Books of the Bible

This might be very basic, but I think church leaders take for granted that church-goers know this stuff even though it's really only ever taught to kids who go to Sunday School. So if you weren't raised in Sunday School, you may not know it. Cuz really, how can you know something if no one ever told you? 

Image by stempow from Pixabay 

I'll start with books of the Bible. First, they are not organized in chronological order (i.e. they are not in the order in which the events they record actually happened or when they were written). Rather, they are grouped by theme. 

OLD TESTAMENT

THE LAW (written by Moses)
Genesis 
Exodus 
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy 

HISTORY
Joshua
Judges
Ruth
1 & 2 Samuel (pronounced "first" and "second" as are all books with a "1" or "2" before it)
1 & 2 Kings
1 & 2 Chronicles
Ezra
Nehemiah
Esther

WRITINGS (poetry/songs)
Job
Psalms
Proverbs
Ecclesiastes
Song of Solomon

PROPHETS
Isaiah
Jeremiah
Lamentations
Ezekiel
Daniel
Hosea
Joel
Amos
Obadiah
Jonah
Micah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Haggai
Zechariah
Malachi

NEW TESTAMENT

GOSPELS (Life of Jesus)
Mathew
Mark
Luke
John

CHURCH HISTORY
Acts

LETTERS WRITTEN BY PAUL
Romans
1 Corinthians (pronounced "first" and "second" as are all books with a "1" or "2" before it)
2 Corinthians
Galatians
Ephesians
Philippians
Colossians
1Thessalonians
2 Thessalonians
1 Timothy
2 Timothy
Titus
Philemon 

LETTERS WRITTEN BY OTHERS
Hebrews
James
1 Peter
2 Peter
1 John
2 John
3 John
Jude

APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE
Revelation

So those are the themes/categories that makeup how Protestant Bibles are organized. Jewish Bibles are slightly different (they end with The Chronicles), and Catholic Bibles have some additional Jewish books in the Old Testament that cover the period between the Testaments. More on that in an upcoming post. 

In the next two posts, we'll look at how the books of the Bible line up chronologically, which in my opinion is a much more fascinating way to read them (as well as more understandable) because reading the Bible chronologically allows you to really see His story . . . which is the whole point, right?