The Bible Top Ten Lists

By John Zehring

If Top Ten lists compel your curiosity, this book covers an engaging list of lists from the bible, including top ten parables, miracles, Jesus' teachings, Paul's teachings, Psalms, Proverbs, Prophets, hard sayings, women of the Bible, verses about animals, verses for comfort, verses for anxiety, and many others.  It would be hard to review these fascinating lists and not come away informed about the Bible's most important teachings.  If you want to know more about the Bible and enjoy reading Top Ten lists, you will want this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Zehring
• Release date: Feb 3, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224253975

John Zehring

John Zehring served United Church of Christ congregations as Senior Pastor in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Maine.  Prior to parish ministry, he served as a vice president and teacher at colleges, universities, and a theological seminary.  He is the author of more than fifty books and is author of recent Judson Press books on church growth and on stewardship.  He graduated from Eastern University and holds graduate degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary, Rider University, and the Earlham School of Religion.

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John Zehring

Copyright 2024 John Zehring

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Contents

Introduction

Top Ten teaching methods of Jesus

Top Ten Parables

Top Ten Miracles of Jesus

The Ten Commandments

Top Ten Women of the Old Testament

Top Ten Men in the Old Testament

Top Ten Women of the New Testament

Top Ten Men in the New Testament

Top Ten Psalms

Top Ten Psalms, part two

Top Ten verses from the Prophets

Top Ten verses for when you feel anxious

Top Ten I AM statements of Jesus

Top Ten Proverbs

Top Ten verses about how God is with you

Top Verses about being a peacemaker

Top Ten fruits of the spirit

Top Ten Inspirations from the 23rd Psalm

Top Ten questions Jesus asked

Top Ten verses about afterlife

Top Ten verses for when you are feeling lonely

Top Ten verses about a can-do attitude

Top Ten things Jesus made in his carpenter shop

Top Ten verses about Jesus’ birth

Top Ten Bible verses about animals

Top Ten verses about the Holy Spirit

Top Ten verses for when you have lost someone you love

Top verses about the Beatitudes

Top Ten verses from the Apostle Paul

Top Ten sayings of Jesus

About the Author

Books by John Zehring

Introduction

I enjoy top ten lists and confess that whenever I see a headline for one on an internet site, my curiosity prompts me to check it out.  When The Book of Lists came out in 1977, by David Wallechinsky along with his father, screen writer Irving Wallace, and sister Amy Wallace, I bought the book and was captivated.  So, after writing dozens of books about the bible, why not create my own Book of Lists about the bible?

If you enjoy Top Ten lists, this book covers an engaging list of lists from the bible, including top ten parables, miracles, Jesus’ teachings, Paul’s teachings, Psalms, Proverbs, Prophets, hard sayings, verses for those facing a loss, verses about animals, women in the Bible, and others.  It is not really a bible study, but it would be hard to review these fascinating lists and not come away better informed about the Bible’s most important teachings.  The lists are my own choosing and creation, so others may differ on what belongs in the top ten, but these lists may stimulate you to think about what you would rank as most important.  And, I take a bit of poetic license to include lists that have a different number than ten, for so much of the bible itself includes lists (i.e., Ten Commandments, eight beatitudes, nine fruits of the spirit, etc.).

While the book aims at encouraging the reader to dig deeper into the Bible, with a bit of joy in gazing at it via lists, it also aims to inspire, encourage, inform, engage, and to approach the Divine through a review of God’s Holy Word.  For a reader with less experience in the Bible, this book provides a good overview of the Bible’s key parts, which can be grasped easily and quickly.  For those who have long read and studied the Bible, it is a helpful review to place in context so much of God’s word.  Read it out of curiosity or read it devotionally, leading you to sense that you are in the Shepherd’s presence.

A FEW NOTES ABOUT THIS BOOK

All scriptures in this work come from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) or the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVUE) unless otherwise noted.

I have attempted to use inclusive language wherever possible in the words I have written, although I have not altered another author’s reference to God as he.  I recognize that the Divine has no gender and for many it may be just as appropriate and accurate to acknowledge God as Mother or Father.  Whichever pronoun is used, consider God as a loving parent.

Some of this work is adapted from other books I have written.  My books can be found by searching online for John Zehring books.

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Rev. John Zehring

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Top ten teaching methods of Jesus

Jesus was a master teacher and wordsmith who used Middle Eastern teaching techniques and pedagogical tools to help listeners grasp profound truths.  If we understand why he did what he did in teaching, his messages jump right off the page.  If you gain insight to see the master educator that Jesus was – intentionally using techniques to get across his point – then you can understand the bible at a deeper level.  The method is the transmitter of the message.  Without understanding the method, an understanding of the message is incomplete.  To help understand what he said and what he meant, consider the top 10 methods which Jesus employed:

Parables.  He taught by stories.  Mathew writes Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables; without a parable he told them nothing.  Humans can understand the truth about God best by symbolic language and so to meet our need he used stories.  Perhaps the concept of the God’s way is too big to explain easily, so the master teacher used stories to give an idea of what it is like... an idea that spans centuries, cultures and languages.  Take care to see and appreciate the parable as a story that illuminates a truth and not as a news report of a specific historic event.

Metaphor.  A metaphor is a comparison, however subtle, without the word like or as.  Metaphors are symbolic.  One thing stands for another.  Metaphors are not meant to be taken literally but that does not mean that the truth to which they point is fiction.  Rather, that truth is such a grand mystery that all we can do is tell about it from our own finite point of view.  For example, in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:29), Jesus taught If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.  That is metaphor.  He did not intend for it to be taken literally, but it means something dramatic:  If anything causes you to disobey God, it is better to get rid of that thing than to lose it all in the end.  If you understand that much of the bible is metaphor, you will get it far more clearly.  This is why a literal understanding of the bible can never be held, for the master teacher used metaphors to explain great truths about God and God’s way.

Parallelism.  This was the common Hebrew practice of saying the same thing twice.  Many of the Psalms are examples of Parallelism, where the one phrase explains, amplifies or expounds upon the second.  It reinforces learning.  This is useful to know because if you cannot understand a phrase in the bible, sometimes its parallel partner makes it clear.  An example of Jesus’ use of parallelism occurs in the Lord’s Prayer, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.  Both phrases mean approximately the same thing.  If you do not know what Thy kingdom come means, study the parallel partner Thy will be done to get a clue.

Hyperbole.  Hyperbole is a dramatic overstatement or an extreme exaggeration to make a point.  It is like using a 747 to fly from Newark to New York.  When you tell a joke, someone might say "That joke went over like a lead balloon."  Balloons are not made of lead.  That is an example of hyperbole.  Or a screen door in a submarine.  Jesus used hyperbole so frequently that if you do not see what he is doing, you could miss the message.  For example, Jesus talked about a camel going through the eye of a needle.  That is a dramatic exaggeration, to say, It is hard.  Or, if you have faith, you can move a mountain.  A mountain cannot be moved.  Jesus himself never moved a mountain.  He was making a point.  With a mustard seed of faith, an ordinary person can do extra-ordinary things and move mountains of obstacles, adversity and challenges.

Patterns.  Jesus taught using patterns.  For example, his many uses of I am statements, his nine beatitudes, or the six couplets that where he proclaimed  you have heard that it was said, gave an old law, and then added but I say unto you, and he provided a new understanding.  Patterns broadcast messages that remain hidden as individual parts.  If you were to fly high over his six couplets, you would view a higher picture of his meaning:  it is all about relationships, not rules.

Props.  Jesus drew illustrations from whatever was around him and used them as object lessons.  By a hillside, he would look up, see a farmer working the field and talk about the parable of the sower.  Near a garden of grapevines, he would talk about how when you are connected to God, you are a branch connected to the vine and will bear fruit.  As a carpenter, he would have crafted farm implements like ox yokes.  He would remember running his hands over the smooth wood as he said Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke fits well.  He would be in the marketplace, hold up a coin and ask Whose likeness is on this coin? to teach his followers to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and unto God that which is God’s.  He used pearls as props to describe the Kingdom of God.  Modern research finds that visual aids can increase the persuasiveness of a speech by more than 40% and the average speaker who uses visual aids will come across as better prepared, more credible and more professional than a dynamic speaker who does not use visual aids.

To one individual.  Many of the greatest teachings of Jesus came quietly to one individual, not to the crowds.  It was by night alone with Nicodemus that Jesus explained that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.  It was at noon by a dusty well out of town that Jesus announced to the nameless Samaritan woman that he was the giver of Living Water and then, to her, for the first time, he whispered that he was the Messiah.  It was alone on the road to a tear-filled and somewhat angry Martha that he announced that I am the resurrection and the life...  It was on the cross that he whispered to the thief next to him Today you shall be with me in paradise.  He had never said anything like that before to anyone.  Many of the Jesus’ greatest teachings were face-to-face with only one other person, an ordinary person, yet those truths have echoed throughout the centuries.

Took people seriously.  Jesus took people and their questions seriously.  Like Thomas, whom history inaccurately nicknames Doubting Thomas.  Thomas was not doubting, he was curious.  Thomas had a lot of questions.  Notice that even at the end, even when Thomas said he would not believe until he saw the nail marks in Jesus’ hands, Jesus still took Thomas seriously.  In fact, Jesus used questions, even questions from hostile sources, as a teaching moment.  This suggests that when we do not understand something, we are at least dealing with a kind teacher who has patience with us and takes our questions seriously.

Brief.  Jesus preferred simple words, short sentences and brief messages.  So did Lincoln, Plato, Socrates, King, Gandhi and many of the planet’s greatest teachers.  Many of Jesus’ stories were brief.  A couple of his parables are only one sentence long.  Or look at the Lord’s Prayer, which is only five brief verses in Matthew.  Winston Churchill said Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all.  Jesus favored short words, old words, and