Which Bible Book Should We Read? Let’s Find Out
So, whether you’re a brand-new Christian or somebody who’s been saved for some time, hate can be one of the greatest challenges. I want to study the Bible. I have the desire, but I just don’t quite know how to get started, where to start reading exactly what books to begin with? What Book Of The Bible Should I Read?
So in this article, we’re gonna talk about all that, and I’m going to give you some very practical tips on getting started? So one of the most popular questions I get asked regularly is, brother, I don’t know where to get started in terms of my Bible study? I don’t know what books to start in. I don’t know if I should start in the Old Testament or the New Testament? I will share with you what worked well for me whenever I got started, along with some things that I’ve found that work well with other people I have helped get started on their Bible study.
But let me start off by saying this there is no wrong place in the Bible to get started with your Bible study. The idea is whatever works well for you, wherever the Holy Spirit leads you, is where you should read. The point is to get your reading to where it starts to be fun and is consistent in your life.
Also know About: How Do Memorize Bible Books In Order? Simple Way
Which Bible Book Should I Not Read As A Beginner?
Okay, so we’re gonna do this by process of elimination, so you know the Bible has different genres or different types of literature in which it was written, and one of those types is the prophetic books.
Now, if I was coaching someone, I would steer them away from starting their Bible study, particularly if they’ve never read the Bible before them in a prophetic book such as the Book of Isaiah Jeremiah, God forbid Ezekiel or revelation. Because in these books, there is so much symbolism, so many things that mean something different than what it’s written. If you’ve never really studied this type of literature, that can be very difficult, and when it gets difficult, it can lead to confusion and frustration, and you give up.
Another reason is to understand these prophetic books. You need to understand the context and which they were written. Who wrote this book? Why was it written, at what time, and who wrote this book? Suppose you don’t understand all of these things and you’re not trained and skilled in Bible study, or you don’t have someone else coaching you and guiding you along the way. In that case, you can get frustrated early on in your journey of standing behind and sometimes never return to it. So if I were starting on, I would probably steer clear of some of these prophetic books.
The second type of literature is an Old Testament narrative, which includes books like Genesis Exodus and so on.
Now Genesis is a great place to start. However, the problem here is after you get through Genesis, you’re like, hey, now I love these stories are doing pretty good I’m enjoying them. You get to Exodus, and then you get to Leviticus, and you get stuck. Many people stopped their Bible study in Leviticus because you have so many things that you’re like, hey, I don’t see New Testament Christians following this and practicing this today, and so you kind of get confused. You don’t quite know how to apply some of these things to your life, so once again. As a result, you give up, get frustrated, and never get back to Bible study.
So I once again would probably not start with Genesis even though it is the first book of the Bible.
Now, this brings us to the New Testament. The reason why I would encourage someone who’s just getting started or someone who’s trying to get back into their Bible study to start with the New Testament is because very few of the books in the New Testament are contingent upon understanding the books that came before it, in other words, you can read the book of Philippians, and you don’t have to have read the books that came before.
Whereas in the Old Testament, if you just open up your Old Testament and you start reading it, if you don’t have the context if you don’t have the backstory, if you don’t know what happened in all of the books that came before it not to mention that most of the Old Testament are not written in chronological order anyway once again it can be very confusing just as if you were to watch a TV show. You came in on season five, but you didn’t know what happened in the first four seasons.
What Book Of The Bible Should I Read?
Now starting in the New Testament, the question is, where should I start in the New Testament? One of the things that I encourage people to do is start in the Gospels, and here are the reasons why?
The first reason is that if you are new to the faith, it is crude for you to get to know this Jesus who came to earth to save you and forgive you of all of your sins. So if you read the Old Testament, it could be a year, maybe two years, before you start to get to know this Jesus who gave his life for you.
So if you’re gonna tell other people about Jesus, we need to understand who he was, how he treated people, what his character was like, why he came, what he accomplished when he was on this earth and why he had to die.
So we could get to know the Gospel story, which leads me to the second reason why I was starting to Gospels, which is that the Gospels are the central focal point of the entire Bible everything in the Old Testament pointed to the Gospels. Everything after that points back to the Gospels, so if you start with a solid understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ, then that opens up the idea so that you can read other portions of Scripture and understand everything that came before and everything that came after.
Now you may say, brother, I’ve read the Gospels. I’m ready to move on to something else. The next book I would encourage you to read is the book of Acts, and here’s why? The book of Acts is a narrative or a set of stories, and stories are much easier for us to understand as we’re reading the Bible. Also, we are currently living in the church age today, so you can read the book of Acts and see how the church got started, what its purpose was, how the gospel spread, and so forth.
Then once you get through the book of Acts, I would encourage you to read some of the shorter books like Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, and some of the other New Testament letters because it’ll give you a sense of confidence it’ll give you a boost it’ll make you feel like you getting somewhere and more importantly all of these are very very practical to where you and I live today covering topics such as how we should tame our tongues how we should treat other people how we should forgive one another how we should have self-control how can we discover our gifts so on and so forth.
Now, if you want to read an Old Testament book, I want to encourage you to read the book of Proverbs. The cool thing about sayings is that there are 31 Proverbs, and in most months, there are 31 days, so whatever day of the month, you can read that proverb. So, for instance, today is December 11th, and I can open up my Bible and read proverbs 11. And the cool thing about proverbs is that it is so practical and easy to read that you can make relevant applications to your life daily.
Okay, so now I want to give you five very practical tips on how you can get started on your Bible study journey and What Book Of The Bible Should I Read.
Five Tips on How You Can Start Your Bible Study Journey
The first is to find someone else who is further along in their journey of studying the Bible than you are. The benefit here is that this person can coach you, mentor you, disciple you, and hopefully answer some questions you may have had when they were getting started so that you’re not just left all by yourself to try to figure this out.
I would love to be that person for you, but unfortunate is for every single person. Still, I have a small group of people I coach and mentor on Facebook inside of a private Facebook group of people who have enrolled in my Bible study. If you want more information about that, head to Bible study. Made easy to calm down.
The second tip is to purchase a Study Bible. Listen, if you do not have a Study Bible, you are missing out because in every good Study Bible you have Maps you have an atlas, some tortoises you have, study notes, character profiles you have background material you have the themes, and the overview of every single book in the Bible look. This is invaluable information so that before you start reading the Bible, you have some context in terms of what this verse or what this book is talking about.
Now a Study Bible is not cheap. A good one will probably run here between twenty-five and fifty dollars. Still, I want to encourage you to start investing in your spiritual life because there is nothing more important for you to invest in than your relationship with Jesus Christ.
The third tip is to choose a translation that is comfortable for you to read. There are some parameters to this because not every Bible out there is a good translation. I would recommend the New King James Version, the New Living Translation, the English standard version, the NIV, and the new American Standard Version.
And what I would encourage you to do is to read from different versions of the Bible. First, you can figure out which one will be the main Bible you’re going to read from but also get a different perspective regarding what this particular version of the Bible is saying versus another translation.
The fourth tip would be to use God’s resources in this day and age. Listen, you have several resources, such as the YouVersion Bible app on your phone, where you can click on a topic and get different verses that you can read or say hey, you know what? This is how I’m feeling today, so can you give me some scriptures that I can meditate on whatever it is, use the resources that God has given you access to today so you can expand your Bible study.
Finally, tip number five, I want to encourage you to download my free Bible story ebook. I would encourage you to do this. That this 32-page ebook will give you a basic overview of the entire Bible, and in 32 pages, it will take you through the entire story of the Bible.
So that way, anytime you open up the Bible, no matter where you open it up, you have a good framework or context in terms of what is happening at this point in the Bible so that the Bible will become alive to you it’ll be much more fun for you to read.
