Genesis Apologetics K8 Student Zone What is the Bible? (3-5 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 should read the

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Bible. But have you ever wondered, what is the Bible? Why are the sections 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 get started.

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

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Old Testament and the New Testament. So what is the difference between the Old and New Testament?

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That's a great question. All the books that were written before Jesus was born are called the

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Old Testament. All the books after Jesus was born are called the New Testament. You get it?

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Great, let's move on. There are four different types of books in the

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Bible. The first type is historical narratives. So historical narratives are stories about things that really happened.

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And they tell us things like who, what, when, where, and why things happened. We can learn a lot from historical narratives.

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Let's look at just a few. The book of Genesis tells us that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

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And it was amazing. It was perfect. That is until the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, rebelled against God.

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And that's when pain, death, and suffering came into the world. A few hundred years after Adam and Eve sinned, the world became a very dark place.

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Animals and people were fighting and killing each other. It was so awful that God had to start all over again.

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So God sent a global flood. He wiped out all the creatures and people on land. Only Noah, his family, and the animals that were on the ark survived.

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Fast forwarding a few more hundred years after that, God chose a man named Moses to lead a group of people called the

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Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. What God did is he used a series of miracles called the plagues to convince the king of Egypt to let the

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Israelites go. What's really cool is that these events are actually recorded in Egyptian history as well.

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After God led them out of Egypt, he gave the Israelites a special mission.

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They were to live very differently from everyone else and tell everyone about God. Historical books also include the adventures of the prophet

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Jonah. We're going to be talking about this in a future episode. Historical books also include a group called the

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Gospels. By the way, Gospels means good news. These books talk about Jesus while he was here on earth, his life, and what he taught.

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Finally, the book of Acts talks all about the beginning of the Christian church. One note of caution, just because something is in the

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Bible does not mean that God approves of it. We're supposed to look back and look at the mistakes that people made and hopefully not do the same thing.

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So the first type is historical narratives. The second type of book is poetry. Now when

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

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Okay, enough of that. The poetical books in the Bible serve a purpose.

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They teach us about God, and wisdom, and life in general. For example, in Proverbs we learn that we need to make sure that we follow what

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God says and don't try to choose our own path. Poetical books often use creative imagery or word pictures to express ideas.

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For example, in Psalm 91 it says that God will cover us with his wing, that he will protect us with his feathers.

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Now obviously God doesn't have feathers, but the image of a mother hen protecting her chicks does a great job of expressing how

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

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Fact, a lot of the modern worship songs we listen to today are based upon the

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Psalms. Some examples of poetical books include Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the

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Song of Solomon. All right, let's review. The first one is historical narratives.

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The second type is poetry. And the third type of book is prophecy. Prophets were

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God's messengers, and he would often send them to people to tell them to stop sinning. For example, when the people of Israel were doing horrible things,

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God sent the prophet Amos to them and said, stop sinning, stop doing the things you're doing or you're going to be judged.

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You're going to be taken into captivity. Unfortunately, they didn't listen, and they were taken into captivity by a group of people called the

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Assyrians. You know that the Bible contains hundreds of prophecies, predictions about the future, and a lot of them are about Jesus.

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Now some of them have come true already, and 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.

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Now what's really cool about this is that this prediction was made over 400 years before Jesus was born.

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Wow, that's amazing. The prophet Isaiah predicted that Jesus would do many miracles, including healing people that couldn't see or couldn't hear or couldn't walk.

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Zechariah predicted that Jesus would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. The Bible also said that Jesus would be crucified and that would rise again.

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Here's one for the future. The book of Revelation tells us that someday Jesus Christ is coming back, and he's going to take all the people that love him to a very special place called heaven.

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When that happens, there will be no more pain or suffering or death. That is going to be so cool.

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All right, we have historical narratives, we have poetry, and we have prophecies.

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The fourth and final type of book of the Bible is letters. So after Jesus rose from the dead, his disciples went all over the place telling people about Jesus, and they started churches wherever they went.

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So the people in these churches had questions about Jesus and about God and how they should act. Now since they didn't have the internet or texting or anything like that back then, the disciples sat down and they wrote letters to people.

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Have you ever gotten a letter before? It's kind of exciting, right? So they would write the letters on things like scrolls and animal skins, and it was a very exciting thing to receive a letter.

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So when one of the churches got a letter, say from Paul, they would gather everyone together and somebody would read the letters out loud so that everybody could hear what

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Paul had to say. Just an interesting fact, if you've ever wondered about how are the letter books named, some of them are named after the church that they were written to, like Ephesians and Romans and Colossians.

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Others were named for the person the letter was written to, like Titus and Timothy.

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And finally, some of them were written after the person who wrote the letter, like John, Peter, and James.

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But letters have an amazing amount of information for us today. We can learn so much from studying them.

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All right, we made it. Let's look at the four types one last time. We have historical narratives, poetry, prophecies, and letters.

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One final note, some historical books like Daniel have a lot of prophecy in them.

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Okay, let's move on. Who wrote the Bible? The Bible was physically written by over 40 people, over 1400 years on four continents, and yet had only one author.

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Can you guess who? If you said God, you're right. 2

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Timothy 3 .16 tells us that all scripture is God breathed or inspired. What does that mean?

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Well, that means that God told them what to write. You see, God guided their thoughts. He communicated to them through dreams and visions, and sometimes just talking to them directly.

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That's why we call the Bible the Word of God. Now, since the

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Bible is the Word of God, we can trust it to answer tough questions. Things like, where did we come from?

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Where are we going? Is there life after death? Who determines right and for wrong?

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What is my purpose? Who am I? Let's conclude by looking at some tips for studying the

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Bible. Number one, ask God to help you understand what you're reading. Number two, get a student

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Bible designed for your age group and then read it every day. Number three, go to church every week.

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And finally, remember what the Bible is really all about. The Bible is all about Jesus.

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You see, Jesus was there in the beginning and created everything just perfect. And then of course, when

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Adam and Eve sinned, we had a huge problem. We were going to be separated from God forever by our sin.

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So God the Father sent his son Jesus to earth. Jesus lived an amazing life. He taught us all about God the

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Father. He taught us all about a lot of things and he healed many, many people. But more importantly,

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Jesus died to pay for our sins so that someday we can go to heaven.

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Just as the book of Revelation says, one day Jesus is coming back and he's going to take all those that love him to heaven.

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Unfortunately, people that reject Jesus will not get to go. That's why it's so important for us to study the

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Bible so that we can tell others about Jesus. Let's pray. Oh, Father God, thank you so much for the

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Bible. Thank you for all the things that you've done for us and for who you are. Please give us wisdom so that we can reach other people for you.

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We love you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Well, that's all the time we have today.