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Do you want to start reading from the Bible...?
- Some advice on how to keep it exciting and understandable -

Start with buying/reading a Bible that is easy to read
When you have never read a Bible before and you want to really understand what it is that you are reading, then choose for: 'American Standard Version' (ASV). Preferably with footnotes and normal size letters. .


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The contents of the Bible
Lucky enough every Bible has a table of contents. Roughly speaking a Bible consists of two parts: the Old Testament (OT) and the New Testament (NT).

The Old Testament
The Old Testament starts with the book Genesis. The scriptures that together form the Old Testament have mainly been written by Moses, King David and King Salomon and a number of Prophets. The Old Testament is all about the creation of Earth and mankind, the relation/convenant between God and mankind and the People of Israël in particular.

The New Testament
This part of the Bible has been written by the pupils of Jesus. The NT starts with the book of Matthew; also a pupil of Jesus. In his book Matthew tells us about how Jesus came to Earth and what happened before he came and -of course- what happened during his stay with us.

But the New Testament is more than a testimony of the life of Jesus on Earth. In the NT there are also letters written to the first Christian Churches, but also there a visions in writing about the Endtime, which of course is still to come.

And then...what are you going to read???
When I started reading from my Bible a number of years ago I really didnot know what I wanted to read. I just started with the beginning of the Bible, but I finished reading very quickly when I reached Genesis 6, which I considered very boaring, because it was all about family-names. I quitted reading and put the Bible back on the book shelf. And it took a very long time before I started reading again. I now realize, that this could have been very different when I would have had a Bible that was easier to read and...some simple advise before I started reading the Bible.

'Back on the reading-track' I wanted to read about:

Footnotes in the Bible: very handing when referring
When you have bought an New King James-Bible you can read footnotes at the bottom of the page (of course ;-)), which can be quite handy.

Espescially those footnotes that refer to other parts of the Bible that are connected to the page and verses that you are reading at that moment. But also some small explenations can be a great help. But do keep in mind, that explenations are not always correct; far from that! Most of those explenations were written down after extensive agreements between Roman Catholics and Protestants. Agreements are usually not about the truth or justice, but about 'reaching the middle between two parties!'. Neither the truth, nor justice are being served in that way.

Have you already done a bit of reading in your Bible ?
After I had done some reading -and with the Bible there is absolutely no moment that you are 'ready reading'- I started to read the very exciting book of Daniël, that also foretells the coming of Jesus and the Endtime.

But also the Proverbs and Hymnes in the Old Testaments are very interesting. Ask yourself what you can learn for your daily life from Proverbs or try to recognize God ánd Jesus each (f.i. Psalm number 2!) from the Hymnes.

Make your Bible more accessible by watching DVD's or Video's about Bible-stories
I had great difficulties with understanding and reading the book of Jeremiah and Revelations. After I saw the video about the book of Jeremiah and the DVD about the book of Revelations not only I really understood where the books were about, but I also found out that the story of Jeremiah -amongst others- was very remarkable and very exciting! The 'Jesus-DVD' I watched also gave me a more 3-dimensional view on the life-story of Jesus. It really made me understand and feel what it was like.

But do also keep in mind, that filmproducers do not care about 'being faithful to the Bible or truth' so: keep checking the films remarks, contents or conclusions with your Bible!

Finally: Prayer and other help for reading your Bible...
Even with all this good advise I give it can be that reading your Bible will still be difficult or even seem a burden to you. Try to pray to God or Jesus and ask them to help you reading and understanding, because you do want to read and understand.

Reading and learning from the Bible will help you to understand how God and Jesus work, who they are and...that you can trust and rely on them. And that is what is also known as 'faith'.

The Bible -also called 'The Word of God- has been inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. What that means? It means, that each writer of the Bible received whispers or words from God by His Spirit and thus they wrote their truthfull stories, which were collected and are now known as 'The Bible'.

But not only the writer needs the Spirit, but also the reader needs the same Spirit to understand what has been written. And that is why we need to pray to God and ask him to help us understand.

I do hope, that you may get to know God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit so you may learn and get to see them by means of the faith of the writers of this 'life-bringing-book of Truth'.

  • You can also start reading in the ASV on the internet right now: click here!
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