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howtounderstandthebible

In this series in “How to Understand the Bible” we are focussing on how to understand the Old Testament. Many people find parts of the Old Testament daunting and challenging to understand. One such part is that portion in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. If you know someone or a group who would like to follow along with this series, encourage them to learn more and sign up to receive the series via email.

Most people who start to read the Bible from the beginning for the first time will typically have this experience: Genesis is fascinating with the story of creation, Babel, the flood, and the epic stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The exodus story is gripping. And then comes the law. Mount Sinai and the Ten Commandments are familiar. Next come the flurry of laws and stipulations, many of which are so far removed from our culture and hard to understand that the Bible reader can get bogged down. Mid-Leviticus, typically.

law

What is “the law”? What is the purpose of the more than 600 regulations? And, very importantly, how much of this applies to our lives? Why do we believe that “You shall not commit adultery” in the Ten Commandments applies to us but “Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material” does not?

In Scripture “the law” may refer to the more than 600 regulations Moses passed on to the people in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, or it may refer to the first five books of the Bible, or as shorthand for the entire pattern of religious life and rituals in the Old Testament. Law is a way for any society to define the proper bounds of behavior both for protection and for flourishing. But the law of the Old Testament is unique in that it was God’s way of shaping his relationship with a covenant people.

This will help us understand the sometimes bewildering array of laws, some of which seem strange to us. The Hebrews were chosen to live in a distinctive way by how they dressed, what they ate, and how they worshipped. Most of these laws do not carry over after the coming of Christ, when the old covenant gave way to the new covenant, and the way of living in obedience to God comes via a higher kind of law.

In Exodus through Deuteronomy there are three kinds of laws. First, there are civil regulations, for instance, property rights; marriage and divorce standards; laws sanctioning theft, murder, and other crimes; health regulations; etc. Then there are ritual instructions that define the sacrificial system, the festivals, the role of the Levites, and the specific physical features of the tabernacle. Finally, there are moral principles, which include sexual ethics, the major themes of the Ten Commandments, and more. These three types are sometimes called the civil law, the ceremonial law, and the moral law.

So how do we know which of the 600 laws in the Old Testament apply to Christians today? Should we avoid eating shellfish? Ought we to observe Passover? Is it wrong to steal? Do we have to observe the Sabbath (i.e., rest on the seventh day of the week, Saturday)? Are sexual relations between blood relatives wrong? Is tithing (i.e., giving 10 percent of your income) an eternal commandment?

We have to answer this question on something better than our intuitions. The terms of the new covenant must guide us here, and what we find in the New Testament is that the civil law was God’s way of shaping Hebrew society; it’s not binding today. The ritual law used sacrifice and festivals and the tabernacle to teach lessons about sin and atonement, but it has now been superseded by the work of Christ. (See the teaching in the New Testament book of Hebrews.) Moral laws have ongoing validity, but mostly because they are repeated in one form or another in the New Testament.

But lest we repeat the legalism and self-righteousness of the Pharisees and teachers of the law of Jesus’ day, we are guided in the new covenant by this one transcendent principle: the law of love or “the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2). Jesus said the whole old covenant law can be summed up by “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:37-40). Paul put it this way: “the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Gal. 5:14), and “love is the fulfillment of the law” (Rom. 13:8-10).

It would be reasonable to ask: “So if most of the Law in the first five books of the Bible does not apply to us today, in what sense is it part of the word of God for us?” Here is where we need to set aside all self-centeredness. The whole sweep of the biblical narrative is the story of God moving among and within people in order to bring salvation to humanity, but that doesn’t mean every verse is about us. The law of the Old Testament is the word of God for all people for all time, but given to specific people groups in the context of God’s dynamic, upward development of a covenant relationship with human beings. The apostle Paul puts it this way: “The law was our guardian [custodian, tutor] until Christ came that we might be justified by faith” (Gal. 3:24).

So the law stands as a true expression of the will and the ways of God, expressed in a particular era, subject to modification, providing the basis for ever higher revelations of what it means to be the covenant people of God. Jesus summed it up when he said: “I have not come to abolish [the Law or the Prophets] but to fulfill them” (Matt. 5:17).

Next time: “What Is Important About the Land of the Bible?”

Care to offer feedback this week?

Not yet signed up to receive “How to Understand the Bible” via email? You can follow along here at the blog, but we recommend signing up for email updates here. “How to Understand the Bible” is available as a print book at WordWay.org.

Mel Lawrenz is Director of The Brook Network and creator of The Influence Project. He’s the author of thirteen books, most recently Spiritual Influence: the Hidden Power Behind Leadership.

“God is an unconventional teacher. He uses paradox to imbue us with common sense, propels healing through pain, and hauls clarity into our lives through the most confusing circumstances.” Margaret Feinberg used joy as a weapon against her cancer diagnosis to discover God’s fierce love for her, reignite her laughter, release her regrets, overcome her fears, and find the strength she desperately needed.

Bible Gateway interviewed Margaret Feinberg (@mafeinberg) about her book, Fight Back With Joy: Celebrate More. Regret Less. Stare Down Your Greatest Fears (Worthy Publishing, 2015) and corresponding 6-session DVD Bible Study (LifeWay Christian Resources, 2015).

Talk about your personal context of challenge in which you wrote this book about joy.

Margaret Feinberg: Several years ago, I felt compelled by the Holy Spirit to go on a personal journey to lay hold of more joy in my life. I dug into Scripture researching the hundreds of passages on joy, happiness, rejoicing, merriment, and more.

Thrilled about all I was learning, I was putting the finishing touches on a book when I received the news of cancer. Plunged into a world of greater pain and suffering than I’d ever known, I had to scrap the project. Up until then, I had been searching for joy in the relatively good times of life, now I had to find joy amidst darkness and agony.

No one signs up for that assignment. No one.

Against all odds, I’ve found my capacity for joy expanding, and I’ve discovered something quite startling: Joy is far more than I ever thought or been taught. It’s a more dynamic, forceful weapon than most of us realize. When we fight back with joy, we lean into the very presence of God—the one who fill us with joy, even on our most deflated todays.

What’s your understanding of the biblical mandate to be joyful no matter what happens?

Margaret Feinberg: I think using the phrase “biblical mandate to be joyful no matter what happens” has a tendency to create plasticky Christians who feel forced to fake it a lot. This kind of terminology encourages us to hide our pain, our grief, our losses—the very things God often uses to showcase His goodness and glory.

A “biblical mandate to be joyful no matter what” is like telling a child you must have fun. Any sense of play is instantly vacuumed out of the room. The Bible never makes feeling joy a legal matter. Ecclesiastes 3:4 informs us that all of humanity will experience moments of tears as well as laughter. God knows these moments well in advance, but they often come as a surprise to us.

Perhaps you’re referring to, “Rejoice in the Lord always” (Phil. 4:4). And yes, when as we live in tune with Christ, we’re endowed by grace with the ability to reverberate the joy of God. The Greek root for “rejoice” is chairo meaning “full of cheer” or “calmly happy.”

When all the lights go off in life, when everything is stripped away, we can still find a sense of deep shalom in who God is, his character, his ability to hold things together when our world has fallen apart. That’s always available to us. “Rejoice in the Lord always” isn’t a mandate—as in the Eleventh Commandment—as much as an invitation to reorient ourselves toward God—on the best and worst of days.

You say, “If you’re not experiencing joy, your definition of joy is too narrow.” What do you mean by that?

Margaret Feinberg: I think a lot of people have such a narrow understanding of joy that it becomes unattainable. If you look at the more than 400 references to joy, happiness, delight, merriment, and rejoicing in the Bible, you’ll begin to see a broad spectrum of joy emerging.

If we want to walk in the fullness of joy that God has for us then we need to understand that within the Scripture joy is found in a spectrum of emotions, actions, and responses that include mirth, glee, gladness, cheer, happiness, merriment, delighting, shouting, exulting, rejoicing, laughing, playing, brightening, blessing and being blessed, taking pleasure in and being well pleased.

It’s been noted that Hebrew has more words for joyful expressions than any other language. We’re meant to be a people who experience joy in many ways.

Was Job joyful?

Margaret Feinberg: Job was a man in mourning. His world shattered. His children dead. His possessions robbed. His body betrayed. Natural disasters targeted his property. Job’s most precious possession—his relationship with God—seemed mysteriously ripped away. For seven days, Job sat shiva [week-long mourning period in Judaism] in the wake of such breathtaking losses. He mourned. His friends entered into the silence with him. When they spoke, they shifted from providing comfort to becoming a source of confusion and contempt.

For thousands of years, Job’s story has been a source of strength and hope to those who have experienced grief, mourning, and loss. Was Job joyful? No more than you and I would be if we walked the same path. That said, I have a hunch that when we recognize Job in heaven, he’ll have a big, loopy grin on his face for all that God has done to bring solace to generation after generation through his story.

What have you learned about joy from the biblical phrase “but if not”?

Margaret Feinberg: In Daniel 3:16-18, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refuse to bow to King Nebuchadnezzar’s demands. “If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up.” (NRSV, italics added)

These three faithful servants unlock the joy that comes with asking, “What if God?” and declaring “But if not.” This is the tension we must live in as followers of Jesus. It’s the tension Christ faces before His own arrest when he asked God to take the cup from Him. In that moment, Jesus asked, “What if God?” but declared “But if not.” Those words represented the hope of God breaking in, now, today, and rescuing us, but recognizing that if he does not respond in the way we hope or desire we will still follow him in everything. This is the portrait of the surrendered life—and the joy that comes through it.

Offer at least one suggestion that a person could use today to fight back with joy.

Margaret Feinberg: Whatever challenge, trial, difficulty you’re facing wants to absorb all of your attention, all of your energy, all of your emotional bandwidth, all of your free time and free thoughts. It’s so easy to sink into a place where the adversity is all you see; all you think about. That’s why it’s important to throw anchors into the future.

Place something on the calendar that you can begin looking forward to. A catch-up coffee date with an old friend. Start dreaming about a holiday you can spend with family. Hope is a powerful courier of joy. And one practical way you can fight back with joy is to begin to throw anchors into the future.

Bio: A popular speaker at churches and leading conferences such as Catalyst and Thrive, Margaret Feinberg was recently named one of the “30 Voices” who will help lead the church in the next decade, according to Christian Retailing magazine. Her books have received national media coverage from CNN, the Associated Press, and USA TODAY. She lives in Morrison, Colorado, with her husband, Leif, and her superpup, Hershey.

Online Bible Study on James — Join our Online Bible Study with Margaret Feinberg starting April 22, 2024

In our world of murky uncertainty, the stars of the night remind us of God’s incredible handiwork and we can take consolation in these words from the Bible:

Psalm 139

You have searched me, Lord,
    and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
    you, Lord, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and before,
    and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
    too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
    they would outnumber the grains of sand—
    when I awake, I am still with you.

Search me, God, and know my heart;
    test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting.

And as we begin the new year, let’s remember the words of Jesus, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)

John 1:1-14

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Start the new year by committing to read through the Bible. See all our flexible and customizable Bible Reading Plans and decide which one is right for you.

Happy New Year from your friends at Bible Gateway!

With the start of the new year Bible Gateway is offering several new Bible Reading Plans and Devotionals. One of them is The NIV 365-Day Devotional Reading Plan. Sign up to get it in your email inbox every day.

This year-long reading plan is comprised of inspirational Bible passages and devotions from the following Bibles to help you gain knowledge and wisdom as you explore the Word of God each day:

Here’s a sample devotional, taken from Once a Day Bible Promises:

God Is Bigger Than Your Worldly Troubles (John 16:33)

Have you ever stopped to think how different life would be if we were still living in Eden? No broken relationships. No difficult pregnancies. No squabbles with spouses. No financial woes. No cancer. No feeling far away from God. (And this list doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface!)

Instead we live in a world marred by the effects of sin. We daily face all kinds of pain, trouble, suffering, weeping, loss and despair.

The temptation is to blame our woes on God, but let’s be honest: The human race did this to itself. All God ever did was love us, and—when we rebelled—implement a plan to rescue us.

The promise above—a statement by Jesus to his followers—is a sobering assessment of the way things are. But it is also a hopeful reminder of the once and future Paradise for which we were created.

In light of such truth, author Elisabeth Elliot counsels us: “Refuse self-pity. Refuse it absolutely. It is a deadly thing with power to destroy you. Turn your thoughts to Christ who has already carried your griefs and sorrows.”

God’s Promise to Me

Trials and sorrows are part of living in a fallen world.

I am bigger and more powerful than any worldly troubles you face.

My Prayer to God
Heavenly Father, trials and sorrows are a normal part of life. I don’t like this truth, but it reminds me of my need for you, God. I can take heart in the fact that you will have the final word. I praise you because you are powerful and sovereign over my life—even the hard times. Always keep me looking to you.

So take a look at all our free email devotionals and customizable reading plans, and sign up for as many as you’d like. Happy New Year!
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(Photo courtesy: Glenn Leatherman)

One of the most well used sections of the Bible Gateway website is our Bible Reading Plans page. We’ve now improved its functionality to give it more flexibility and user customization. You’re now able to subscribe to reading plans, set a start date, mark days as read, and pause your plan as needed.

Two plans that were recently added are the Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary) and Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous). Each are Bible readings that follow the church liturgical year; the Complementary edition offers thematically matched Old and New Testament readings and the Semicontinuous edition offers sequential stories told across multiple weeks.

Reading through the Bible is a rewarding experience, and these plans can help you do it! The start of the new year is a great time to begin a reading plan. But that’s not the only time. Select your reading plan whenever the time is right for you!

For the best experience, create an account or log in and subscribe to the reading plan of your choice. Then you can track your progress, receive daily reading reminder emails, and print monthly lists of readings for offline use. You can start, pause, or end a reading plan at any time—at your own pace.

So, choose a reading plan and get ready for the incredible journey of reading through the Bible, at your own pace!

Here’s a list of our current plans, which we’re adding to all the time:

Old/New Testament
Chronological
The Bible from Genesis to Revelation
Historical
The Bible in 90 Days
The Gospels in 40 Days
New Testament in a Year
The Daily Audio Bible
The Book of Common Prayer
Readings for Lent and Easter
Daily Reading for Personal Growth, 40 Days with God
Readings for Celebrating Advent
Read the New Testament in 24 Weeks
The Verse of the Day
Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
Proverbs Monthly

Try one today!

If you ever wonder about the meaning of life, why it’s so good and so bad, and what your place in this universe is, it’s a great idea to hear what God’s side of the story is. That’s where the Bible comes in. And that’s why it’s important to discover what the Bible really says as opposed to what you might think it says or what you hear other people say it says.

Bible Gateway interviewed Katie Hoyt McNabb (@AuthorMcNabb) about her book, Does It Really Say That in the Bible? (WestBow Press, 2014). Following the interview is a brief quiz by the author, to help you gauge your awareness of Bible events.

[See our Bible quizzes: Stark, Slytherin, Sauron, or Scripture? Identify These Quotes and 100 Bible Knowledge Questions]

Why did you major in religious studies at Yale?

Katie Hoyt McNabb: As a freshman I had a list of a half dozen things I wanted to major in—and religion wasn’t one of them. However, I did take a course in New Testament that year and was shocked to find my professor asserting that one had to put aside faith in order to approach the Scriptures academically. At the time, I considered myself a Christian, having been raised going to church, but realized I didn’t actually understand much about the Bible or my faith—certainly not enough to articulate what was wrong with the New Testament study. But the course got me asking good questions and reaching out to the Christian Fellowship on campus. When people there recommended I read CS Lewis, I started finding real answers in his writings. That summer, after reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I “got” Christianity and wanted to learn everything I could about the faith.

Having begun classical Greek in high school, I was able my sophomore year to take courses in Greek exegesis of Galatians and Luke at the Divinity School. While these were great studies, taught by believing Christians, it was the course I took in Old Testament that truly sealed my decision to major in Religion. My professor, Brevard Childs, a leading scholar in the field having worked for years with theologian Karl Barth, demonstrated that one could be academically rigorous with the Scriptures and a devout believer simultaneously. He typically gave lectures with his hand on the Bible at the lectern. As he taught, his passion and delight in the Word of God truly made my heart burn. And it also made me want to share the Word with others.

Did the Bible play a role in your early career of teaching high school English? Or did teaching high school English play a role in your study of the Bible?

Katie Hoyt McNabb: I chose to teach high school after college because I remembered very fondly all the teachers who had gotten me thinking critically about the world and its circumstances while I was an adolescent. I chose English for two reasons. First, I saw writing as an important skill for young people to acquire, but recalled composition getting too little emphasis in my own high school education. Secondly, I loved literature and relished the idea of leading teenagers to reflect on their own lives by sharing with them the world’s great stories and characters.

Though I retained my interest in the Bible from my college studies and experience, it was more the conviction of my Christian faith that propelled me into teaching. Frederick Buechner describes vocation as “the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” I taught because I felt called to it. Still, it was one of the hardest jobs there is and I never would have survived it without God teaching me so much about myself along the way.

You say that while raising your children and volunteering in many school programs, you maintained your “secret identity” as a student of the Bible and adult Christian educator. What do you mean? Why did you feel you had to keep it secret?

Katie Hoyt McNabb: Because I’ve never had any trouble talking about my faith, it seems funny to me now that when I first starting teaching at church, I never spoke to people outside of church about this work. I was volunteering in my kids’ schools and teaching parenting classes and enjoying all of it! Then, as my own children were getting into the teen years and I was teaching both parenting classes and Bible studies, I remember a point where I realized that teaching parenting was draining me emotionally. In contrast, I was really loving the teaching at church.

So I decided to concentrate on Christian education. That’s when I found myself talking about my Bible studies outside of church. The best thing I discovered was that the more up front and matter-of-fact I was about my interests, the more I found people who were interested in the Bible. When I began writing my book, I was even more amazed to hear people tell me: “That’s a really good idea because I really don’t know what’s in the Bible.”

To give proper credit, however, I have to say that my comfort in “going public” as a student of the Bible really came as a gift from God. When you believe that God is calling you to a particular job, and then you live through His sustaining you through the whole process, it makes you very aware that you really don’t do anything worthwhile completely on your own.

What need do you see in the world that you’re trying to satisfy with your book?

Katie Hoyt McNabb: Even though I went to church and Sunday School growing up, I didn’t really learn the Bible or understand the rudiments of the Christian faith until I actively sought the knowledge as a young adult. My experience with my own age group and those younger is that this gap in our religious education has grown even wider with time. My first hope for my book is to give readers a chance to see the whole scope of the Bible by highlighting the most important sights in the biblical text. In presenting an overview of the Bible, I’m offering the reader the perspective to see the many stories of the Old and New Testaments as essentially one story of God’s love for the people He created. My further wish is that the book will raise the reader’s confidence about reading the Bible for him/herself. The Bible has so much to give us if we can get over feeling intimidated by it. It’s imperative for Christians to know that even though the Bible was written thousands of years ago, we can come to it today and hear God’s voice for us.

How does “fate” and “destiny” factor into your study of the Bible?

Katie Hoyt McNabb: I open my book with an essay I call “Fate, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life.” People expect the Bible to deal with the “meaning of life” but they don’t always know what they mean by that. I introduce the ideas of fate and destiny because they get us thinking about two important facets of the meaning of life: 1) How much choice do we have in the outcome of our lives? and 2) Is there a purpose—an end point—to our existence? It seems to me that if the Bible is worth reading, it ought to deal with these ideas. I want my readers to see the book through that lens.

Bio: Katie Hoyt McNabb graduated from Yale with a BA in Religious Studies. From college she went into teaching high school English and received a Master’s in Secondary Education from Temple. While raising four children she returned to teaching part time mostly in church. She has written Does It Say Really That in the Bible? as an outgrowth of many years of teaching Bible studies for adults.

A QUICK BIBLE QUIZ
by Katie Hoyt McNabb, author of Does It Really Say That in the Bible? (WestBow Press, 2014).

QUESTIONS

1. Genesis tells us that God created the world in six days. So what day were Adam and Eve created on?

2. According to Genesis 3 who is responsible for Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit?
A) Adam
B) Eve
C) The serpent
D) The devil

3. For what crime was Jesus crucified?
A) Disturbing the peace
B) Claiming to be God
C) Claiming to be King of the Jews
D) The Bible doesn’t say

4. True/False: In the early years of the Church, the gospel was only spread to Jews.

5. Who established the church in Rome?
A) Peter
B) Paul
C) Mark
D) The Bible doesn’t say

6. True/False: When the Christians made up their canon, they changed some things in the Hebrew Scriptures in order to make it into the Old Testament.

Where do the following concepts or teachings come from: the Old Testament, the New Testament, both, or neither?

7. The devil
8. God helps him who helps himself.
9. The best you can do with your life is have a good time and get by the best you can.
10. God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love.

ANSWERS

1. Genesis tells us that God created the world in six days. So what day were Adam and Eve created on?

Perhaps you answered “the sixth day” because you remember that according to Genesis 1:27, on the sixth day, God made humans—male and female—in the image of the Deity as the finishing touch on creation. But this is actually a “trick” question because the story telling the days of God’s creation is not the same story as the one featuring Adam and Eve. Rather, the Adam and Eve account follows in Genesis 2.

Some of the details describing the order of God’s creation differ in this second version, and the perspective has changed from God’s point of view to that of the humans. Still it is compatible with the first story in that it emphasizes that God created the world to be good. In addition, it complements the first rendition where God focuses on making humans male and female for the purpose of reproduction. In the Adam and Eve version, God has designed the man and woman to be companions to each other.

The most important takeaway from this confusion over the two creation accounts is that the Bible often tells a story more than once. Why, you might ask? The Bible is not a textbook; primarily it is a collection of stories. By giving us, the readers, more than one version to chew on the Bible forces us to evaluate and contemplate the meaning and implications of what it is telling us. In the case of creation, it’s up to the reader to draw conclusions from both stories about why God created the world and humans.

2. According to Genesis 3 who is responsible for Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit?

A) Adam
B) Eve
C) The serpent
D) The devil

This answer requires some interpretation of the text. When God confronts the man and the woman (note that they’re not called by name throughout the discussion of the taking of the forbidden fruit in Gen. 3:1-16), He begins with the man who immediately passes the blame to the woman—and back to God. “The woman you put here with me…” (Gen. 3:12). In turn, the woman insists that it’s the serpent’s fault (Genesis 3:13). Notice that neither the man nor woman denies that wrongdoing has been done—they just want to reject any responsibility for the disobedience of God’s command. Instead of engaging in their protests, the Lord doles out consequences to each party (including the serpent) in the reverse order of His interrogation. The devil is never mentioned here. In the New Testament, however, Revelation 12:9 seems to imply the serpent was actually the devil.

Historically, western culture has given Eve more blame as the first taker of the fruit—forming the basis for a certain amount of prejudice against women. On the other hand, in the New Testament, when Paul references the garden of Eden and the first sin, he says, “sin entered the world through one man [Adam]” (Rom. 5:12). If we go back to the text, however, God doesn’t single out any participant as guiltier than another. For instance, when we analyze the “curses” God levies against the man and the woman, both involve “labor”—the same Hebrew word serves for the woman’s trouble in birthing children and the man’s toil in making a living from the earth.

So where does the devil fit? The opinion of the New Testament is that Satan was present in the serpent and therefore owns a piece of the blame. All this leads me to answer the question—all of the above.

3. For what crime was Jesus crucified?

A) Disturbing the peace
B) Claiming to be God
C) Claiming to be King of the Jews
D) The Bible doesn’t say

C: Although the Jewish High Council convicted Jesus of blasphemy—the sin of profaning God’s name by claiming to be God (Matt. 26:63-66; Mark 14:61-64; Luke 22:66-71)—it had no power to execute prisoners. Because Roman leaders routinely declared themselves gods, Jesus’ profession of divinity, while laughable in Roman eyes, wasn’t for them a crime. Therefore, the Jewish leaders had to present Jesus to governor Pilate as an enemy of the state in order to procure a death sentence. Rome took seriously people who would disturb the peace and disrupt commerce, but anyone claiming to be a king would definitely demand attention from the authorities. Matt. 27:37, Mark 15:26, Luke 23:38, and John 19:19 all testify that a sign posted on Jesus’ cross declared that he claimed to be the King of the Jews.

4. True/False: In the early years of the Church, the gospel was only spread to Jews.

True: Matthew ends his gospel with a clear statement that Jesus’ followers should go out and “make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19), and Acts begins with Jesus making a similar command, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). But when the first disciples hear this, they assume that they’ll be preaching to the many Jews scattered among the Gentile nations all through the Mediterranean. Only after Peter has a vision and ends up witnessing the Spirit come upon the household of the centurion Cornelius, a God-fearing Gentile (Acts 10), do the original disciples believe that the gospel should be preached among Gentiles. “When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, ‘So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life’” (Acts 11:18).

5. Who established the church in Rome?

A) Peter
B) Paul
C) Mark
D) The Bible doesn’t say

D: When Paul writes his letter to the Romans—one the few letters he writes to churches he did not plant—there are already a great number of Christians in the city, but no mention is made of the person who first evangelized there.

6. True/False: When the Christians made up their canon, they changed some things in the Hebrew Scriptures in order to make it into the Old Testament.

False: The only difference between the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Old Testament is the order of the books. The Christians took the arrangement of the books from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures dating from the third century BCE.

Where do the following concepts or teachings come from: the Old Testament, the New Testament, both, or neither?

7. The devil

New Testament: The figure of Satan appears only a smattering of times in the Old Testament and in those few instances the devil plays the role we now call the “devil’s advocate.” For instance, in Job, Satan alleges that a human will only love God when God blesses him/her, but will curse God when his/her life turns tragic. By the time we get to the New Testament, however, Satan shows up actively attempting to thwart God’s purposes. He tempts Jesus in the desert to betray God’s purposes for Him (Matt. 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13, and Luke 4:1-13) and even enters Judas to cause him to betray Jesus (Luke 22:3 and John 13:27).

8. God helps him who helps himself.

Neither: The Bible offers an excellent refutation of this concept in the story of Abraham and Hagar (Gen. 16-17; 21:1-21). With his wife’s permission, Abraham beds his wife’s handmaiden in order to produce the child that God had promised. As it turns out, God was not counting on Abraham to solve this problem himself, but rather had a plan to give this couple a child of their own bodies in their old age as a proof of God’s ability to do what humans consider impossible. What Abraham does on his own steam only serves to complicate and strain the lives of all involved.

In the New Testament, notice how many times the people Jesus heals ask for His help.

9. The best you can do with your life is have a good time and get by the best you can.

Old Testament: Here, in Ecclesiastes 2:24, the author is wrestling with the meaning of life. The Wisdom Literature gives us plenty of examples of humans questioning the precepts they’ve been taught about God.

10. God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love.

Old Testament: Exodus 34:6, Numbers 14:18, and Joel 2:13 all use this description of God. Too often people assume that the God of the Old Testament is somehow harsher and more vengeful than in the New Testament. It’s important to realize that while Israel’s perception of God grows and matures through her history, God is the same throughout the Bible.

A guest post by Brian Hardin. Brian is the founder of Daily Audio Bible, a hugely popular Scripture podcast, and the author of Passages: How Reading the Bible in a Year Will Change Everything for You. This post was originally published in 2012, but we thought that Brian’s insights might be useful for anyone who’s thinking about reading through the Bible in 2015 (either by using Bible Gateway’s new reading plans or another system).

Brian Hardin, author of "Passages."

The previous year had started like the rest: work hard and then work hard to get more hard work. I’d tossed a New Year’s prayer earnestly enough to God, the one about wanting to get closer to him and read the Bible more, but I had all but forgotten it by the second week of January.

By the end of the year I found myself sitting alone on my couch, devastated. The kingdom of work I’d built had crumbled before my eyes in a matter of months, and now I was in a crisis of faith. I vividly remember the prayer I prayed then. It wasn’t a sinner’s prayer, and it wasn’t eloquent.

“Jesus, I’m done with the crap. I’m finished. If you want me to go to Des Moines and make hamburgers for a living, I’ll pack up our stuff tomorrow and leave. I’m fine with that,” I prayed. “I’m going to believe that you’re nearby and that you can seize me before I hit the bottom. If you don’t, I’m dead. I believe my heart will die, and I fear it will be the last time I care about anything.”

God showed up for me that night, and began to whisper truth into my life. And then one night I received a bona fide directive from the Lord, an instruction to do something I would never, ever have done on my own: “I want you to podcast the Bible.”

Earlier that year I had started to read the Bible every day. My friend Brad and I were traveling so much for work that I had gotten into the habit of reading it aloud to him in the car. I wasn’t reading the Bible to gain deep insights into the mystical regions of the soul or to solve theological quandaries. I was just reading it for what it said, and often it said something that got stuck in a corner of my mind and loitered there for days. Stuff like, “The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life” (Galatians 6:7–8 MSG). This was my life right there on the page, echoing prophetically over a couple millennia. It not only contextualized what I’d been experiencing; it gave me a north star and a measure of hope that I couldn’t rationalize but I couldn’t deny either.

So I obeyed God’s direction and began to read a portion of the Bible every day. When I completed my first full revolution through the Bible, I recall looking in the mirror and realizing that I didn’t see anything the same. I had been unwittingly transformed from the inside out, and I looked at just about everything through different eyes.

My friendship with the Bible has taken me the scenic route from who I was to who I was created to be. My path began with an act of obedience to read the Bible every day, and it wound its way almost backward to the beginning, forcing me to deal with the stresses and compulsions of trying to carve out an identity that was mine alone with God relegated to a back-up plan. It took me back to the wounds that life can bring and invited me to compare what they were saying about me with what God was declaring over me.

It can do the same for you.

We hope you’ll consider committing to a Bible reading plan in 2015. Regardless, you can read more of Brian’s writing in Passages, or follow his work at Daily Audio Bible. You can keep up with him each day at his blog, Twitter feed, or Facebook or G+ pages.

Botticelli_Nativity Merry Christmas from your friends at Bible Gateway! Wherever you are and whatever circumstances you face, we hope that you’ll find comfort and hope in the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God who came to restore our relationship with God.

If you haven’t ever read the Christmas story, or if you haven’t read it in a while, take a minute this morning to read the short account that lies at the heart of Christmas. Here it is:

The Birth of Jesus: Luke 2:1-20 (NRSV)

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

Hanukkah1 Most Christians think of today as Christmas Eve—which, of course, it is. But tonight, Jews are the world will celebrate the final hours of Hanukkah, an eight-day commemoration of the re-dedication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem thousands of years ago.

Hanukkah is commonly associated with the distinctive nine-branched menorah, as well as with trappings like the dreidel game; and because of its timing on the calendar, it is sometimes subsumed into the Christmas season in the minds of Christians who might otherwise be more interested in Hanukkah’s unique historical roots. The story behind Hanukkah is unrelated to the Nativity, but because it remembers an important event in Jewish (and, indirectly, Christian) history, it’s worth Christian consideration.

Hanukkah commemorates the Jewish revolt against oppressive Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who attempted to outlaw the practice of Judaism and require the worship of pagan deities. This story is as close as the nearest Bible, provided that your Bible includes the apocryphal books (which are not considered part of the biblical canon by all Christians). You can read about the events that inspired Hanukkah in 1 and 2 Maccabees. Here’s an excerpt from 1 Maccabees describing the persecution of Jews under Antiochus:

Two years later, to collect tribute from the Judean cities, King Antiochus sent his chief officer, who came to Jerusalem with a large army. The agent spoke peaceably and the Jews believed him, but he was deceitful. Without warning, he attacked the city, dealt it a brutal blow, and killed many Israelites. He plundered the city. He set fires within it, destroyed its houses, and tore down its protective walls. His forces took women and children as prisoners and seized livestock. After all of this, the agent’s forces fortified David’s City with a very strong wall and powerful towers, and it became their fortress. They stationed sinful, immoral people there, and these soldiers held down their position. They stocked up with weapons and food, collected the spoils of Jerusalem, and stored them there. They were a great menace.

They ambushed the sanctuary.
They were an evil opponent of Israel
at all times.
Its inhabitants shed innocent blood
all around the sanctuary,
and they even polluted
the sanctuary itself.
Because of them,
those who lived in Jerusalem fled.
The city became
a dwelling place for strangers.
She was like a stranger to her offspring,
and her children abandoned her.
Her sanctuary was as barren as a desert.
Her feasts turned into mourning,
her sabbaths into shame,
her honor into contempt.
Her dishonor became as great
as her glory had been.
Her joy turned into sadness. — 1 Maccabees 1:29-40 (Common English Bible)

Start reading the full story from the beginning here.

If you’re like many Christians, you’ve been (quite reasonably) hearing and reading a lot about the birth of Christ this Christmas season. But this year, you might find it rewarding to take a few minutes to read a story that powerfully shaped Jewish history and theology in the centuries before Christ.

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