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Best Of: Is “Because the Bible Tells Me So” Enough? · Deep-Grace Diving with Tim Wright and Terey Summers

• 0:00
  [music]
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  SPEAKER_00: Hello, everyone.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Tim Wright here.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Terry Summers, are you here?
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm here.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: I never know whether I, because I look at you as the fearless leader.
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  SPEAKER_01: So when you're introducing,
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  SPEAKER_01: I never know whether I'm to step in and say my name like,
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  SPEAKER_01: We're taking attendance or just let you go with it.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: So far, I'm erring on the side of letting you go for it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's very nice.
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  SPEAKER_00: But you're here.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm here.
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  SPEAKER_00: And you're all in.
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  SPEAKER_00: Good.
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  SPEAKER_00: And we're tackling some of Terry's topics these next couple of weeks.
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  SPEAKER_00: And they're not just Terry's topics.
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  SPEAKER_00: These are really important topics.
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  SPEAKER_00: And today we're going to start by talking a bit about the Bible.
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  SPEAKER_00: And how to read the Bible, how to understand the Bible.
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  SPEAKER_00: In many ways,
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  SPEAKER_00: the challenges that we face in Christianity are,
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  SPEAKER_00: I want to say, because we don't take the Bible seriously.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that's going to be a shock for people because they say,
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  SPEAKER_00: wait a minute, we take the Bible very seriously.
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  SPEAKER_00: But hopefully we'll tease this out a bit.
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  SPEAKER_00: And when I mean we don't take the Bible seriously,
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  SPEAKER_00: we oftentimes don't read the Bible the way the Bible wants to be read.
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  SPEAKER_00: We impose onto the Bible certain things that the Bible doesn't want imposed on it, i.e.
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  SPEAKER_00: a literal understanding of the entire Bible,
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  SPEAKER_00: which we're going to tease out here in a little bit.
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  SPEAKER_00: So hopefully if people are already a little bit shocked and stunned by those things,
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  SPEAKER_00: they'll listen in and see where it takes us.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because the Bible is sort of the most,
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  SPEAKER_00: not is sort of,
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  SPEAKER_00: is the most It's an important,
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  SPEAKER_00: not only piece of literature, but faith-based literature ever written.
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  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,
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  SPEAKER_00: not to brag, but just so people know, I'm really all in on the Bible.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I was in seventh grade the first time I read the whole Bible from cover to cover
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  SPEAKER_00: in the Revised Standard Version, not one of those easy living Bible things.
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  SPEAKER_00: I went for it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I have read, I've lost track of how many times I've read through the Bible.
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  SPEAKER_00: I've read through the New Testament more than the whole Bible,
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  SPEAKER_00: but every year in some way, shape or form, I'm reading through scripture.
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  SPEAKER_00: For real?
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  SPEAKER_00: For real.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I'm 66.
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  SPEAKER_00: So this year I'm reading,
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  SPEAKER_00: my Bible app is the Good News Translation of the Bible,
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  SPEAKER_00: and I'm reading the New Testament.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then every other day it has a Psalm or a Proverbs.
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  SPEAKER_00: So New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs.
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  SPEAKER_00: After I graduated from high school,
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  SPEAKER_00: which was a Christian high school,
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  SPEAKER_00: by the way,
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  SPEAKER_00: I went to a place in Seattle called the Lutheran Bible Institute,
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  SPEAKER_00: which was like a college,
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  SPEAKER_00: but it was a two-year school and our only curriculum was the Bible for two years.
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  SPEAKER_01: What?
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  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know that.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yes, not just studying about the Bible,
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  SPEAKER_00: but I would have a class on John,
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  SPEAKER_00: I would have a class on Genesis, have a class on Luke.
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  SPEAKER_00: So it was really about understanding The stories in the Bible,
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  SPEAKER_00: the literature of the Bible,
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  SPEAKER_00: what's in the Bible rather than just talking about the Bible.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I've been teaching Bible studies, you know, 40 years as a pastor.
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  SPEAKER_00: Every Saturday, for example, I have a men's Bible study we've been doing for about 10 years.
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  SPEAKER_00: And we just walk through the Gospels and we ask questions and we try
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  SPEAKER_00: to figure out what Jesus is saying to us now.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I have a profound love for the Bible.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that's why it's so important for me that we read the Bible the way
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  SPEAKER_00: the Bible wants to be read.
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  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, we end up getting ourselves into trouble, which we'll talk about a little bit here.
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  SPEAKER_00: And Terry,
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  SPEAKER_00: I know because you've asked questions about the Bible,
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  SPEAKER_00: you've obviously picked one up.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yes,
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  SPEAKER_01: I have.
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  SPEAKER_01: I have read through the Bible.
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  SPEAKER_01: I would say in sections, maybe twice all the way through in my life.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I am nowhere near you, but I- And it's a tough slog in some of those books, isn't it?
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  SPEAKER_01: It is.
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  SPEAKER_01: It is.
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  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
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  SPEAKER_01: And then I have moments, well, you know, I'm an overthinker.
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  SPEAKER_01: What?
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  SPEAKER_01: But not when it comes to-
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  SPEAKER_01: Not when it comes to the Bible.
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  SPEAKER_01: What was your first question?
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  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, Art, what did you just say?
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  SPEAKER_00: Just kind of your relationship with the Bible.
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  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so then this would be a good time to say that.
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  SPEAKER_01: If we can harken back to when I shared about my earliest years as
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  SPEAKER_01: a kindergartner knocking at the door at six years old,
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  SPEAKER_01: that we shared about our experiences at that time.
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  SPEAKER_01: And mine, you know, involved a prayer that my dad prayed with me to invite Jesus into my heart.
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  SPEAKER_01: And from that time,
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  SPEAKER_01: have been somewhat, I guess, enchanted with it.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I would say,
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  SPEAKER_01: I know a couple of weeks ago you mentioned,
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  SPEAKER_01: if you look at the Bible literally,
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  SPEAKER_01: if you take it literally, we're going to run into some trouble.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I held my breath on that.
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  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time,
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  SPEAKER_01: I think I still understand what that means because I do like to still hold on.
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  SPEAKER_01: And my upbringing introduced it to me in a literal fashion.
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  SPEAKER_01: So as a little girl, I carried that with me.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I get sometimes choked up when I think about how childlike my faith is.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I sometimes feel immature that way,
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  SPEAKER_01: but it is just a sincere,
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  SPEAKER_01: I
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  SPEAKER_01: wanna see what I saw in my head as a little kid as being true.
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  SPEAKER_01: But as an adult,
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  SPEAKER_01: I have answered my own questions because I have many as an overthinker
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  SPEAKER_01: by saying there is so much room, there's generous room For mystery and the unknown.
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  SPEAKER_01: So that is kind of how I've allowed for what I don't really want to tear apart
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  SPEAKER_01: because that's not my, hasn't been my heart.
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  SPEAKER_01: But when you said we could get into trouble,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know, that,
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  SPEAKER_01: I don't know why that got my attention so much,
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  SPEAKER_01: but I know the perspectives, but I do want to say something.
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  SPEAKER_01: What would be the fork in the road?
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  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not just suggesting there's two,
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  SPEAKER_01: only two But where does the fork in the road occur with literalists and those that,
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  SPEAKER_01: as you put it this morning, are reading the Bible the way it wants to be read?
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the fork in the road is, it's kind of that.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's asking the question, what is the Bible?
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  SPEAKER_00: Why is the Bible?
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  SPEAKER_00: How was the Bible written?
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  SPEAKER_00: And all of those questions sort of take us to that fork in the road.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to say something here and then I'll tease it all out.
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  SPEAKER_00: I take the Bible literally, which means I take the Bible as the Bible wants to be understood.
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  SPEAKER_00: So let me give you one example of that.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then we'll tease it out.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that someday the trees of the field will clap their hands.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, if I'm a literalist,
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to have to believe at some point in the future,
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  SPEAKER_00: trees will grow hands and we'll clap
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  SPEAKER_01: them.
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  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's ridiculous.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is poetry.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is poetry.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so I take literally the truth behind the metaphor that all
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  SPEAKER_00: of creation will somehow in some way be caught up in the glory and the grandeur
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  SPEAKER_00: of God.
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  SPEAKER_00: Or that all of creation somehow in some way expresses the glory and grandeur of God.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't literally believe trees will grow hands and clap.
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  SPEAKER_00: But I literally believe the metaphor of what it's saying that there's something about creation.
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  SPEAKER_00: And we'll talk about this next week with the creation story.
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  SPEAKER_00: I literally believe the story of creation in terms of the truth behind the metaphor.
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  SPEAKER_00: But I don't take it literally as a six day creation story because it doesn't want us to.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that's a tease for next week.
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  SPEAKER_00: So here's a couple of things to keep in mind and then we'll walk through.
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  SPEAKER_00: And as I confuse you, you just make sure you raise your eyebrows or raise your hand.
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  SPEAKER_00: Two things are really important to understand when it comes to the Bible.
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  SPEAKER_00: Number one, the Bible was not written to us.
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  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
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  SPEAKER_00: a very different worldview than we have today.
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  SPEAKER_00: So they didn't have jets.
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  SPEAKER_00: They didn't have rocket ships.
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  SPEAKER_00: They didn't have the United States of America and democracy.
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  SPEAKER_00: They lived in a very different world.
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  SPEAKER_00: Their science was all, they had science, but it was very different.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so we need to always ask the question, how did they understand this passage of Scripture?
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  SPEAKER_00: Before we can ask, how do I understand it?
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  SPEAKER_00: I need to understand what their worldview was,
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  SPEAKER_00: what they were thinking,
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  SPEAKER_00: what they were going through, to understand what it's saying about God for me today.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yes?
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  SPEAKER_01: I raised my hand, folks.
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  SPEAKER_01: So I'm chewing on that.
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  SPEAKER_01: God, being all-knowing,
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  SPEAKER_01: had to know generations to come,
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  SPEAKER_01: but still he was using humans to, am I right, to communicate his message?
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  SPEAKER_01: And they were of that time and
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  SPEAKER_01: their intellect was influenced and based
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  SPEAKER_01: on Their timeframe that they were living.
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  SPEAKER_01: So that's where that specificity kind of comes from.
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  SPEAKER_01: Am I gathering?
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  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
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  SPEAKER_00: God always speaks to us where we are.
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  SPEAKER_00: In our context.
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  SPEAKER_01: Whoa, I'm writing that down, Tim!
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  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
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  SPEAKER_00: So, like right now, as a preacher, when I'm preaching sermons, I'm using examples.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm using the stuff of right now in our world today.
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  SPEAKER_00: And 60, 70 years from now, people will listen to my sermon and say, what's he talking about?
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  SPEAKER_01: Right.
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  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: What's a Barry Manilow?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so...
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  SPEAKER_01: I think they're still asking that, but okay.
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  SPEAKER_01: They're asking it right now.
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  SPEAKER_01: All right.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: So these biblical authors were people of their time.
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  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
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  SPEAKER_00: So for example,
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  SPEAKER_00: we have some books that are out there and they come out all the time that
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  SPEAKER_00: the Bible predicts a nuclear apocalypse.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Bible does not predict a nuclear apocalypse.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Bible, the biblical writers would have had no perspective for that at all.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the Bible was written for them in their time.
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  SPEAKER_00: So what would it have meant to them in that moment?
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  SPEAKER_00: These images, these stories, these prophecies, what did they mean for them?
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  SPEAKER_00: Most of God's Word is not about the future.
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  SPEAKER_00: It was about then and there.
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  SPEAKER_00: The people of Israel coming to terms with who God is,
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  SPEAKER_00: God trying to Help the people of Israel become God's people in a light to
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  SPEAKER_00: the nations.
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  SPEAKER_00: So God was writing to them specifically in that time.
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  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't writing words that they wouldn't understand and could only be understood
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  SPEAKER_00: in the 21st century.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because that's just not how God works.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's not how scripture works.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's very contextual.
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  SPEAKER_00: And we always have to keep in mind, it wasn't written to me.
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  SPEAKER_00: It was written for me.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I need to understand What people were thinking about back in those days.
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  SPEAKER_00: So as an example,
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  SPEAKER_00: in the early parts of the Old Testament,
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  SPEAKER_00: God is given credit for all the good things and blamed for all the bad things.
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  SPEAKER_00: So that was just the mindset of people back then.
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  SPEAKER_00: They didn't really have science to understand how weather patterns worked.
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  SPEAKER_00: So if it rained, it's because the gods made it rain.
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  SPEAKER_00: If there was a drought, it's because the gods made the drought.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the people of Israel,
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  SPEAKER_00: as they're coming to understand their God,
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  SPEAKER_00: would have at first understood their God in those terms.
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  SPEAKER_00: That if something good was happening, it was because God was pleased with them.
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  SPEAKER_00: If something bad happened, it's because God was angry with them.
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  SPEAKER_00: So all of that stuff, God has to peel away over the course of the Old Testament.
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  SPEAKER_00: And of course, Jesus helps peel it away a lot.
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  SPEAKER_00: So it's also important for us to understand that the biblical story is a journey of
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  SPEAKER_00: the people of Israel coming to understand who God is.
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  SPEAKER_00: And they often get it wrong in the Bible.
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  SPEAKER_00: And when they get it wrong, God has to step in and correct their understanding of who God is.
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  SPEAKER_00: So when we read some of these stories, we think, oh, that's just biblical truth.
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  SPEAKER_00: God told them to go and slaughter all those people.
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  SPEAKER_00: Well, if we step back and we understand the context,
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  SPEAKER_00: it may be more probable that God didn't tell them to go
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: and slaughter all those people,
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  SPEAKER_00: that they were doing what all the other nations around them would do and slaughter
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  SPEAKER_00: in the name of their God.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then God would have to say, this is not what I'm like.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is not what I want.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'll give you another example.
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  SPEAKER_00: Cain and Abel,
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  SPEAKER_00: the early story in the Bible,
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  SPEAKER_00: their whole fight seems to be built around sacrifices that they brought to God.
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  SPEAKER_00: Nowhere did God tell them to bring a sacrifice.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's what all the people did back then.
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  SPEAKER_00: Everybody to appease their gods would bring sacrifices to their gods to try
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: to earn their God's favor.
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  SPEAKER_00: And for a while, Grapes would work.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then when the grapes stopped working, they'd bring a cow.
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  SPEAKER_00: And when the cow didn't work, they'd sacrifice their kids.
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  SPEAKER_00: They would always have to up their game.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so the people of Israel,
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  SPEAKER_00: naturally influenced by the people around them, they started sacrificing as well.
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  SPEAKER_00: And when you read a scripture,
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  SPEAKER_00: then God comes along and says, I never asked for these sacrifices.
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  SPEAKER_00: What I want is for you to do justice and mercy and compassion.
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  SPEAKER_00: So we have this evolving understanding of what God is up to.
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  SPEAKER_00: And we have to sort of weave our way through this very human divine story
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  SPEAKER_00: of God revealing who God is in the midst of people surrounded by all kinds
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  SPEAKER_00: of other gods wanting to be like the other nations.
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  SPEAKER_00: And yet this God is so radically different it takes a long time to get their brains around it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And here we are 2,000 years later Even after Jesus' death and resurrection,
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: we still tend to put God in a judgmental,
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  SPEAKER_00: mean-spirited box that Jesus has to keep exploding through.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of the story of the Bible.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's our story because we wrestle with these things.
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  SPEAKER_00: We're constantly having to be reminded by God who God really is.
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  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.
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  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.
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  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.
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  SPEAKER_01: In my growing up years, I heard from the very beginning that this was the inspired word of God.
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  SPEAKER_01: So if that were the case,
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  SPEAKER_01: how do we reconcile the things that We're misspoken or we're of
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: a human interpretation only based on that.
• 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.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
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  SPEAKER_00: Which means that when we read scripture, God is speaking to us.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like reading.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Tolkien or C.S.
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  SPEAKER_00: Lewis, even though God can speak to us through those books,
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: there's a divine interaction going on here.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: These people weren't robots writing down like AI.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: They were human beings writing their stories.
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  SPEAKER_00: And somehow,
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: in some way,
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: these God stories,
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  SPEAKER_00: they're wrestling with who God is, speak to us and bring grace and hope to us.
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  SPEAKER_00: But they're still very human stories.
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  SPEAKER_00: They're stories about,
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  SPEAKER_00: like ours, they're stories about people trying to come to terms with who God is.
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  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times they don't get it.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: When you look at the story of 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
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: to our propensity To put God into this image of mean and vindictive and out
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: to get us and punish us.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: And we see all that throughout scriptures.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: The people wrestle with that.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: And yet God keeps breaking 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
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: of several different, I'm going to use a great English word, genres.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Literary styles.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: So in English,
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: we learn in English classes,
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: literacy classes and literature classes,
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: that you don't interpret You read poetry the same way
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: that you would interpret historic narrative.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: You read them differently.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: When you read a newspaper account,
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: you read that differently than you read a Tolkien story, which is fantasy.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: You read science fiction differently than you would read true crime stories.
• 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,
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: it gets us into trouble Because really, nobody takes the Bible literally.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: How many Christians do you see who gouge their eye out because Jesus says
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out?
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, not many.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe a few nutcases.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: 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 where the fabrics are mixed.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that's verboten in the Old Testament.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: So there are certain things that we don't take literally
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: because we know
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: that it was culturally that's what was happening then that has a different meaning
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: 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
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: of literature they are.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: They're called apocalyptic literature.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you interpret Daniel and you interpret Revelation differently
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: 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.
• 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.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: 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
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: who God is in the midst of the human struggle to figure out who God is.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: So
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: if an individual who has no Previous experience with the Bible,
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: picks the Bible up to read it.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: Knowing that God uses that to talk to them, to talk to us, to speak into us.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: Does that person get spoken to despite the fact
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: that they don't have any understanding of how to read or address the Bible or
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: to differentiate between poetry?
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: And apocalyptic, you know what I mean?
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's for us,
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: and all of us being so vastly unique and different,
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: 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 It is an extremely complex book
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: that people don't 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
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: of writing and the story itself to convey truth, 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, 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 read the stories of Jesus.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: 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.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: 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, wow, I got to do some thinking about that.
• 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
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: a lot of training.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: And by ourselves, 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.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the storyteller would tell the stories 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
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: of Shakespeare expert to help you,
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: And when we read the Bible,
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: we need to be reading it in a community of people
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: where we can all bring our various perspectives and ask questions.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then we do need people in our lives who have studied the Bible,
• 26:23
  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, we think, wow.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, last time I read this verse,
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: it didn't do much for me, but now, holy cow, it really stands out.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the beauty of the Bible, which I've done.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: You can lose yourself in it.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it's been,
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: let's say, 50 years of study and still feel like you're scratching the surface.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Or you can read it without any experience at all,
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: and you have a divine encounter with God that changes your life.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I think the other thing I would say,
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: because this is a lot 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,
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: let's just remind ourselves,
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: number one, it wasn't written to us, 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, 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, it's really important.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: 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
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: that are 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
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: the matter differently than other books.
• 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, I want to start reading the Bible, 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 as one possible way, the Good News Translation.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then either find a reading plan that takes you through a gospel,
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: Or find a reading plan that you just read 10 minutes a day through
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: the whole New Testament, like I'm doing right now, the New Testament.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like 10 minutes a day.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then 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.
• 29:31
  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 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 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, find a church where they preach grace.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: They preach
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: 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_00: And if our starting point for reading the Bible is that God is angry,
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: and God wants 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
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: the 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, I wonder if the people got it wrong at that point.
• 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
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: that go counter to God,
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: it might be that they're mishearing God, and that's a part of the biblical story.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's a part of our story.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then how God intervenes.
• 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 Bible is really,
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: or the New Testament is the cradle that holds Jesus.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's the manger that holds Jesus.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: Say that one more time.
• 32:27
  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 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
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: 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, and it doesn't sound like God.
• 33:11
  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_01: Because this is
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: 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 has he seemed 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?
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: Whew, I have chills.
• 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_01: Right.
• 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
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: that 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
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: the God of the Old Testament.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: And these were not
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: 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
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: that they deemed responsible for asking people to sacrifice their children and
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: for all of those heated kinds of discussions.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: But this would be why people would step back.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: From reading the Bible.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: Such an interesting point.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: Just a quick story.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, God never, ever asked people to sacrifice their children.
• 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 is asking 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, no,
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: this God is adamantly opposed to child sacrifice and wants nothing to do with it.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, 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 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.
• 36:10
  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, Well,
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: then you better at least have read it and studied it to know what you're talking
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: 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
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: who haven't 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 is about.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can throw out these really big meme There are statements that make
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: the Bible look foolish,
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: when in reality,
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: that one thing that they think makes the Bible foolish,
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: when you dig into it, you realize the genius of the Bible to begin
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: with.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of what those people are angry about is,
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: number one, 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,
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: start dramatically with an angry God rather than saying,
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: oh, this God is dramatically different.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't want child sacrifice.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: It was abhorred by them.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: Was the only God, period,
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: who started out by expressing and revealing God's self through oppressed people.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: Not through the powerful, but through slaves in
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: Egypt.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: That this is the only God.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: 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.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: And 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.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: 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.
• 38:28
  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!
• 38:39
  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 real even more next week when we ask the question,
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: does evolution disprove the creation story?
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: 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
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: or maybe people struggling with the faith and see if it might be helpful for
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: them.
• 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, 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, 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_01: Super cool.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: 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
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: that you are 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.