As we said in this post, the bible is currently the highest selling, most read, most illegal and celebrated work of literature in all history. Even though we believe that this astounding book is the inspired word of God a lot of time it can sit unread on the bookshelf.
Now get ready, this post is a little bit longer than normal but it holds LOADS of really interesting information, here we go...
The New Testament was written about Jesus and the early church and forms a foundation for Christian faith.
As we did with the Old Testament think about stories that you might know from the New Testament. It might be stories about the life of Jesus, the acts of the twelve disciples or the start of the Christian Church. Now try and build a timeline of these stories and events, start with the birth of Christ (Christmas) and work through to Jesus dying on the cross (Easter) and beyond.
Last month in this post I asked the question; Are you a big reader? Or, do you enjoy reading?
Think about this again, do you ever read much of the New Testament? Do you have any favorite books or stories in the New Testament? What is it about these stories that you like or dislike?
So what is the New Testament?
The New Testament is the name given to the books that make the second part of the bible. The New Testament tells the story of the newer covenant, the sacred agreement that God made with humanity through Jesus.
Who wrote it?
The New Testament was written by the apostles (or disciples) and theologians (spiritual smart guys) of the early Christian church. The Gospels (first-hand accounts of Jesus life on earth) were traditionally thought to be written by the names given to them. For example, Matthew was written by Matthew, Luke by Luke etc. (Acts was also written by Luke). The final book Revelation was written by John. Some of the books say who wrote them at the start if you pay attention.
What is in it?
There are 27 books in the New Testament.
The Gospels: biographies or life-stories of Jesus. From these books we can get a picture of who Jesus was, what He said and what He did. There are four of them: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Acts: These are the acts of the Apostles, basically what the disciples of Jesus did after Jesus died on the cross and rose again. It's the story of the early church.
Epistles: The Epistles are personal letters of instruction and encouragement written to various churches. They offer wisdom, instruction and insights into how the early Christian church worked and we can get a lot of wisdom and instruction from them too. There are two different types of Epistles: Pauline Epistles (letters written by Paul) and General Epistles, nope these weren't written by the General of The Salvation Army, they were just written by other apostles ;)
Revelation: The Revelation of John is a book of visions, theology and poetry about the spiritual battle for the world and the ultimate victory of God. Revelation uses loads of symbols but has a lot of historical and political references too. As you can see church has always been wrapped up in politics whether we like it or not! :) Revelation is often hard to understand so if you want to get into it it's helpful to do it with your leaders or your Corps Officer.
Also; There are loads of weird words in the bible that I have even used just here like apostles, epistles, gospels that don't really get used too much these days. Don't be put off, it's easy to get confused and a lot of adult Christians still get confused as well, if you can get past the weird language there is a lot of stuff in the bible that is really relevant to your life today as a young person, trust me!
So why is the New Testament so important anyway?
Just like the Old Testament we believe that the New Testament is inspired by God but the extra important thing for us to remember is that the New Testament tells us the story of Jesus; who He was and what He did. In a way the New Testament is like the climax in a movie, we've had the introduction, we've got the background behind the characters and now the action is just about to start...
The New Testament gives us the full picture of the salvation that God offers us. Jesus is the most important point in the entire story of the bible!
This helps us model the personality, life and teaching of Jesus onto our own life so we can get to know God better. This is called Progressive Revelation which I spoke a little bit about in this post. It means that the message of the Bible becomes clearer as it goes along and although we still read the older books of the bible, the newer books give us a clearer picture of God's will for our lives and for the world.
For Example...
The Old Testament in Deuteronomy 21 commands us to beat disobedient children to death with rocks (wooops!) BUT we know from the teachings and example of Jesus in the New Testament that forgiveness is better than violence (Matthew 5) and that children should be protected;
'If anyone causes one of these little ones - those who believe in me- to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.' Matthew 18:6
So, whatever you find in the Old Testament, it must always be interpreted through the message of Jesus in the New Testament.
Who decided which books went into the bible then?
The Church (collectively) decided what went into the Bible together in the early centuries of Christianity. The various church institutions agreed upon the books in the middle ages. There were many books that didn't make it into the Bible. Some of these books were not reliable. Some of these books were strange (yes even stranger than some of the ones left in there). Some taught the wrong thing about Jesus or God. So while there are other gospels and epistles that are not in the bible, they are not as historically accurate or theologically strong as the books that we read in the bible today. The Church was, and still is, the best authority on the Christian tradition, theology and literature. No matter what some people (or the Da Vinci Code) says, the Bible we have is the best Bible there could have been.
In Fact, The Roman Catholic Bible includes what we call Apocryphal and Deuterocanonical books. (Wow what a mouthful!) These 'extra' books contain a few more folk stories, prophecies and historical books of the Jewish nation. Though they can be fun to read (and if you're really interested you should totally check them out), they contain no major theological information and are not included in our bibles.
But, Keep in mind that we believe the Bible is inspired by God, but it was still written by everyday people (just a long time ago). As a result, the Bible is a series of books telling the story of God's relationship with humanity, but it does not contain answers to all questions and address all topics. The Bible is not a scientific text or a global history book, it is more like an epic love letter (woooooooh!)
So here's some things to think about and comment if you are brave;
What New Testament books have you read in the past?
What New Testament books do you think you might like to read?
AND, here is an addition from the lovely Eloise Walters from Bendigo who found this awesome prayer online and wanted to share, if you haven't prayed a prayer like this to God before I encourage you to think about reading this one today;
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