Now I've got to tell you, this isn't the favorite subject of many men, and it's not all that inspiring. But I've got to say to you every time I do this in one of our Resolute groups; men walk away going, "Wow. I'm so glad I understand that now." Today's sermon is going to give you a brief overview of the Bible. It's going to help you to understand its structures. I'm going to provide you with some tools that are going to help you. We're going to look a little bit at canonization and the various translations of the Bible. And all this is helpful because what we're trying to understand is the truth in the Bible. If the Bible we believe holds the truth for life and Godliness, then we have to figure out how to get after that truth. And understanding the structure of the Bible is the beginning of all that. So let's dive into it.
The Bible itself is divided into two major sections. These two major sections of the Bible are the Old Testament and the New Testament. Now, the Old Testament has about five major parts that it's sub-divided into. That is law, history, poetry, Major Prophets, and Minor Prophets. Now, I'm not going to read to you every book of the Bible right now, so you can understand which section it falls into - or sub-category it falls into - but let me share with you the books of the law.
The books of the law are this: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These are often referred to as the Torah by the Jewish people, and it's their book of law. The Old Testament in all of its glory is essentially the Jewish Bible, and it is written in the language of Hebrew. Important to note here that when you're reading the Old Testament, you are reading the Jewish Bible. And so when you're diving in there - you can understand the context of that for the Israelite people, as they were journeying through the Old Testament.
The New Testament itself is a newer covenant and this everything from Jesus's life forward. It is divided into significant sections as well. So you have sub-categories of the gospels, history, Paul's letters. You also have the message to the Hebrews, which stands alone. Letters to churches, and then the famous book of prophecy we know as Revelation.
Now, the gospels are probably the most crucial section of this Bible to note, because inside of it we see the letters in red which is the life of Jesus and the words that Jesus Christ spoke himself. Those books - which are called Gospels - are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are written much earlier; John, written much later. John is the book of love, and so it is written in narrative form. Kind of like a story, looking back on the life of Jesus many years later. And so if I were going to recommend a first book of the Bible for anybody to read, it would always be John.
If there were a second book of the Bible that I would tell somebody to read, it would also be in the New Testament, and it would be the book of history that we know as the book of Acts. This is the spread of Christianity across the Roman Empire, and it tells you about how Paul spent his time on his three missionary journeys as he was planting churches across the Roman Empire. It gives you context for understanding most of Paul's letters - like the book of Romans, First Corinthians, Second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, etc., and all the books that Paul wrote in the New Testament.
Finally, you've got the book of Hebrews, which we don't know who exactly wrote that because there is no authorship connected to it. Most people assume it's Paul and it kind of sounds like a Pauline letter. And then you've got random letters to churches, like James, First and Second Peter, First and Second, Third John and Jude. And then the book of Prophecy - finally, which is always the first book everybody wants to read in the Bible for some reason. And then, there you have it. That's the essential structure of the Bible itself - Old and New Testament.
Now I've got to tell you; there are many ways that we can find tools that will help us to understand the Bible. There are all kinds of tools in the market, and all sorts of things that you could spend your money on that will help you to understand the Bible. Now, there's a list that I give you in today's study guide - commentaries, lexicons, concordances, dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc. There are all kinds of tools. But if you were to find and to use one tool, I would suggest a very basic level commentary.
Now, there are all kinds of commentaries on the Bible. You could find commentaries on specific books of the Bible, written by different authors that are experts in that field. Some of these commentaries are very easy to read, for novices maybe like you or me. And then some are very scholarly works that get into very, very deep theological subjects. That gets into the meaning of a lot of ancient words and their etymologies. But I've got to tell you; just a basic commentary will work.
Commentaries give you an understanding of what was going on at the time. They give you useful background information, such as authorship, history, the setting, significant themes. Commentaries, you can find them on every book of the Bible everywhere. But I would say one of the better commentaries that you could get in your hands, would be a Bible with a commentary built into it. Kind of like an ESV - English Standard Version - study Bible.
So study Bibles have become very, very popular. And what they do is they take a section of text, and then underneath of it, they give you some interesting understandings of what's going on in that text. Whether it be understanding what the author is trying to do and his intended meaning, whether it be the translation or understanding of a word, it could be the cultural context that they explain a little bit more. But I would say something like an ESV study Bible could perhaps be one of the most excellent tools that you could ever buy for an early reader of the Bible. Because it's going to drop everything into an understandable context for you.
I wouldn't dive into a lexicon right away. A lexicon is just a tool to understand the meaning of biblical words found in the original language. I don't think you need a concordance, or a dictionary, or an encyclopedia - because, by the way, all the tools can be found for free on this thing called the internet. I hear it's a new invention, but all those things can be found for free. All you need to go to is to find a really good worthy website that has a lot of this stuff on there, and there's 100 of them out there. Alright, so there's your Bible study helps.
Next, I want to take a look at the various translations of the Bible. Because there are so many translations of the Bible. Because the Bible was not originally written in English - even though we are so arrogant to believe that the Bible was written in English, it wasn't. It was written in ancient Hebrew and ancient Greek. So the Bible has to be translated for us. And because of that, in English, we have a variety of translations. They move on a spectrum from a word for word, to thought to thought, to paraphrase.
Now, those are very remedial understandings of the different translations, because there are fancy words given to all this, such as word for word is called the "formal equivalent." Thought for thought is called the "functional equivalent." But there are all these translations of the Bible, and they're essential to know because when you go to the store to purchase a Bible, you've got to understand what am I getting out of this translation of the Bible?
Well, perhaps the most widely bought versions of the Bible are predominantly either word for word or thought for thought. For early readers, the thought for thought version tends to be the most popular. These are things like the NIV, the NLT, the CEV - these are just different translations of the Bible. For example, NIV stands for "New International Version." And a group of scholars got together and decided that they were going to translate using the formal - or functional equivalent - thought for thought. And they're just taking a group of words at a time and trying to translate their original thought to a thought in the English language today. Or, you can move more to an ESV, which is what I prefer. Which is more of a word for word translation - or formal equivalent, and they translation one word at a time.
Now, there's pluses and minuses to all this, which you can see in your handout today. I kind of walk through the strengths and the weaknesses of each one of these different versions and what they look like - and what the impact of the text would be. But I prefer word for word because I prefer to use the inductive Bible study method to interpret the text. Which means that I get to hold meaning in my hand - and interpret for myself what God intended to the original people, and what God intends to me. Therefore, if you asked me what my favorite version is, it would always be the ESV, which stands for "English Standard Version."
Now, gentlemen, I've got to tell you, this Bible that we get to read is incredible, and there are all sorts of great facts out about it. I want to give you a few fantastic facts about the Bible, which I think help to substantiate the fact that we hold in our hands at times - or on our digital devices right now - the Bible in all of its purity. That comes from God down through history to us, in all of its truth. That we can have confidence that the Bible we hold in our hand is a pure translation of the Bible, delivered to us down through time.
You've got to know this, that there are more than 24 000 partial and complete manuscript copies of the New Testament. I mean, that is a lot of evidence that what we hold in our hand is still true. That the Bible itself was written by 40 individuals over a span of nearly 2000 years, and for yet some reason we're still holding the Bible in all of its glory, as it was originally written and intended to us still today.
The word "Bible" itself is derived from the Greek word "Biblia", which means "book." So in other words, when you see the words "Holy Bible", all they mean is "Holy Book". That's what it means, "Holy Book", or "stand-alone book". The Bible, the word "Biblia" gets its root word from the word "biblios", meaning "papyrus", which is what they originally wrote the Bible on. Very fascinating, right? The Bible includes these two testaments, and the word "Testament" means "will", "covenant", or "agreement". So the Old Testament contains and demonstrates God's promise to the Hebrew people. And the New Testament holds his promise or agreement of the fulfillment of the covenant of grace and salvation.
These two testaments form the complete book known as the Christian Holy Bible. The Old Testament, originally written in Hebrew, and the New Testament, originally written in Greek. The Jewish Bible is the equivalent of the Christianity's Old Testament, and the Old Testament contains 39 books. The New Testament includes 27. The Bible in all contains 66 divinely inspired writings. And the terms "Old Testament" and "New Testament" actually originated with the prophet Jeremiah.
When Jeremiah referenced Israel's future, he proclaimed that God would make a "New Covenant with the House of Israel". Jesus of Nazareth, of course, the long-awaited Messiah, made that new covenant with God's people. And God provides for us all of his promises in this new covenant. Very interesting stuff and there are so many more facts out there worth grabbing off the study guide today.
So, gentlemen, this is a brief overview of the Bible - a structure, a tool or two, and some things to get you started in your reading. I would highly recommend today that you go online and download the study guide that goes with this. Because there's a lot more on these study notes that are going to help you to understand what I've taken you through today.
