Living Letters – Chapter 7 – The Bible (September 13

, 2026)

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Review

In the previous lesson, we examined discipleship. Other believers invested in our faith, and we now have a responsibility to help others follow Christ.

What role does the Bible play in our Christian legacy?

The Bible teaches us what to believe and how to live. It tells us who God is, why we are sinners, what Jesus did through His death and resurrection, and how we can be saved.

The Bible has been part of every lesson in this series. It taught us the meaning of salvation and baptism. It showed us what should change after we are saved. It gives us the gospel we include in our salvation story. It teaches us how to serve through the church, how to use what God has given us, and how to disciple others.

Someone used the Bible to teach these truths to us. We must know the Bible well enough to teach the same truths clearly and correctly to those who follow us.

 

LESSON FOCUS God has preserved His Word so every generation can hear it, understand it, and obey it.

 

Moses Discipled the Nation with the Scriptures

The book of Deuteronomy records the final period of Moses’ leadership. Israel had spent forty years in the wilderness and was camped east of the Jordan River, preparing to enter Canaan. Moses had led the people out of Egypt, received God’s law at Sinai, judged their disputes, and taught them how to live as God’s people.

Moses would soon die, and Joshua would lead Israel into the promised land. God’s enduring Word would continue guiding the nation from one generation to the next.

Moses told the people:

Deuteronomy 6:6–7 — And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

 

God’s words were to be in their hearts. They were to know them, value them, and live by them. They were then to teach those words diligently to their children.

God intended parents to teach His commands as part of daily life. Sitting at home, traveling, ending the day, and beginning the next describe the whole course of the day. As children watched their parents make decisions and respond to different situations, they were to hear how God’s law guided them. In this way, the next generation would learn God’s commands and see how those commands governed real life.

Before his death, Moses prepared Israel to continue learning God’s Word. He entrusted the written law to the priests and elders and commanded them to read it publicly at the Feast of Tabernacles every seventh year.

Deuteronomy 31:12–13 — Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the LORD your God, and observe to do all the words of this law: And that their children, which have not known any thing, may hear, and learn to fear the LORD your God.

 

This gathering provided regular discipleship for the whole nation. Adults were reminded of God’s commands. Children learned who God was and how His people were to live. Strangers living among Israel received that teaching as well. Together they heard God’s Word, learned from it, grew in the fear of the Lord, and were taught to obey Him.

Moses discipled Israel with the Scriptures, and that work continued after his death. A Christian legacy does the same. God’s Word continues teaching and guiding people after those who first taught it are gone.

A Generation Grew Up Without Knowing the Lord

After Moses died, Joshua led Israel across the Jordan and into Canaan. Joshua and the elders of his generation saw God stop the Jordan River, bring down the walls of Jericho, and give Israel the land He had promised.

Judges 2:7 — And the people served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the LORD, that he did for Israel.

 

After Joshua and those elders died, another generation arose.

Judges 2:10–12 — And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim: And they forsook the LORD God of their fathers.

 

To “know the LORD” meant recognizing Him as Israel’s God, trusting what He had revealed, worshiping Him, and living under His commands. The worship of Baalim—the false gods of the people around them—showed where this generation had placed its faith and allegiance.

This began the repeated pattern found throughout Judges. Israel turned to idols, God brought judgment, the people cried out for help, and God raised up a judge to deliver them.

The generation after Joshua had not received the knowledge of God that guided Joshua and the elders. Their idolatry shows what happened when God’s truth no longer directed the life of the nation.

Josiah Brought God’s Word Back Before the Nation

After the period of the judges, Israel became a kingdom. The kingdom later divided, and Judah became the southern kingdom with Jerusalem as its capital. Many of Judah’s kings led the people away from God.

Josiah became king after the idolatrous reigns of his grandfather Manasseh and his father Amon. False worship had spread throughout Judah, and the temple had been neglected.

In the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign, he ordered workers to repair the temple. During the work, Hilkiah the high priest found the book of the law.

2 Kings 22:8 — And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD.

 

Shaphan carried the book to Josiah and read it to him.

2 Kings 22:11 — And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law, that he rent his clothes.

 

Tearing his clothes expressed Josiah’s grief and humility. God’s law showed him how far Judah had departed from God and how serious their guilt was. Josiah sent men to inquire of the Lord and learn how the nation should respond.

Josiah then gathered Judah’s leaders and people at the temple and read God’s Word to them. He renewed the covenant before the Lord and led the people to do the same. He removed idols, destroyed places of false worship, ended sinful practices, and restored the Passover according to God’s commands.

God’s Word corrected Josiah, exposed Judah’s sin, and directed the nation’s response. Josiah placed the law before the people and led them to repent, remove false worship, and obey what God had commanded.

Ezra Taught the People to Understand God’s Word

After Josiah died, later kings again led Judah into sin. Babylon eventually conquered Jerusalem, burned the temple, and carried many of the people into captivity.

Years later, groups of Jewish people returned to Jerusalem and rebuilt the temple. Ezra came to Jerusalem to teach God’s law to the returned people.

Ezra 7:10 — For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the LORD, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments.

 

Ezra followed a clear order. He studied God’s law, obeyed it in his own life, and then taught it to Israel. He lived under the authority of the Word he taught.

Years later, Nehemiah led the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls. After the walls were completed, the people gathered near the Water Gate and asked Ezra to bring out the book of the law.

Ezra read from morning until midday. Men, women, and everyone old enough to understand listened. The Levites helped the people follow what was being read.

Nehemiah 8:8 — So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.

 

The Levites explained the law so the people could understand what God had said and respond to Him. Their work shows an important part of discipleship: faithful teachers make Scripture understandable and help people live by it.

Philip Used Scripture to Preach Jesus

Ezra shows the importance of helping people understand Scripture. Acts 8 shows how Scripture leads people to Jesus Christ.

Centuries after Ezra, an Ethiopian official traveled to Jerusalem to worship. As he returned home, he read from Isaiah 53. The passage described someone who suffered silently and was led like a sheep to the slaughter.

God sent Philip to meet him. Philip heard the man reading and asked, “Understandest thou what thou readest?” The Ethiopian answered, “How can I, except some man should guide me?” He then asked Philip whom Isaiah was describing.

Acts 8:35 — Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus.

 

Philip explained how Isaiah’s words pointed to Jesus Christ. The Ethiopian heard the gospel, believed, and asked to be baptized. Philip then baptized him.

This connects with Chapter 1. Someone used Scripture to teach us about our sin, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, repentance, faith, and baptism. As we disciple others, we follow Philip’s example by opening God’s Word, explaining its meaning, and showing how it points to Christ.

Mary Jones Received a Bible of Her Own

The history of Scripture continued through people who copied, translated, printed, and distributed the Bible. Their labor brought God’s Word within reach of ordinary people in languages they could understand.

In 1800, Mary Jones was a fifteen-year-old girl living in Wales. Her family was poor, and she did not own a Bible. According to the Bible Society’s historical account, Mary walked about two miles each week to a farmhouse where she could read a Welsh Bible.

Mary saved money for six years so she could purchase a Bible of her own. She then walked approximately twenty-six miles to Bala, where the minister Thomas Charles supplied her with a Bible.

Mary’s experience represented a wider need. Many Welsh people desired Bibles they could read and afford. Thomas Charles brought that need before other Christians. In 1804, he and others helped organize the British and Foreign Bible Society to distribute affordable Bibles in Wales and beyond.

Mary later supported that work herself. In 1854, fifty years after the Society was founded, she contributed to a campaign that sought to send one million New Testaments to China. The girl who once traveled for access to one Bible later helped extend access to people in another part of the world.

Our Access to Scripture Today

Bibles were difficult for Mary Jones and many people of her time to obtain. Today, printed Bibles are widely available in the United States. Scripture can also be read or heard on phones, tablets, and computers. Many Christians own several copies.

The 2026 State of the Bible report shows how Americans use that access. Seventeen percent of Americans surveyed said they had read the entire Bible. Altogether, 50 percent said they had read at least half of the Bible.

Among people who followed a Bible-reading plan, 74 percent said they had read most or all of the Bible. People who regularly engaged with Scripture were also more likely to read complete chapters, keep Bible reading in their schedule, and participate in a Bible study. These habits help readers work through entire books, follow the writer’s thought, and understand passages in context. Printed, digital, and audio Bibles give us several practical ways to read and hear Scripture consistently.

The Bible in a Christian Legacy

Generations of people preserved, translated, and printed the Bible, and faithful Christians used it to teach us. Through Scripture, we learned the gospel and how to follow Christ. God’s Word shaped the beginning of our Christian lives and continues to guide our beliefs and conduct.

We now use that Word to disciple others. We help people read Scripture in context, understand what God has said, obey Him, and become able to teach His Word faithfully. This is how biblical truth continues from one generation to the next.

Coming Up

God speaks to us through His written Word. In the next chapter, we will examine prayer—how believers speak to God, depend upon Him, and bring the needs of others before Him.