THE BIBLE IS NOT ARRANGED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
By Guest Contributor LeighAnn Mycko
One of the most important things to understand when studying the Bible is that the books of Scripture are not preserved in chronological order, nor are all events recorded in the order they happened.
The Bible is arranged more by categories, such as:
• Law
• History
• Poetry
• Prophets
• Gospels
• Epistles
The order of the books does not always tell us the order of the events. It's the verses themselves that teach us the order that things happened, and that requires much thorough studying.
For example, the book of John comes after Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but that does not mean every event recorded in John happened after every event recorded in the other Gospels.
Likewise, the book of Acts contains events that happened over a period of time, but not every detail is recorded in the exact chronological order a person might assume simply by reading straight through.
This is why we must be careful to study all Scripture and compare Scripture with Scripture. A good example is the resurrection appearances of Christ. Some people say John was the last person to see the risen Lord because John's Gospel appears later in our Bibles. But the order of the books does not determine the order of the events.
The apostle Paul wrote:
"And LAST OF ALL he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time." ~ 1 Corinthians 15:8. Paul stresses that he is the final eyewitness to a bodily appearance of the resurrected Christ (which occurred on the road to Damascus). This closes the specific era of post-resurrection appearances that qualified someone to be an original Apostle. Paul's statement must be taken as truth, according as it is written.
The fact that John’s Gospel appears later in the Bible does not mean John's appearance happened after Paul's appearance of the risen Christ. Paul said he was the LAST one to see the risen Jesus, then we should believe that Paul was the last to see Jesus.
The same principle applies throughout Scripture
We cannot simply assume: "Because it is written later, it happened later."
We must rightly divide the word of truth and pay attention to:
• Who is speaking?
• Who is being spoken to?
• What time period is being addressed?
• What was God's purpose in that passage?
The Bible is not confusing when we follow God's instructions for studying it and use a concordance to get the correct definition of the Hebrew and Greek words before they were translated into English.
"Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." ~ 2 Timothy 2:15
The problem is not that God's word is unclear. The problem is that people often approach God's word without understanding how it is organized and assume the words they are reading mean the same as they did in the original languages. When we rightly divide, we allow every word of God to say exactly what it says and what it means.
For example, use Strong's Concordance to look up the definition of the words heaven, hell, Easter,
