The following explanation (the Preface from the book itself) should whet your appetite for wanting to use the book for your own study of the Bible. It can be ordered on the order form of this web site.
THE PURPOSE DRIVEN BOOK
Introduction to
Purposes of Scripture in your Life
by Gene Madeira
THE PURPOSES OF SCRIPTURE
God does everything with a purpose. If He chooses to call His children to suffering and self‑sacrifice, He has important purposes to achieve through them. Hence, it is the duty of the children to obey their Father even if they do not understand the purpose behind the Father's command. But the Father wants His children to understand Him because He wants them to develop a mind like His. Therefore, He has revealed His mind, His purposes, and His methods to His children in His written Word.
God created us with very definite needs. He knows us better than we know ourselves. The Bible is God's owner's manual for the crowning glory of His creation ‑ man and woman. The Bible reveals how God views our needs. This book is an attempt to define our needs the way God sees them. It is drawn from the Bible as a whole, looking at each section of the Bible, and then at each book of the Bible. This book represents a lifetime of study of God's Word in which the writer has fulfilled an ambition he formulated in Dr. McQuilkin's Hermeneutics class ‑ to study the Bible from the whole to the parts. He did this by asking the question, "What was God doing when the Holy Spirit led in the writing of this book? By defining the purpose of each of the sixty‑six books of the Bible inductively, the author has deduced our needs as follows:
• RECONCILIATION ‑ by reading the Pentateuch
• WHOLENESS ‑ by reading the Gospel
• WORTHINESS ‑ by reading Paul's early missionary letters
• PERSEVERANCE ‑ by reading the Psalms and writings
• MATURITY ‑ by reading Paul's prison epistles
• EFFECTIVENESS ‑ by reading the General epistles
• SERVICE ‑ by reading Paul's pastoral epistles
• LEADERSHIP TRAINING ‑ by reading the former prophets
• SAFEGUARDING FREEDOM ‑ by reading the prophets of Israel's decline
• SURVIVAL ‑ by reading the prophets of Israel's captivity.
• SPIRITUAL RENEWAL ‑ by reading the prophets / books of Israel's return
• HOPE FOR JUSTICE ‑ by reading Jonah, Esther, Obadiah, Nahum, Daniel and Revelation
THE TRANSFORMING WORD
The Word of God has the power to refresh and renew us spiritually, emotionally and intellectually. However, if the Scriptures are neglected, we end up malnourished. An article in "Moody," (Sept/Oct 2001 (Vol. 102, No 1) explains the reason why believers are not behaving as Christian is that they do not know the Word.
In this article George Barna is quoted as saying, Christianity is having a minimal influence on thoughts, words and deeds of people under the age of 40. According to Greg Laurie, the reason is, "The church is pushing spiritual junk food." The solution he recommends? "Bible students must deeply explore the Word. One way to start is the inductive method. Self‑study requires the study of Bible contexts and entire passages as opposed to picking out single verses for proof texts."
This book will help those wanting to try the inductive method to know how. It provides the seven key steps involved in reading and observing the Word of God. That is why I recommend we approach the Bible as a whole. It allows us to see God's purpose in each section, and each book. I found when working in adult education, that students dropped out of school if we did not meet their needs. I suspect therefore that many young people stop reading the Bible because it is such a complicated book they don't know how or where to begin. The Bible is a library of 66 books, each one with a different purpose. My reason for writing this guide was to help Bible students and readers of the Word find the right book according to their needs. I found as a young Christian that I was not ready for Jeremiah or Lamentations, but as I grew in Christ I was prepared for the more difficult books.
God knows how to satisfy our needs. That is why he gave us the Bible, to make us perfect in Christ and fulfill His purpose in us. When we try to satisfy these needs in our own way, we sin. In the Bible God tells us how He can fulfill our needs. That is why it is important that a needs approach to the Bible be used. I developed a needs test to help the reader identify the book of the Bible that will meet your needs. It is based on actions you want to see happen in your own life (obedience); knowledge you need to know to be able to carry out these actions (cognitive learning), and feelings which will help or binder you in fulfilling God's purpose for your life (affective domain). Our needs were meant as gifts for our blessing and benefit. When we seek to satisfy our needs God's way, happiness is the result. But many of us try to fulfill these needs independently from God's plan. When we do this the result is a curse rather than a blessing.
This book was first written in Spanish in 1980. It was published in Nicaragua as a guide to help lay pastors use the Bible in their ministries. Now, by publishing it in the United States, the author hopes it will help readers develop a love for the Bible as they find their needs being met by the Living Word. As the Word of God impacts a person's life, that person is freed from the sin that so easily besets us.