Introducing the Bible

God gave us the Bible because He wants us to know Him.  The Bible is like a personal letter sent to us from God.  The Bible is also the true story of history as seen from God's viewpoint.  God is the central character of the Bible and as we study in the coming year at God Quest we will learn what God is really like.  We will learn who He is, what He did/does and what His personality is like.

Here is what we learned this week as we begin to lay the foundation of studying the Bible. 

• God communicates with man.
• God spoke to men called prophets the exact message He wanted written down.
• Sometimes He spoke out loud, sometimes He spoke to them in visions and sometimes He just put the message directly into their minds.  Whatever the method, God caused the prophets to write down exactly what He spoke to them.
• No other book in the world was written this way----with God telling men exactly what to write.  God is the author of the Bible.
• God used more than 40 men to write down His words. All were Jewish except for one (Luke).
• The Bible was not written all at once----it took 1,600 years for all of the Bible to be written down.
• The Bible is God's message to the world, which He gave through the Jewish people.
• The original books of the Bible were written either in Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek.
• The Bible never needs to be updated or changed.
• The Bible has been printed more times and translated into more languages than any other book in the whole world.
• The Bible has impacted and changed more lives than any other book.