Through The Bible in a Year - August 17, 2026

“And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” - Luke 24:27

Imagine walking seven miles with someone who explains the entire Bible to you—not simply as a rule book, not as a collection of moral tales, but as one unified story about His plans for you.

That’s what Jesus did on the road to Emmaus. He went through the whole Bible, whose early pages were written fifteen centuries before His birth, by forty different authors in several different nations, across times of war and famine and slavery and exile. He explained how all the Bible had, and has, one consistent message threading through it: a holy God who created us to bring Him glory provides a Redeemer to help and heal us when we fail Him. He is a Creator who is also a Redeemer.

There is no other book like this. No other collection of writings from so many people across so much time and distance with one coherent message. The consistency itself is astonishing—not just as religious literature but as evidence of something no purely human project could produce.

I remember the account of Amanda Lamon, who received letters from her mother 23 years after her death—love letters that had been lost through the deficiencies of foster care systems in multiple states and across years of displacement and disappointment. When the packet of letters finally arrived, it made national news. Twenty-three years of a mother’s letters finally reached their destination and expressed her love.

Amanda’s story was heartwrenching and stirring at the same time. Love found its way across time and distance to a child’s heart. That’s beautiful, but, your story is far better. God wrote your love letters across 1500 years of Biblical history. Through Moses and the prophets, through the Psalms and other books of poetry, through the historical books and the wisdom literature—through all of it, God was saying the same thing: “I have loved you with an everlasting love and I have prepared a Redeemer to come and give you an everlasting home with me.”

Unlike Amanda’s absent mother, who could only write human encouragement, “keep smiling and try to be brave,” your God, who sent his letters across the centuries to you, gave a divine promise: “I will never leave you or forsake you. I am with you always.”

God’s love letters are not a backward glance at the better life He wished he could have given his children. They are a present promise from a present God. He is here.

Respond: When did you last read the Bible as a love letter rather than a rulebook? When did you last look for its consistent thread of grace—the message of a Creator who Redeems, a God who provides for those who cannot provide for themselves?

The next time you read a passage from the Bible (Old Testament or New Testament), ask, “How is God here providing for those who cannot provide for themselves? How is this text showing me the nature and character of the grace that comes to fulfillment in Jesus. How is this account a love letter that is addressed to me?”

Prayer: Father, You have been writing to me across centuries—through Moses and the prophets and ultimately through Your Son. Forgive me for reading Your Word simply as a rulebook rather than a love letter. Open my eyes to the consistent message that runs from the first page to the last: You are the Creator who is also the Redeemer, and You have been coming for me all along. Let my heart experience the love you have had and always will have for me as I read the Bible. In Jesus’ name, Amen.