“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” – 2 Timothy 3:16
When Christians make enormous claims about the Bible, they are in fact simply restating what the Bible says about itself. The Bible asserts that God authored the entire book down to every word. It also claims God did this through human authors. These authors retained their own style, voice, perspective, and cultural distinctives, yet God uniquely inspired them to write down what He wanted recorded with complete accuracy. This makes the Bible unique from, superior to, and in authority over everyone and everything else on the earth, because when the Bible speaks, God speaks.
Scripture is God speaking His truth to us in human words. The New Testament writers claim that the Old Testament is sacred Scripture, which literally means “writing.” (Matt. 21:42, 22:29, 26:54,56; Luke 24:25–32, 44–45; John 5:39, 10:35; Acts 17:2,11; 18:28; Rom. 1:2, 4:3, 9:17, 10:11, 11:2, 15:4, 16:26; 1 Cor. 15:3–4; Gal. 3:8,22, 4:30; 1 Tim. 5:18; 2 Tim. 3:16; James 4:5; 2 Pet. 1:20–21, 3:15–16) The word Bible comes from the Greek word for book. Holy Bible means “Holy Book.” It was written in three languages (Hebrew, Greek, and a bit in Aramaic) over a period of more than 1500 years by roughly 40 authors (of varying ages and backgrounds) on three continents (Asia, Africa, and Europe).
The Protestant Canon of the Bible contains 66 separate books. 39 books, approximately three-quarters of the Bible, are in the Old Testament, which is a record of God’s speaking and working in history from when he created Adam and Eve up until about 450 BC. In the period between the two testaments, people waited for the coming of the Messiah into human history. The 27 books of the New Testament begin with the four Gospels, which record the life, death, burial, Resurrection, and ascension (return to Heaven) of Jesus and then proceed to instruct Christians and churches about how to think and live for God.
Roughly three-quarters of the Christian Bible is the Old Testament. The Old Testament has 929 chapters and 23,214 verses. The New Testament has 260 chapters and 7,959 verses. In the Old Testament, the longest book is Psalms, and the shortest book is Obadiah. In the New Testament, the longest book is Acts, and the shortest book is 3 John.
The Bible is a library of books compiled as one Book, showing a divine unity and continuity. This point is illustrated by the fact that the New Testament has roughly 300 explicit Old Testament quotations, as well as upwards of 4,000 allusions to the Old Testament. In many ways, the Old Testament is a series of promises that God makes, and the New Testament is the record of their fulfillment and anticipation of the final fulfillment of the remaining promises at Jesus’ Second Coming.
As you read the Old Testament, you must remember that your position in history is not entirely unlike the Old Testament believers. They read the Old Testament in faith, anticipating the first coming of Jesus to fulfill the promises of the Old Testament. We now read both the Old and New Testaments in faith, eagerly awaiting the Second Coming of Jesus to fulfill the remaining promises of Scripture given to His people.
The Old Testament is the Bible that Jesus learned as a boy, memorized, quoted, and taught from. There is simply no way to root your faith deeper without digging into the Old Testament, which is what the book of Hebrews is uniquely written to help you do.
Which book of the Old Testament do you enjoy reading the most?
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