1.History: The four Gospels plus the Acts are five books on history. The four Gospels cover the experiences of the Lord Jesus on earth together with the experiences of His disciples in following Him. The Acts shows us how the disciples testified for the Lord everywhere they went. These five books are all on historical facts.
2.Experience: These are the twenty-one Epistles from Romans to Jude. These twenty-one books speak of the Christian experiences. The Gospels and Acts show us what Christ and the Christians encountered. They show us their activities, their moves, and their works. The twenty-one Epistles explain to us the inward spiritual experiences of Christians.
3.Prophecy: There is only one book, the book of Revelation.
Whether it is the Old Testament or the New Testament, they both begin with the history, then proceed to tell of the experiences, and end with the prophecies. For the individual Christians, the order is the same. First, we have our history before the Lord. Next, we develop some spiritual experiences during the course of the history, and then there is the hope and the anticipation for the future. The Old Testament recounted much history and many spiritual experiences; then at the end, it spoke of the saints being filled with hope and anticipation of the coming of Christ. The New Testament is written the same way. There are many facts and experiences, and then at the end, there is an expectation and a hope, which is the return of the Lord Jesus. No Christian can avoid these three steps. There are the history, the experiences, and the expectation.
The Old Testament was originally in the hands of the Jews. Some teachers among them were authoritative Bible expositors. The Jews called them rabbis. The word rabbi means teacher. In the ancient time, the subdivision of the Old Testament among the rabbis was like what the Lord Jesus said in Luke 24:44. In other words, the Lord’s word in Luke 24:44 was based on the subdivision of the Old Testament into three categories by the rabbis.
These refer to the Pentateuch. Sometimes the Jews abbreviated the Pentateuch as Moses. When the Jews mention Moses, sometimes they are not referring to the person Moses, but to the five books of the Law written by him. These five books are sometimes simply called the Law. When the Jews refer to the Law, they mean the Pentateuch. Therefore, among the Christians and the Jews, there are five different ways of referring to the first five books of the Old Testament. They are referred to as the Pentateuch of Moses, as the Pentateuch, as the Law of Moses, as the Law, and as Moses.
1.The Former Prophets: There are four books. The first one is Joshua. The Jews treat the book of Joshua as one of the books of the prophets, instead of as history as we see it. The second book is Judges, which is also treated as a book of the prophets. The third book is Samuel. First and 2 Samuel were one book in the original Hebrew Bible. There was no distinction of 1 and 2, and it was called the book of Samuel. The fourth book is Kings. First and 2 Kings were also one book in the Hebrew Old Testament, having no distinction between 1 and 2 either.
Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles were divided up into first and second books in the Septuagint when the Old Testament was translated, because these books were too long and it was not convenient to roll them up into one sheepskin. In the original Hebrew Old Testament, these books were together as entire books without the distinctions of first and second books.
The Jewish rabbis call these four books, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, the Former Prophets.
2.The Latter Prophets: There are also four books, which are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the minor prophets. The minor prophets mentioned here include the twelve books which the Jewish rabbis take as one.
Historically, the order of the minor prophets is not always the same. Sometimes they place this one at the front, and sometimes they place another one at the front. The usual order is as follows: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zachariah, and Malachi. This is the usual order of these twelve books. Sometimes the order is changed slightly. The Jewish rabbis treat the books after the Pentateuch generally as the books of the prophets, with the four books of the earlier period and four books of the later period totaling eight altogether.
These include Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah, 1 and 2 Chronicles, totaling eleven books. The Jews consider Ezra and Nehemiah as one book and 1 and 2 Chronicles as one book. These eleven books plus the eight books of the prophets add up to nineteen books. With the five books of the Law of Moses, there are altogether twenty-four books. The ancient church fathers combined these into twenty-two books to match the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. This is why during the first, second, and third centuries they were called the twenty-two books of the Old Testament. Josephus, who was the most authoritative historian among the Jews, also called these the twenty-two books of the Old Testament when he spoke of it.
Our Lord Jesus also had a way of subdividing the Old Testament. This is mentioned in Luke 24:44. This way is very similar to that of the Jewish rabbis; there is not much difference between the two. He also divided it into three categories:
A.The Law of Moses: the first five books of the Old Testament.
B.The Prophets: including the history books.
C.The Psalms: including the Song of Songs.
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