Reader's Guide to the New Testament

<p class=ql-align-justify><em style=color: rgba(5 5 5 1)>The Blue-Collar Bible Scholar's Reader's Guide to the New Testament </em><span style=color: rgba(5 5 5 1)>is the culmination of what Joel Edmund Anderson has taught in his Bible classes at both the high school level and college level over the past 25 years of teaching. As the title suggests it really is a reader's guide to help anyone understand what they're reading in the New Testament.</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(5 5 5 1)>Most Bible commentaries simply are not aimed at the average sincere Christian who simply wants to make sense of what he/she is reading. Scholarly works are aimed at scholars that not only tend to focus solely on historical-critical questions and issues but often fail to read any given biblical book as a unified literary whole. Simply put most scholarly works on the Bible give a heavy dose of historical archeological and textual information </span><em style=color: rgba(5 5 5 1)>about the biblical text</em><span style=color: rgba(5 5 5 1)> but they make very little effort </span><em style=color: rgba(5 5 5 1)>to actually read the biblical text and help the reader understand it</em><span style=color: rgba(5 5 5 1)>. </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(5 5 5 1)>This is where the </span><em style=color: rgba(5 5 5 1)>BCBS Reader's Guide to the New Testament </em><span style=color: rgba(5 5 5 1)>is different. To be sure Anderson gives enough historical background both of the New Testament world and each individual New Testament book so that the reader can get a grasp of the general time period but his ultimate focus is to help the reader understand the biblical text itself. </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(5 5 5 1)>He does this by doing a number of things with each New Testament book:</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(5 5 5 1)>1. He provides a brief explanation of the time of writing and authorship of each book as is generally accepted in both biblical scholarship and Church Tradition.</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(5 5 5 1)>2. He provides a Big Things to Know section that highlights the major themes and literary imagery in each New Testament book. This essentially is a heads up to the reader to look out for these themes and images as he/she reads any given New Testament book.</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(5 5 5 1)>3. He provides a Story Chart or Literary Map of each New Testament book that gives the reader a visual of the overall flow of each New Testament book. This is extremely helpful in that it helps the reader (a) follow the storyline in books like the Gospels and Acts and (b) trace the argument that is being made in each New Testament letter.</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(5 5 5 1)>4. He then provides a walkthrough of each New Testament book passage by passage helping the reader understand how each New Testament book fits together as a coherent whole. </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(5 5 5 1)>5. Finally in the corresponding </span><em style=color: rgba(5 5 5 1)>BCBS Reader's Guide to the New Testament Workbook</em><span style=color: rgba(5 5 5 1)> Anderson provides study/discussion questions for the reader as he/she reads through each book in the New Testament. The workbook can be used in individual study a Sunday School or Bible Study small group or a high school Bible class.</span></p>