About the Bible Tour blog

It is the conviction of the writer of this blog (see www.trevor-lloyd.co.uk) that the Bible is not primarily for academic study. It is meant to lead us into a greater experience of our new life in Christ, and a greater understanding of God’s eternal purpose, his divine plan for everything.

It assumes the divine authorship of the Bible - that it is inspired by God and is his infallible and authoritative Word to us. It also assumes that the Bible is a living Word, with the power to transform our life:

For the word of God is full of living power. It is sharper than the sharpest knife, cutting deep into our innermost thoughts and desiresHebrews 4:12 NLT

This is why, when it comes to providing background to what you will be reading, it does not focus so much on the historical or cultural background, on the human authors or questions about dates. It will rather try to draw out and highlight the recurring Spirit-inspired themes that give us insight into God’s truth. This will achieve two things:

  1. It will help us to understand, appreciate and experience the new life we have through our relationship with Christ by the Holy Spirit.
  2. It will give us a deeper and fuller understanding of God’s purpose - not just for us but for the whole world, for all things. It helps us to see the big picture.

It other words it will make us more aware of God’s plan of salvation - for our personal reconciliation to God, and also for the restoration of all things.

The Structure of the Bible Tour Blog

Each Sunday we will set out all the Daily Readings for that coming week. There will also be Weekly Postings at the same time. These will give you some background to what you are going to be reading that week, an overview of the main themes and some inspirational insights that will encourage you in your reading. There will be a posting for both the OT readings and the NT readings. There may be occasional mid-week postings also to help keep you going. There will also be the opportunity to leave comments or questions on these postings.

In what you read in the Bible, there will be lots of interesting details and things that are personally relevant to you - expect God to speak to you - but the aim of this blog is to help you get an overview of the whole landscape of the Bible. We will do this by drawing attention to key images, themes and seven main doctrines (see below). Each posting will be assigned to at least one of seven Categories that correspond with the seven key doctrines. If you then wanted to follow up what we said about each of the doctrines during the Bible Overview, you would simply have to click on the relevant category heading.

During the year, as we come to a new book of the Bible, we will provide a brief Book Background to it. These will be able to be accessed by clicking on the button at the top of the page. We will also provide some brief reviews on Recommended Books that will help you gain an overview of the Bible.

Other features will include links to other helpful sites like Bible Gateway and an option of reading the Bible directly from this site using the English Standard Version (ESV).

The Focus of the Bible Tour Blog

As indicated above, in order to help draw out some key themes in our Bible overview, we will draw your attention to three main areas:

1. Images

This is a neglected, yet very productive, area of Bible study. By following through how the Bible uses certain things - objects, places, people etc. - in a repeated pattern, we can gain great insights into what the Holy Spirit is saying to us through the Word of God. For example, if you were to do a study on the use of trees, you would gain helpful insights into the nature of the spiritual life. Images will be shown by the use of italics, such as: tree, garden, river, altar, path, well or spring, Egypt, shepherd etc.

2. Themes

Repeated images often give us insight into key themes that run throughout the Bible and are helpful for enabling us to understand what God is concerned about in terms of working out his eternal purpose. Understanding, for example, that the life of faith is a life of pilgrimage is vitally important. Key themes will be shown in bold italics, such as: worship, pilgrimage, building, battling, judgement etc.

3. Doctrines

By doctrines, we simply mean an area of biblical truth, and we will seek to focus on seven key ones in this Bible Overview. Of course, the Bible is all about Jesus, and so he features at the top of the list. The truth about the Kingdom of God, and of Covenant are also two key areas of truth that help us to get an overview of biblical teaching and the purpose of God. But the list (shown below) includes seven and they will be indicated by coloured italics, something like the following:

  1. Jesus
  2. Kingdom
  3. Covenant
  4. Church
  5. Faith
  6. Holy Spirit
  7. Salvation

You Need the Holy Spirit

The Bible Tour Blog is just an aid to help you read through the Bible in a year and get a sense of an overview of it. However, it is essential that you realise that the Bible is a living word through which God speaks to you. As you are reading through it, make sure you are asking the Holy Spirit to give you insight. Every time you read it, pray the same prayer as the Psalmist who prayed:

Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.Psalm 119:18 NIV