Master the Contents of Each Book

The following is a rhyme that will give a clue to what each book of the Bible contains.
Old Testament
Pentateuch
In Genesis the world was made,
In Exodus the march was told;
Leviticus contains the law,
In Numbers are the tribes enrolled;
In Deuteronomy again
We are urged to keep God's law alone,
And these five books of Moses make,
the oldest writings that are known.
Historical Books
Brave Joshua to Canaan leads,
In Judges often the Jews rebel;
We read of David's name in Ruth,
And First and Second Samuel;
In First and Second Kings
How bad the Hebrew state became;
In First and Second Chronicles,
Another history of the same.
In Ezra captive Jews return,
While Nehemiah builds the wall;
Queen Esther saves her race from death.
These books "Historical" we call.
Poetical Books
In Job we read of patient faith,
In Psalms are David's songs of praise;
The Proverbs are to make us wise,
Ecclesiastes next portrays
How vain fleeting earthly pleasures are;
The Song of Solomon is all
About the love of God,
And these Five books "Poetical" we call.
Prophetical Books
Isaiah tells of Christ to come,
While Jeremiah tells of woe,
And in his Lamentations mourns
The Holy City's overthrow.
Ezekiel speaks of mysteries,
While Daniel foretells kings of old;
Hosea calls men to repent,
In Joel, judgments are foretold.
Amos tells of wrath, and Edom
Obadiah is sent to warn,
While Jonah shows how Christ should rise,
And Micah where He should be born;
In Nahum, Nineveh is seen,
In Habakkuk, Chaldea's guilt;
Zephaniah, Judah's sins,
Haggai, the temple's built,
Zechariah tells of Christ,
And Malachi of John, His signs.
The Prophets number seventeen,
And all the books are thirty-nine.
New Testament
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,
Tell of Christ, His life they trace;
Acts shows that salvation is in the name of the Son,
And Romans show God's great grace.
Corinthians instructs the church,
Galatians show's truth and grace alone;
Ephesians how we are "in Christ,"
Philippians, Christ joys are known.
Colossians portrays Jesus as exalted.
And Thessalonians tells the end.
In Timothy and Titus both,
Are rules for pastors to attend.
Philemon pictures charity,
Thirteen Epistles, penned by Paul.
The Jewish law prefigured Christ;
And Hebrews clearly shows it all.
James shows that faith by works must live,
And Peter urges steadfastness,
While John exhorts Christians to love;
And those who live it, God will bless.
Jude shows the end of evil men,
While Revelations tells of heaven.
These end the whole New Testament,
In all, they number twenty-seven.
Four words to help link the whole of God's revelation.
Preparation: In the Old Testament, God makes ready for the coming Messiah.
Manifestation: In the four Gospel, Christ enters the world, dies for it and prepares His
disciples.
Appropriation: In Acts and Epistles, the church is begun; the ways are revealed in which
the Lord Jesus was received, appropriated and applied in individuals lives.
Consummation: In the book of Revelations, the outcome of God's perfect plan through
Christ is revealed.
Augustine said, "The New is in the Old contained, the Old is the New explained. The
New is in the Old latent, the Old is the New patent. The Old Testament and New
Testament constitute a Divine library, one sublime unity, origins in past to issues in the
future, processes between, connecting two eternities."
What Famous Americans Have Said About the Bible

John Adams, second president of the United States, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson,
December 25, 1813:
"I have examined all religions, as well as my narrow sphere, my straightened means, and
my busy life, would allow; and the result is that the Bible is the best Book in the world. It
contains more philosophy than all the libraries I have seen." [1]

John Q. Adams, sixth president of the United States, in a letter to his son, September
1811:
"My dear Son:
In your letter of the 18th January to your mother, you mentioned that you read to your
aunt a chapter of the Bible or a section of Doddridge's Annotations every evening.
This information gave me real pleasure; for so great is my veneration for the Bible, and
so strong my belief, that when duly read and meditated on, it is of all books in the world,
that which contributes most to make men good, wise, and happy - that the earlier my
children begin to read it, the more steadily they pursue the practice of reading it
throughout their lives, the more lively and confident will be my hopes that they will
prove useful citizens of their country, respectable members of society, and a real blessing
to their parents...
I have myself, for many years, made it a practice to read through the Bible once every
year...
My custom is to read four to five chapters every morning immediately after rising from
my bed. It employs about an hour of my time...
It is essential, my son, in order that you may go through life with comfort to yourself, and
usefulness to your fellow-creatures, that you should form and adopt certain rules or
principles, for the government of your own conduct and temper...
It is in the Bible, you must learn them, and from the Bible how to practice them. Those
duties are to God, your fellow-creatures, and to yourself. 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy
strength, and thy neighbor as thy self.' On these two commandments, Jesus Christ
expressly says, hang all the law and the prophets;' that is to say, the whole purpose of the
Divine Revelation is to inculcate them efficaciously upon the minds of men...
Let us, then, search the Scriptures...The Bible contains the revelation of the will of God.
It contains the history of the creation of the world, and of mankind; and afterward the
history of one peculiar nation, certainly the most extraordinary nation that has ever
appeared upon the earth.
It contains a system of religion, and of morality, which we may examine upon its own
merits, independent of the sanction it receives from being the Word of God...
I shall number separately those letters that I mean to write you upon the subject of the
Bible...I wish that hereafter they may be useful to your brothers and sisters, as well as to
you..." [2]
In a letter of December 24, 1814: "You ask me what Bible I take as the standard of my
faith - the Hebrew, the Samaritan, the old English translation, or what? I answer the Bible
containing the Sermon on the Mount - any Bible that I can...understand. The New
Testament I have repeatedly read in the original Greek, in the Latin, in the Geneva
Protestant, in Sacy's Catholic French translations, in Luther's German translation, in the
common English Protestant, and in the Douay Catholic translations.
I take any one of them for my standard of faith...But the Sermon on the Mount commands
me to lay up for myself treasures, not upon earth, but upon Heaven. My hopes of a future
life are all founded upon the Gospel of Christ..." [3]
"I speak as a man of the world to men of the world; and I say to you, Search the
Scriptures! The Bible is the book of all others, to be read to all ages, and in all conditions
of human life; not to be read once or twice or thrice through, and then laid aside, but to be
read in small portions of one or two chapters every day, and never to be intermitted,
unless by some overruling necessity." [4]
"In what light soever we regard the Bible, whether with reference to revelation, to
history, or to morality, it is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and
virtue." [5]

Henry Ward Beecher, famous 19th century preacher, son of Lyman Beecher and Harriet’s
brother:
"Sink the Bible to the bottom of the ocean, and still man's obligations to God would be
unchanged. He would have the same path to tread, only his lamp and his guide would be
gone; the same voyage to make, but his chart and compass would be overboard." [6]
"The Bible is God's chart for you to steer by, to keep you from the bottom of the sea, and
to show you where the harbor is, and how to reach it without running on the rocks or
bars." [7]

Samuel Colgate, American manufacturer and philanthropist:

"The only spiritual light in the world comes through Jesus Christ and the inspired Book;
redemption and forgiveness of sin alone through Christ. Without His presence and the
teachings of the Bible we would be enshrouded in moral darkness and despair.
The condition of those nations without a Christ, contrasted with those where Christ is
accepted, reveals so marked a difference that no arguments are needed. It is an object-
lesson so plain that it can be seen and understood by all." [8]

Timothy Dwight, theologian, poet, and President of Yale College:

"The Bible is a window in this prison of hope, through which we look into eternity." [9]

U.S. Grant, Civil War Union general and 18th president of the United States:
"The Bible is the sheet-anchor of our liberties." [10]

Horace Greeley, leading abolitionist and publisher of The Liberator:

"It is impossible to enslave mentally or socially a Bible-reading people. The principles of
the Bible are the ground-work of human freedom." [11]

Patrick Henry, Virginia orator and patriot of the American Revolution:

"The Bible is worth all other books which have ever been printed." [12]

Herbert C. Hoover, 31st president of the United States:

"The whole inspiration of our civilization springs from the teachings of Christ and the
lessons of the prophets. To read the Bible for these fundamentals is a necessity of
American life." [13]

Andrew Jackson, hero of the Battle of New Orleans and 7th president of the United
States:
"That book, sir, is the rock on which our republic rests." [14]
"We who are frequently visited by this chastening rod, have the consolation to read in the
Scriptures that whomever He chasteneth He loveth, and does it for their good to make
them mindful of their mortality and that this earth is not our abiding place; and afflicts us
that we may prepare for a better world, a happy immortality." [15]
"Go to the Scriptures...the joyful promises it contains will be a balsam to all your
troubles." [16]
On May 29, 1845, a few weeks before he died: "Sir, I am in the hands of a merciful God.
I have full confidence in his goodness and mercy...The Bible is true. I have tried to
conform to its spirit as near as possible. Upon that sacred volume I rest my hope for
eternal salvation, through the merits and blood of our blessed Lord and Saviour, Jesus
Christ." [17]

John Jay, first Chief Justice of U.S. Supreme Court and second president of the American
Bible Society:
"In forming and settling my belief relative to the doctrines of Christianity, I adopted no
articles from creeds but such only as, on careful examination, I found to be confirmed by
the Bible." [18]

Helen Keller, deaf and blind woman who became an inspiration to millions:
"Just as all things upon earth represent and image forth all the realities of another world,
so the Bible is one mighty representative of the whole spiritual life of humanity." [19]

Robert E. Lee, Confederate commander of the Army of Northern Virginia and President
of Washington College:
"In all my perplexities and distresses, the Bible has never failed to give me light and
strength." [20]

Abraham Lincoln, U.S. President during the American Civil War:

"In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, I believe the Bible is the best gift God
has given to man. All the good the Saviour gave to the world was communicated through
this Book. But for this Book we could not know right from wrong. All things most
desirable for man's welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it." [21]

William Holmes McGuffey, minister, university professor, and educator:

In preface to his 1837 Eclectic Third Reader: "From no source has the author drawn more
copiously than from the Sacred Scriptures. For this [I] certainly apprehend no censure. In
a Christian country, that man is to be pitied, who, at this day, can honestly object to
imbuing the minds of youth with the language and spirit of the Word of God." [22]
From his Eclectic Third Reader:
"1. The design of the Bible is evidently to give us correct information concerning the
creation of all things, by the omnipotent Word of God; to make known to us the state of
holiness and happiness of our first parents in paradise, and their dreadful fall from that
condition by transgression against God, which is the original cause of all our sin and
misery...
3. The Scriptures are especially designed to make us wise unto salvation through faith in
Christ Jesus; to reveal to us the mercy of the Lord in him; to form our minds after the
likeness of God our Saviour; to build up our souls in wisdom and faith, in love and
holiness; to make us thoroughly furnished unto good works, enabling us to glorify God
on earth; and to lead us to an imperishable inheritance among the spirits of just men made
perfect, and finally to be glorified with Christ in heaven."

Samuel F.B. Morse, inventor of the telegraph:

"The nearer I approach to the end of my pilgrimage, the clearer is the evidence of the
divine origin of the Bible, the grandeur and sublimity of God's remedy for fallen man are
more appreciated, and the future is illumined with hope and joy." [23]

Theodore Parker, transcendentalist and Unitarian minister:

"The Bible goes equally to the cottage of the peasant, and the palace of the king. It is
woven into literature, and colors the talk of the street. The bark of the merchant cannot
sail without it; and no ship of war goes to the conflict but it is there. It enters men's
closets; directs their conduct, and mingles in all the grief and cheerfulness of life." [24]

Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of the United States :

"A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education." [25]

W. H. Seward, politician and Lincoln’s Secretary of State:

"The whole hope of human progress is suspended on the ever growing influence of the
Bible." [26]
"I do not believe human society, including not merely a few persons in any state, but
whole masses of men, ever have attained, or ever can attain, a high state of intelligence,
virtue, security, liberty, or happiness without the Holy Scriptures; even the whole hope of
human progress is suspended on the ever growing influence of the Bible." [27]
97th U.S. Congress - Public Law 97-280: Joint Resolution declaring 1983 as the national
"Year of the Bible", October 4, 1892:
"Whereas the Bible, the Word of God, has made a unique contribution in shaping the
United States as a distinctive and blessed nation and people;
Whereas deeply held religious convictions springing from the Holy Scriptures led to the
early settlement of our Nation;
Whereas Biblical teachings inspired concepts of civil government that are contained in
our Declaration of Independence and the constitution of the United States;
Whereas many of our great national leaders„among them Presidents Washington,
Jackson, Lincoln, and Wilson„paid tribute to the surpassing influence of the Bible in our
country's development, as the words of President Jackson that the Bible is "the rock on
which our Republic rests";
Whereas the history of our Nation clearly illustrates the value of voluntarily applying the
teachings of the Scriptures in the lives of individuals, families, and societies;
Whereas this Nation now faces great challenges that will test this Nation as it has never
been tested before; and
Whereas that renewing our knowledge of and faith in God through Holy Scripture can
strengthen us as a nation and a people: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in
Congress assembled, That the President is authorized and requested to designate 1983 as
a national "Year of the Bible" in recognition of both the formative influence the Bible has
been for our Nation, and our national need to study and apply the teachings of the Holy
Scriptures."
U.S. Supreme Court, 1844 in Vidal v. Girard's Executors, court's opinion written by
Justice Joseph Story: "Why may not the Bible, and especially the New Testament,
without note or comment, be read and taught as a divine revelation in the [school] - its
general precepts expounded, its evidences explained and its glorious principles of
morality inculcated?...
Where can the purest principles of morality be learned so clearly or so perfectly as from
the New Testament?" [28]

Henry Van Dyke, pastor, Princeton English professor, and inspirational author:
"Born in the East and clothed in Oriental form and imagery, the Bible walks the ways of
all the world with familiar feet and enters land after land to find its own everywhere. It
has learned to speak in hundreds of languages to the heart of man. Children listen to its
stories with wonder and delight, and wise men ponder them as parables of life. The
wicked and the proud tremble at its warnings, but to the wounded and penitent it has a
mother's voice. It has woven itself into our dearest dreams; so that Love, Friendship,
Sympathy, Devotion, Memory, Hope, put on the beautiful garments of its treasured
speech. No man is poor or desolate who has this treasure for his own. When the
landscape darkens, and the trembling pilgrim comes to the Valley of the Shadow, he is
not afraid to enter; he takes the rod and staff of Scripture in his hand; he says to friend
and comrade, 'Goodbye; We Shall Meet Again;' and, confronted by that support, he goes
toward the lonely pass as one who walks through darkness into light." [29]

George Washington, commander of Continental Army during American Revolution and

first President of the United States:
"It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible." [30]

Daniel Webster, American orator, Massachusetts senator, and President Harrison’s

secretary of state :
"There is no solid basis for civilization but in the Word of God...If we abide by the
principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering; but if we and our
posterity neglect its instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe
may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity...If religious books are
not widely circulated among the masses in this country, I do not know what is going to
become of us as a nation. If truth be not diffused, error will be; if God and His Word are
not known and received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendancy; if the
evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious
literature will; if the power of the Gospel is not felt throughout the length and breadth of
the land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness will reign
without mitigation or end." [31]
"I have read the Bible through many times, and now make it a practice to read it through
once every year. - It is a book of all others for lawyers, as well as divines; and I pity the
man who cannot find in it a rich supply of thought and of rules for conduct. It fits man for
life - it prepares him for death.
My brother knew the importance of Bible truths. The Bible led him to prayer, and prayer
was his communion with God. On the day he died he was engaged in an important cause
in the courts then in session. But this cause, important as it was, did not keep him from
his duty to God. He found time for prayer; for on his desk which he had just left was
found a prayer written by him on that day, which for fervent piety, a devotedness to his
heavenly Master, and for expressions of humility I think was never excelled." [32]

Noah Webster, American educator and scholar:

"The Bible is the chief moral cause of all that is good, and the best corrector of all that is
evil in human society; the best book for regulating the temporal concerns of men, and the
only book that can serve as an infallible guide to future felicity." [33]

[1] L.J. Capon, ed. The Adams-Jefferson Letters (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North
Carolina Press, 1959) 2:412.
[2] James L. Alden. Letters of John Quincy Adams to His Son on the Bible and Its
Teachings, 1850, 6-21.
[3] Worthington Chauncey Ford, ed. Writings of John Quincy Adams (NY: Longmans,
Green & Co., 1928), 103.
[4] Tryon Edwards. The New Dictionary of Thoughts - A Cyclopedia of Quotations
(Garden City, NY: Hanover House, 1852. The Standard Book Company, 1963), 48.
[5] New Dictionary of Thoughts, 45.
[6] New Dictionary of Thoughts, 47.
[7] Alfred Armand Montapert. Distilled Wisdom (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall,
1965), 36.
[8] The World Book Encyclopedia - 18 vols. (Chicago: Field Enterprises, Inc., 1957),
Vol. 3, 1550-1551.
[9] New Dictionary of Thoughts, 44.
[10] Henry H. Halley. Halley's Bible Handbook (Grand Rapids, MI: Regency Reference
Library, 1962), 18.
[11] Haley's Bible Handbook, 19.
[12] William Wirt. The Life and Character of Patrick Henry (Philadelphia: James
Webster, 1818), 402.
[13] Charles E. Jones. The Books You Read (Harrisburg, PA: Executive Books, 1985),
116.
[14] Haley's Bible Handbook, 19.
[15] Robert V. Remini. Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Freedom, 1822-
1832 (New York: Harper & Row, 1981), Vol. II, 443.
[16] Gabriel Sivan. The Bible and Civilization (New York: Quadrangle/The New York
Times Book Co., 1973), 178.
[17] Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Freedom, 519.
[18] George Pellew, American Statesman Series, 360.
[19] New Dictionary of Thought, 46.
[20] Haley's Bible Handbook, 19.
[21] Roy P. Basler, ed. The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 9 vols. (New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), 1:382.
[22] William Holmes McGuffey. McGuffey Eclectic Third Reader (Cincinnati: Winthrop
B. Smith & Co., 1848), 5.
[23] Henry M. Morris. Men of Science - Men of God (El Cajon, CA.: Master Books,
Creation Life Publishers, Inc., 1990), 47.
[24] New Dictionary of Thoughts, 47.
[25] Distilled Wisdom, 36.
[26] Haley's Bible Handbook, 18.
[27] New Dictionary of Thoughts, 49.
[28] 1844. Vidal v. Girard's Executors, 43 U.S. 205-206.
[29] Haley's Bible Handbook, 19.
[30] Haley's Bible Handbook, 18.
[31] "The Voices of America's Heritage," Torch (Dallas, TX: Texas Eagle Forum,
February 1994), vol. 1, no. 7, p. 4.
[32] New Dictionary of Thoughts, 49.
[33] Holy Bible with amendments in language by Noah Webster (New Haven: Durrie &
Peck & Co., 1833), preface.