the Lord Jesus by reading any part of the Bible, but not all of it is for us today, or about us. There is a verse which

tells us about dividing the Bible in the right way. Turn to 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 15 and read.

Did you notice that the verse said:

`rightly dividing the word of truth'?

The word of truth is the Bible, and it is important to divide it up properly.

Now turn to the front cover. On it you will see the two references that we have looked at so far: 2 Timothy 3:16

and 2 Timothy 2:15. These are both very important to remember.

What are the different books of the Bible about? We have already said that they should point us to the Lord

Jesus, so this is one thing we should remember. Whatever they are about, they must teach us of Him. Four words

may help us to understand the difference between the books. They are:

Try to remember these four words, for every book in the Bible fits one or more of them.

History is stories about the past. The story of Moses in the bulrushes is history; so is David's victory over

Goliath. In the New Testament, the Lord Jesus' birth at Bethlehem is history. You should think of many more

We could call prophecy the opposite of history, that is, stories about the future. Only God knows what will

happen in the future, so the Bible is the only place where we can read true prophecy. The Bible tells us that one day

God will lead the Jews back into their own country. This has not yet happened; it is a story of the future, and we call

it prophecy. A person who spoke on God's behalf was called a prophet and many wrote or spoke of the future. In

the Old Testament, prophets wrote about the coming of the Lord Jesus to this earth, and about His death. After He

had come, people could see that what the prophets had said was true.

Under this title we think especially of the book of Psalms. Psalms means songs, and the Psalms in our Bibles are

songs of praise to God. Some are prayers, and some were written to remind the Jews of God's ways with them in

the past. The best known Psalm is number 23. Turn to it and read it all.

We can learn something from every book of the Bible, but some books are meant to teach us. The epistles

(letters) of the New Testament written by Paul, Peter, James, John and Jude have much teaching in them. Also, in

the Old Testament the book of Proverbs is a teaching book. As long as we always remember to rightly divide the

Bible, then God can teach us much through these books and others in His Word.

Now we must look more closely at the books of the Bible. As we go through them, you may notice that they are

not all in the right order in our Bible. This does not really matter for now, as long as we understand a little about

each of them.