Some years ago, our Adult Sunday School conducted a pretty long Bible Survey. We considered each book of the Bible, looking at its historical setting, its author, its major themes, and its place in the overall message of the Bible.

When it was all said and done, we had covered a lot of ground. By sheer repetition, we had learned some important patterns and principles about how to study the Bible. Afterwards, I spent some time writing a summary of what we had learned, and it turned into a nice little book. We printed a few copies and shared them around the church.

This year, we are back at it, conducting another Bible survey in our Adult Sunday School class. This time, however, we are not planning to spend a year and a half on the project! Instead, we are taking about 10 weeks to study the major themes and patterns that we summarized in that book. The goal is to grasp clearly the “big picture” of the Bible, so that wherever we go in our Bible reading we can have a basic roadmap.

Studying the Bible is like working on a large puzzle. We need to look at all the details of individual Bible chapters and verses and how they fit together, but that is a slow and difficult job. It helps to look at the box for a rough idea of where certain colors go. The goal of our Bible Survey is to see the “puzzle box” so that we can better understand individual chapters and verses.

In truth, the key to understanding the whole Bible is Jesus Christ himself. He is the blueprint that every piece of the Bible fits into. When we are reading the New Testament, this is fairly obvious, but many Christians wonder how to find Christ in the Old Testament. A major goal of this Bible Survey is to help you do just that.

Here are some of the topics that I plan to address:

1. The Big Dates — An overview of Bible chronology.
2. The Big Promises — An overview of the covenant promises.
3. The Big People — All about prophets, priests, and kings.
4. The OT and the NT — How are they different, and how are they similar?
5. The Big Sections of the OT — The Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.
6. The Big Sections of the NT — The Gospels, Acts, the Letters, and Revelation.
7. The Big Genres — Narrative, Poetry, and Others.

This is a survey of the whole Bible, but it is mostly focused on the Old Testament. That is the part of the Bible most Christians seem to need help with. Perhaps the next time we do a Bible Survey, we will focus more on the New Testament.

The first two lessons are already on YouTube, for your viewing pleasure:

The audio and video are also available from SermonAudio.