The
new testament is the second half of the collection of
books known
as the Bible. This half of the Bible contains 27 individual books
within it,
written by various authors, all written after the time of
Jesus of Nazareth. There are several different kinds of books in
this collection, written for various purposes.
The first four books of the new testament are known as the
gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John make up this
collection. These books tell about the life and
times of Jesus,
known as the Christ. Each book
tells the story from a slightly
different perspective, based on the author's writing style and
background knowledge and biases. These books were written to give
a detailed account of the Christ - how he was born, how he lived, how
he died, and what his purpose was - and so that people who had not hear
this gospel news that these men were spreading would be able to read an
account of it for themselves.
These books are followed by Acts, which is basically a book telling
about the activities of the early
church. Its longer name is Acts
of the apostles. It tells how probably the most famous apostle,
Paul, got his start in the gospel after being struck blind by a vision
of Christ on Paul's (then Saul) way to kill some Christians. This
book tells how and why the new church spread throughout the known
world, and how the gospel was preached.
The next chunk of books are known as the epistles. These books
were mostly written by Paul, though there are a few that weren't.
They were letters written to various churches or people, offering
encouragement, support, prayers, love, and even rebuke when
needed. Most of Paul's epistles start with a friendly, loving,
prayful greeting to the church, and then get right down to the heart of
why he was writing.
The last book in the new testament is called Revelations. This
book, written by John, is a book of prophesy about the end times of the
world and the church. John was stranded, as a punishment dealt
out by the government, on a desert island known as Patmos, and he wrote
this book then. He was shown many visions by God of what these
end times were to be like, and recorded them all in this book.
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