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Why should I read the Bible?Before I look at why someone should read the Bible, I would like to point readers to three related subjects in case that is the information that they are searching for. You can skip the first few paragraphs if this does not apply to you.Bible Study Plans If you came to this page looking for a Bible study plan then I recommend the following two links. Bible Gateway and SOAP method I also recommend that you do the Alpha coarse. The Alpha course was set up to be a place where people can ask questions in a relaxed atmosphere. Can the Bible be trusted? If you want to know if you can trust the Bible then I recommend that you visit the following websites. Creation Ministries International looks at scientific issues in relation to the Bible. Lee Strobel has excellent videos on the topic of the historical evidence for Jesus. Searching for topics or passages in the Bible You can use Bible Gateway’s search features to search on topics as well as words and phrases. Be careful which translation of the Bible you select for you search. For example, select the King James (Authorised) Version if you the phrase that you are searching for makes use of old fashion words like ‘Thee’ or ‘Thou’ otherwise try several different modern translations such as the New American Standard Bible, New International Version or the New Living Translation. Sometimes the passage that you are looking for might cross over more than one verse so try different keywords if you don’t find your passage straight away. Why read the Bible? The Bible is one of the most dramatic Books ever written. (Actually the Bible is really a collection of books but I’ll talk more about that later.) Shakespeare’s Hamlet and MacBeth are reminiscent of the Kings that were written about in the part of the Christian Bible that is called the “Old Testament”. Many stories have a hero that comes to save the World, sometimes the hero will even die and come back to life. Even some of the writers admit that their stories are copying the theme of Jesus giving up his life to save the World. This article looks at the books of the Bible that talk about what Jesus said and did for the three years of his public life and recommends reading one of those books called “The book of John” (John does not contain long lists of names). This article also recommends a version of the Bible that was written is modern English that is much easier to understand than the Old English versions and I also give you a link to a website where you can read it for free. (You can also read Old English versions there if you really want to). How to find out what Jesus was likeThe only Bible that some people will read are the Christians that they meet. In other words they will find out about God by the way that Christians act and by the things that they say instead of by reading the Bible. Some Christians reflect the love and character of Jesus better than others, so let me encourage you to read the Bible and find out what Jesus is like for yourself because even the most loving and self-sacrificing follower of Jesus is cold and heartless compared to Jesus himself. No one who has ever lived compares to Jesus. There is no teaching like the teaching of Jesus Christ. He hates hypocrisy but loves imperfect people who are willing to come to him and ask him to forgive them. He cares about crowds of people but he also loves individuals as if they are the only person in the world. He lived his teaching and his teaching is all about selfless love, self-sacrifice and justice.He gave up his life in what is one on the most physically cruel ways to be executed and he did that because he is willing to put his love for you into action. (See the movie "The Passion of the Christ"). The Bible is a collection of sixty-six books. It has two main sections The Old Testament and The New Testament. The Old Testament talks about the history of how God interacted with mankind up until the time of Jesus. When Jesus came to this World he came to fulfil the things that were predicted about him in the Old Testament. The first four books of the New Testament are called the Gospels and those books talk about what Jesus said and did before he went back to Heaven. The word gospel means “good news” or “good message” and for Christians the good news is all about what Jesus did so that we could get to know God and live the kind of great life he meant for us to live forever. If you have never read one of the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke or John) then I urge you to read one of those books at least once. You will be amazed at how different Jesus is to any of your preconceptions. The above links take you to the Bible Gateway website where you can read them online and a good reader could read a Gospel in one night. The book of John is a good one to choose. I'm sure that you will find it a lot more interesting than you expect (even if you have no intention of becoming a Christian and don’t consider the Bible to be an accurate account of history). Why not give it a try? Try the first three chapters and see if I'm wrong. Issues that stop people from reading the BibleThere are two common reasons why people give up reading the Bible.One reason is that they tried to read the Bible but it didn’t make any sense, the words were difficult for them to understand. One solution is to read a modern English translation of the Bible that uses words that are more familiar to you such as the New Living Translation (NLT). A Bible Dictionary is also useful if you have one available. The Alpha Course is a course where you can ask questions about the Bible that is run at various Churches. (See "Where can I find a good Church?" for information about Churches that hold the course) Another reason that people give up reading the Bible is that they get to a part of the Bible that talks about somebody who was the father of someone who was the father of someone else and it all seems about as exciting as reading the phone book. Well for one thing I can assure you that the whole Bible is not like that and another thing is that once you get to know who those people are you can actually learn something from the significance of those names. You could try skipping over parts like that until they mean something to you. The book of JohnThe book of John is one of the books that talk mainly about what Jesus said and did during the three years of his public life. The book of John would take about 2-3 hours to read (at a steady pace) and it does not contain long lists of names. John talks about the meaning behind what Jesus said and did before he went back to Heaven. Before you reject Jesus, find out what he is really all about. Here is a link to a website where you can read the book of John in easy-to-read English for free.If you do choose to read John then before you do, why not ask God to reveal himself to you? If you would like to look into the evidence that supports the Bible see “Evidence for the Christian faith”, where I recommend books by Josh McDowell and Lee Strobel that talk about the evidence for Jesus and the Bible. If you decide that you would like to become a Christian then see the article “How do I become a Christian?” Once you have finished reading the gospel of John, if you want to learn more then I recommend that you attend an Alpha coarse (or something similar) and use the following websites as a guide for reading through the whole Bible Bible Gateway and SOAP method |