Latest / Deep-Grace Diving with Tim Wright and Terey Summers / Episode #8: Is "Because the Bible Tells Me So" Enough?

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Episode #8: Is "Because the Bible Tells Me So" Enough? · Deep-Grace Diving with Tim Wright and Terey Summers

• 0:01
  Thank you.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, everyone.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Tim Wright here.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Terry Summers, are you here?
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm here.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: I never know whether I, because I look at you as the fearless leader.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're introducing,
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: I never know whether I'm to step in and say my name like we're taking attendance or
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: just let you go with it.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: So far, I'm erring on the side of letting you go for it.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's very nice.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: But you're here.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm here.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: And you're all in.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Good.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we're tackling some of Terry's topics these next couple weeks.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: And they're not just Terry's topics.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: These are really important topics.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: And today we're going to start by talking a bit about the Bible.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: and how to read the Bible, how to understand the Bible.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: In many ways,
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: the challenges that we face in Christianity are,
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: I want to say,
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: because we don't take the Bible seriously.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's going to be a shock for people.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: They're going to say, wait a minute, we take the Bible very seriously.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: But hopefully we'll tease this out a bit.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And when I mean we don't take the Bible seriously,
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: we oftentimes don't read the Bible the way the Bible wants to be read.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: we impose onto the Bible certain things that the Bible doesn't want imposed on it, i.e.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: a literal understanding of the entire Bible, which we're gonna tease out here in a little bit.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: So hopefully if people are already a little bit shocked and stunned by those things,
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: they'll listen in and see where it takes us.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because the Bible is sort of the most,
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: not is sort of,
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: is the most important,
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: not only piece of literature,
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: but faith-based literature ever written.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And Terry, I'm going to ask you in a minute a little bit, your relationship with the Bible.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: I want to give a little bit of my Bible credentials, not to brag, but just so people know.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really all in on the Bible.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I was in seventh grade the first time I read the whole Bible from cover to cover.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: In the revised standard version, not one of those easy living Bible things.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: I went for it.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I have read, I've lost track of how many times I've read through the Bible.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: I've read through the New Testament more than the whole Bible,
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: but every year in some way,
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: shape or form,
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm reading through scripture.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: For real?
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: For real.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm 66.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: So this year I'm reading, my Bible app is the Good News Translation of the Bible.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm reading the New Testament.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then every other day it has a Psalm or a Proverbs.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: So New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: After I graduated from high school,
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: which was a Christian high school,
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: by the way,
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: I went to a place in Seattle called the Lutheran Bible Institute,
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: which was like a college.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: But it was a two-year school, and our only curriculum was the Bible for two years.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: What?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know that.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, not just studying about the Bible, but I would have a class on John.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: I would have a class on Genesis, have a class on Luke.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: So it was really about understanding the stories in the Bible,
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: the literature of the Bible,
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: what's in the Bible,
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: rather than just talking about the Bible.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been teaching Bible studies, you know, 40 years as a pastor.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Every Saturday, for example, I have a men's Bible study we've been doing for about 10 years.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And we just walk through the Gospels and we ask questions and we try to figure out
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: what Jesus is saying to us now.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I have a profound love for the Bible.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why it's so important for me that we read the Bible the way the Bible wants to be read.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, we end up getting ourselves into trouble, which we'll talk about a little bit here.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And Terry, I know because you've asked questions about the Bible, you've obviously picked one up.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I have.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: I have read through the Bible.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: I would say in sections, maybe twice all the way through in my life.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I am nowhere near you, but I- And it's a tough slog in some of those books, isn't it?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: It is, it is.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then I have moments, well, you know, I'm an overthinker.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: What?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: But not when it comes-
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Not when it comes to the Bible.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: What was your first question?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, Art.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: What did you just say?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Just kind of your relationship with the Bible.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so then this would be a good time to say that.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: If we can hearken back to when I shared about my earliest years as a kindergartner
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: knocking at the door at six years old,
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: that we shared about our experiences at that time
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: And mine, you know, involved a prayer that my dad prayed with me to invite Jesus into my heart.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: And from that time.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: I have been somewhat, I guess, enchanted with it.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I would say,
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: I know a couple of weeks ago,
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: you mentioned,
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: if you look at the Bible,
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: literally,
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: if you take it literally,
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: we're going to run into some trouble.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I held my breath on that.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time,
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think I still understand what that means because I do like to still hold on and
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: my upbringing,
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: introduced it to me in a literal fashion.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um,
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: so as a little girl,
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: I carried that with me and I get sometimes choked up when I think about how
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: childlike my faith is and I sometimes feel immature that way,
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: but it is just a sincere,
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: um,
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: I want to see what I saw in my head as a little kid as being true.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: But as an adult, I have answered my own questions
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Because I have many as an overthinker by saying there is so much room,
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: there's generous room for mystery and the unknown.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: So that is kind of how I've allowed for what I don't really want to tear apart
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: because that's not my,
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: hasn't been my heart.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: But when you said we could get into trouble, you know, that happened.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know why that got my attention so much, but I know the perspectives.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: But I do want to say something.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: What would be the fork in the road?
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not just suggesting there's only two options,
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: but where does the fork in the road occur with literalists and those that,
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: as you put it this morning,
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: are reading the Bible the way it wants to be read?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the fork in the road is, it's kind of that.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's asking the question, what is the Bible?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Why is the Bible?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: How was the Bible written?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: And all of those questions sort of take us to that fork in the road.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to say something here and then I'll tease it all out.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: I take the Bible literally, which means I take the Bible as the Bible wants to be understood.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: So let me give you one example of that.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then we'll tease it out.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that someday the trees of the field will clap their hands.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now,
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: if I'm a literalist,
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to have to believe at some point in the future,
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: trees will grow hands and we'll clap them.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's ridiculous.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is poetry.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is poetry.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so I take literally the truth behind the metaphor.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: That all of creation will somehow in some way be caught up in the glory and the grandeur of God.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Or that all of creation somehow in some way expresses the glory and grandeur of God.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't literally believe trees will grow hands and clap.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I literally believe the metaphor of what it's saying, that there's something about creation.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll talk about this next week with the creation story.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: I literally believe...
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: the story of creation in terms of the truth behind the metaphor,
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: but I don't take it literally as a six day creation story because it doesn't want
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: us to.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a tease for next week.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: So here's a couple of things to keep in mind and then we'll walk through.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And as I confuse you, you just make sure you raise your eyebrows or raise your hand.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Two things are really important to understand when it comes to the Bible.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Number one,
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible was not written to us.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was written for us.
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  SPEAKER_00: So it was written to people who lived thousands of years ago with a very different
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: worldview than we have today.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: So they didn't have jets.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't have rocket ships.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't have the United States of America and democracy.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: They lived in a very different world.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Their science was all, they had science, but it was very different.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so we need to always ask the question, how did they understand this passage of scripture?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Before we can ask, how do I understand it?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: I need to understand what their worldview was,
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: what they were thinking,
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: what they were going through to understand what it's saying about God for me today.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: I raised my hand, folks.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm chewing on that.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: God, being all-knowing, had to know generations to come.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: But still, he was using humans to...
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: am I right to communicate his message?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: And they were of that time and had that,
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: that their intellect was influenced and based on their timeframe that they were living.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: So that's where that,
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: specificity kind of comes from?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Am I gathering?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, yes.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: God always speaks to us where we are in our context.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: Whoa, I'm writing that down, Tim.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: So like right now, as a preacher, when I'm preaching sermons, I'm using examples.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm using the stuff of right now in our world today.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And 60, 70 years from now, people will listen to my sermon and say, what's he talking about?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: What's a Barry Manilow?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think they're still asking that, but okay.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: They're asking it right now.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: So these biblical authors were people of their time.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: So for example,
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: we have some books that are out there and they come out all the time that the Bible
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: predicts a nuclear apocalypse.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible does not predict a nuclear apocalypse.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible, the biblical writers would have had no perspective for that at all.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the Bible was written for them in their time.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: So what would it have meant to them in that moment?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: These images, these stories, these prophecies, what did they mean for them?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Most of God's word is not about the future.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: It was about then and there.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: The people of Israel coming to terms with who God is.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: God trying to help the people of Israel become God's people and a light to the nations.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: So God was writing to them specifically in that time.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't writing words that they wouldn't understand and could only be understood in the 21st century.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's just not how God works.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's not how scripture works.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's very contextual.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: And we always have to keep in mind, it wasn't written to me.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was written for me.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I need to understand what people were thinking about back in those days.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: So as an example,
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: in the early parts of the Old Testament,
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: God is given credit for all the good things and blame for all the bad things.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: So that was just the mindset of people back then.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't really have the science to understand how weather patterns worked.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: So if it rained, it's because the gods made it rain.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: If there was a drought, it's because the gods made the drought.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the people of Israel,
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: as they're coming to understand their God,
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: would have at first understood their God in those terms.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: That if something good was happening, it was because God was pleased with them.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: If something bad happened, it's because God was angry with them.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: So all of that stuff, God has to peel away over the course of the Old Testament.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, Jesus helps peel it away a lot.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it's also important for us to understand that the biblical story is a journey of
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: the people of Israel coming to understand who God is.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: And they often get it wrong in the Bible.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: And when they get it wrong, God has to step in and correct their understanding of who God is.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we read some of these stories, we think, oh, that's just biblical truth.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: God told him to go and slaughter all those people.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if we step back and we understand the context,
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: It may be more probable that God didn't tell them to go and slaughter all those people,
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: that they were doing what all the other nations around them would do and slaughter
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: in the name of their God.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then God would have to say, this is not what I'm like.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is not what I want.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'll give you another example.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Cain and Abel,
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: the early story in the Bible,
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: their whole fight seems to be built around sacrifices that they brought to God.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Nowhere did God tell them to bring a sacrifice.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's what all the people did back then.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody to appease their gods would bring sacrifices to their gods to try to earn their god's favor.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: And for a while, grapes would work.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then when the grapes stopped working, they'd bring a cow.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: And when the cow didn't work, they'd sacrifice their kids.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: They would always have to up their game.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so the people of Israel,
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: naturally influenced by the people around them,
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: they started sacrificing as well.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: And when you read a scripture, then God comes along and says, I never asked for these sacrifices.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: What I want is for you to do justice and mercy and compassion.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: So we have this evolving understanding of what God is up to.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we have to sort of weave our way through this very human divine story and
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: of God revealing who God is in the midst of people surrounded by all kinds of other gods,
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: wanting to be like the other nations.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: And yet this God is so radically different, it takes a long time to get their brains around it.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: And here we are 2,000 years later,
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: even after Jesus' death and resurrection,
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: we still tend to put God in a judgmental,
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: mean-spirited box.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: that Jesus has to keep exploding through.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of the story of the Bible.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's our story because we wrestle with these things.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're constantly having to be reminded by God who God really is.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we read the Bible, we need to start from the point that it wasn't written to us.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was written to very specific people who got it right and got it wrong many times.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: And over and over again, God intervenes finally in Jesus to say, this is what I'm really like.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a God of grace.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a God of compassion and mercy.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: You can't earn my grace.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to earn my grace.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to live in my grace.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the first thing.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Let me pause there, see what you want to ask, and then we'll take it deeper.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: in, in my growing up years, I heard from the very beginning that this was the inspired word of God.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: So if that were the case,
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: how do we reconcile the things that were misspoken or were miss or were of a human
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: interpretation only based on that?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's,
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's where I feel like the literal part of me struggles.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, to be inspired means that it's God-breathed.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Which means that when we read scripture, God is speaking to us.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like reading...
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Tolkien or C.S.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis, even though God can speak to us through those books, there's a divine interaction going on here.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: These people weren't robots writing down, you know, like AI.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: They were human beings writing their stories.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: And somehow in some way,
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: these God stories,
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: they're wrestling with who God is,
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: speak to us and bring grace and hope to us.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: but they're still very human stories.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: Got it.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Stories about like ours.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Stories about people trying to come to terms with who God is.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times they don't get it.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: When you look at the story of the,
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: the disciples,
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: they didn't get it until after Jesus rose from the dead.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's why the Bible, I think is so amazing because it really speaks to our propensity to
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: to put God into this image of mean and vindictive and out to get us and punish us.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: And we see all that throughout scriptures, the people wrestle with that.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: And yet God keeps breaking in and said, no, I'm a God who rescued you from Egypt.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a God who led you to the promised land.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the God who saves you.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the God who comes to you in the person of Jesus.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the story embedded in all of these other stories.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll see some of that again next week when we look at the creation story.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: So the other thing we want to keep in mind is that the Bible is made up of several different,
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to use a great English word,
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: genres.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Literary styles.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: So in English, we learn in English classes, literacy classes and literature classes, that
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: That you don't interpret poetry the same way that you would interpret historic narrative.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: You read them differently.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: When you read a newspaper account,
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: you read that differently than you read a Tolkien story,
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: which is fantasy.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: You read science fiction differently than you would read true crime stories.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Each of them has to be understood differently.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the same is true with the Bible.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: In the Bible, we have various kinds of literature.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: We have historic narrative, which is just the telling of the story.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: We have meaning stories, or Jesus called them parables, metaphors.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: We have poetry.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: The Psalms are all poetry.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: We have prophecy.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so to say we take the Bible literally...
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: It gets us into trouble because really nobody takes the Bible literally.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: How many Christians do you see who gouge their eye out because Jesus says if your
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: eye causes you to sin,
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: gouge it out?
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, not many.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe a few nutcases.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: And here's just a little...
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: you know, there are all kinds of things in the Bible that we don't take literally.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: There are some people who wear shirts there where the,
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: uh,
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: the fabrics are mixed and that's verboten in the old Testament.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so, uh, there are, there are certain things that we don't take literally, um,
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because we know that it was culturally,
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: that's what was happening then that has a different meaning to it.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: So we always need to remember when we're looking at poetry, we interpret that, say, as metaphor.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: When we're looking at historic narrative, we read that and say, okay, this is the story.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is how the Jews told the story.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is how they understood their story.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we can take that a bit more literally, although there are nuances to even that.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we read something like the book of Daniel or the book of Revelation,
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: which are two really hard books to understand,
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: they're really pretty easy to understand once you understand the kind of literature
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: they are.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: They're called apocalyptic literature.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you interpret Daniel and you interpret Revelation differently than you would interpret the Gospels.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: So all that to say is that the Bible is this very unique library of books, 66 books that
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: And they can't all be interpreted the same.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: They all need a different way of looking at them so that we read the Bible the way
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: the Bible wants to be read versus imposing ourselves on it.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a 21st century document.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a newspaper account.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: It is an ancient story using ancient styles of writing to help us understand who
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: God is in the midst of the human struggle to figure out who God is.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: So if an individual who has no previous experience with the Bible picks the Bible
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: up to read it,
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: knowing that God uses that to talk to them,
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: to talk to us,
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: to speak into us,
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: does that person...
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: get spoken to despite the fact that they don't have any understanding of how to
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: read or address the Bible or to differentiate between poetry and apocalyptic.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know what I mean?
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like for us,
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: And all of us being so vastly unique and different, and it was God's intention to communicate.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: How does that get tumbled in the dryer with all of this?
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so that's an excellent, excellent question.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: And there are two answers to that, at least.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: First of all,
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: the beauty of the Bible is that it is an extremely complex book that people don't
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: often give it credit for.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: The way that it's written,
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: as we'll see next week,
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: for example,
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: in Genesis 1,
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: the thought that goes into every word and detail and how they use the form of
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: writing and the story itself to convey truth.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's absolutely incredible.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: The way the gospels are put together,
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: when you get a chance to really study them,
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: you're just blown away at how wise and smart these people really were.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's stunning literature.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the other amazing thing about scripture is that without any training at all,
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: you can sit down and read at least parts of the Bible,
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: not all of it.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: Even most scholars can't make it through Leviticus without tearing up and saying,
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: why do we have to put this in the Bible?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a tough read.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: But for example, somebody can sit down with the Gospel of Mark and
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: and read the stories of Jesus and not know anything about Jesus or even how to read the Bible.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: And because the Bible is inspired by God, God uses those words.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: They may not understand everything.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: They may not understand the nuances, but they know that there's something sacred happening in this story.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not only happening in that story, it's happening in their lives.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: We can read the Bible.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: I always say devotionally.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: We can just read it and just let it wash over us.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have to think a lot about it.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have to ask a lot of questions about it.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: We can just read scripture and God will speak to us.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we can read it and nothing happens.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we'll read it and there'll be one verse that just,
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: wow,
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: wow,
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: I got to do some thinking about that.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: Having said that,
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: while one of the beauties of the Bible is it's a book that can be written without a
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: lot of training and by ourselves,
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: the Bible was never meant to be read in isolation.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's meant to be a communal book.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: These stories were told in community.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: These stories were told around campfires and the storyteller would tell the stories
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: and then people would ask questions.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what do you mean by that?
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: Why is that?
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: And just like you don't sit down and read Shakespeare without some sort of
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: Shakespeare expert to help you,
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: when we read the Bible,
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: we need to be reading it in a community of people where we can all bring our
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: various perspectives and ask questions.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then we do need people in our lives who have studied the Bible,
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: just like people study Shakespeare,
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: who can help us understand the context,
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: what these people were going through, how they heard it, so that it takes us deeper.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then when we go back and read it by ourselves,
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: we think,
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: wow,
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: okay,
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: last time I read this verse,
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: it didn't do much for me,
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: but now,
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: holy cow,
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: it really stands out.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: So...
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: that's the beauty of the bible that you you could which i've done you can lose
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: yourself in it for for me it's been let's say 50 years of study and still feel like
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: you're scratching the surface or you can read it without any experience at all and
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: you have a divine encounter with god that changes your life um
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I think the other thing I would say,
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: because this is a lot,
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: right,
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: for people to get their brains around.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to spend a lot of time on this the next few weeks.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, let's just remind ourselves.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, it wasn't written to us.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's written for us.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: Number two,
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: the Bible is made up of all different kinds of literature,
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: and we need to take all of those sources of literature seriously.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, the Bible is inspired by God.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: So when we read it, God does speak to us.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: And even if we don't have a lot of biblical knowledge, God can speak to us.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: But again,
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: it's really important that we have guides along with us,
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: other Christian people asking questions,
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: people who study the Bible so that we don't suddenly get off track.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then the fourth thing I would say is there are some parts of the Bible that are
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: more important than other parts.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: And some people may chafe under that.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: But the Gospels are far more important to us than, say, the book of Leviticus.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: Leviticus is important.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: It gives us some insights into why Jesus came.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: But there are some parts of the Bible that get us to the heart of the matter
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: differently than other books.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: I got it.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so the Gospels would be those kinds of books.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think reading the Psalms can be very, very helpful for people.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: So if people are,
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: if our listeners are saying,
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: all right,
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: I want to start reading the Bible,
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: here's what I would recommend.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'd recommend you get a Bible app and you look for a translation that reads well for you.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: I would recommend the Good News Translation.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: as one possible way the good news translation okay and then either find a reading
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: plan that takes you through a gospel matthew mark luke or john okay or find a
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: reading plan that you just read 10 minutes a day through the whole new testament
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: like i'm doing right now the new testament so it's like 10 minutes a day and then
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: just read it
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: if you've got questions, jot them down a little bit.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: But just read it.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: And in a sense, what's happening when you just read it is the Bible starts to read you.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it starts to get into your soul.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: You start to get, okay, you start to get used to how it's written.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: And you're not going to understand most of it.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: But it just sort of starts to get into your bones, into your heart.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I would always have as my starting point,
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: What word of grace does God have for me today in this story?
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: What word of grace does God have in this story for me today?
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, again, you may or may not see anything that day.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that's all right.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean God didn't speak to you.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: The scripture is still in your soul.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's in your heart.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: but that's a great way to start engaging with scripture.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then of course, you know, find a church where they preach grace.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: They preach a Bible that is far more expansive than just a very literalistic understanding.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then the final thing I'd say is starting point matters.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: And,
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if our starting point for reading the Bible is that God is angry and God wants
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: to punish us and send us to hell,
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: but decided to give us one last chance by sending Jesus into the world to take the
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: hell beating for us,
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: you're going to find only stories about a God who is angry and judgmental.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: But if you start the Bible the way the Bible is meant to be started,
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: which we're going to look at next week,
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: Within the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: And who is this God?
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: And you find this is a loving, compassionate, caring God.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: Then you see those stories differently.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: And when you see things in the Bible that don't appear to be very gracious,
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: you might step back and say,
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: okay,
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder if the people got it wrong at that point.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then wait for God to step in and say, no, this isn't right.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: And normally where he steps in is in the prophets, by the way.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: But if it's not gracious,
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: if you see a lot of stuff where God seems to be asking them to do things that go
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: counter to God,
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: it might be that they're mishearing God.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a part of the biblical story.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's a part of our story.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then how God intervenes.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why we don't want to say, well, the Bible says it, that settles it.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: because it depends on how you interpret the Bible.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: What we want to say is, this is what Jesus says about God.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: So how do I read the Bible through that prism?
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: And Martin Luther said that the...
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible is really, or the New Testament is the cradle that holds Jesus.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's the manger that holds Jesus.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: Say that one more time.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible, the New Testament is the manger that holds Jesus.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so for Luther, he always started with Jesus.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: And how does it, what does Jesus say about God?
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: What does that help us understand about the Bible?
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: And they may not be completely correct.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: We do want to look at the Old Testament and understand the Old Testament as the Old Testament people did.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: But we have Jesus now.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we can't help but look at Scripture through the lens of Jesus.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: All of Scripture points us to Jesus.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's okay when we're reading Scripture,
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: especially in the Old Testament,
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: and we see the people of Israel doing things,
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: and they think God told them to do this,
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: and it doesn't sound like God.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, maybe because it wasn't God.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Last thing, because we're already three and a half minutes over our 30 minutes.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because this is so good.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: People often ask the question,
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: why is the God of the Old Testament so different than the God of the New Testament?
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: I was just thinking about that.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: Why does he seem so angry in the Old Testament, so loving in the New Testament?
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: And here's what we want to remember.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: The only Bible Jesus had was the Old Testament.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: So what did Jesus see in the Hebrew scriptures that we don't see?
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's the only Bible he had.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus didn't see a harsh, mean, angry God.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the only scripture he had.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe Jesus is telling us something about this God of the Old Testament that
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: maybe is not quite as mean-spirited as we often say God is.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: And wouldn't you agree?
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: I just saw something on social media and I read comment after comment.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: I got hooked because it just was one after the other that were speaking about the
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: God of the Old Testament.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: And these were not... Well, I don't know who they were.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: I guess I can't comment.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: But they were literally furious in their tone about the God of the Old Testament that...
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: they deemed responsible for asking people to sacrifice their children and for,
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: um,
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: all of that,
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: um,
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: those heated kinds of discussions,
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: but this would be why people would,
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: uh,
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: step back.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: From reading the Bible.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, so it's such an interesting point.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: So let me just a quick story.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, God never ever asked people to sacrifice their children and,
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: And people often misinterpret the story in Genesis 22 where God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: What that's really a story about is God is doing what all the other gods are doing.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: in this story.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: God seems to be asking for child sacrifice.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: But then when we get to the ultimate moment,
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: God stops him because the story is saying,
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: no,
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: this God is adamantly opposed to child sacrifice.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: and wants nothing to do with it.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now,
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: there are a lot of nuances in that story to give us that,
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: but this is a part of what I mean by reading the Bible the way the Bible wants to
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: be read.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so if I can share a frustration, my frustration is twofold.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: Number one,
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: that Christians don't read the Bible the way it's meant to be read and then come up
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: with all kinds of really bad theology,
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: but that people who are anti the Bible don't actually do their homework either.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: And they make accusations of the Bible that aren't true.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: And my whole thing is if you're going to make accusations against something like
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: the Bible or the Torah or the Quran,
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: well,
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: then you better at least have read it and studied it to know what you're talking about.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: and we just don't see enough of that in the Christian or non-Christian world.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so non-Christians are responding to bad theology by Christians who haven't
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: really done their work in the Bible,
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: or they're just not taking seriously how the Bible was written and what the Bible
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: is about.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can throw out these really big,
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: meme uh statements that make the bible look foolish when in reality that one thing
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: that they think makes the bible foolish when you dig into it you realize the genius
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: of the bible to begin with so um so that's all and a lot of what those people are
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: angry about is number one
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: They are reading the Bible from the perspective of the 21st century.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: They're not asking the question, how did those people understand the Bible when it was written?
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: And they heard those stories for the first time.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: They're not understanding the differences in literature.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: And for whatever reason, they started automatically with a name.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't want child sacrifice.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: It was abhorred by them.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was the only God, period.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: We started out by expressing and revealing God's self through oppressed people,
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: not through the powerful,
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: but through slaves in Egypt.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: But this is the only God who stood up and said, this is what I want, justice and mercy.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to accept the refugees.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to treat the poor with respect and feed them.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to take care of the widows and the homeless.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is a God who is absolutely invested in the powerless in the world.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: Angry, mean gods aren't invested in the powerless of the world.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: Angry, mean gods always want to stand on the side of power.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: So people miss all of that stuff because they don't take seriously how the Bible wants to be read.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so much more than that.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's about a God of love and grace, and we don't want to miss it.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why we'll spend the next couple weeks on this.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: Whoa.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: Whoa.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: My mind's reeling, but in a wonderful way.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: This was a heavy upload today.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: So for those of you who are like Terry Wheeling, just keep coming back the next few weeks.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to make your mind reel even more next week when we ask the question,
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: does evolution disprove the creation story?
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, God.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: Will that be a good one?
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be a super good one.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: People are going to have to wait a week.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, would you tell your friends about this if you're enjoying it?
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: They can subscribe to this on Spotify.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: They can subscribe to this on Apple.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: Or they can go to recklessgrace.substack.com, recklessgrace.substack.com, where we release this.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are listening to it,
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: which you are,
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: or else you wouldn't be hearing me say this,
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: please just send it over to a friend or two who are Christians or maybe people
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: struggling with the faith and see if it might be helpful for them.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: Super cool.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, Tim, just share about what else that they subscribe to that.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: Are they not also getting some of your written articles and things?
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: So if they subscribe to recklessgrace.substack.com,
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: which is free,
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: every Monday I put out a little blog on various topics,
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: some of them similar to this,
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: some of them different.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, we get the podcast.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: So two things a week, all free, all the time.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: Super cool.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, everybody.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to take you out with a little Morse code that reminds you that you are
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: loved because you are a person of grace.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be back with you next time.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.