I have to admit that I am a fan of the Bible Project. I certainly don’t agree with everything they say, but they do bring up some interesting points. One of the founders did an analysis of what makes up the Bible by chapter.
He found that the Bible contains:
- 42% Narrative, or stories
- 33% Poetry
- 25% “Prose discourse,” or commands and essays and speeches (everything else, basically)
Any of those jump out at you? Poetry, right? I don’t know about you, but I am amazed that there is more poetry in the Bible than there are laws or sermons. And I am really bad with poetry in the Bible (or outside the Bible, for that matter).
With this in mind, I structured the topics in about the same ratio. Two days of stories, one day of poetry and one day of what I called “doctrine.”
I think it’s pretty safe to say that doctrine is most of what you hear every Sunday at church.* And that does make sense. It’s easiest to teach prose discourse through the medium of prose discourse. But 75% of the Bible is not that.
So, even though I have much more to say about doctrine than I do about King Jehoahaz, it’s time that you and I learn about the rest of the Bible.
The other three topics we’ll cover are background information.
- First, an overview of a book of the Bible. It’s easy to get lost in a book and not see the themes or plot of the whole thing. Yes – most books have a purpose!
- Second, themes and organization of the Scriptures. Ideas that stretch across many books. Not doctrine, but simpler things like how often the number 40 comes up in all sorts of different stories.
- Third, people and places. Those names, man, those names! Joash = Jehoahash, and yet there are four people in the Bible named Herod?!
Yes, this is going to be a lot to take in. So let’s do a little every day. And then let’s do it all again next year. Eventually it’s got to sink in, right?
* To be fair, churches don’t only teach on Sundays. Ones with good leadership, especially churches with many members, have broad and deep curricula covering many facets of the Bible. (And, you know, some churches are not very large or mature.) But there is an expectation that you do pick the thing up yourself and learn it.