We are exploring some reasons to read the Old Testament. For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. Romans 15:4 Paul wrote that to the church at Rome around AD 56-57. Just a few short years after Jesus was crucified and resurrected and before most of the New Testament books were written. The "Scriptures" the apostle Paul is talking about are the Hebrew Scri

If you are like most Christians these days you aren't reading your Bible. And if you are reading it a little, you are spending the vast majority of your time in the New Testament. The Old Testament makes up roughly 2/3rds of the Bible. A lot of Christians (me included) think the entire Bible is God's Word to us. If you only read the New Testament, I believe you are getting the most important part of the Bible, Jesus came in human form to save the world. But oh, the wonderful

According to surveys Christians aren't reading the Bible very much anymore. And those who are reading it are usually camping out in the New Testament with an occasional look back to Psalms or Proverbs - a couple of books in the Wisdom Writings. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says: All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. When the apostle Pa

"He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'" John 7:38 What strikes you about this verse? What hit me was the word "Scripture" being capitalized. I checked all my Bible versions and in each one it was capitalized. Jesus is speaking here (hence I put the words in red.) When Jesus refers to Scripture, what is He referring to? He is referring to the Jewish written Word. Our Old Testament. Our Old Testament has the e

Many Christians camp out in the New Testament. I did the same thing at first. However, the whole Bible – both the Old Testament and New Testament - is God’s word to us. And the first 5 books of the Bible are critical to read because they lay the theological groundwork for the rest of the Scriptures! These books explain the origin of the world, of the nations, and of God’s people. If you are new to reading the Bible you probably should spend some time in the New Testament – es

I first heard about choosing a life verse at my son’s high school. He graduated from a Christian high school and as part of the yearbook, sport’s senior night and for graduation, they were supposed to choose a “life verse.” I think for most of the students the life verse was just their favorite verse. I remember him asking me if I had one. Nope. Interesting my son chose Colossians 3:17 and I think this is a very good life verse. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, d

The Hebrew word hesed can be found throughout the Jewish manuscripts and is a key word of the Old Testament. [Technically the Hebrew word is חֶסֶד and a rendering of it is checed according to blueletterbible.com and Strong's. Different languages have different alphabets. Transliteration is when you change a word into corresponding characters of another alphabet or language. Just like we often call Chanukah, Hanukkah (the English version); we call checed the English version, h

What comes to mind when you hear the word “saints”? Some really good people that do kind deeds? Most people think of a holy or godly person when they think of a saint. Some people think of saints as being in heaven. The word “saints” can be found throughout the Bible. In the New American Standard Bible (NASB) it is found 67 times. In the 1984 New International Version (NIV) it is found 68 times. Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) 62 times. English Standard Version (ESV)

I worked at a Christian bookstore when the 2011 New International Version Bible (NIV) came out. Up until then people were reading from the 1984 revision of the NIV. The NIV is the most popular version of the Bible sold in the world today. A revision to a popular Bible version doesn’t seem like it would be any big deal, but this one caused a lot of controversy. The hoopla over this revision was because the translation team decided to go from masculine language to gender neutra

Photograph by Sherry Vechery I heard somewhere that if you read the Bible daily for 20 minutes that you will have read through the whole thing in a year. My question is why 20 minutes and why a year? On one hand 20 minutes doesn’t seem unreasonable to me, but it is to a lot of people. We all know you get sick, you go on vacation, your child has that big school project due tomorrow, you sometimes feel like you can’t pack in one more thing in a day and adding a required 20 minu