Do you ever wonder why you exist? Who is God? What is God? What are you supposed to do in life? Where do you find answers to all the grown-up questions that make your head spin?

God gave us a book to explain all these things…it’s called the Bible.

So what is the Bible? Is it a rule book? A history book? A poetry book? A dream book? Is it a bunch of biographies of famous heroes? An adventure book?

The Bible has a lot of rules in it-rules about how to stay healthy while living in the desert, rules about how to be fair with money, rules about how to treat other humans. The Bible is also a history book. You’ll find the history of the world from the very beginning. You’ll learn about famous empires like Egypt, Babylon and Rome. The Bible has many poems, too. People wrote poems telling God how much they love Him and worship Him. They wrote poems about when they’re feeling sad and life seems unfair. They wrote poems about love and life and how to make wise decisions. And the Bible has many dreams, too! Special dreams that God made people have as a way of telling them things that were going to happen in the future.

The Bible is called God’s Word, but it wasn’t dropped out of the sky, or delivered by angels or carved on the side of a mountain (other than a couple tablets). God chose dozens of people over thousands of years to write down His messages into several books that all got put together to make the Good Book. The authors didn’t write their own thoughts, and it’s a good thing they didn’t or we might have some pretty strange books!

The Bible has many biographies of famous people. But one thing the Bible warns us about is not to make people our heroes. It’s hard sometimes, especially when someone has done something so impressive that you really want to look up to them.

Moses was a great hero…except for that time where he completely lost his temper and God punished him by not letting him enter the Promised Land.

David was an amazing hero…except for that time when he wanted something that belonged to someone else and instead of just accepting he couldn’t have it he hurt that person in order to take it away from him.

Abraham was a great hero…except for that time when he didn’t trust God’s promise and agreed to make God’s plan happen another way, which only caused a huge problem for his family.

Noah was a great hero…except for that time when he was partying and having too much fun and he didn’t know when to stop.

God wants us to imitate His goodness, not the okayness of other people. When we follow God and get to know Him better through the Bible and prayer, we can become more like Him.

More than a history book, or a biography, or a poetry book, the Bible is the story of God and people.

God made people.

People chose bad things instead of God.

People got trapped by the bad things.

God rescued people. Jesus is God the Son, who came to earth.

All people have chosen bad things, even you. God wants to rescue you, and if you want to know how, all you have to do is read His love letter to you.