Try this simple quiz of how well you know American history. Give the date for the following events:

1. The first successful flight of an airplane by the Wright Brothers.
2. The Battle of Gettysburg.
3. The dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
4. D-Day, World War II
5. The "midnight ride of Paul Revere."

How did you do? Most folks, even college-educated, would likely be hard-put to give the exact date for more than one or two of these events. In fact, most would likely have trouble even giving the year of the events.

But consider those events again, and try this quiz:

Put the events in chronological order from earliest to most recent.

NOW how did you do? Most adults, even with just a high school education, would likely be able to set all those events in order.

Although it is possible to be so enthusiastic about the study of American history that one commits all sorts of exact dates to memory, it certainly isn't necessary to have such details in mind to understand the most important aspects of our country's history. It is much more important to have at least a general sense of the relative sequence of important historical events.

The same is true for studying the events of the Bible! Many folks set out to try to "memorize" all sorts of dates and events in the Bible, but quickly get discouraged. The history of the United States of America, from the Declaration of Independence to the present, covers less than three hundred years. But the recorded history in the Bible covers a period of over 4,000 years! Thus the project can seem overwhelming, and too many folks thus just "give up."

But, just as in American history, you really don't need to know "exact" dates in order to understand the basic important facts of Bible history. It is far more important to get in mind the relative sequence of events. In fact, the Bible seldom includes exact dates for the many events covered in its pages. We must often go to external historical records to try to determine, for instance, the years of David's reign over Israel. But we can determine from the Biblical record the order of events.

In order to clearly understand much of what you read in the scriptures, you really do need to know that Abraham lived long before Daniel! And you really do need to know that Jesus' ministry was over 1,000 years after the events of the Exodus. If you misunderstand the sequence of events, and the general time frame of the lives of various Bible characters, you can make all sorts of erroneous assumptions about the things you read in the Bible.

In this series of studies, you will be given simple tips on how to "set in order" in your mind the events and the lives of people in the Bible. You will thus be equipped to understand better the "cause and effect" of the interaction of those people and events in the Plan of God.

The next study will assist readers to begin to construct a simple time line of Biblical history that they may use in their own independent Bible Study.