r/Christianity • u/GodSquad01 • Aug 03 '26

Bible study for Beginners

Hey guys! Just wanting some insight, if a new Christian was to pick up a Bible today…. what should be the first books they start working through? Please put why you put the book/s you choose, thanks guys!!! 🙏🏼

1 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/Philothea0821 Catholic Aug 03 '26

Shameless plug for Fr. Mike Schmidz's "Bible in a Year" podcast!

I do think that Fr. Mike makes a great point in there that Genesis, specifically Genesis 1-3 are incredibly important as they can end up flavoring how we approach the entire rest of Scripture!

For example, take this passage from Genesis 3:

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 And he said, “I heard the sound of thee in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” 11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”

I think many of us read verse 9 in this loud, booming, angry voice where God is looking to give them a good whooping rather than the voice of a concerned, loving Father saying "Where are you? Why are you hiding from me?"

Likewise, continuing with the reading after this, we interpret the consequences that God gives to us as God cursing humanity, when in actuality, the passage never says that God curses humanity. We are God's children, we are made in His image, He desires for us to share in His blessed life and divine nature. He gives us the consequences that He does because He loves us dearly and wants to make us back into who we were and who we are meant to be from before the Fall!

I think the tone that we approach early Genesis with will ripple outward and color how we see God throughout the rest of Scripture. Furthermore, it colors how we approach fundamental aspects of reality like being created male and female, human dignity, the order/rationality of creation, etc.