Tracing God's Story: New TestamentSample

The New Testament shows Jesus as a second Adam, a second Moses, a second David, and a second Solomon. His life will fulfill over 300 prophecies, and the salvation he brings will be portrayed as a new exodus. We, the church, are the new temple for God's presence. This half, which is only about a third of the entire Bible, is truly amazing, and I believe we will spend eternity discovering even more incredible details.

After the creation of the world, the fall of man, and the repeated cycle of Israelite sin, God was silent for around 400 years. Now, don't think this means He wasn't working; He was simply working behind the scenes, preparing the most beautiful gift the world could ever imagine.

His silence was broken when He announced the coming of the new Elijah, John the Baptist, who would pave the way for the Messiah, his cousin Jesus Christ. The New Testament tells us this, and then we read about Jesus's life, death, and resurrection.

The first section, the Gospels, is divided into four books: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Each was written by a different man with a different perspective and a different audience. Then, we read about Jesus ascending to heaven after leaving His followers with a command to go into the world and tell everyone about Him.

The Book of Acts, which is called a historical book, details the early believers and how they spread the good news. It also introduces a man named Paul, who became one of the greatest leaders in history. After a radical encounter with Jesus, Paul became a devout follower and traveled all over the Roman Empire, planting churches. He had a burning desire to share with them how to live, worship, and have faith in Christ.

Remember, there was no Bible yet for those people to read, so Paul would write to the churches and some of their leaders. He'd write them letters, many from jail after imprisonment for his beliefs. The next section of the Bible includes 13 of those letters plus 8 more letters from other disciples. This section is called the letters, although some call it the epistles. They mean the same thing.

Paul's letters include Romans, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, 1st and 2nd Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. These letters are placed in our Bibles, not in chronological order but in order according to length. The other eight letters written by other authors are Hebrews, James, 1st and 2nd Peter, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, and Jude.

The Bible closes with one final letter, but because of its content, it is not included in the section we call letters. It is instead labeled apocalyptic literature. God came to one of His disciples, John, who wrote several books in the New Testament and is a man you will hear a lot about. He gave him a vision of the past, present, and future.

John wrote it all down in the Book of Revelation. He shares the details about what Jesus has already accomplished and what is coming in the future. This book of prophecy may seem confusing to some, but it is filled with the hope we have in Christ's victory and glimpses of a new creation we get to spend eternity in.

The Old Testament has 39 books, which took over a thousand years to write and covered 4,000 years of history. The New Testament has just 27 books. It took less than 75 years to write and only covers about 100 years of history, from around 4 BC, when it is estimated that Jesus was born, to around 97 AD, when the last book was written.

The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, but the New Testament was written in Greek. This is because it was not just written for a Jewish audience but also for the Gentiles, and Greek was the dominant language at that time. The Old Testament focuses on a people group, the Israelites, while the New Testament focuses on Jesus's message for the world.

The Old Testament was written by Jewish authors, but some of the books in the New Testament were written by Gentile men. The Old Testament shows us what it took to become holy, something we could not do, and the New Testament shows us how God made that possible.

While the two halves have many differences, they both point to Jesus and God's original plan of salvation.

I hope the information shared today helps you grasp how interesting the Bible is so that you develop a passion for reading it. As you dig into Scripture, I pray that God speaks to you in exciting new ways and your spirit begins coming to life.