Getting help with the Bible and its books
Trusting the Bible
The BeThinking website has lots of resources about the Bible and how reliable it is.
Plenty of excellent books have been written to give you confidence that the Bible really is God’s word to us, including:
- Confronting Christianity by Rebecca McLaughlin
- Why Trust The Bible? by Amy Orr-Ewing
- Unbreakable by Andrew Wilson
Understanding the Bible
A good study Bible is the best single resource to get, such as the ESV Study Bible or the NIV Study Bible.
To go a bit deeper, consider a one-volume Bible commentary such as:
- New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition
- Africa Bible Commentary
- South Asia Bible Commentary
BibleProject has a series of videos on “How to read the Bible”.
Tese books explain in more detail what the Bible is, and how to read and understand it:
- How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart
- The Bible: A Story that Makes Sense of Life, Andrew Ollerton
- Women of The Word by Jen Wilkin (which is good for both women and men!)
Understanding each book of the Bible
These free online resources have guides to each book of the Bible, listed on these pages:
- Bible For Life
- BibleProject
- The Gospel Coalition commentary
- Help Me Teach the Bible with Nancy Guthrie
- Look at the Book with John Piper (not every book is covered but very helpful for those which are)
Written commentaries are a great way to go deeper, and Keith Mathison’s Top 5 Commentaries give you helpful descriptions of some of the best for each book.
(Disclaimer: these are resources we recommend but that doesn’t mean we always agree with everything they say! In particular, some of them will minimise the present work of the Holy Spirit in miracles and spiritual gifts. For more on our view of the Holy Spirit’s work today, see our teaching series, “The Holy Spirit: God’s Promised Presence and Power“.)