What is the Bible About?

This is a question that many people may be asking? Some people have dismissed the Bible as a relic from a time that has been forgotten, while others have embraced the Bible and what it has to say, as the only absolute truth. Since there are differing opinions about what the Bible is about, lets take a look at what is in the Bible, with the hope that we will find out what it is about.

The Bible is made up of 66 different books divided into 2 major sections. The 2 sections are the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament is, in general about the nation of Israel and it's people, the Jews. It starts with the creation of the world, includes history from before Israel was a nation and while Israel was a nation, then it ends at a time when the nation is in captivity. The Old Testament sets the stage for what happens in the New Testament. The New Testament begins with the birth of Jesus Christ, and continues into the age of the church. It contains the gospels, the book of Acts (history of the church), and many letters written to different local churches of that time.

Each book in the Bible could stand alone, but the interesting thing is that when all of these books are looked at as a whole they all contain the same general theme. This theme is that the God of Israel is the only true god, and that He is a loving, but just god. He loves his creation, namely humans, but we as humans keep turning our back to Him (not wanting anything to do with Him). Therefore, we must be punished for our desiring to live without God. This desire is what the Bible calls sin. You can see that there is a problem here, how can a loving God punish his beloved?

The theme continues in the fact that God did something that would take away the punishment that we deserve. God sent His son, Jesus Christ, to bear the punishment for us. Instead of God punishing us for turning our back on Him, his Son bore our punishment on the day that he was crucified. God sent his son to die for us, satisfying God's wrath, so that we would not incur it. But Jesus dying on a cross is only half the story. The other half is that he did not stay dead. He rose from the dead, conquering death, which enables us to have a relationship with Jesus and God, the Father. The story of Jesus's life is found in the first 4 books of the New Testament.

So how do we start this relationship? The answer to this question is simple...by faith. All we have to do is place our faith in the fact that Jesus's death on the cross paid the penalty for our sin (which we deserved). That answer may be simple, but putting this into practice is not. In order to put our faith in Jesus, we need to stop putting our faith in other things, like ourselves, money, education, etc. This is what the rest of the New Testament talks about...how do we live out our faith?

So you see, the Bible has a lot to say about our life right now. It is not just a relic from the past, but it is a book that has a central theme that can change our life.