Home > Reading Thru the Bible

Scripture was not composed by one author or at one time. The books that comprise the Old Testament were written over a thousand-year period. The New Testament books were written over a sixty-year time period.

To understand the message of Scripture today we should have some sense of history and cultural context. As you read a passage of Scripture today, you read and hear it under a completely different set of circumstances that the first readers did. To neglect the history and culture into which the message of God came might be to risk misunderstanding them and their message.

The modern readers of Scripture should have some help when they are reading. A couple of suggestions can be found in the column to the right. Also, you may find our Free Online Seminar: Five KEYS to Read Scripture with Better Results to be useful.

Read Thru the Bible:

Canonically

This is the traditional fashion that most Bible readers read their Scripture beginning with Genesis and ending with Malachi in the Old Testament and beginning with Matthew and ending with Revelation in the New Testament. Each book has a brief introduction.

Chronologically

Reading the Old Testament chronologically beginning with the stories in Genesis and ending with the book of Ezra-Nehemiah and reading the New Testament in the same fashion beginning with Galatians and ending with Revelation is a more natural way to read the whole story of Scripture. You can read the Bible in chronological fashion beginning with either the Old or New Testament. Each book has a brief introduction.