Best View

Are you New
to Reading the Bible?

If you are . . .
First, congratulations on a monumental decision!

Second, here's some simple advice for you.

Get a Bible in a language you can read. If you don't speak Spanish, you wouldn't use a Spanish Bible; so since you don't speak 16th century English, don't try to read from that Bible either. The King James Version is a wonderful translation to have on your shelf for reference once in a while. But for now, find an up to date translation like
- the New International Version,
- the New Century Bible,
- the New Jerusalem Bible,
- or even The Message (an easy to read paraphrase).

More on the kinds of Bibles at another time.

Decide to read the Bible for yourself, not by what other people (or books) tell you it means. Everybody has an opinion about the Bible. Everybody! So, to start out, read it for yourself and form your own opinions.
Set up a schedule and method for reading. You know your schedule better than anyone else. If you do this, you'll have a more pleasant and powerful experience reading.
When you start reading, ask a simple question and read for the big picture. In all that you read, ask this question all the time: "What is the author trying to tell me in this book?" Don't worry about the details right now, and don't be concerned that you may not understand everything you read. Read for the overall story. Try to get the big picture. Read each book you start all the way through. Don't simply read a verse at a time, or skip all over the Bible reading things topically. Topical reading can be useful down the road once you've learned something about the nature of the individual books and letters of the Bible. Instead, read whole books or letters at a time, or at least large blocks of text at one sitting. A chapter at a time is good, but 10 chapters at a time are better.
Get a TASTE for reading the Bible by selecting a few key places to start. Start with something representative and simple. Don't start with Genesis and read through Revelation, not at first. If you do that, you may bog down in the middle of some of the technical books of Jewish law. Instead, we suggest the following books in this order:
1. Start with Genesis 12-50. This is ancient story telling at its best. It will tell you how God works in the lives of individual people (even when they are sometimes scoundrels) and how his people became his people.
2. Read Exodus 1-20. The story continues, but now gets more focused on the birth of the nation. It tells the story of deliverance from slavery to the giving of the law of Moses.
3. Read Luke and Acts. These are two volumes, by the same author, and they will tell you, from start to finish, the story of Jesus and how Christianity got started. It will show how important the Old Testament is for understanding the story of Jesus and the church. This will get you ready to read anything else in the New Testament.
4. Read the book of Ruth. This is a short Old Testament love story that will be very pleasant to read.
5. Read the book of Jonah. This is a very short book about a prophet of God who did not want to do what God had in mind for him to do.
6. Read the book of Amos. This is a short book about a prophet who did exactly what God told him to do.
7. Read the the first 8 chapters of Proverbs. This is a great introduction to what is called Wisdom Literature in the Old Testament
8. Read the following Psalms in this order: 1-11, 18-19, 22-23, 51, 53, 78, 92-100, 103, 106, 110, [together 113-118, 136 ], 119, 139, 145-150. This will give you a taste of the Psalms and of Hebrew poetry. Remember, there are no "chapters" in the Psalms. Each psalm is a prayer. The Psalms were collectively the ancient hymnbook of the Jews and early Christians. They were chanted with specific tonality (not sung in a modern sense). Don't read the Psalms like you would read stark history or inventive fantasy. It is poetry about soul-searching truth, both joyous and devastating.
9. Read Paul's letter to the Philippians. This short letter is one of the apostle Paul's letters to some of your brothers and sisters long, long ago. It gives you a good example of how Paul writes and what themes are important to him.
10. Don't read Revelation, not yet. For some reason, many people just starting out want to run right over there and read that book. It's like a new piano student wanting to play Mozart's Piano concerto number 9, third movement (which you can hear on YouTube). It's not that Revelation is so difficult to read, it's rather a matter of understanding the subtleties of ancient prophecy, apocalyptic symbolism, numerology, history, and much more. Save Revelation till you have a good bit of reading knowledge of both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Build the foundation of your house before you try to move in.
Learn some things about how the Bible is put together. After you've got this TASTE of the Bible, having read some of the biblical documents on their own merits, as suggested above, now try to learn some things about the Bible. Understand that the Bible was not written as a single book. It is actually a collection of a lot of other books and letters now all put together in the way you see it. Knowing something about how the Bible is arranged can be useful. For example, Matthew was among the later books of the New Testament to be written, even though it has been placed first. It makes sense for the Gospels to come first, since they tell the story of Jesus. The first document of the New Testament to have actually been written is likely Paul's simple little letter of 1 Thessalonians. (That's why the Coffee with Paul Reading Library starts with that letter.) Learn more about the Bible so your conversations with others can reflect a deep and growing interest.
At this point, consider a program that is designed to help you read the Bible. The Divine Secret series of books in the Coffee with Paul Reading Library can help you learn how to read "in context and conversation" without jumping all over the place. Avoid any program that has you jumping around a lot. Learn to read in context and conversation.

If you follow these simple concepts, you will learn more and grow more than than you can imagine. This will give you a "jump-start" on reading the Bible. For more information, also check out the section on BibleDashboard called: Reading the Bible.