Where should I start in the Bible?



I am a 13 year old Christian. I thought I was a true Christian because I believed in God, heard the stories, and went to Church. Then I read a book that describes a 13 year old, 7th grader named Ashley (uhh... that's me EXCACTLY!!) that is in the same situation as me. I had a service at church today and...
Congratulations dear for making a mature decision. Yes, studying God's Word is for your everlasting good! Today, it will protect you from harm coming from an ungodly world. It will teach you Godly wisdom which is practical for our day. You will never regret studying the Holy Scriptures and then dedicating your life to your Maker (Revelation 4.11)   

  

It is best to start with the Gospels of Matthew,Mark, Luke and John. It will relate to you Jesus Christ's life and ministry. Pay special attention to his Sermon on the Mount recorded at Matthew chaps 5-7 and Luke chap 6. It summarizes Jesus' message about how to live a Christian life, how to determine the right religion, the secrets of happiness and the wisdom of obedience.   

  

Luke chapter 15 is a "must read" chapter. It will develop in you a deep love for God and His qualities. After reading it anyone will feel happy he has a God like the God of the Bible, Jehovah.   

  

After the 4 Gospels, read Acts (of the Apostles). You will know how Jesus' disciples carried on the preaching of the Good News of the kingdom of God after the death of Christ.   

You will gain spiritual strength knowing that Jesus is always leading the work of evangelizers and protecting those who lovingly carry on the assignment he gave to Christians.   

  

Continue with reading the letters of Apostle Paul to Christian congregations in Rome (Italy), Corinth (Greece), in Asia Minor (Galatia, Ephesus, Colossae, ), in Macedonia (Philippi and Thessalonica), and to the Jews (Hebrews), to Timothy, Titus and Philemon.   

  

Then learn from the forceful letter of James about Christian living, the letter of Jude, Peter and John to all Christians.   

  

I would reserve the book of Revelation for last. Skip to the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) from Genesis to Malachi.   

  

After this, you will be ready to understand Revelation. Review Daniel, Isaiah and Genesis before taking up Revelation.   

  

 You will then understand God's sacred secrets that the world in general does not comprehend--what will happen in the last days until the end of 1000-year reign of the Christ, God's government by Christ and the chosen ones, His eternal purpose for mankind, what is the cause of human sufferings and how God will remove all causes of sufferings.   

  

You will be happy to see a glimpse of the "real life", everlasting life under God's perfect blessings!   

  

Take your time. Go for quality than quantity reading. The Bible has 1189 chapters. If you can read 3 to 4 chapters of the Bible every day you will finish reading it in 1 year.   

  

Don't forget to pray for God's holy spirit for guidance before reading. Clear your mind of previous notions (like man's traditions and values) and understand the Word of God as written. Think about what you have read after each reading.   

  

 Ask your self: What does this tell me about God? How can i benefit from what i have read? How can i use this information to help others?   

  

May God richly bless your efforts to really find Him and make His hearth rejoice by worshiping Him according to His truth, the way of worship that he approves. (John 4.23; Proverbs 27.11)   

  

EDIT: Feel free to email me for more queries. Will be more than glad to try to help you the best i could. Agape love.
A.Thank you for writing. I’m sure this is hard to live with. I think you keep having the fantasies because at some point they worked for you. You are a sensitive young woman who has a strong moral compass.

In 7th grade, you knew you had done something wrong and earned the reprimand. But, being you, you couldn’t let it go. You felt so bad about it that you went over it and over it. Crying may have relieved some of the intense feelings of shame and perhaps anger that went with thinking about what happened. If it had stopped there, it would have been an unfortunate reaction to a very usual piece of mischief that kids do.

But being as concerned as you are with right and wrong, any time since then that you have felt accused or reprimanded, it has reminded you of that first time when you were not only wrong but humiliated for it. Your unconscious self then also remembered that crying gave you some relief.

I suspect the “lesson” generalized and you started to cry any time you needed relief from stress. Stress just comes with being a teen so there was probably reason to look for some relief every day. But then you end up feeling bad that you feel bad. That must feel terrible!

Unfortunately, your reaction has become a kind of bad habit. Having practiced it for years, feeling sick or crying is an automatic response to stress.

You need some new ways to handle stress and shame. Maybe you can figure it out yourself but you would probably benefit from seeing a therapist who could give you some new tools and help you practice them. I hope you will consider seeing a licensed therapist to help you with this so you can go forward into adult life with less distressing ways for relieving anxieties and stress.

I wish you well

Dr. Marie

Why Do I Have Abusive Thoughts? relax. that's not pedophilia. pedophilia is a sexual attraction to children- not minors, children. prepubescents. someone who's 17 is definitely no longer a child; in almost all the us, they're above the age of consent. barring some rare and very specific medical problems, they are a full sexual being. now, you may feel he's still too young, and that's fine, but think back to when you were seventeen- you had sexual urges and feelings, didn't you? why would it be any different for him? let the fear go. he's an attractive young man, and your a health young woman; the appeal is natural. in this regard, you are perfectly normal.morally, there is nothing wrong with pedophilia; it's just a feeling. you do not control your feelings, but you do control your actions. it is the action- child molestation- that is reprehensible. not the attraction. it does not harm a person in any way to have others be attracted to them. having sex is a different matter, but you realize that it would be a bad idea in this case, so you don't do it. wow marlboro! yikes! ouch! even though i&#39;ve been working with queer issues for many years i am still struck by what you&#39;ve told us. it is a very sad reflection on our society, where same-sex marriage is legal, that parents can throw gay youth out of their homes. ignorance and prejudice run very deep.<br><br>what are your ages?<br> I'm seriously looking at covenanting for life to look after and be looked after a faith-based international communal fellowship of Bible-believing people. They live like this to follow the original Way that the first believers in the Son of God lived instead of what became of this Way as it was replaced by elements of other religions and cultures. They only consider marrying the other people in the group who have also covenanted never to leave nor forsake each other the way the Son of God implemented when He told His Disciples He would never leave nor forsake them and to Love each other as He had Loved them. You can check them out here, if you want to:  
  
twelvetribes dot org faith and religion are closely related to another, but there are many differences between them. one of those differences is how they are carried out. religion is more strict and structured than faith is. an example is christianity. this is a the book of the city of ladies by christine de pizan part i: chapters 1-28 (pgs. 5-58) o christine is in her study; becomes upset with men’s portrayal of women in their works o begins to think they are correct because they are well- educated and they have similar opinions about women o (p 7) calls out to god and asks how he could create something not good (women) and why she couldn’t be born a man o three virtuous ladies appear to try and bring christine back from her sad thoughts o lady reason, lady rectitude and lady justice o the ladies tell christine that she is going to build a city for women  they come to remind her that she is intelligent and equip her with what sh i would say they are a blessing cause it led me to the man i am with now. i started out on online dating really young. my parents were very strict no boyfriend until i am 18.. everyone at school had boyfriends and teased me cause i didn't so i went online and found a guy in indiana and dated him online from the time i was 16 to 18.. he came met me and my parents then i went to meet his parents and thats when i got the concussion that turned my life upside down.. when i was told i would never walk again (so thankful to god that turned out to be false) not even a week later he was gone and good riddance too! when i was 21 i moved to a new area and i grew up very sheltered so i had no idea what i was doing. i was going to be going to college soon after meeting 5 guys dylan, ryan, donald, justin and antonio.. dylan was the only one that understood it was just companionship i was wanting.. the rest wanted to sleep with me. had on my profile getting ready to go into my first year of college would like a loving, caring, thoughtful man by my side but hed have to know college will be my focus for these two years then we have the rest of our lives. but i realized that was too much to ask. went on many one meal dates after i was done college cameron, josh, matt, sean, scott, ben, will, andrew, curtis, trevor. nothing came of them all great guys just not great for me. tried to see dylan again but he wasn't interested he was more depressed couldnt shake him of it.. then i met david he was everything i wanted in his speech but he turned out to just be a fine talker and his actions didn't line up.. so it was hard to get rid of him dated a month took 2 to get in his head i wasn't interested.. then my parents and friends kept trying to set me up. so i thought if i dated someone farther away probably better so i dated jean-francois well i got a surprise im here message one saturday and he was great just when i went to his place i didn't feel at home he had no interest in moving here and i didn't want to move there he kept trying to pressure me to so i lied to him said i wanted my roommate since he kept on thinking we were involved but no taylor was like a big brother to me.. he wanted me to get a new place nothing ever made him happy technology wise if a new thing came out he had to have it making fun of my a5 phone yes its old but it still works :) so i felt almost not good enough for him.. then i dated another david online i never got the opportunity to meet i would really like to meet! he is absolutely amazing i think but after being misled before i didn't want to risk moving. then decided well fuck i must be the problem guys in person wanted to date me but if we dont agree on fundamentals there's no future! a guy online you can discuss these things better to ask what they are looking for then answer that question cause you could get played. so i took 6 months to myself avoided all family functions.. i prayed every day god would lead me to my husband.. i only dated guys i could see myself married to or if they convinced me they deserved a shot. i didn't ever want to date just to date. i wanted the next guy i dated to be my husband and we met on okcupid and was on the app less than a week when i met him felt like i always knew him and i just knew this is it and a year and 9 months still going strong. so as long as your prepared for things to not go as you expect your fine.. the guys i dated online were 100x better than the guy i dated that was a customer at my work. online your safer behind a screen and you meet in a public place after one meal you should have a good feeler on the person. its easier to say i think your a great person but i dont think wed be a great match because... i wish you the best of luck.. hope you find what your looking for.. they usually say thanks you too! friends or associates you already know in person are more stubborn and take things more personally when you dont think they are your type. @a myfibroteam member 

how nice of you to say that. i, like many others, have asked god why? why am i the one who has this painful, incurable illness? why am i the one with major depressive disorder? why am i the one that was sexually assaulted so many times? why am i the one who has had to take care of my sister’s children, help them pay for their educations, and support them as they navigate the waters of this crazy world we live in? why me? i made a conscious decision a few years ago, when my lifelong emotional scares got out of control, that i would make one of the answers to those questions be “to help others navigate through this thing called life”. if i can help just one person feel less alone, or like someone cares, or like there is hope after all i will have succeed at life. if i can help just one person fight back instead of giving in my life has a purpose. as a result, this normally very private person has gradually learned to be very open. i am not ashamed of the things that happened...disappointed or angry yes but not ashamed. i talk openly about how major depressive disorder has affected my life and how i’ve been able to come to terms with it. i talk openly about close brushes with suicide and what worked to get me back to a better place mentally. i talk a little less openly about the impact sexual assault had on every aspect of my life (that one is harder because i’m still working on some of the emotions and reactions around it). i talk openly about the changes i’m having to make as fibromyalgia makes itself more and more obvious in me. i’m not perfect. i still get angry and upset. i still get frustrated. i still feel hopeless sometimes. i feel all the negative emotions everyone else does but if i can help just one person, i will have a reason for all i’ve gone through. perhaps people on this site are that reason. it is my deepest hope that others don’t have to suffer as i have but, if they have, i want to use my god-given caregiver heart to help them through. 

may god bless and keep you. 

shirley i believe in helping on smaller scales rather than the world at large. it seems to me thst it's the best way make sure you help accordingly and appropriately. i can give the example of wildlife conservation. the way an issue is tackled in one country may not help much in another; the same can be said between regions in the same country. for that you need to analyze the problem in a particular area, with its own conditions and circumstances."helping the world" sounds too large and, in my mind, would be too easy to create one formula and try to apply that everywhere.i believe in helping in your direct environment - family, circle of friends, neighborhood, community - rather than the world at large. you know or would know your immediate environment better than the rest of the world. hi lg, <br>it&#39;ll be interesting to see ( after the weekend, when most readers will be back ) what other people think of the situation you describe. it sounds as if your parents probably are a bit too strict, but with all they hear and see of the dangers of the world today, one can understand their fears  and its even worse when parents don&#39;t care at all. sometimes they may seem to be hypocritical, when they&#39;re actually trying to get you to avoid mistakes they made. your sister sounds immature and spiteful. what would they think if you said you wanted to see a shrink or counsellor to work on the problems they have identified in your behaviour ? ( that way, it makes it harder for them to object  and indeed these diferent perceptions of what is a "problem") ought to be part of what you&#39;d discuss with a counsellor. be cautious about your overdose idea  apart from the obvious dangers to yourself, it&#39;d surely also give them much sronger grounds for being even stricter, which is the exact opposite of what you want to achieve.