Would you believe it? A Summary Of The Bible in one easy To read pamphlet? Look no more It’s here! The Old Testament Genesis: In the beginning before the earth was made, God the Father, Jesus the son, and the Holy Spirit were there. They, as one God, planned to make man. (John 1:1-3 & 14) God knew man would sin and also planned to redeem us with Jesus blood. I Peter 1:19-20 says: “you were redeemed…….with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world….” So through the whole Old Testament God is working out His plan to bring Jesus. God protects the people’s lives that Jesus will be descending from. You can read Jesus ancestors in Matthew 1 and Luke 3. God made Adam and Eve. They sinned and after many years all the people on the earth were sinning. So God told Noah to build an Ark because He was going to destroy all the people on the earth, except Noah’s family, with a flood. After that happened God told Noah and his family to replenish the earth. The Bible tells us that Noah’s son Shem was the son Jesus would descend from. Eventually Abraham came through Shem’s seed line. God made 3 promises to Abraham: 1. God would make him into a great nation (The Israelites or Jews) 2. To Abraham’s offspring God would give the land of Canaan. 3. All people on earth would be blessed through him – They would be blessed because through Abraham’s descendants Jesus was coming. Abraham had a son Isaac and Isaac had Jacob. God changed Jacob’s name to Israel and he had 12 sons. One of the sons was Joseph with the coat of many colors. Joseph’s brothers were jealous of him and sold him to be a slave in Egypt. When Joseph grew up he was a favorite of King Pharaoh and was the overseer of distributing food to the kingdom during a famine. Joseph’s family came to Egypt for food and when Joseph told them who he was they were scared. But Joseph was kind to them and the King told Joseph’s family to pick out the best land in his kingdom to live on and they did. God used Joseph to help save the seed line of Jesus from starvation. While they were in Egypt, Israel’s (Jacob’s) family grew into a great nation of people which was the 1st promise fulfilled that God made to Abraham. Exodus – Joshua: The King of Egypt was eventually scared that the Israelites were getting to be too big of a nation and decided to kill all the boy babies to stop the nation’s growth. Moses (an Israelite) was born at this time and His mother hid him in a basket in the river to keep him from being killed. The King’s daughter found Moses and raised him but hired Moses’ own mom to be his nurse. As time went on, the King of Egypt made slaves of all the Israelites. When Moses grew up, God told him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. God used plagues against the Egyptians to accomplish this and once again saved the seed line of Jesus. When freed, the Israelites traveled and stopped at Mount Sinai where God gave Moses the Law for them to live by. God also had them build a tabernacle which was a movable tent and priests were appointed to make burnt sacrifices on altars for the people’s sins. The descendants of Israel’s (Jacob’s) 12 sons became the 12 tribes of Israel. Jesus was coming through one of the tribes called Judah. The 12 tribes of Israel got to the land of Canaan (the 2nd promise to Abraham) but were too scared to go in and take over the land because of the giants living there. They had forgotten that God told them he would fight their battles for them. (As he fights our battles for us today) So because of their unbelief God said they couldn’t go in to Canaan and had to wander in the desert 40 years. During the 40 years God supplied all of their needs. Even their shoes did not wear out. God was still saving the seed line of Jesus. When their wandering was over, God helped them take over the land of Canaan and each tribe got a certain piece of land as their own. So the 2nd promise to Abraham had come true. (To your Offspring I will give this land) Judges – Malachi: The Israelites had been in Canaan for a time and God appointed Judges to rule over them. After a while the Israelites asked to have a king like all the other kingdoms had. So God gave them Kings to rule over their people. During this time God also sent men known as prophets to guide them. God spoke to the prophets and the prophets told the people what God said. These prophets also foretold of Jesus coming and establishing His Church. Even though the Israelites were God’s chosen people, they kept disobeying God in various ways. Some kings were good and some were bad. One king loved God very much, this was David, and Jesus was to come through him. God promised David there would always be someone of his seed line reigning on the throne over the Israelites. Jesus is from David’s seed line and is still reigning. In fact Jesus’ earthly parents came from the union of David and Bathsheba. It’s believed that Mary was a descendant of their son Nathan. And Joseph was a descendant of their son Solomon. Eventually David died and his son Solomon took over the throne. He had a permanent temple built in Jerusalem for sacrificing and worshipping God. The priests stayed there and sacrificed animals the people brought for their sins. The animals had to be perfect, without blemish. Solomon became a sinful King, so much so that God said He would take the kingdom of Israel from him. This happened during the reign of Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. God took all the tribes of Israel from him except Judah. (Keeping the promise God made to David that someone of David’s seed line would always reign over Israel.) The tribe of Benjamin, the Levites and the rest of the faithful Israelites also stayed with them. (II Chronicles 11:12-16) Remember the tribe of Judah is whom Jesus would come through. God is still keeping Jesus’ seed line pure. The other tribes all rebelled against God and went to the northern part of the land. There they made a man named Jeroboam to be king over them. So at this time the Kingdom of Israel is a divided kingdom known as Israel and Judah. This all happened because of Solomon’s sin. After a while Israel and Judah started sinning against God again. So God decided to punish them by having two other nations come and take them away into captivity. The nation of Assyria took Israel captive, and Babylon took Judah captive, also destroying the temple in Jerusalem. They were in captivity 70 years. After 70 years the captives were set free to go home and rebuild and they were all one nation again. The New Testament Matthew – John: After about a 400 year period John the Baptist was sent to prepare the way for Jesus coming. Jesus finally did come as a baby born to Mary and Joseph in the New Testament. Some of the Israelites were thrilled about Jesus. They believed He was “the one” the prophets had told them about. He would take the place of all the animal sacrifices and whose blood would take away their sins. But there were some who thought He was going to be an earthly king like they had before. Even with all the miracles Jesus did they still didn’t accept Him. In fact He made them mad, claiming to be the “Son of God”. They got so mad they captured Jesus and eventually after beating Him they crucified Him. However, they did not kill Jesus; He gave up His own life on the cross which would not be possible for anyone else. When all the things happened during Jesus crucifixion, for example, total darkness and the earthquake, they finally realized they had crucified the son of God, especially when they found the tomb of Jesus empty 3 days later. Jesus rose from the dead and went to Heaven to sit at the right hand of His Father, which is where He is today, reigning on His throne. (Acts 2) Acts: At this time the 12 Apostles Jesus taught while He was on earth received special powers from the Holy Spirit and they were able to continue healing and doing miraculous things. This happened so the people would believe what the Apostles said about Jesus. They didn’t have the Bible written yet so they needed something powerful. After the apostles wrote everything down so people could read about Jesus, (which is the rest of the New Testament) the special powers from the Holy Spirit stopped because they didn’t need them anymore. The Apostles continued on to tell the people they had crucified the son of God in the book of Acts. The people asked what they were supposed to do now. So the Apostle Peter told them what they must do. In Acts 2 the Apostle Peter preached the first sermon after God sent the Holy Spirit to the apostles. That day when Peter was talking, the Holy Spirit made it so every person, no matter what language they spoke, heard Peter in that language. (A miracle) When Peter was done telling them about Jesus, in Acts 2:38 they all asked what they should do now and Peter told them to repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. So when they were baptized the blood of Jesus washed their sins away, but not only that, the Holy Spirit lives in everyone who is baptized. That is the gift of the Holy Spirit. That day about 3,000 people were baptized. In Acts 2:42-47 we are told that all the believers were together and had everything in common and met in their homes with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and having the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. So God ADDS us to HIS Church. Romans – Jude: The rest of the New Testament was made up of letters written to Christians instructing and encouraging them in their Christian lives. From this time on the apostles went into the surrounding areas establishing congregations of the Church as they were told by Jesus in Matthew 28:19-20: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” The Apostles also appointed elders (overseers or bishops) and deacons in the established congregations. These men had to meet special qualifications as are listed in I Timothy 3:1-13. The work of an elder is to provide spiritual guidance for the congregation and the deacon is to look after their physical needs. Each congregation is autonomous and has its own leadership. We see in different areas of the New Testament how they worshipped God. On the first day of the week they had preaching, they took the Lords supper and they sang and praised God. We try to copy that form of worship today. So Jesus was the 3rd promise God promised Abraham that all people would be blessed though him. God worked His plan all through the Old Testament, keeping that seed line pure and keeping His promise of Jesus coming. Jesus was that perfect one time sacrifice for sin so we don’t have to do the sacrifices and we are free from all those laws of the Old Testament. Galatians 3:27-29 says, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Promise 3) In Ephesians 2:8-10 the Bible says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” We do nothing to deserve salvation; it is a gift from God. Romans 6:1-4 says, “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” Ephesians 5:1-2 says, “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Romans 8:1 says: “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”. Revelation: The last book in the Bible is the revelation of Jesus Christ to John. Revelation 22:20-21 says about Jesus, “He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming quickly.” Amen, Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.” Now we wait for Jesus to return to take His Church home to live with Him forever in Heaven. Philippians 3:20-21 says, “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who by the power that enables Him to bring everything under His control will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body.” Bad Axe Church of Christ 1274 Sand Beach Road Bad Axe, MI 989-269-5024 written by Cherie Lepeak
Posted on: Sun, 14 Dec 2014 20:47:53 +0000
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