The Shepherd’s Staff (Download pdf)
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Chapter 1
The Bible Is The Word Of God
A. GOD’S SPECIAL BOOK
The Word of God – the Holy Bible – is God’s special book. It is not like other books, but is a supernatural book. It was written by many different people, who wrote by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, See 2 Timothy 3:16. The Bible is the world’s best seller. It consistently outsells any other book. The Bible has been translated into more languages than any other book in the world. It was originally written in three languages – Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek.
The Bible you have has been translated by dedicated people so that you can have God’s words, thoughts and plans. The Bible is also one of the oldest books in the world. The most ancient portions of the Bible date back almost 4,000 years. Yet it is still the most modern book in the world today; for in it we find the answers to life’s greatest questions:•“Where did I come from?”
•“Why am I here?”•“Where will I Go?”Even though the Bible is made up of 66 smaller books, it has only one central theme: God’s loving plan to rescue mankind. At the front of the Bible you will find a list of the 66 books that can be found in the Bible.The Bible is divided into two sections:•The Old Testament and •The New Testament.`The Old Testament tells us about God’s work with His people before the birth of Jesus.The New Testament tells us about Jesus’ birth, His life, His great ministry of healing and forgiveness for sick and sinful people, His death on the cross, His being raised from the dead and His ascension (going back to Heaven).
It also tells us about the continuation of His healing, forgiving ministry through those who saw Him after His resurrection. Those who follow Jesus’ teaching do many miraculous works just as He said they would. See John 14:12. The teaching of those who saw Him after He was raised from the dead is contained in the Epistles (Letters). These were written within the first fifty years after Jesus’ resurrection. These make up about half of the New Testament.
B. STUDY THE BIBLE
The most important relationship you can have in this life is with God. Through reading the Bible you come to understand what God is like – His thoughts, His plans, and His promises for you. The list (index) in the front of the Bible will help you find the page number of the part of the Bible you may wish to study.To help you find specific parts of the Bible, the translators organized the text into:
•Books,
•Chapters within the Books, and
•Verses within the Chapters
.For example, if you see a reference like “Genesis 3:15”, this would mean
•The Book of Genesis.
•Chapter three, and
•Verse fifteen.
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