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Hey, just a note … I absolutely love the responses I’ve been getting to Dwight’s crazy survey. Keep ’em coming!

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Long emails. Long posts. Who has time to read them? That’s why I’m switching to a daily cartoon.

Great artist, I am not. But hopefully I’ll give you something to think about, and if you want to talk, come to my Facebook group.

Want me to dive into a topic with a video or article? Just ask.

Finally, I’m introducing my crazy survey. Three questions. They help me.

Dwight

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Hi all

I know I’ve been out of touch for quite a while. Main reason: Kim and I moved out of the home where we raised our four kids, and into a home 45 minutes north of Madison.

Anyway, I have been working on a whole new format for these mailings. Planning to make them shorter, daily, and connected to my Facebook group: Friends of Author Dwight Clough. It will probably take me another couple weeks to get this fully going, but I wanted to let you know I haven’t forgotten about you.

Dwight

PS. Speaking of changes, I just posted an article about 12 paradigm shifts you really need to understand if you’re gonna make sense out of the Bible. You’ll find it here…

We evangelicals typically think of the gospel as the good news that our sins can be forgiven and we can be reconciled to God because of Jesus. Let me write it this way:

Problem: We have sinned.
Solution: Jesus.

This is good. This is important. But it’s only part of the gospel. There’s another part of the gospel that is also important. It goes like this:

Problem: We have been sinned against.
Solution: Jesus.

This was brought home to me as a young married man. I married a godly Christian woman. We wanted to please God, and expected to have a happy marrige. But both of us had been sinned against; we had sustained damage, and we brought that damage into our marriage. When the honeymoon was over, it felt like there was a “great gulf fixed” between the two of us.

When I got out my little Christian toolkit, I discovered that I didn’t have any tools to handle this. My gospel wasn’t big enough to handle the damage we had sustained. So I did what I suspect most Christians do: I pretended.

It took me a long time to find the rest of the gospel—the good news I had somehow missed along the way. I had to wait years to find the rest of the gospel. Decades in fact. I don’t want that to happen to you or to anyone else. That’s why I write the books I write, and, in particular, that’s why I wrote, What It Means to Follow Jesus. I just figure everybody deserves to know the whole gospel right from the start.

The Bible can be an intimidating book. Part of my mission in life is to help people enjoy and understand the Bible. But most people don’t know where to start. That’s why I’ve compiled below a list of 25 passages that I think every Christian should know.

If you were only going to read one book of the Bible, I would recommend Luke if you want to learn about God through story, or Romans if you want to learn about God through concepts and principles.

Of course, I strongly recommend that you read (or listen) to the entire Bible as soon as possible and as often as possible. But I DO NOT recommend that you start at Genesis and read straight through to Revelation. Here’s a link to a much better reading plan. It will get you through all 1,189 chapters of the Bible in a way that makes much more sense.

You can find the passages below online at Bible Gateway. If you’re new to the Bible, I recommend The Message or the New Living Translation. If you feel more at home with the Bible, then there are many other good choices like the NASB, NKJV, KJV, NIV, AMP, and others.

25 Essential Bible Readings

1. Jesus’ death and resurrection: Matthew 26-28, Mark 14-16, Luke 22-24, John 18-21 (Yes, the first two items on this list contain multiple chapters from more than one book, but I think it’s good to be familiar with all of them.)
2. Birth of Jesus: Matthew 1-2, Luke 1-2
3. Love chapter: 1 Corinthians 13
4. Faith chapter: Hebrews 11
5. Triumph chapter: Romans 8
6. Sermon on the Mount including the Lord’s prayer: Matthew 5-7
7. Ten Commandments: Exodus 20 (or Deuteronomy 5)
8. 23rd Psalm: Psalm 23
9. Born again: John 3
10. Jesus’ mission: Luke 4
11. Prodigal son: Luke 15
12. Creation and the fall: Genesis 1-3
13. Crossing the Red Sea: Exodus 14
14. David & Goliath: 1 Samuel 17
15. God’s benefits: Psalm 103
16. Final judgment and heaven: Revelation 20-22
17. Faith and works: James 2
18. Suffering: 1 Peter 4
19. Children of God: 1 John 3
20. Forgiving others: Matthew 18
21. Living sacrifices: Romans 12
22. Upper room discourse and prayer: John 14-17
23. Prayer of repentance: Psalm 51 (based on 2 Samuel 11-12)
24. Jesus predicts the future: Matthew 24-25, Mark 13, Luke 21
25. Return of Jesus: 1 Thessalonians 4-5

A few bonus readings:

• Conversion of Saul: Acts 9
• Daniel & the lions’ den: Daniel 6
• Lazarus raised from the dead: John 11
• Joshua & the battle of Jericho: Joshua 6
• Jonah: Jonah 1-4
• Noah’s flood: Genesis 6-9
• Elijah at Mount Carmel: 1 Kings 18
• Righteous living: Psalm 1
• Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53

Of course I’m leaving out hundreds of important passages, but I think if you read these, you would be off to a great start.

Other people would pick out different passages and their list might be great also. What passages do you think should be on this list and why?