“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life (Joh 5:39-40).”
“Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this (Joh 11:25-26)?”
Do you believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life? That is all that sets you apart from the rest of the world. That is why we bear His name, “Christian.” But what does that mean? Jesus accused the scribes and Pharisees of recognized that though they believed that life could be found in the Scriptures they missed that those same Scriptures were about Him. He is the life, and they were missing it. I fear today that Christianity finds itself in a similar situation as the scribes and Pharisees, yet in reverse; we have accepted that Jesus is the resurrection and the life but we don’t know the Bible that bear witness to Him.
Now, I know, you can know a lot about Jesus and not know Him personally. But is that really a good excuse for not getting to know anything about Him? You could know a lot about me without knowing me personally, but would I find it hard to believe that you could know me personally without knowing anything about me. Those that want to know me personally would also want to know about me. If you didn’t, I would suspect that you were being disingenuous. Anyway, when you first meet me, it is understandable that you wouldn’t know much about me. But wouldn’t you spend the time to get to know me? Shouldn’t we want to get to know Jesus?
My hope is that if you are reading these words you are interested in learning more about Him. But where to start? If you are new to Christianity or the Bible, I would start with one of the Gospels, Mathew, Mark, Luke or John. I’m a big fan of the Gospel of John. All of these tell the story of Jesus. They are His words. After one or two of the Gospels I would read Acts. Acts is the story of the early church. The history of what happened after the death and resurrection of Jesus. That’s our story as Christians but you will still have questions. The good news is that the Pharisee of Pharisees, Paul, was commissioned by God to explain much of what it means to us, the Gentiles. I would read one or two of his letters to the Early church, maybe Romans, Ephesians, or Colossians. While you are working through those, I would also work on step 2, Read/Listen to the Bible Comments of Trustworthy Commenters. After all of this you will need to establish a regular reading plan.
There are a lot of plans out there. Some of them will take you through the Bible in a chronological order. The Bible is not organized chronologically, and these plans put the books in order so that the reader can read them through in the order in which they were written. Other reading plans will provide schedules that divide the reader’s attention between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Some will be focused on one specific book allowing the reader to spend more time focused on that content. There is a reading plan for just about everyone, but the most important thing is to establish a regular schedule.
I have often sat down to spend some time in the Word only to flounder spending much of my time trying to decide what to read. Reading plans alleviate this problem.
I want to invite you to my reading plan. You can find it at https://faithlife.com/faith-hope-lovelife/activity. It is hosted by Faithlife.com and if you go to the cite on a computer browser you will find the reading plan on the right side of the screen. The reading plan is called “Finding God’s Wisdom Day by Day.” It is a simple plan starting in Genesis and going all the way through the Bible ending at Revelation in the order in which the books are collected. Don’t worry about catching up. I began the reading plan in January of this year. Just push the “Catch Up” button and pick up reading today’s reading. If you stay at it for a year, you will come back around to where you started no matter where you start.
I would encourage you to read every day but if you don’t that is okay. Don’t stress… just push the “Catch Up” button and pick up with today’s reading. The goal is to build a daily routine but I, of all people, know how difficult routines are to establish and maintain.
This is part one of a three-part series I am entitling “Aaron’s Guide to Knowing God’s Word.” Part 2 can be found here.
Photo by Rod Long on Unsplash.