Foundational Knowledge for Better Bible Reading and Study
Story, Eras, and Themes
This series is intended to provide you with a few key Bible basics so you can read and study (or teach) with confidence. We often go straight to reading the Bible without grasping the basic “whys” and “hows,” and so the Bible remains mysterious, difficult, or confusing. So, the purpose of this series is to give you a solid foundation and to inspire you to open God’s Word with renewed clarity and purpose.
I’ll give you some recommended reading lists along the way, since each week will only give you a taste of these topics.
If you already know all of these Bible basics, I’d encourage you to pray about who you could teach these basics to! We all play a part in increasing Biblical literacy in the Church today.
In Part 1, we looked at all the things we need to know before we even open the Bible: its purpose, outcomes, and a framework for reading.
In Part 2, we took a 30,000 foot view of the Bible, and looked at its structure, authors, key people, and geography.
Now, we’ll zoom in a little closer and look at the story of the Bible, break that story into eras, and identify a few key themes.
1. Story of the bible
We know that the Bible is organized by genre (and not necessarily in chronological order), but it does tell one cohesive story. It is the story of God and what He is doing in His World to provide redemption for His people and accomplish His divine purposes. In their book A Visual Theology Guide to the Bible Tim Challies and Josh Byers explain it this way:
“Yes, the Bible is a book about God. But even more specifically, the Bible is a story about God’s plan of salvation for us in Jesus Christ. As we read God’s Word from Genesis to Revelation, we discover the Son of God, who came to save us from our sins.”
I’ve adapted one of their helpful charts (from page 104-105) that shows how each part of the Bible points to Christ. From it we see how each book reveals the story of the Bible and each point of the story reveals Christ:
| Books of the Bible in order of appearance | The Story | How It Reveals Jesus |
| Genesis | Creation, Fall, Flood | The Need for Jesus |
| Exodus-Deuteronomy | Giving of the Law | The Foundation for Jesus |
| Joshua- Esther | Land, Kings, David | The Preparation for Jesus |
| Job-Song of Solomon | Wisdom & Psalms | The Longing for Jesus |
| Isaiah-Malachi | The Prophets | Expectation of Jesus |
| Matthew-John | The Gospels | The Coming of Jesus |
| Acts | Holy Spirit & Acts | The Continuation of Jesus |
| Romans-Jude | Teaching the Church | The Commands of Jesus |
| Revelation | Revelation | Consummation of Jesus |
Seeing Jesus as both the hero of Scripture and the point of it, is to read it correctly.
2. key periods in the bible
We can and should be able to condense the chart above into a shorter format for easy recall when studying and to share with others. I always liked to encourage my Bible students to memorize the story of the Bible in their own words so they could easily repeat it to themselves or to others when needed. I love that 30 Days to Understanding the Bible has a section called The Story of the Bible in 1,000 Words. It is incredibly helpful, especially if you don’t know where to start with memorizing a succinct summary! Along with his thousand word summary, Max Anders also helpfully teaches the Bible’s “eras” to help you remember the story (yes, he popularized it long before Taylor Swift). Here are his eras that correspond to the books and key figures of the Bible (remember those guys from last week?):
| Era | Book(s) | Key Figure |
| Creation | Genesis | Adam |
| Patriarch | Genesis; Job | Abraham |
| Exodus | Exodus-Deteronomy | Moses |
| Conquest | Joshua | Joshua |
| Judges | Judges-Ruth | Samson |
| Kingdom | 1 Samuel-2 Chronicles; Psalms to Song of Solomon; Hosea, Amos, Habakkuk, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Joel, Micah, Zephaniah, Lamentations, Jonah, Nahum, Obadiah | David |
| Exile | Ezekiel-Daniel | Daniel |
| Return | Ezra-Esther; Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi | Ezra |
| Silence | (400 years between Old and New Testaments) | Pharisees |
| Gospel | Matthew-John | Jesus |
| Church | Acts | Peter |
| Mission | Romans-Revelation | Paul |
Now, we’ve put a lot of knowledge together in that chart! So, hopefully this is all starting to become more familiar and make more sense!
3. key Themes in the bible
Now that we know the genres, story, eras, and key people. We need to make sure we know the key ideas that the Bible presents. If someone were to ask you what kinds of things the Bible talks about, they would be asking you to identify its themes. As we reflect on the story of the Bible, many themes (main ideas) come to light. The story helps us see the important things that God is doing and that He wants us to understand. While there is no comprehensive list of all the biblical themes, there are important things we can all agree should be highlighted as themes in the Bible (and this list is just the beginning):
- Salvation–God is a Savior and He is in the business of saving His people
- Sovereignty –God’s power to accomplish His plans is obvious at every step
- Sin & Suffering–the evil in this world and in human hearts causes immense suffering and pain in almost every story in the Bible
- Sanctification–God wants His people to be holy and makes that clear from the beginning
- Savior–we need Jesus and His presence is anticipated in the Old Testament and revealed in the New
As we reflect on all that the Bible reveals, shows, tells, and presents, it should cause us to praise God for giving us the Bible.
“To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” (1 Tim. 1:17)
Next week, we’ll look at how to correctly interpret Scripture before our last week where we’ll dive into the doctrine that the Bible teaches. I hope you’re excited!!
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