Philip Yancey - Meet the Bible: A Panorama of Gods Word in 366 Daily Readings and Reflections

Resources by Philip Yancey

The Jesus I Never Knew

Whats So Amazing About Grace?

The Bible Jesus Read

Reaching for the Invisible God

Where Is God When It Hurts?

Disappointment with God

The Student Bible, General Edition (with Tim Stafford)

Meet the Bible (with Brenda Quinn)

Church: Why Bother?

Finding God in Unexpected Places

I Was Just Wondering

Soul Survivor

Books by Philip Yancey and Dr. Paul Brand

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

In His Image

The Gift of Pain

Meet the Bible will help you read and understand the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation.

Reading the Bible can be discouraging. It is about a thousand pages long, composed of sixty-six different books, and has several dozen authors, whose writing styles vary widely. Written several thousand years ago, the Bible presents a wide chasm between its culture and todays. Outdated customs and unpronounceable names confront the reader on page after page. Add in theology and philosophy that many initially find hard to understand, and the Bible becomes known as a challenging book that many choose to leave unopened. Unless they have a little help.

You may hardly know the Bible. Maybe you are familiar with many of the Bibles events but havent read it for years. Or maybe youre a regular reader but would like to read the Bible in a fresh way.

The promise of Meet the Bible is a panoramic view of the Bibles key passages, an explanation of personalities and events and ideas as the Old Testament sweeps into the New Testament. The resulting picture is of a mighty nation, searching for a new kingdom, which is finally offered in Gods kingdom. It is the same kingdom offered to all of usbecause the picture also includes declarations about a Revolutionary Figure whose life and death, foretold and proclaimed from Genesis to Revelation, make that offer of the kingdom real.

There are 366 readings in Meet the Bible, one for each day of the year. Each reading consists of either (1) a Bible passage and a commentary or explanation of the passage, or (2) a devotional, called a reflection, which appears less often.

The daily readings present an overview of the Bible through some 300 selected passages, including at least one chapter from each of the Bibles sixty-six books. Such a plan is no substitute for mastering the entire Bible, of course, but it may help lower barriers and point the way down a path for further study. Think of it like an introductory tour through a great art museum. You wont get to see every painting in the museum, but you will learn the basic layout, and may also acquire a taste for art that will entice you to return again and again.

With a few exceptions, we have arranged the biblical material in rough chronological order. You will read the psalms attributed to David as you read about Davids life, and the Prophets as you read about their background history. Portions from the Gospels, too, are interspersed, giving a composite picture of Jesus life on earth; and Pauls letters are scattered throughout the record of his life. This arrangement should help convey the Bibles plot.

How does a reader use the Bible passages and their commentaries? Key Bible passages were selected from the Old and New Testaments, passages about the story of Gods relationship with his people starting in Genesis and stretching to his promise of eternal life in Revelation. The commentaries explain the passagesexamining, for instance, the twists and turns of the Bibles many narratives, the high points and the low points, the good characters and the bad, as well as the eternal thoughts and descriptions of God and his Son found in the Bibles texts. These combinations of Bible passages and commentaries appear on most of the days entries.

What about the reflections? On some days a reflection, or devotional, will take the place of the Bible reading. The reflections look back at the previous days readings and consider the truths for daily living.

It is possible to start Meet the Bible on any day of the year and complete the book in one year. Occasionally a Bible passage is longer than the typical days reading, and two days may be needed. But the reading schedule doesnt have to be rigid, and a reader should take the time needed.

The material in this book is the result of the contributions of two writers with two different styles. Philip Yancey, with his grasp of biblical truths, his experience as author of The Student Bible, his candid and straightforward powers of observation, and his writing skills recognized by numerous awards, contributes key insights and commentaries from his previously published book Discovering God, as well as some essays from his recent best-sellers.

From her background with Serendipity House, Brenda Quinn brings to this project organizational and writing skills in Bible study and small group materials as she pens devotional insights and reflections and connects the material. The initials of each writer mark their contributions. Their collective material is a combination of insight, commentary, and devotional that puts biblical plots and subplots together in an understandable chronology (since the Bible does not) and helps explain the vaunted ideas of God that often seem only for theologians.

As the Old Testament unfolds into the New, one plan replaces another. A plan of a mighty nation, Gods nation, becomes the plan of a new kingdom, the kingdom of God, which will be led not by Jewish generals and kings but rather by disciples who believe in the One who announced the new kingdom. The Bible is about understanding these two plans. And so is Meet the Bible.

This is just a beginning. Continue reading the Bible. God has given believers his Word in full for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. Keep reading!

ZONDERVAN

Meet the Bible

Copyright 2000 by Philip D. Yancey and Brenda Quinn

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.

Epub Edition MARCH 2010 ISBN: 978-0310-87317-4

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Yancey, Philip.

Meet the Bible : a panorama of Gods Word in 366 daily readings and reflections / Philip Yancey and Brenda Quinn.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN: 0-310-24303-3 (softcover)

I. Bible Devotional literature. 2. Devotional calendars.

I. Quinn, Brenda. II. Title.

BS491.5.Y37 1999

242 .2dc21

99-33589

CIP

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the