A first principles look at the Bible.
The few rules of life the Bible repeats from the first book to the last, stated plainly and kept apart from what people added later.
Start here
Read every book from first principles
Each book’s big idea, the rule underneath, the hard parts, and one thing to do. All 66 ready, Genesis to Revelation.
12 playbooksRun the how-to
Twelve playbooks, one or more for each core law: the steps, where it goes wrong, and one practice. Money, work, margin, and rest are 05–08.
Five minutes a dayPractice the laws
Sixty short lessons, five for each law: a passage, the law, a quick check, and one thing to do today. Tap Listen to hear it. Your streak stays on your device. Notes go in the daily journal.
What First Core is
People overcomplicate religion and how to live. First Core pulls the signal out of the noise. It states plainly the few rules of life that the Bible repeats from the beginning to the end, the ones that have lasted, and it keeps them apart from what people invented later. Not opinion. Not a debate. Just the core, stated as plainly as a law of nature, so you can build a life on it.
The Bible is a library, not one book. Churches include a few different books, and English Bibles choose different words. Underneath all of that, the same two instructions keep showing up.
29And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: 30And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. 31And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.Mark 12:29-31 · KJV
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?Micah 6:8 · KJV
The core laws. Twelve rules that work like laws of nature. Each one says what happens when you keep it and when you break it, and lists where it shows up across the Bible. Four are about money and balance: work honestly, enough and give, keep margin, and rest. If an idea shows up only once, or only in later church teaching, the site flags it as something people may have added.
How every book page works. The simple version is on top, in plain words. Tap “Go deeper” if you want more. The hard parts always keep three things apart: what it says (the exact words), the rule underneath (only what the text supports), and what people added (later ideas and arguments, clearly labeled). No verdicts. Where churches disagree, the page shows the views side by side.
What this is not. It is not a statement of faith or the whole Christian message. It does not try to settle who Jesus is, the cross, or how church should work. It is the core that every church shares. Every church says more than this. None says less.
The core laws
Tap a law to see what happens when you keep it or break it, and where it shows up.
God first
Love God with everything. You are not the owner.
Law 2Love the actual person
Love the person in front of you: neighbor, stranger, enemy.
Law 3Image, not tool
Every human bears God’s image. Never use a person as a thing.
Law 4Protect the weakest
Measure every rule by what it does to the person with the least power.
Law 5Tell the truth
No false witness, no lies, no twisted words.
Law 6Keep your word
Promises and covenants bind, even at a cost.
Law 7Work honestly
Work diligently; honest weights; wages on time.
Law 8Enough, and give
Be content with enough; give freely from it.
Law 9Keep margin
Store in good years, leave the edges, count the cost, don’t let debt own you, don’t lend to crush.
Law 10Rest
Stop on a set day; give the same rest to workers; don’t extract everything.
Law 11Power serves
Authority serves the people under it and answers to God.
Law 12Repair
Confess, make restitution, forgive, start again.
New · book breakdowns
Five samples to start
Each book guide follows the same short shape: the one thing this book adds, a quick look at who wrote it and when (with disputed claims marked), what it says, the hard parts, where it leads, and one thing to do.
Genesis · Ruth · Proverbs · Mark · Romans
Plus short notes on the deuterocanonical books in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles.
New · playbooks
Money and balance first
All twelve playbooks are built around the twelve laws. Start with the four on money and time:
Then 12 · How to decide, which runs all twelve laws as one loop.
A daily loop
The field manual ends with “if you only run one loop.” The daily page turns that into something you can do in fifteen minutes:
- Read today’s passage from your plan.
- Notice what it actually says, before what you think it means.
- Name the signal: which of the ten is in it?
- Do one thing today that obeys it.
- Review at night: where did the loop catch you, and what needs repair?
Honest about scope. This site uses the 66-book Protestant canon for its book-by-book pages, because that is the list shared by most English-speaking readers, and every one of those books is also in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles. The deuterocanonical books (Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, 1–2 Maccabees, and the Greek additions to Esther and Daniel, plus further books in Orthodox Bibles) have short notes on the books page now, marked with the Bibles that include them, and full guides later. Scripture quotations on these pages are from the King James Version and the World English Bible, both in the public domain. Claims scholars actively dispute are marked debated.