Reading Notes: How to Read the Bible Book by Book

Fee, Gordon D. & Stuart, Douglas. How to Read the Bible Book by Book. Zondervan, 2002.

A profitable book; an excellent OT & NT survey/Bible grammar.

 
The authors state their aim in the preface: "to help people become better readers of Scripture" (9). After having read this book, I can safely vouch that if somebody sat down and read their Bible front to back with this book, then they would certainly become better readers of Scripture. No doubt about it.

The authors (most of the time) strike the right kind of balance between understanding each book of the Bible on its own and demonstrating how each individual book relates to the whole of Scripture. I parenthetically say "most of the time" because there were a few books where slant one way or the other was obvious, e.g. their concluding thoughts for Song of Songs, "Song of Songs fits into God's story as a reminder that the sexual love he created is good and should be embraced with godly fidelity and delight" (165). That conclusion is a bit of an understatement. What the authors say is true, however, I believe the Song of Songs fits into God's story in a bit more meaningful (allegorical!) sense than that.

I really appreciated "The Biblical Story: An Overview" (pp. 14-25), i.e., "It is no accident that the Bible comes to us primarily by way of narrative . . . this is God's story, the account of his search for us, a story essentially told in four chapters: Creation, Fall, Redemption, Consummation (14). . . . Here is the heart of the story: A loving, redeeming God in his incarnation restored our lost vision of God (took off the wraps, as it were, so that we could plainly see what God is truly like), by his crucifixion and resurrection made possible our being restored to the image of God (see Rom. 8:29; 2 Cor. 3:18), and through the gift of the Spirit became present with us in constant fellowship" (18).

This sort of high-overview (what one of my NT professors at IWU called "looking at the Bible from 20,000 feet") is helpful for wrapping your mind around 66 books, which, especially when read woodenly front to back without a thematic road map, can sort of sound like a cacophony. I thought the authors structured their book well to reinforce their aim for the book and their overview of the Bible. How to Read the Bible Book by Book is broken into five parts/panels:

• "The Narrative of Israel in the Biblical Story" - i.e., the acts of God (Genesis-Esther)
• "The Writings of Israel in the Biblical Story" - i.e., the teachings of God (Job-Song of Songs & Lamentations)
• "The Prophets of Israel in the Biblical Story" - i.e., points to the Future (Messiah, Messianic age, etc.) (Isaiah-Malachi)
• "The Gospels and Acts in the Biblical Story" - i.e., the acts of God, again (Gospels & Acts)
• "The Epistles and Revelation in the Biblical Story" - i.e., the teachings of God, again (Epistles & Revelation)

So, the acts and teachings of God under the old covenant point to (prepare) God's chosen people (Israel) for the acts and teachings of Jesus for the new covenant (New Israel).

Also, prior to the authors working through their five paneled overview of the Bible, they provided an excellent aid on page 23: they highlighted various "threads" that held the larger narrative of God's story together, e.g., covenants, God's faithfulness, God's choice of lesser/un-favored ones, God's redeeming actions, God's dwelling/presence, God's provision of a sacrificial system/blood, God's choice of a king from Judah, etc. This was helpful because the authors didn't just mention the threads but then throughout the book they explicitly pointed them out. Fee and Stuart spoon feed their readers.

 
Specifically, I thought that the chapters on Genesis, Exodus, 1-2 Samuel, Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah, the Gospels, Acts, and Philippians were really good. I highly recommend reading this book in stereo with whatever (correlating) books of the Bible you are reading for daily devotionals/Bible study.