What is one book of the Bible you often return to, and why?

I tend to have favorite chapters more than favorite books.

• Romans 8
• Luke 10
• Genesis 3
• Nehemiah 8 (and 9!)
• Several portions of Isaiah

But there are some books that cycle back repeatedly…

• 1 Peter
• Romans
• Philippians
• Galatians
• Ecclesiastes
• Proverbs
• Psalms

I can’t really settle on one… but I’m pretty obsessed with 1 Peter right now.

As for “why,” that would get long. Romans 8 has so much packed into it for understanding the brokenness of the world, the standing of those in Christ, the future, the Holy Spirit. Luke 10 not only has the Good Samaritan, but Jesus’ conversation with Martha, a great sending, some judgment and woe, and a prayer of Jesus to the Father.

You could preach a whole sermon series just on Luke 10.

For books… Romans: well, the gospel and so much more related to it. 1 Peter: living the life in times like ours. Philippians… emotions. Galatians: relating law and gospel. Ecclesiastes: realism about life ‘under the sun.’ Proverbs: living well. Psalms: the centrality of God in heart and mind.

I am in love with the Gospels, because they serve as such a bulwark to reveal the real Jesus and disabuse us of our own cultural presuppositions. "Nope, that's not how Jesus did it...."

I often go to the Psalms. I love how the writers are so honest with their feelings and even question what God is doing, but still express their trust in God. There is so much in life that I do not understand and cannot come to grips with, but I know that even when I do not understand the "whys" I can still trust God. The freedom to honestly question God and to admit that I am frustrated, but still trusting, has helped me to live a fairly low stress life.

Like Aaron, Ecclesiastes is definitely on my list. The problems the author speaks of seem very like those of today. People want to try everything to fill up their empty lives, but anything they try apart from God ends up just making them more empty. The wisdom in that book is often quite helpful to me in many areas of life. When we homeschooled our kids for 7th-12th grades, I chose Ecc. 7:12 as the school verse:

“For wisdom is a defence, and money is a defence: but the excellency of knowledge is, that wisdom giveth life to them that have it.” (KJV).

Some of my favorites are:

John- Amazing Christology.

Galatians-I love the biographical stuff about Paul as well as the clarity about the gospel.

1 Peter- preaching through it but I have always read it often.

1 Samuel-Incredible examples of obedience and selfishness. The sovereignty of God is on grand display.

I, of course, am not a preacher, but I do teach adult SS on a regular basis and take that task very seriously. I'm still picking new texts, passages, and books to teach through, so I really haven't "returned" to anything unless I need to teach on something without much notice. We do occasionally have "Bible Institute" classes on Sunday nights and when I have taught those, I normally do a repeat series on a particular topic, like How we got our Bibles, or apologetics, or Trinity or what not.

The books that I have especially enjoyed and would like to do again someday would be Romans, Zechariah, portions of Isaiah, and Judges.

Because I am teaching an adult SS class right now at my church, I am immersed in the Latter Prophets.

In the last 12 years, Psalms and Revelation are the two books that I have read over and over and studied intensely the most because I have been focused on studying what the Bible teaches about acceptable music for corporate worship and have sought to saturate my mind with God's own thoughts about that subject.



Prior to that, Acts was a major focus for many years, including being the central book for key passages for my dissertation.