How to Read the Bible (as If Your Life Depends on It)

There is no other book like the Bible. God used at least forty human writers over more than 1,600 years to compost the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments. They included kings and shepherds, a physician and a tax collector. They lived on three continents—Europe, Asia, and Africa. Yet the Bible is a single Book with a single Author, focused on a single theme: Jesus the Messiah, our Redeemer. From beginning to end, the Bible tells the story of the Kingdom of God and its King. The Old Testament tells us He is coming. The New Testament announces that He has arrived. The sixty-six books of the Bible do not tell sixty-six stories. Together they tell one story. It's the story of humanity's rebellion against God and God's redemptive love for the human race. It's the story of a Kingdom and a Covenant, of one Lord who saves completely and rules eternally. The unity of the Bible confounds human wisdom. The unity of the Bible baffles its critics. The unity of the Bible challenges its enemies. There's no book like this Book because there's no author like its Author.