Pastor John, here's an email—not an uncommon email—from a listener who writes in to ask this, "If I've never read the Bible by myself before, where should I start?" Oh, I would love to talk to such a person, so I hope he or she is listening. So let's start at ground zero.

Absolute zero. A few big picture things that'll help my simple, straightforward answer make sense. The Bible is a collection of 66 distinct books. These were written by different people over a span of about 1,500 years, which makes their amazing harmony and unity and development all the more amazing. But it's important to realize that there were numerous authors, human authors, not just one.

So these 66 books in the one book called the Bible are different kinds of writing. Some are history, some are poetry, some is prophecy, some are letters, and so on. Different styles. And these are divided into two parts, right, called the Old Testament and the New Testament. The word "testament" is an old word for agreement or covenant about the way God was dealing with his people.

The Old Covenant are the books written before Jesus Christ came into the world, and the New Covenant are the books written after Jesus Christ. So the Old Testament are books that are preparing for the coming of the Son of God into the world, Jesus Christ, and the New Testament is about what he did, who he was, how he started the Christian movement, and how we are to live as Christians in the light of all of that.

So 39 books in the Old and 27 books in the New. So where should you start in this big library of God-inspired, true books? My answer is, since Jesus is the central figure in the Bible, and he explains everything else, if you understand Jesus, you're going to be able to understand the other parts better.

Then you need to get to know him first. There are four books at the beginning of the New Testament that give an account of his ministry, and somewhat of his life, although none of them covers every year of his life, because what he did in his last three years was all-important, so that's what they focus on.

And these four books are called the Gospels, the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The word "gospel" means "good news," and this is the foundation of our good news, called the Gospel. Here's where I'd start. The Gospel of Mark is the shortest one, 16 short chapters. I would start there, and here's the way I'd do it.

I would set aside two hours, some Sunday morning or Saturday evening, or sometimes when you're going to stay awake, and read the whole thing straight through, 16 chapters. And I say two hours because I'm a slow reader, and I've done that. I've sat down, read the entire Gospel of Mark straight through.

You might be able to do it in one hour. And that'll give you an overview of the ministry of Jesus. It's very fast-paced, clip, clip, clip, clip. One of the most common words in Mark is "immediate." And then, the second thing I would do is do the same thing with the Gospel of John.

It's longer, 21 chapters, and they're longer. Mark is fast-paced, riddled with action, the sorts of things Jesus did. John is reflective, slower-paced, contains lots and lots of the teachings of Jesus, gets you inside his mind and heart and being in a concerted and focused way. And then, when you've read Mark and John, just to get you exposed to what he did and what he taught and who he was, I would point you in two directions, depending on the kind of person you are.

If you're a lover of seeing things systematized and organized into a beautiful whole, go to Romans next, the letter to the Romans, another 16 chapters. Or if you are the kind of person who loves fast-paced action and want to see what happened, what happened, how did this movement move on in the world, then go to the book of Acts.

You can hear the very title. And this is how the Gospel gets from Jerusalem at the death and resurrection of Jesus all the way to Rome about 30 years later in the amazing works of God to establish his church. And the last thing I would say is, there's a book in the Bible, right smack in the middle of the Bible.

If you flop your Bible open to smack in the middle, it's going to open to Psalms. 150 Psalms. These are the prayers and the songs of the people of God, many of them written by King David of Israel. And they capture all the moods and the ups and downs and struggles of God's people.

And there are a lot of people who love this book more than any book in the Bible. My wife would say Psalms is her favorite book. And that's the approach I would take. It would give you that last exposure, would give you a way to manage lots of the feelings you're going to have as a new Christian.

But let yourself be caught up in what amazes you. Don't consider my advice or anybody's advice where you have to read. It's all God's Word. It's all inspired and reliable. All of it's profitable to help you know Christ and know how to be saved from sin and from condemnation and how to have eternal life and how to live a life pleasing to God in this world.

So you're on the brink of the greatest adventure of your life. Amen. Very well put. Thank you, Pastor John. And if you'd like to open the Bible and study with Pastor John himself, we recently launched a series of video tutorials called "Look at the Book." You can check those out at DesiringGod.org.

Click on the tab that says "Labs" on the top of the screen. And tomorrow we return with a question about how we can go deeper with Christ and our union with Christ. I'm your host Tony Reinke. We'll see you tomorrow. 1. What is the most important thing you've learned from your pastor?

2. What is the most important thing you've learned from your pastor? 3. What is the most important thing you've learned from your pastor? 4. What is the most important thing you've learned from your pastor?