Genesis Apologetics K8 Student Zone What is the Bible? (6-8 Grade)

Genesis Apologetics

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Well, hello and welcome to The Zone. I'm your host, Big Wave Dave. So as Christians, we're supposed to read the

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Bible. But have you ever wondered, what is the Bible, and why are the sections in here so different?

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Who wrote the Bible? That's what we're going to talk about today. Are you ready? Let's go. So although the word

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Bible means book, the Bible is actually a collection of 66 different books, and it's divided into two major sections, the

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Old Testament and the New Testament. So what separates these sections? It's the birth of Jesus Christ.

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You see, all the books that were written before Jesus was born are in the Old Testament. All the books that were written after Jesus was born are in the

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New Testament. Pretty simple, right? Let's keep going. Did you know that there are four different types of books in the

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Bible? The first type is historical narratives. Now these are stories about things that really happened, and they help answer the question of who, what, where, when, and why.

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We can learn a lot from historical narratives. Let's take a look at a few examples. In the book of Genesis we learn that God created everything in just six days, and it was amazing, it was perfect.

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Of course, after Adam and Eve chose to rebel against God, all that changed. That's when pain, death, and suffering came into the world.

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Now a few hundred years later, the world became a very dark place. Animals and people were fighting and killing each other.

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It got so bad that God decided to start all over again. So God sent a global flood and wiped out almost everything.

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Only Noah, his family, and the land animals that were on the ark survived. By the way, that's where fossils came from.

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We're going to talk more about that during our lesson on the flood. So fast forward a few hundred years.

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God chose a man named Moses to lead the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt. Now God had a very special plan for these people.

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He created a new nation called Israel, and it was their job to tell other people about God.

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Historical narratives also include the adventures of the prophet Jonah. We're going to cover him on a future lesson.

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I hope you can join us. There is a special group of historical books called the

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Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These are all about the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

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Finally, the book of Acts talks about the beginnings of the Christian church. Just one note of caution.

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Just because it's in the Bible, doesn't mean that God approves of it. In fact, I think we're supposed to look at it and learn from their mistakes and hopefully not do the same thing.

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The first one is historical narratives. The second type of book is poetry or poetical books.

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When I hear the name poetry, I think of things like roses are red, violets are blue, my love is true.

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Okay, just stop that. Actually, the poetical books serve a very important purpose.

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They help teach us things about life and wisdom and about God. For example, in Proverbs we learned that we should follow

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God's way instead of trying to do things ourselves. Boy, that guy's in a lot of trouble, isn't he?

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Now, poetical books often use creative imagery to express ideas. For example, in Psalm 91, it says that God will cover us with his wings and with his feathers.

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Well, obviously God doesn't have feathers, but I think you'll agree that this picture of a mother hen protecting her chicks does a great job of expressing how

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God feels about us. Did you know that some poetical books are actually a collection of songs?

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Fact, a lot of the worship songs today are based upon the book of Psalms.

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Pretty cool, huh? So poetical books include Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the

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Song of Solomon. Alright, so we have historical narratives and we have poetry.

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The third type is prophecy. Prophets were God's messengers, and he would often send them to Israel and other nations to say, hey, stop sinning, stop doing the terrible things you're doing or you're going to be judged.

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For example, when Israel was doing all kinds of horrible things, God sent the prophet Amos to them and said, if you don't stop,

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I'm going to send an army in and conquer you and take you into captivity. Unfortunately, they didn't listen, and that's exactly what happened.

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And did you know that the Bible contains hundreds of prophecies, and a lot of them are about Jesus Christ?

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Now some of these have already come true, while others will come true when Jesus returns. Let's look at a few examples.

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The prophet Micah predicted that Jesus would be born in the town of Bethlehem. Now what is so amazing about this is that this prediction was made over 400 years before Jesus was born.

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That's incredible! The prophet Isaiah predicted that Jesus would do many miracles, including healing people who couldn't see or hear.

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Zachariah predicted that Jesus would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver, and that's exactly what happened.

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The book of Psalms said that after Jesus was crucified and died, that he would rise again from the dead.

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Now some of these prophecies haven't been fulfilled yet. For example, Revelation says that in the future,

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Jesus is going to come back, and he's going to take all the people that love him to a very special place called heaven.

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Now when that happens, there will be no more tears or pain or suffering. It's going to be amazing. Alright, so let's review.

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We have historical narratives, we have poetry, and we have prophecies. The fourth and final type are letters.

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After Jesus rose from the dead and then went back to heaven, his disciples were so excited. They went all over the place telling people about Jesus, and they started churches wherever they went.

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Now these churches had lots of questions about God and Jesus and how to live as Christians. Of course back then they didn't have

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Snapchat or Twitter or the internet, so to answer their questions the disciples would sit down and they would write letters.

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And they would write them on things like scrolls or animal skins. Just some interesting facts.

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Some letters were named for the church that they were written to, like Ephesians, Romans, and Colossians.

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Other letters were named after the person that the letter was written to. And finally, some letters were named after the person who wrote the letter.

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Here's the important thing. We can learn a lot about God and Christian doctrine by reading the same letters.

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Speaking of letters, I found a really cool video. Check this out. There are 21 letters written to communities of Jesus' followers throughout the ancient

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Roman Empire. Letters? Like I'm reading someone's mail? Yeah. The letters are written by the apostles, that is the people that Jesus appointed to spread the good news about his kingdom.

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And they wrote to Jesus' followers living in different cities around the Roman world. These letters were all written in a style called prose discourse.

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Now, if I'm reading a letter that wasn't written to me, then there's likely a lot of background information that's assumed but not mentioned.

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Yeah, exactly. And the letters in the Bible are no different. Okay, so let's talk about how to read the New Testament letters in historical context.

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So there are three levels of historical context to keep in mind when reading the New Testament letters.

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The first is how all the letters fit into the larger storyline of the

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Scriptures. Right, so this story begins with God creating humanity as his partners to rule creation with him.

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But we choose to rule on our own terms, leading to violence, exile, and death. But God promises a guy named

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Abraham that life and blessing will spread to all nations through him and his descendants to renew

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God's vision for humanity. And Jesus said he came to bring that promise to its fulfillment through his life, death, and resurrection.

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Right, and so the apostles saw themselves as heralds announcing the arrival of God's kingdom in Jesus.

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Like the apostle Paul, when he wrote to the house churches in Rome about the good news, he said his job was to summon people of all nations to give their allegiance to Jesus, the exalted king of the world.

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That's a bold thing to say to people living in the capital city of the Roman Empire whose allegiance is supposed to be to Caesar.

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Yeah, and that actually brings us to the second important context for understanding the New Testament letters, the culture of the

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Roman Empire in the first century. So Rome ruled all of these territories around the Mediterranean Sea.

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And they built their empire by conquering and enslaving their enemies and then imposing heavy taxes.

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The emperor and his small circle controlled all of the power and wealth, and they knew how to deal with people who threatened the social order.

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Most people lived without much money or stability. And Roman culture had a very clear hierarchy.

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Men from important families with money and education could move ahead in society, but women, slaves, children, and the poor were always at a disadvantage and treated as inferior.

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Yet, in a community of people who followed Jesus, everyone was treated with love and equal dignity.

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Yeah, in Roman life, it was unheard of for people of high status to associate with people below them.

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But the apostles said that through Jesus, God had given the gift of his love to everyone without regard to their status.

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So in that context, these letters were counter -cultural, and they broke down barriers between people.

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Exactly. And so that brings us to the last level of context, the situational context of each letter.

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You mean the specific issues in the church of a city that prompted the writing of the letter in the first place? Yeah, like Paul's letter to the

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Christians in Rome. It's tempting to read this letter and focus on all the important theology and then overlook why he wrote this letter.

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Why did he write it? Well, towards the end, he talks about how Jewish food laws and sacred days have become controversial between Jewish and non -Jewish followers of Jesus.

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Which was creating divisions in the church. And if you read carefully, you can see that some Christians with higher social status were treating

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Jewish followers of Jesus with contempt. And Jewish Christians were returning the favor, condemning the non -Jews as second -rate followers of Jesus.

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Exactly. And so all of the ideas and theology in the first part of the letter were crafted to address those very problems.

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Paul acknowledges that the Roman Christians have big differences in culture, theology, and social status.

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But he wants them to realize that they are unified by their faith in Jesus, who is the real center of their church.

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Okay, great. But if that letter was written to someone else, then what should

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I get out of it? I mean, I don't live in ancient Rome. Well, in these letters, we see the apostles challenging and transforming every part of their first -century culture and life with the good news about King Jesus.

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And by watching them, we gain wisdom about how that same good news can transform our culture as well.

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Now, there's one more helpful step to take in reading the New Testament letters, and that's learning how to follow the flow of thought from the letter's beginning all the way to its end.

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And that's what we'll look at next. Wasn't that cool?

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Welcome back. So these are the four different types of books that are in the Bible. Just one comment.

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Some historical books, like the book of Daniel, also have a lot of prophecy in them. Okay, so let's finish with this.

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Who wrote the Bible? The Bible was physically written by 40 people over 1400 years on four different continents.

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And yet, it only had one author. Can you guess who it is? If you said God, you're right.

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2 Timothy tells us that all Scripture is God -breathed or inspired. What does that mean?

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It simply means that God told them what to write. You see, God guided their thoughts. He appeared to them in dreams and visions, and sometimes

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He just spoke to them directly. That's why we call the Bible God's Word.

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Now, since the Bible is God's Word, we can trust it to answer really important questions like, where did

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I come from? Where are we going? Is there life after death? Who determines right from wrong?

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What is my purpose? Who am I? So let's finish with this.

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These are some tips for studying the Bible. First, ask God to send the Holy Spirit to help you understand what you're reading.

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It's also a good idea for you to get a student Bible and then read it every day. And don't just read the

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Bible. Study it. There are a lot of excellent resources out there. Of course, go to church every week if you can.

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And finally, please remember what the Bible is all about. You see, the

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Bible is all about Jesus Christ. Jesus was there in the beginning during creation.

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And when God sent up the nation of Israel, He was setting the stage for the work that Jesus would do later.

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The prophets all spoke about Jesus. And then, of course, the Gospels talk all about the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

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The book of Acts and the letters talk about the Christian church and help answer important questions about Jesus, Christianity, and God.

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And finally, the book of Revelation says that one day Jesus Christ is coming back and is going to take everybody that loves

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Him to heaven. That's going to be so cool. As I mentioned, there are excellent resources out there to help you know what you believe and why you believe it.

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Now, that's all the time we have today. I'm Big Wave Dave. Hope to see you soon. God bless you.