Go grab a soccer ball and look at it closely. See those black shapes? Every one of them has five sides. There’s a name for a five-sided shape. Do you know what it is? It’s a pentagon. And the reason it starts with “pent” is that “pent” is an old Greek word meaning five.

Now here’s something cool. The first five books of the Bible have a special name too—the Pentateuch. Same “pent.” Five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

God’s people, the Jews, called these five books the Law, or the Torah. They’re the foundation of everything else in the Bible. Foundation is a big word, but you already know what it means—it’s the part you build everything else on top of. Take it away and the whole house falls down.

Jewish people loved the Torah so much that when they read Psalm 1, they read it like this: “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly ... but his delight is in the Torah of the Lord. And in His Torah he meditates day and night.” They thought about God’s first five books all day long!

Most of us have our favorite Bible stories that we read again and again (and that’s great!), but everything in the Bible goes back to those first five books. Deuteronomy especially is packed with good stuff. It’s Moses giving God’s people a big pep talk before they walked into the promised land, reminding them exactly how to live once they got there.

Take Action: First, see if you can say the five books of the Pentateuch out loud from memory: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Say them three times and you’ll have them for life! Then open your Bible to Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and read it this weekend. It’s short, and it’s one of the most famous passages in the whole Old Testament. It’s about loving God with everything you’ve got and talking about Him at home, on the road, in the morning, and at night.