{"id":1113,"date":"2019-06-11T17:21:09","date_gmt":"2019-06-11T17:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unfoldingfaithblog.com\/?p=1113"},"modified":"2019-07-25T12:29:16","modified_gmt":"2019-07-25T12:29:16","slug":"how-do-i-start-reading-the-bible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/2019\/06\/11\/how-do-i-start-reading-the-bible\/","title":{"rendered":"How Do I Start Reading the Bible? Start with John!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Holy Bible can seem like a big, overwhelming, sometimes highly confusing book\u2014we know your hesitation with reading it, and we know exactly how you feel when deciding where to start in the Bible.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

A lot of people reading the Bible for the first time have had the same thought; how<\/em> do I start the reading the Bible? Is it like a regular book that I read from the beginning? Is it something I can just open and dive into from any page? Do I go for the Old Testament first, or the New Testament? In what order should I read the Gospels?<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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Are you even wondering if you should pray about something specific and see if God will drive you to his answer from a random page? (Yes, we\u2019ve tried that approach too.)<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

We get it! It\u2019s hard to know where to start with your Bible study and how to get the most out of it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

So we recommend this: start with John.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Who\u2019s John?<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

John wrote the Gospel of John\u2014the book of John\u2014in the New Testament. If you\u2019re pretty new to Christianity or are unfamiliar with reading the Bible, you\u2019ll get a lot out of John because he (yes, he was real!) covers the entire life and ministry of Jesus.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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John was one of Jesus\u2019 12 disciples, and he witnessed many of Jesus\u2019 miracles firsthand! The book of John is his own retelling of these events.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

When you know and can understand all that Jesus did, the other books of the Bible\u2014even the Old Testament\u2014will make so much more sense. There are a lot of references to, or predictions of, Jesus as the coming Messiah in the Old Testament. These are far easier to spot and understand with the knowledge of Jesus and his life in ministry that John provides.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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Considering that our faith is rooted in the life and miracles of Jesus and the sacrifice he made for us on the cross, the book of John really is a great place to start studying the Bible.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

If you\u2019d like some help, there are fantastic free resources and a simple way to dive in by following the #John1Challenge<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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So get into the Word of God and see how easy it is to start reading the Bible. Everyone can learn and grow through their own Bible study, and you are no exception. God has important things to tell you, too!<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

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We especially like the Filament Bible<\/a> because it\u2019s totally unique with an accompanying app that helps you dive deeper into each page of the Word. Just scan the page number in your Bible and the app reveals all sorts of extra content to help you discover more about what is happening, the meaning, the locations, and the context, plus engaging videos and commentaries.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

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We also love Life Change, John<\/a>, by The Navigators. This study explores the book of John and helps you to imagine life at the time of Jesus\u2019 ministry, giving you details to enhance your study and helping you to discover God\u2019s Word for your own life through John. Great for group study too!<\/p>\r\n

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  The Holy Bible can seem like a big, overwhelming, sometimes highly confusing book\u2014we know your hesitation with reading it, and we know exactly how you feel when deciding where to start in the Bible. A lot of people reading the Bible for the first time have had the same thought; how do I start […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":1237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[9,145,10,97,11,7,149],"tags":[270,272,25,33],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1113"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1250,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113\/revisions\/1250"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}