It probably won`t be controversial, because people will probably just ignore me. That`s what we do these days, `cause everyone is just cool with everyone else believing whatever they want. And to a lot of people, Christianity is nothing more than going to church and performing some rituals, or a way to categorize a country (eg. the south of Africa is Christian, the north is Muslim). Not really anything to get upset about.

If you read the book of Acts though, Christianity is so much different than that! It was a life changing truth that the Apostles (some people that Jesus chose to preach his message) were taking across Europe and Asia! If you decided to believe `The Way,`you repented of your former way of life and were baptized immediately.

I`ve been reading the book of Acts and I`ve been really convicted that the way I live out my Christianity doesn`t look very much like the exciting, bold, life changing Christianity in Acts. Not everyone had it right in those days either, but it was still fresh and exciting, and it hadn`t had time to be watered down to the point it has now. And there were a lot of people who believed it enough to die for it.

I realized when I was praying this week that I have been comparing my walk with Christ with other people, and I`ve been feeling pretty good about myself `cause I`m doing better than a lot of people I know. But that is not the standard I should be comparing myself to. The Bible is what I should be comparing myself to. God`s standard! Just `cause I don`t suck as much as some other people doesn`t mean anything, `cause we`re all way short of God`s standard.

Thankfully God is gracious and doesn`t require us to be perfect. But he does require us to believe in Jesus and die to our former way of life. At that point, our lives should never look like the watered down Christianity of North America.

If you want a clearer view of what Christianity is, read the book of Acts.

This applies to people who already believe too. The best way to have a daily encounter with new truths about God is to read the Bible. I talked to a 65 year old man last week who told me he’s been a Christian for most of his life and he never stops learning when he reads the Bible. Try reading a story you heard in Sunday School a million times. I bet you’ll find truth in it that you never understood before. Happens to me all the time.

So that is my only suggestion to you. Read the Bible. If you don’t like reading, do it anyway. If you reeeeeeally don’t like reading, make sure you’re listening to a good preacher. Here is a suggestion.

Here is a guide to the contents of the Bible, so you can understand better what you’re reading.

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles

• These books tell the story of God’s world, from creation to 400 years before Jesus. From Genesis 12 to the end, the earthly focus of the story is the Israelites; the people God chose to be the ancestors of Jesus, the saviour of the world. Genesis tells about creation, the forefathers of Israel, and how the Israelites ended up as slaves in Egypt. Exodus-Deuteronomy tells about Israel escaping from Egypt and making their way to the beautiful country that God chose for them to live in. Within those books, there are also lots of lists of names and laws and descriptions of the temple. They are significant, but don’t get hung up on them. If you’re fallin’ asleep, just skim or move on. Joshua tells of the Israelites conquering the land, and J, J, 1S, 2S, 1K, 2K tells the story of Israel in the land.

Ruth, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Jonah, Daniel

• These books all tell stories about specific people or events within the time span of Genesis-Chronicles. They are all included in the canon of Scripture to demonstrate different things about God. My faves are Job, Jonah and Daniel.

Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations

• These books are called the “Wisdom Literature.” They are largely poetic, as is a lot of the Old Testament. The Psalms are a collection of songs and prayers by different authors (biggest contributer: King David) that talk about God and his different attributes. Some of them praise the Lord for his greatness, some of them wonder why he has forgotten them. Proverbs is a collection of wise sayings in no particular order. Watch for themes. Ecclesiastes is the book you read if you’re feeling confused about the meaning of life. Song of Songs is a collection of poems that demonstrate a godly view of sex. Lamentations is like Psalms, but it’s all sad.

Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi

• These are the prophets. Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel are called the major prophets and the rest are minor prophets. That has nothing to do with importance, it’s just based on the size of the books. The prophets were people God chose to pass on messages to the Israelites (and now us). Some of them were predictions about the future, like talking about the coming of Jesus (Isaiah 9:6-7), but mostly they were messages like, “Stop doing things your own way or I’m going to tell your neighbours to rough you up” (Micah 2:1-5). There is lots of amazing and sometimes funny imagery in the words. The books can get long-winded, ’cause that’s how poetry went in those days (lots of repetition), but there are so many great truths about God to glean from them. The most prominent one is this: When Israel sinned, God punished them. But God always held up to his end of the deal and restored them. My suggestion is start with some minor prophets because just a few chapters isn’t so daunting.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John

• The Old Testament ended, 400 years passed, then Jesus came. He was the saviour the people of the Old Testament were waiting for. These books are called the Gospels. The Gospel story is that God put aside his mansion in Heaven to come and live on earth for 33 years, died to pay the penalty for our sin, then rose from the dead in victory. Because of this, if we put our trust in Jesus, our sins we’ll be forgiven, and we’ll live forever with him (the party starts while we’re on earth, because he is in our “hearts,” but it really gets kickin’ when we die and go to Heaven). Matthew, Mark and Luke are called the Synoptic Gospels because they are all very similar (think “syn”-onym). They tell many of the same stories, but all have a slightly different focus. John tells a lot of stories that aren’t found in the Synoptics, and has a lot of dialogue where Jesus describes who he is. One time someone told me that Jesus never said he was God. They had obviously never read John.

Acts

• Acts tells the story of the beginning of the Christian church. In chapter 2, the Holy Spirit is poured out on believers, then they start going out and telling people about the truth and salvation they have found. The Holy Spirit is the gift God gives all people when they put their trust in him. The spirit lives in us and helps us understand the truth about God, among other things. In chapter 9, the most prominent missionary, and the writer of most of the rest of the New Testament is introduced; the Apostle Paul. From chapter 13 on, the story describes his missionary travels.

Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude

• These books are all letters, mostly written by Paul. They were originally written to either a group of believers or a specific person. The name of the book would either indicate who it was written to (the church in Galatia,  a guy named Timothy), or who it was written by (James, Peter, John, Jude). These books clarify the gospel message, and give instructions for how believers should live. So they’re basically the Gospel Instruction Manual. Some of my faves are Colossians, 1 John, 1 Corinthians and Romans. If you want to understand what it means to be saved, Romans is your book.

Revelation

• The author of Revelation, John, was given a vision from God that revealed what would happen at the end of the world. Chapters 2 & 3 are letters to seven churches, similar to the letters from Paul. Chapters 4-18 tell about a lot of details at the end that are often quite confusing (it’s written in “apocalyptic” style), but are powerful when you realize that this is how the heavenly story is going to pan out. It’s way more epic than Star Wars, or any movie with crazy graphics and a sweet plot. God is the ultimate author and artist. Chapters 19-22 are my favourite. They tell about the grand finale. Satan is going to be let loose to wreak some final havoc, and right when he’s about to drop the hammer, God’s gonna pick him up and throw him in the lake of fire. Then God’s new kingdom will be established, and all of us who have put our trust in Jesus will join him. Those who don’t, will join Satan, separating the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25). We were separated from God by our sin in Genesis, Jesus paid the penalty for our sins in the Gospels, and Revelation is the culmination of his plan to restore us!

If you’re asking me where to start, I’d say John. That tells you who Jesus is said he was, which is the most important truth you need to learn. Matthew is also a good Gospel to read (chapters 5-7 are Jesus’ most epic sermon). Romans is important for understanding what it means to be saved. When you’re done that, keep going.

Christians believe that although the Bible was written by the hand of human authors, that God inspired them to do so. 1 Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” So it was written by the creator of literature. No wonder it’s a rad book.

The Bible isn’t quite arranged chronologically, although the overall story is roughly told in order. There also weren’t chapters and verses in the original, they were added a few hundred years ago to help people navigate more easily.

One of the most important things to remember when you’re reading the Bible is KEEP IT IN CONTEXT!!! People love to quote Bible verses for inspirational purposes, or to prove a point, but you can’t take a quote out of context. If you want to know what a verse means, read at least the whole chapter. You might also need to understand the cultural context it was written in, or several other factors. Sounds like hard work? It is!

Understanding the Bible takes lots of practice, just like learning an instrument. But it’s probably the most important skill you’ll ever learn. And the cool thing is, God uses the Holy Spirit to help us understand what the Bible says.

There are also lots of resources to help you. You can Google pretty much anything. Be careful what you read on the Internet of course, get a few sources and compare them. A good site for searching for things in the Bible and reading different versions is biblegateway.com.

So do it. Guaranteed you won’t regret it. Do it.

The speaker at Sno-Camp last week challenged us that the best way to learn about God is to open up the book he wrote. I realize that can be a really daunting challenge, so I want to offer some pointers on how to understand what’s going on in the Bible. Over the next few weeks in youth, I’m gonna do an overview of the story the Bible tells, and I’m gonna recap it on the blog. I’m also going to show you some good places to start your reading.

If you were there last week, you heard me give some pointers about how to understand what’s going on. I’m gonna share them here.

I would do that right now, but Jessica is gonna be home any minute, and we’re gonna watch “Love Happens.” So stay tuned. For now, here’s the reading I suggested last week: Genesis 1-3.

There was so much good stuff in it, I decided I’m gonna read it once a day for the rest of the week, so I can grab all the gold nuggets from it.

I wanna challenge you to do the same thing. On Sunday, we can compare notes if you want. My suggestion is to read it in one shot. It shouldn’t take you more than a few minutes. Don’t get discouraged if some stuff doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. Remember it’s a letter written to specific people, in a different culture, almost 2000 years ago. But if you persevere, there are a lot of great truths about God.

Try it out. If you’ve got any questions, hit me.

Check out this video of Louis CK on Conan O’Brien.  It’s hilarious, but it also makes a great point.  We think once we have something, we are entitled to it.  And that can lead to bitterness when we lose it.  If there was something you valued a lot, like your wireless Internet, or your sense of sight, and it was stolen from you, how would you react?

Here‘s what Paul said. And Paul had definitely had some rough times.  Read this.

I count myself to be a really blessed, ’cause I have the ability to not really notice when things are wrong.  When I am cold, I am the biggest shiverer ever.  My jaw rattles and my whole body almost folds up into itself.  And my hands have terrible circulation, so they’re usually a funny shade of purple.  The weird part is, I don’t usually even notice that I’m cold until someone tells me I look like an Oompa Loompa.  God has wired my brain to not really notice my afflictions.  And I am really thankful for that.

But I don’t “deserve” any praise for that.  Here’s why. In 1 Corinthians 12:1-11, Paul talks about our spiritual gifts.  If we are Christians and have the Holy Spirit in us, we all have them.  Spiritual gifts are basically talents.  But I think it’s really interesting that Paul uses the word “gifts.”  It means that our talents have been given to us by God.  I’m talented at being content.  But I can’t take any credit for it, God gave me that.

We’re all pretty lucky that we live in Canada right?  There are lots of other places we could have been born.  And I know you could think of some other things that are good about your life.  I know some of you have some genuinely difficult problems.  But I also know that some of the most content people I know about actually have lives that are really rough by our standards.  Check out what dictionary.com says about the word “discontented.”  I think the happiest people are the ones who are able to play with the cards they’ve got and be thankful for them.

Here‘s is a bonus passage that talks about God caring for us. It’s one of my faves.

Check back soon for more posts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e13UO5_IOFk