glimpse of the coming Savior and His glorious kingdom. To better understand both the major and minor prophets, it helps to know their historical background. To do that, you need to go back to the books of Kings and Chronicles. |