This article is in In Writing published for the Evangelical Library
At some point early in this century or before, people started to talk about what they wanted to do before they died, their bucket list as it is called. This soon transmuted into lists of places to visit, films to see and books to read. We are now familiar with lists such as 100 Books to read before you die or The forty best books to read before you die. Such lists include novels such as Jane Eyre or 1984 and non-fiction titles such as The Diary of Anne Frank. Occasionally, you will see spiritually helpful items such as Augustine's Confessions or Pilgrims Progress mentioned and even the Bible itself and its sixty six books in such lists but not often.
The 66 best read books of all time
When we consider how massively influential the sixty-six books that make up the Bible are, it is perhaps surprising to learn how little read they are. Surveys suggest that many intelligent people have never actually read the sixty-six, even some who profess to be Christians.
This is strange in some ways as the sixty-six books that form the Bible are together the best selling, most widely available, most often translated books on planet earth.
When it comes to those sixty-six books, the Bible is far and away the best selling set of books of all time. The Guinness Book of World Records estimates that more than 5 billion copies of the Bible have been printed. Other texts are not even close to that figure. The Quran - only 800 million copies; The Book of Mormon - only 120 million. Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong or the little red book has several hundred million copies in print but is nowhere near the Bible in number.
The Wycliffe Global Alliance tell us that the world's 7.9 billion people speak some 7378 languages. At present 717 of these languages have all 66 books translated and 3495 languages, some 7.04 billion people, have some part of the Bible. Work is currently going on with a further 828 languages, covering another 67.6 million people.
There are people who cannot read the sixty-six books of the Bible for themselves, then, but a vast number can - and yet so many of them choose not to do so. While they are busy reading Moby Dick or Lord of the Rings, the sixty-six get short shrift.
Encouraging people to read the Sixty-six
So what can we, we who have read the sixty-six, or most of them, do to encourage others to read them?
It is generally agreed that the best place to start is with one of the Gospels is. Mark is shortest, Matthew is good for religious people and Luke is for anyone. John also suits everyone but is different to the others in being more theological in style. All the sixty-six are about the Lord Jesus Christ but it is most obvious in the Gospels which provide us with portraits of Jesus, focusing especially on his death and resurrection.
Only two or three others of the sixty-six are seen under separate cover. Paul's Letter to the Romans is sometimes done like that. That is useful as it sets out Paul's theology for us in a systematic way. Do read Romans. The Old Testament Book of Psalms is also sometimes seen like that. It contains 150 hymns and prayers reflecting on God's Law and the coming Messiah. The book is best loved by those already converted to Christ.
New Testament
The 27 books of the New Testament are often seen bound in one volume, of course, either with or without the Psalms. Once people have read the Gospels, one would encourage them to read the Book of Acts, also sometimes found under separate cover. It gives the history of the church from the Christ's ascension to the end of Paul's three missionary journeys.
Most of the rest of the New Testament is letters. First, Paul's 13 letters to churches and individuals. There are nine to churches in Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Colossae and Thessalonica then four to individuals. Of the latter, the two to Timothy and the one to Titus deal with matters of particular interest to pastors who should read and re-read those books.
Next is the Letter to the Hebrews. We are not sure who wrote it but, if not Paul, it must be by someone in his circle. It particularly focuses on the High Priesthood of Christ. We then have seven short general letters - three by John, two by Peter, one each by James and Jude. These are important too and not to be neglected.
The last book in the New Testament is Revelation (not Revelations). It is a book full of symbolism and not easy to read or understand but once you start spotting things like the way the writer, John, uses the number seven, it begins to make sense. One great help to understanding it better is to get to know the Old Testament books.
Genesis to Esther
A full Bible not only has the 27 books of the New Testament but the 39 books of the Old Testament too. These are again all about Jesus Christ but because they were written long before he was born this is usually less obvious. These books contain prophecies, types and shadows of what was going to come. Chapters, like Isaiah 53 are very obviously about Jesus but in some cases this is much harder to spot.
The first five books were written by Moses and take us from the world's creation to the time just before God's people enter the Promised Land. Genesis and Exodus are easy to read as they are mostly story but Leviticus and Numbers are not so easy nor is Deuteronomy.
After those five come Joshua and Judges, taking us from the conquest of the land to the time just before the first king of Israel. After Judges there is a little book called Ruth, which is not only a charming story but a real pointer to King David and to Jesus himself.
Next come three big books, so big the Jews divided each of them in two. First come the Books of Samuel then the Books of Kings. They take us from Samuel, the last of the Judges, through Saul, David and Solomon on to the kings who ruled over the divided kingdoms north and south, down to the time when Judah was sent into exile in Babylon. The third book, Chronicles, goes all the way from Adam to the exile. The opening chapters are not easy to read as they are mostly genealogies. There are things in Chronicles you will not find anywhere else so it is a must read.
After Chronicles comes Ezra and Nehemiah, both about the Jews' amazing return from the exile. The Book of Esther follows, a remarkable story about the providence of God to his people when still in exile. The striking thing about it is that it never mentions God by name. It would be great book to start with for anyone wanting to read the Bible.
Job to Malachi
After all that history, we get five books usually referred to as books of wisdom. The first, Job, is from a time before Moses and deals with the difficult subject of suffering. The beginning and end are easy to read but many chapters lie between, not always easy to read, where Job's friends try to prove to him he is suffering because he has done something wrong, which we know he has not. It is a fascinating and important work that is worth reading and re-reading.
We have mentioned the Book of Psalms, mostly by David. There is also the Book of Proverbs, mostly by his son Solomon. A large part of Proverbs is taken up with proverbs, brief and pithy sayings oozing with wisdom that point in one way or another to Jesus Christ, the wisdom of God. In this section we also have The Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes, not always easy books to interpret but full of wisdom about our relationship with God and with one another.
The rest of the Old Testament is given over to the prophets, major and minor. Major and minor refer to the length of the books they left, not their importance. There are four major ones and twelve minor ones, all worth reading. Of the major ones, Daniel who lived in exile in Babylon is perhaps the easiest, as the first six chapters tell stories about him and his three friends. The second six chapters are more like Revelation. Isaiah is long but there are many prophecies of Messiah that are full of interest and plenty of encouraging verses about the future. Jeremiah and Ezekiel are among the most difficult books to read but are worth reading for the way they point forward to Christ. Where would we be without Jeremiah 31 or Ezekiel 36? With Jeremiah there is a bonus - a little book called Lamentations, a lament over the destruction of Jerusalem. Right in the middle there are some tremendously encouraging words about how great is God's faithfulness.
The last twelve books are all prophets. The Book of Jonah is the best known. It is different to the others and is well known for how it tells the story of Jonah being sent to Nineveh, refusing to go, then being first swallowed then vomited out by a great fish. The other minor prophets, with strange names like Habakkuk or Haggai, are all worth reading too. The first, Hosea, is all about the love of God. Most of the minor prophets are short. Obadiah is only one chapter. It is not always clear who prophesied when but the last three, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, all prophesied after the return from exile. It would be another four hundred years after the last of these before John the Baptist began to prophesy and make way for Messiah Jesus.
How many?
So how many of these sixty-six have you read? How many of them do you know well? They are the most important sixty-six books in existence. Some are more important than others, it is true, but all are God breathed and have something important to teach us about the Lord Jesus Christ and serving him. Do not allow the dust to gather on these amazing books. Read them and read them again. They will be more valuable to you than anything by Dickens or Tolstoy, as great as those writers were, or even Calvin or Spurgeon for that matter. If you never get to read The Great Gatsby or Brave New World it is a pity but if you neglect these sixty-six books it will be a tragedy indeed.
In 2014 Andy Miller published The Year of reading dangerously where he describes how he read some fifty books he had never got round to reading before. How did he do it? Just by getting on with it. There was no big secret. What about you and these sixty-six? If you read three or four chapters a day, you could easily read all sixty-six in a year. There are various plans that will take you through all the books in a shorter or longer period. You will never regret time spent reading them. So get started today.
