What the Bible is all about

The Bible is one of the oldest written documents in the world, some of it dating from over 3,000 years ago. But it has done more to influence the world that any other book. It still influences billions of people, and it is the best-selling book ever.

What is the Bible?

The word ‘bible’ means book. It was authored by God to convey His message to the world, and over many years, He chose people to write down what He wanted the people of the world to know. God had a plan with the earth and its people, from the very beginning.

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness”. (2 Timothy 3:16). The word ‘inspiration’ means that God directed the people what to write by various means.

The Bible consists of two ‘volumes’ of the one plan of God, the Old Testament and the New Testament. They are not stand-alone, but each needs the support of the other. The whole Bible consists of 66 books, 39 books in the Old Testament and 27 books in the New Testament. The Old Testament spans a time of about 4000 years, then for the New Testament from the time of Jesus Christ onwards, the time has not yet finished.

Beginnings

The Bible begins with the book of Genesis (which means beginnings), and it tells how God created the world and everything in it.

‘For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.’ (Isaiah 45:18)

When the Lord (God) had everything ready for them on the earth, He created a man called Adam, and He breathed into him the ‘breath of life’ and he became a living person. From Adam he made a woman companion for him, called Eve, and He told them to multiply and that they would have superiority over everything on the earth. But He told Adam not to eat of a particular tree in the Garden of Eden where He had put them. But a cunning serpent which could speak, contradicted God and it persuaded Eve that to eat the fruit would be good. She took the fruit and gave some to Adam too, and they both ate the fruit.

But God punished each of them for their disobedience. He told the serpent (snake) that it would from now on be cursed above other animals, and it would slither along the ground. There would be hatred between snakes and humans, but eventually there would be a human descendant who would repay the deceit of the snake and annul the permanency of the curse on Adam and Eve and provide hope.

God told Eve that she would take second place to her husband, and she would give birth to children in sorrow.

God told Adam that from then on, seeing he was disobedient and gave in to Eve, he would have to work hard because thistles and weeds would grow to hinder his work. Importantly, from now on all living creatures on the earth would be mortal, which means that their lives would come to an end with death, and their bodies would decay in the earth.

These conditions were passed on to all generations afterwards. Adam and Eve had a number of children, and the earth began to be populated.

Many years later

It is thought to be about 1600 years later that God was angry that the many people on the earth were very wicked, all apart from a man called Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives. God determined to start the population of the world over again, so He directed Noah to build a huge ‘ark’ or boat, in which to save Noah and his family and enough animals to restock the earth, after the coming flood.

At that time, the earth was all one landmass, and it was completely covered by water and all the people on it, were destroyed. After a year in the boat, the water had subsided, and Noah and his family were able to live on the land and his sons and their wives to have families of their own. The land of tectonic plates had divided up and as they moved away mountains were formed. The climate was changed completely because from then on there would be seasons.

Several hundred years after the flood, the people who had now multiplied, decided to build a tower to heaven at Babel (Babylon). But God was angry with their intention and made them all speak different languages so they could not understand each other; as a result, they separated and spread around the earth.

Later God chose a man called Abram who lived in the Chaldean area (Mesopotamia, now Iraq) and told him to take his wife Sarai with him and go to the land of Canaan many miles away. When Abraham and Sarah (God changed their names) eventually settled in Canaan, God made very important promises to them:

1. God would make Abraham a great nation and all the earth would be blessed through him. (Genesis 12:2)

2. God would bless those who blessed His nation, and curse those who cursed it. (Genesis 12:3)

3. From Canaan, Abraham was to look north, south, east and west, and as far as he could see would be the land of God’s nation, for ever.

(Genesis 13:14-17)

4. God told Abraham that the land was promised to his descendants for ever, but at that time Abraham had no children.

5. His descendants would be so numerous they couldn’t be counted. (Genesis 13:16)

Isaac the promised son

God promised Abraham and Sarah a son, but they became impatient, and Abraham had a son Ishmael, with Sarah’s servant Hagar. But God did not accept Ishmael as the promised son, and fourteen years later, a son called Isaac was born to Abraham and Sarah. God tested Abraham’s faith by asking him to sacrifice Isaac, but Abraham passed the test and Isaac was not killed; instead, God provided an animal.

Eventually Isaac married Rebekkah, and they had twin boys Esau and Jacob. God said later, “It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated”. (Romans 9: 12,13). God renewed the same promises He had given Abraham, to Isaac and then again to Isaac’s son Jacob. Esau became the ancestor of the tribes who were eventually called Arabs and later, Muslims.

Jacob had twelve sons and they lived in Canaan, but one son Joseph, was hated by his brothers and they sold him to be a slave in Egypt. Unknown to them, Joseph was to become very important in Egypt.

Because of a severe drought, Jacob, his sons and their families all moved to Egypt to live, where they could get food. Through Jacob’s son Joseph, God had arranged this as part of making their families into a nation. About 400 years later the number of descendants had grown considerably, and Moses was chosen by God to lead His people, known as Hebrews. After Pharaoh (the ruler of Egypt) refused to let them go to Canaan, the promised land, there were ten plagues. The last plague was that all the Egyptian firstborn sons died. God saved the Hebrews from the same fate by requiring them to eat a roast lamb and using its blood to identify their homes. This meal was from then on called the Passover and it is still practised. After that Pharaoh did let them leave, and they crossed the Red Sea on their way.

When they reached Mt Sinai God called Moses to go up the mountain and gave him the Ten Commandments and what became known as the Law of Moses. These set out how God wanted His people to behave, especially they were to have nothing to do with the idols and gods of the people around them.

Into the promised land

As they approached the land twelve spies were sent to view it and the only two who relied on God to help them were Joshua and Caleb. So God said everyone else would wander in the wilderness for forty years by which time everyone apart from Joshua and Caleb, had died. After forty years, just before Moses died, God told him to tell the Hebrews (Jews) that if they obeyed Him, they would be blessed, but if they disobeyed, they would be cursed. The twelve tribes of Israel entered the land, led by their new leader Joshua, and God helped them to fight the opponents and take over the land. But it wasn’t long before the people began to worship the gods and idols of the nations around them, and God became angry with them.

God had provided the people with leaders, but later they insisted that they wanted a king, to be like the people around them. God selected Saul for them. But he was disobedient, so God chose a young man to replace him, called David who earnestly tried to be obedient to God, though he did sin but was forgiven. David established the city of Jerusalem which became God’s chosen city. David’s son Solomon became king when David died, and he built a temple for God; although he started out well, he married a lot of foreign wives, and he ended up worshipping their gods. God was angry again, so that only two tribes were inherited by Solomon’s son Rehoboam, and they were called the tribes of Judah. The other ten tribes, called Israel, went to the control of a servant Jeroboam but he so encouraged those tribes to worship other gods, and even sacrifice their children, that the people became very wicked in their disobedience to God.

Over the following 300 years, God sent prophets to them to warn them and plead with them to serve Him. The ten tribes of Israel were so wicked that God allowed the Assyrian army to take most of them away captive in 722BC. But the remaining two tribes, the nation of Judah, didn’t learn the lesson. God sent prophets to them to warn them too, that they would be taken away to Babylon if they didn’t change their ways. The names of two of those prophets were Jeremiah, and Isaiah, and they warned the people that they would be taken captive, and to go to Babylon and settle there because they would be there for 70 years. God gave Isaiah and Jeremiah (and others) prophesies that a Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, and that He had future plans for His chosen people and for others who would believe in Him. Eventually there would be a kingdom established on earth. This future plan is what is known as the gospel.

Taken captive

In 606BC King Nebuchadnezzar from Babylon arrived with his army and plundered the city of Jerusalem and they took some of the people captive to Babylon, just as God had predicted. Then Nebuchadnezzar’s army returned to Jerusalem in 586BC and destroyed it and took most of the remaining people to Babylon.

Then just 70 years later, as God had promised, He prompted the man who was then king there, Cyrus, to want to return all the people and all the plunder from the temple to Jerusalem. Under the guidance of Ezra and Nehemiah, thousands of people returned, and they helped Ezra and Nehemiah to repair the damaged walls and rebuild the temple. So, the kingdom of Judah was re-established back in its land, and the people promised to be obedient to God.

However, their good intentions did not last very long. When the prophet Malachi wrote his book in about 400BC warning them to urgently change their behaviour, it was to be the last communication by a prophet between God and His people until the promised Messiah appeared, and the book forms the end of the Old Testament, Volume one.

The New Testament and the work of Jesus

The New Testament (Volume two) begins, timewise, with the promise to Zechariah and Elizabeth of a son who was to be John the Baptist, and three months later an angel visited Mary and told her that she was to give birth to God’s son Jesus. The angel said, “And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21)

John baptised Jesus in the River Jordan, and Jesus received the Holy Spirit from His Father, God. Jesus chose 12 disciples who believed in him and followed him. For three and a half years Jesus tried to show the Jews that they needed to change their ways; he did many wonderful miracles and healed people of their sicknesses. Their leaders, the Pharisees, had distorted God’s message and added hundreds of extra rules of their own. Jesus did many miracles, healing people to show his authority from his Father, God, and many people did listen. Four men, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote accounts of the life and death of Jesus Christ, their books are known as the Four Gospels.

After Jesus had been preaching for three and a half years, the Pharisees were increasingly jealous of him, and they conspired with Judas Iscariot, one of the disciples, to betray him. Jesus knew this was going to happen because it had been written about him in the Old Testament (Isaiah 53). One night Jesus gathered his disciples to him for a meal just before Passover, and he shared bread and wine with them, telling them that these items represented his body and blood. From that time on believers were to share bread and wine in his memory. Judas then went to the Pharisees and led them to where Jesus and the disciples were, in the garden of Gethsemane.

They arrested Jesus and very quickly they had staged a mock trial, and he was sent on to the Roman leader who condemned him to be crucified. In less than 24 hours from his arrest, it was the day of preparation for the Passover, what we call Friday, and by mid-afternoon Jesus had been tortured and he gave up his life to die. Two believers were given permission to bury his body, which they did in a new tomb.

Early on the first day of the week, our Sunday, some of his friends and disciples went to the tomb but surprisingly found it empty. Instead, angels were there, and they said that he was not dead but he had risen (or been resurrected). They had difficulty believing this, but soon Jesus himself came to them and removed their doubt, and the disciples were filled with joy.

The amazing thing for all mankind was that Jesus never sinned and he died in complete obedience to his Father, God. Finally the curse put on the serpent way back in the Garden of Eden was atoned for. Because death itself was said to be the result of sin, Jesus atoned for the curse because he died without ever sinning, so he was innocent of the punishment.

After forty days of preparing his disciples for their work ahead, Jesus ascended to heaven to be with his Father. He promised that at some time ahead he would return to the earth in the same way that he had gone.

Through Jesus’ death and resurrection to immortality, he is a mediator between believers and God, so that believers can ask for their sins to be forgiven. He was the ultimate Sinless Lamb. His death brought about the end of keeping the law of Moses, because he replaced it with ‘the new covenant’. He had been the ultimate sacrifice and the law which included sacrificing animals to cover their sins, was no longer required. Because the Jewish people had rejected Jesus, all other non-Jews could now have the opportunity to be believers and be acceptable to God.

The Apostles preach the Good News

Jesus instructed his disciples to go out into the world and preach the gospel, which is the good news of the coming Kingdom of God on the earth. The New Testament gives accounts of their efforts, especially in the book of Acts, as they travelled to distant countries and preached. Apart from the four Gospels, there are a number of letters written by some of the apostles to the people in other countries who had become believers. The principal apostle was a man called Paul whom God chose specifically to do His work. Some of the others were Peter, James and John. They left instructions on how believers should live and explained that the Law of Moses was now obsolete, and that it had been replaced by the New Covenant. Paul, Peter, James and John wrote letters to the people in countries whom they had taught about God, and their letters are preserved for us in the New Testament.

The Apostles showed believers that God promised that dead people who had known God’s message from throughout time would be brought back to life and together with those alive at the return of Jesus, they would face judgment. At the judgment it would be decided if they would be granted eternal life, or not, or punished by final death.

But God will not have forgotten His chosen people, the Jews from His land, Israel. God had promised that before Jesus returned to the earth, the Jews would be reestablished in their own land, Israel, and gathered in from all over the world. It has been prophesied that there will be Arabic nations (descendants of Abraham’s son Ishmael) who hate Israel and when they conspire to destroy Israel, God will intervene and save His people. Finally, when Jesus has returned to the earth, His chosen people the Jews, will realise where they have done wrong and accept Jesus as their saviour, and Jesus and God will accept them.

There will be a wonderful Kingdom

Jesus will establish a wonderful kingdom on this earth. The earth will be made an amazing place of peace where there will be no more sickness, pain or grief, no war, no hatred. There is a wonderful future to look forward to:

“The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the LORD, and the excellency of our God. Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and save you.

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes”. (Isaiah 32:1-8)

This stage will last for 1000 years after which there will be a final judgment for those who lived and died during that time and it will lead into a final everlasting kingdom.

The last book of the New Testament is titled the Revelation. Jesus himself revealed to John about the conditions in the world from that time forward until Jesus returned. It outlines what is now history by means of many unusual symbols. But the last book of the Bible finishes with a very powerful message:

^“He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.“ (Revelation 22:20)