We want to help you to read through the Bible without getting lost or giving up. This series has a video for every Old Testament book of the Bible that outlines its literary design and main ideas, showing you how it fits into the entire biblical story.

Read Scripture: Old Testament

God makes a good world, but humanity rebels against God and ruins that world. We trace how that story leads up to God's plan to rescue and bless the whole world through Abraham.

GEN 1-11

God makes a promise to bless rebellious humanity through the family of Abraham, and the story follows this promise through four generations.

Genesis 12-50

God rescues the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and confronts the evil and injustice of Pharaoh the king.

Exodus 1-18

God invites the redeemed Israelites into a covenant relationship and comes to personally live among them in the Tabernacle. Israel rebels, however, creating a rift in the relationship.

Exodus 19-40

God responds to Israel's sin and rebellion by providing an elaborate series of rituals and institutions to cover over their sin. God's holiness motivates him to deal with their rebellion so he can live among them in peace.

Leviticus

Israel leaves Mount Sinai and travels through the wilderness on the way to the land promised to Abraham. The trip goes horribly as Israel rebels, and reveals how God shows both justice and mercy on his people.

Numbers

Moses gives Israel his final words of wisdom and warning before they enter the promised land. He challenges them to be faithful to the covenant and love God.

Deuteronomy

After Moses' death, Joshua leads Israel into the land promised to Abraham and helps them overcome the attacks of the Canaanites. Israel settles in the land and is challenged to be faithful to their God.

Joshua

After Joshua's death, Israel turns away from their God and breaks the covenant. This begins a cycle of rebellion, repentance, and restoration as God patiently stays committed to an unfaithful people.

Judges

An Israelite family is struck by a series of tragic deaths, and God mysteriously provides for the widows through the generous acts of an Israelite farmer. The story explores how God can use all life experiences as part of his plan to bless and redeem his people.

Ruth

God raises up Samuel to lead Israel in a desperate time, which eventually leads to the advent of the kingdom in Israel. Israel's first king, Saul, is a miserable failure and is replaced by the humble, faithful, David who rises to greatness.

1 Samuel

David becomes God's most faithful king, but then rebels, resulting in the slow destruction of his family and kingdom. The story offers a many-sided portrait of Israel's most famous king as a case study in human nature.

2 Samuel

After David, Solomon leads Israel to a period of greatness, followed by failure and rebellion. Israel splits into two separate kingdoms, and the story traces the slow decline of both, resulting in destruction at the hands of foreign empires. God sends wave of prophets to hold Israel accountable, but Israel ignores them to their peril.

1-2 Kings

Chronicles is a majestic summary of the entire Old Testament. It was written to show how Israel's story from the past points to the future hope of the messianic kingdom.

1-2 Chronicles

The book of Ezra-Nehemiah tells the story of Israel's return to Jerusalem to rebuild their lives and renew the covenant. Despite their best attempts, Israel's leaders are unable to bring about the fulfillment of the prophetic hopes, and so the story ends waiting for God to heal the hearts of his people and send the messianic kingdom.

Ezra-Nehemiah

Esther tells the story of God's mysterious providence at work to rescue his people from disaster. It happens through the most unlikely people and in surprising ways, encouraging us to look for signs of God's direction in our own lives as well.

Esther

The book of Job explores the difficult question of God's relationship to human suffering. And while it doesn't offer tidy answers, we are invited into new levels of trust in God's wisdom and character.

The book of Psalms has been designed to be the prayerbook of God's people who are trying to faithful to God as they wait for the messiah and his coming kingdom.

Psalms

Proverbs explores what it means to live well in God's world, using wisdom and the fear of the Lord as your guide.

Proverbs

Ecclesiastes dismantles our simplistic ideas about God and our lives, by showing that death, chance, and the passage of time makes it impossible to control life's outcomes. But this unpredictable nature of life actually opens up the way to wisdom and the fear of the Lord.

Ecclesiastes

The Song of Songs is a collection of ancient Israelite love poems that celebrates the beauty and power of God's gift of love and sexual desire.

Song of Songs

Isaiah announces a message of judgment on Israel's failure to keep their covenant with God. It will purify Israel to prepare them for the coming messianic king who found the new Jerusalem to become a light to the nations. But all of these hopes seem to come crashing down with Israel's exile. How will the promises be fulfilled?

Isaiah 1-39

On the other side of Israel's exile, Isaiah's hope for the new Jerusalem and the messianic king are announced. It's then revealed that Israel is still hard-hearted after the exile, and that their king will become a suffering servant who will die for the sins of Israel and open up the covenant family of God to all nations.

Isaiah 40-66

Jeremiah accuses Israel of breaking their covenant with God and warns them about the resulting exile to Babylon. But his hope is that God's mercy will one day heal Israel's rebellious hearts so they can truly know and follow their God.

Jeremiah

Lamentations is a collection of five poems that explore the grief and trauma experienced by Israel in the fall of Jerusalem and the exile to Babylon. These honest expressions of pain become the basis for hope in God's mercy, and teach us that lamenting evil and tragedy is part of the journey of faith.