HOW DO I READ MY BIBLE?
THE CODE
This is how to read a message from God!
STEP 1
The Table of Contents tells us the book of John starts on page 1312.
OUR EXAMPLE
Hi Guys! Welcome to My Faith Adventures, the website designed to help you learn and love the Bible! We put this page together to help you understand why reading the Bible is so important and to help you learn how to read your Bible.
First, why should we read the Bible? The simple answer is - because God wrote it for you! God wants us to know Him. Reading the Bible is the best place to start to get to know God. The Bible is the truth and God wrote it for us so we could read it and know the truth!
God has a special plan for each of our lives. You can discover God’s plan for your life by reading the Bible. He has given each of us special gifts and talents. He wants us to use those special gifts and talents to tell the world about Jesus.
Believing God’s Word, and doing what it says to do, will help us when rough times come too. A ship has an anchor to keep it from drifting away from where the captain wants it to be. The Bible is our anchor in life! Daily reading the Bible and talking to God, which is prayer, will help you to get to know God better and His plan for your life.
So, where does the Bible come from? God wrote the Bible by telling different men what to write down on paper. The Bible was originally written on scrolls of paper. Today, there are different versions of the Bible. Different people have taken the original scrolls and used different words to tell the same message. Bibles are printed in books now, not scrolls. Some printers use big letters, others small, some add notes on the side or pictures. This why Bibles can come in different sizes. All Bibles contain the same great message though!
Now let’s talk nuts & bolts. The Bible is made up of 66 books each with its own title. These books are divided into two sections called the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament was written before Jesus was born and talks a lot about the time when he was to come to earth. The New Testament is the account of Jesus coming to earth and the early days of the church.
Bible = collection of 66 books
Reading the Bible is a lot of fun and not hard to do! At the beginning of your Bible, there will be a Table of Contents telling you where to find the 66 books of the Bible. The books of the Bible are always in the same order in the Bible, but not always on the same page because some Bibles use small letters and some large letters. Or some Bibles have notes and pictures while others don’t. This is why the Table of Contents is important. The Table of Contents will tell you what page number you need to find the book you want to read.
Every book in the Bible is divided into chapters. The chapters are all numbered. Every chapter in the Bible is divided into verses. Verses can contain one or more sentences. Verses are also numbered. This numbering system can help you locate certain verses or sentences in the Bible. Think of it like a code you have to crack!
The code is Book Name + Chapter + Verse = Message from God
The title at the very top of the page is the name of the book of the Bible. Also, at the top of each page of the Bible will be the chapter number. Many versions of the Bible will also include the first verse on the page (pages on the left) or last verse on the page (pages on the right). The larger (usually bold) number within the page is the chapter number, and the smaller numbers throughout the text are the verse numbers. If you know these three things you can find the message you are looking for. When someone tells you to go find a certain Bible passage the code would look like this:
Book Name Chapter Number:Verse Number
Example - John 3:3
So now that we have talked about what the words and numbers mean on the pages of the Bible, let’s crack the code! What if today’s PowerVerse says to read verse 3 in the third chapter of the book of John? Here are some steps to help you find what you are looking for:
Step 1 – Open your Bible to the Table of Contents at the beginning and look for the book called John. Some Bibles list the books of the Bible in alphabetical order, some by the order the books appear in the Bible, and some do both!
Step 2 – Find the page number that John starts on and open your Bible to this page.
Step 3 – To find chapter 3 of John, you will need to turn the pages of your Bible looking at the top of each page to see which book and chapter you are in.
Step 4 – Once you have found the chapter you are looking for, look through the text to find verse 3. Remember, the verses are the small numbers scattered throughout the text. Every chapter starts at verse 1 and the verses go up from there. I find it helpful to use my finger to help find the verses.
Step 5 – Read! In this chapter Jesus is telling a man named Nicodemus all about God's plan of salvation from sin!
Now that you know how to read your Bible, go to today's Bible Time and see if you can find the verse! Happy reading!
Click on picture to take a closer look at John 3:3