Through preaching, we interpret its message for our lives. In congregational worship we read from the Bible. We United Methodists put the Bible to work. The authority of Scripture derives from the movement of God's Spirit in times past and in our reading of it today. For example, we do not open the text at random to discover God's will. The Bible's authority is, therefore, nothing magical.
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Yet through it all the Bible is the story of the one God, who stands in a covenant relationship with the people of God. In the New Testament are Gospels, a history, many letters, and an apocalypse (Revelation). In the Hebrew Bible we find legends, histories, liturgies for community worship, songs, proverbs, sermons, even a poetic drama (Job).
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The books are of different lengths and different literary styles. These books were written over a one-thousand-year period in three languages: Hebrew, Aramaic (the language Jesus spoke), and Greek. The Bible is a collection of sixty-six books, thirty-nine in the Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible) and twenty-seven in the New Testament. We say that the Bible is vital to our faith and life, but what exactly is the Bible? Here are four ways to view it: A library