Christ Church Clifton Youth

We all know that God speaks to us through the Bible – but it can be really hard to know what to read! Here’s a VERY brief breakdown of all the books in the Bible, and some suggestions on how to get to know your Bible better.

OLD TESTAMENT

History

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy: also known as the ‘Pentateuch’, these are the first five books of the Bible and commonly thought to have been written by Moses. These books focus a lot on God’s covenant with Israel, the movements of the twelve tribes of Israel, and they also cover the Old Testament Law.

Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther: these books are more of Israel’s covenant history. They detail the various leaders (or ‘judges’) of Israel, the story of King David and his descendants, and continue to outline the movements of the tribes of Israel.

Some of the history books have huge chunks of writing that are purely devoted to recording lineage, or who-travelled-where-and-when… Passages like that can seem quite dry (although they’re totally not because we can learn loads from them!). Plus a large part of the Pentateuch is Law, which can be hard going. If you’re just getting started with the Old Testament, I’d recommend Genesis, the books of Samuel, Ruth or Esther as good starting places to get a feel for it. Remember that these stories are real testimonies of how God has worked – by reading them, we can learn more of who is is, how he has moved before and how he might move again!

Writings

Job: no one is really sure if this is fiction or not, but it describes the trials of a man of God named Job, who refuses to turn away from the Lord in all his misfortune.

Psalms: the psalms are songs about God and our relationship with God. Loads of them were written by King David, and they’re all fantastic. They cover just about the whole spectrum of human emotion – angry, sad, joyful, lonely etc etc.

Proverbs: this book is a collection of wise sayings of Israel. Solomon wrote a lot of these.

Ecclesiastes: this book is essentially an ode to the meaninglessness of life without God.

Song of Songs: an incredible book of poetry on the theme of the bride and groom, that ALSO serves as a metaphor for how much Jesus loves us! Hooray.

There is huge variety between these books. You could try reading and reflecting on a psalm or proverb every week.

Prophecy

Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel: the MAJOR prophets, so called because they’re the longest of Israel’s prophetic books.

Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi: the MINOR prophets, so called because these books are all fairly short.

The books of prophecy are similar in style, but they vary hugely from one another. If you’re planning on trying out the prophets, I’d start with Daniel, or passages from Isaiah.

NEW TESTAMENT

History

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John: the Gospels – these are four historical accounts of the life of Jesus. Matthew’s gospel shows how God has kept his ancient promises to Israel through Jesus’s life, death and resurrection. The gospel of Mark is the shortest gospel, and was written to explain Jesus to unbelievers, so it’s an excellent gospel to start with. Luke’s gospel includes a number of stories about the women Jesus ministered to, and has three main sections (Jesus ministers in Galilee, Jesus travels to Jerusalem, Jesus gives his life for us in Jerusalem and is resurrected). The gospel of John is much more literary than the other gospels, and has two sections, detailing the public ministry of Jesus, and the Passover weekend.

Acts: this book details the acts of the apostles – what they did, basically – after Jesus left. Acts was written by the gospel writer Luke, as the second volume of a single work (Luke = volume 1, Acts = volume 2).

Writings

Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon: letters from Paul (his story is told in Acts chapter 9) to other churches or church leaders. These letters addressed the issues of the early church and offered them advice that we can apply to our own lives today.

Hebrews, James, 1 & 2 Peter, 1, 2 & 3 John, Jude: letters from other leaders in the early church, also intended to advise, educate and encourage.

Prophecy

Revelation – words of encouragement to seven churches, then a vision of what will happen at the end of the world when Jesus returns.

…Anything else?

The Bible comes in LOADS of different translations. The NIV (New International Version) is the one we use at church, and it’s quite a literal translation. Lots of people prefer the MSG (The Message), which is a more poetic translation, as it can be seen as more digestible. Take a look at Bible Gateway and try out the different translations.

There are also loads of Bible reading plans you can find online. Alternatively you can work your way through a whole book, or dip in and out of parts of the Bible. I would recommend trying to get your head around what all the Bible books are for (see above…) and how they fit together.

Definitely invest your time in getting to know the Gospels, because if you want to be more like Jesus, you’ll probably want to get to know his character. The Psalms are great to dip in and out of, and so are the Proverbs (there’s some excellent advice in Proverbs). But, at the end of the day, there aren’t any rules to reading the Bible, so go and explore it for yourselves!

At some point, we’ll start putting up short Bible studies for you on this website, for anyone who’s struggling to find a rhythm to their Bible reading.

Christ Church Clifton Youth

Equipping, empowering and deploying young people to know God in his fullness, and to release the kingdom on earth

Going through the Gospels: Mark

Navigating the books of the Bible…

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