30 Things You Need to Know About Your Bible

I’m currently working on a book tentatively titled 30 Things You Need to Know about Your Bible (If You Claim to Know Your Bible). It’s being written so that any student of the Word, from the newbie to the expert, could pass a test about basic biblical events and knowledge. The book will be published by Dispensational Publishing House.

“But, Preacher, couldn’t I just read my Bible and figure these things out?”

Certainly, you could, but this book is just a bit shorter than the entire Bible, and it will help both deepen and widen your knowledge of the Bible.

Information or Application?

I’m currently preaching through these thirty things because of a drastic problem I believe  is occurring in many of today’s well-meaning churches: far too many sermons shun information for application. These sermons ask their listeners to become SPACEPETS, an acronym devised by a well-known pastor that’s supposed to help a student of the Bible “probe the Bible with questions,” all of which center on possible applications before attempting to understand the text for what it actually means. In other words, many of today’s believers are taught to ask, “What’s in it for me?” before simply asking, “What’s in it?” 30 Things You Need to Know about Your Bible aims to help every believer learn what’s in it.

Sermons like “10 Steps to Victorious Living” and “You Can Be a Better Spouse Today”  attempt to meet the “felt needs” of their respective congregations by (often) taking a few Bible verses out of context and attempting to tie each of those (often) disparate verses into a thematic whole so that a churchgoer can leave church feeling as if one of their problems has been solved. The problem with such an approach, well-meaning as it may be, is that churchgoers receive a quick diagnosis and a Band-Aid when what they really need is an introduction to the Doctor who alone can provide their cure.

Rather than searching the Bible for inspiration or using it as an answer key for all of life’s trifling problems, 30 Things focuses on knowing the key storyline from Genesis to Revelation and the factual information every Christian ought to know about the book we claim to revere.

Instead of approaching Bible-reading with a mentality that asks, “What is the text saying to me today?” 30 Things encourages you to allow the text to both speak for and interpret itself so that its inherent meaning becomes clear.

But to be able to do that, you need to know a few things about the Bible, such as:

1. How did we get here?
2. How will we get out of this mess?
3. Why did God flood the earth?
4. Why did God decree that government should exist? (A timely discussion if ever there was one)
5. Why did God bless Abraham?
6. Why does Genesis follow the lives of just a few men (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob)?
7. Why does Israel play such an essential role in Christianity?
8. Why does the Passover matter to Christians?
9. Why did God give the Ten Commandments?
10. Why did Moses and the Israelites wander in the desert for forty years after the exodus?

As you can tell, this only represents one-third of the thirty things that 30 Things will cover. And, to be honest, this book will have much more than thirty things about the Bible in it because every topic brings forth at least seven to ten more “things” I think every Bible-believing Christian ought to know at the core of their being. For every question raised in each chapter, more questions tend to abound. While my book won’t be comprehensive, it will cover the essential things a serious student of the Bible should know from Genesis to Revelation.

With that said, what’s a “thing” in the Bible you’ve always wondered about?