Latest / The Speak Life Podcast / The Richness of the Bible || Interview With Matt Searles, Author of 'God's Story' || SLP368

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The Richness of the Bible || Interview With Matt Searles, Author of 'God's Story' || SLP368 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: Hello and welcome to the Speak Life Podcast.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: Thomas Thurrogood again here, intern at Speak Life.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: And today on the podcast we have a real treat for you.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: Glenn will be speaking to Matt Searles, who is the director of training in the South Central Gospel Partnership.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: Matt is a musician and he loves teaching from the Psalms.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: And in this discussion, they will be talking about Matt's recent book, God's Story, The Bible Explained, which is a very accessible and creatively presented Bible overview.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: Lots of nice pictures in it.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: This was actually released on Monday on YouTube, so you can watch it there as well.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: And Glenn and Matt discuss the richness and interconnectedness of God's word and what it means to see Christ in all of Scripture.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: Do keep praying for Libby Feasy, Paul's one-year-old daughter, still in hospital, and they are preparing for what it means long term as a family.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: So do keep praying for them.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: Your prayers are much appreciated.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: I will hand over to Glenn Scrivener and Matt Searles, and I will catch you on the other side of the show.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: Enjoy.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_03: Hello, my name is Glenn Scrivener, and today I am joined by Matt Searles.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_03: He is the author of many books, including God's Story, The Bible Explained.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much for joining me.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_03: Great to be here.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_03: Now, Matt, uh, was your first book, Tumbling Sky?
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_03: Is that is that right?
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_03: Uh about Psalms?
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_03: I'd like I'd love to uh dip into that just for a second in terms of um your journey in how the scriptures have actually uh fed you and helped you and how you've really wanted to to feed others through the scriptures.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_03: Can you tell us a bit about uh tumbling sky?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's um the subtitle is psalm devotions for weary souls, which which gives something of a flavor.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's um uh short, short devotions, each psalm is split up into a number of devotions.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you never I think you never have to turn a page to read a devotion, is is the goal.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: So it's always just a double page and that's it.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um taken from psalms, really trying to help God's people engage with the Lord in in some of the tougher times, psalms to weary souls, and and it really grew out of a uh yeah, some hard times I've been through, and um in one sense no harder than what so many people go through.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: But of course, it's not we don't it's not about comparing our suffering with others, but but we can feel things.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it was when my mum was suddenly rushed to hospital, fit and healthy lady, suddenly everything went wrong, and I was sort of 2 a.m.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: got a call from the hospital, you've got to get here quick, and driving into central London and trying to yeah, trying to process and and and think and and engage with the Lord and didn't really feel very equipped to do that.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was a pastor at the time, so I probably should have been equipped.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but didn't feel I had the vocabulary, I didn't have the um didn't quite know where to where to go.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: But the place I found myself, not because I thought I should, but it was just where the Lord led me, and the only place I really spent time was Psalm 30, I think it's Psalm 30 verse 5.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: Weeping may remain for night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it was sort of the only thing I could read for probably weeks was just that one verse, weeping may remain for a night, which sort of validated my sorrow, my tears, and didn't say, Cheer up, Matt, Jesus loves you, Christ is risen, why are you so miserable?
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, which I probably would have sort of beat myself up along that vein, but weeping may remain for a night, there's a right response of tears, but joy comes in the morning.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: And just seeing real honesty about how we feel and what we experience as believers, along with a real hope that's not a trite hope, but a deep grounded hope.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: Just found that was just what I needed.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and so it really sort of grew from there, started writing turned that that psalm into a song, and and sort of from there, just really it was just myself trying to wanting to engage with the Lord.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a couple of friends said, Why don't you sort of turn?
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: I've been writing some songs based on psalms.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: What they said, what about some devotions?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and it sort of grew grew from there.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it was interesting in discussions.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: I remember um someone said to me, What's the what what sort of books would you recommend on for people who are suffering or on suffering?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Well, I think of plenty, but I can't think of many I would give to someone who was suffering, huh?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Simply because the complexity, um, so almost what's a much briefer accessible, it'll take you less than five minutes to read, probably three minutes to read a devotion, but just to try to help God's people not give a theology of suffering, because there are great books that do that, but um ten psalms, each split into three or four, thinking how have the psalm, how have God's people prayed in different situations, and really seeing how accessible God is, that we don't need to get ourselves to a particular place before we can pray.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, I'll give you rest.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: Not come to me, all you who are very evangelical and sorted and have no questions and have great theology, and then come to me.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: No, come to me.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so it was sort of my journey of seeing how the psalms help us help us do that from all sorts of places wherever we find ourselves emotionally.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: God's people have been there before, right?
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and not just have been there before, but it's permissible to be in some of these places, and we see that there is a way to bring that emotion to the Lord.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, so that's really where where it grew from.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: Initially, it was sort of trying to, you know, from for my own sake, um, and then yeah, sharing with others and thought, um, yeah, I thought it might be something that uh yeah, might might help others to keep engaging with God, yeah, even in even some of the harder, harder seasons.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, yeah.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_03: It's fascinating, isn't it, how in the Bible, right in the middle of the book, you've got 150 sort of psalms that are already there, ready to be prayed for you.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm always struck by you know in the New Testament when Jesus says, um, pray like this.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_03: And even he even gives gives you the words to pray.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_03: He's just like, and the scriptures themselves gives you give you prayers to pray.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I find that incredibly liberating when when I'm going through the mill and I'm I I'm so overwhelmed, I don't know what to say.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_03: And the Bible says, Oh, why don't you start with this?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um it's which uh I I wonder whether partly we sort of suffer under the burden of feeling like we always have to mean it, or like like we always have to really, really like crank up the internal like thermostat of our own um spirituality.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_03: And there's something there's something about the scriptures giving us prayers that is is liberating.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_03: We can kind of rest in them.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_03: Is that something you've found?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's so helpful.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think partly it's um often described the Psalms when not just me, but a phrase I found helpful is words to grow into.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um that is it doesn't it it's not that we only say um Psalm 138 with all my heart I'll praise you.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um we we don't think nope, not today.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe maybe tomorrow I'll pray that.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: Am I feeling a hundred no, I'm about 80%, can't pray that.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: But rather, these are words to grow into and sort of Lord on my best days.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: This is this is what I this is what I want to be more like.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: And as we speak, you know, as we speak, Lord, you are my refuge, or or whatever the the words may be, that's not just declaring a truth, but as we speak that, it's it's it's forming us, and I think I think that can be so helpful to think words to grow into a bit like you sort of teach children.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: I forget who example this is.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Some I read it somewhere, but you you teach children to say please and thank you and sorry before they really mean it and fully understand those words.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, but that's not a problem, that's part of how they're gonna understand those things.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, whereas you don't say, 'I'm gonna that I'm never gonna ask my child to say please' until they fully have grasped what what it is for me to be their parent and provide for them for them to be a child, and um they'll probably be 35 at least before they first say the word please.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, yeah, it's liberating to think these are words to grow into, and um, we're not gonna say them sort of perfectly.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, though actually there's lots of psalms that speak of you know, actually very sort of imperfect faith, if we call it that.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: But I I think they're not words to burden us and go, Oh, I'm I'm I'm I'm nothing like that.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: Sort of words to think a phrase I've heard Mike Kane use in his he's done some wonderful psalm devotions.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: He did them in lockdown on think on Facebook and YouTube.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: We retune our hearts.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: We sort of this is how I should pray and should want to pray.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: And as I pray like this, Lord, please help me share more of this, sort of um.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I've I I found that helpful not to be burdened by these things.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um I think the tuning our hearts to sing God's praise is is uh Calvin's line on Psalm 22, isn't it?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_03: That's um that as he meditated on my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_03: And he and he meditates on the one on the cross who is you know continuing his um dialogue with the Lord and and praying, he is the great high priest.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um I will declare your name to my brothers in the congregation, I will praise you.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_03: So we we know Psalm 22 is Christ on the cross, and and he is declaring the name of God to his brothers in the congregation, and he will he will praise the Lord.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_03: So he will lead us in praises, and we have even his words in how he leads us in praises.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_03: And then Calvin commenting on Psalm 22, verse verse 22, is yeah, Christ is the the heavenly choir master who tunes our hearts to sing God's praise, and and the psalms are kind of the rudiments of him doing that, I guess.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, you you you had another image.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: If you think of learning a musical instrument like learning the piano, um, you know, you've got these is 88 keys on the piano, I forget quite how many there are.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: But all these keys You are a pianist, right?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: This is you could know you could simply say, There you go, you have a piano, you have complete freedom, play it what you like, but actually, much more helpful to say to the child or whoever, uh, here are some things to get you going, here are some scales, here and and for and you sort of you grow from that.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, it's gloriously true we can bring anything to the Lord in prayer.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: Philippians, you know, what um you know, commit everything to be anxious about anything, but by prayer petition, we think that's gonna commit present your request to God.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever we want to pray about, we can pray.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: But I wonder if we mishear that by thinking, therefore, I don't need any help, therefore, I should not learn anything from anybody ever about prayer.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's just me and the Lord.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then certainly my experience of that is sitting down and you know, sit down and think, I'll pray, I'll pray for a long extended period, and sort of a minute and 30 seconds later, I'm done.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: I've I've run out of things to say, right?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, it's as as we use patterns and prayers the Lord has given us, that probably doesn't make us pray less or more restrictively.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: It prompts other things and we pray more and more in line with his will as well.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because sometimes we think, What what should I pray here?
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um I mean I increasingly in the Psalms, I'm often going there when I'm when I'm wanting to pray for people, people who are struggling.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: I sort of turn to a Psalm 147 where it says the Lord is um is near to the brokenhearted, he binds up their wounds, and I'll say, Lord, be near to the brokenhearted, bind up their wounds.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because he's promised that, and so I know he'll answer that prayer.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: And it and rather than just please be with Kevin and please be with Jenny and please we can pray like that, right?
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: But how how much richer to pray some of these along the way the Lord has um yeah, the Lord has given us.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, disciples teach us to pray, and um, and the Lord's prayer is is one more example of of that, not to limit our prayers, but I guess just to see these are the sorts of things and to pray and ways to pray, and and then we can sort of keep going from there.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think it's quite a profound thing that we're okay, we're we're having a conversation about the Bible, and we can't help but talk about prayer.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and we can't help but talk about music as well.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, both of us have just used musical analogies um about scripture.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you're a musician yourself, and you've bring a lot of that to bear um not only in how you sing the psalms, but does it help you as well in your understanding of the scriptures more generally?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um, what what is a musical ear?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_03: How does that help?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_03: Does it help in any way in in figuring out what the scriptures are and and why they've been given to us?
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I th I mean particularly the psalms.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's the easiest place to start because they are they are and they were songs.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so one of the things I'll ask people is not not just what does the psalms say, that the danger is you you reduce the Bible just to sort of the intellectual content and and pull it out of its imagery and everything else, but try to encourage people what what you know what's the music here um uh taught at the church youth group a couple of weeks back on on Psalms and just the introductory session, and we looked at Psalm 23 and tried to get them to say what kind of what kind of what sound would you have up along this?
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I should have known in a youth group, of course, I got the answer death metal.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um but you know I think I think we then got it.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_03: Wouldn't it be coolio as I walk through the valley of the shadow of death?
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_03: Nobody came up with that.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_03: They're all they're all a bit younger.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_03: So then you've just shown both of our ages with that.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, totally.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um but but that's a helpful thing, not just what does it say, but what's the what's the what's the feel and the tone?
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's that's that's helpful actually where wherever we are in the scriptures, not just simply what is being said, but what's what's the tone or some of the emotional content?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: And music's one way that we can we can be led into that.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um we've just been working through Philippians in um the ministry training course, and and there's just such a warm, joyful, arm-round-the-shoulder tone to that book.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um that even then some of the instructions that might be similar to something that is said elsewhere, it's helpful to to read it in that sort of tone.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: Another book, you know, uh Galatians has a very different tone to it.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: And um not that that's strictly musical, but I think just to think beyond rather than just um just sort of in the intellectual content of what's being said.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, yeah, I think that can be helpful.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_03: And even in some of the language that we use about you know, uh musical terms like you have a theme that gets recapitulated, which is a very sort of technical term for, you know, maybe maybe the cello in the second movement of Beethoven's ninth goes no no no no no no no no no and then obviously that that gets recapitulated, recap and and layered over and layered over and brought to you know greater uh sort of a symphonic sound, you know, going going from a single voice to a kind of symphonic thing.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_03: And like I see that all over the scriptures.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_03: I I was preaching on Genesis 14 the other day, and just noticing how um oh when you read when you read Genesis 12, Abraham has just gone down to Egypt and come back up with plunder, hmm.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_03: And then in Genesis 13, he spies out the land, and then in Genesis 14 he makes conquest of the land.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_03: Hmm, that's interesting.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_03: That seems like a theme, and and then it gets recapitulated in the life of Israel, and then of course it gets recapitulated in the life of Jesus, and then it gets recapitulated in the life of the church and the life of the believer.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_03: And I think I think music really and and that that sense of multiple voices that that are not cacophonous but bring a harmony, that yeah, that that really helps me.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_03: Is it is that something you sort of reflect on as as you think about God's story?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be honest, it's probably not one of the dominant ways I've thought about it, but I think that entirely makes sense.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: And um, whether it's the sort of the symphony idea or um sort of a different musical sort of genre that the the the musical itself, the stage musical.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: Where there is uh there is you know the first song, and then there's the second song, and there's a third song, and there's a fourth song, but the fourth song is a little bit song two in there as well.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: And by the time you get to the end of the act, or certainly the climax, you've discovered all the songs are yes, uh, you know, you think of Le Mird and the Innkeeper singing his song, and Valjean singing, and and all these seemingly different songs are all part of the same song, and probably Symphony's work like that if I knew enough about classical music, but um, there is there is something about that that unity and diversity, um, which I think speaks to the the the the god we worship and why we have western music as it is, probably, but that's another story.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah um uh there is there are these many different um melody lines, many different themes, but all forming part of one whole.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: And and at sort of at the end we see how even the bits that we didn't quite understand where they fit, and they seem quite um discordant or didn't seem to to belong, are are part of that.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: So there's definitely a a unity to the scriptures, and there are many ways you might express that, but I think symphony or or something would be would be one metaphor that would capture that glorious diversity, yes, but uh a unity and uh and it's sort of leading to that climax.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_03: And uh were you helped in seeing that kind of that symphonic or that sort of 30,000 feet um view of things when when you were working on on God's story?
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_03: Because I I imagine this is this whole project is it's a massive project.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_03: Like how how do you explain um these 66 books um spanning a millennium and a half?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's that's a massive project.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_03: But in doing that, were you able to see a lot more the way that the the parts fit together?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yes, though the order was somewhat different.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's God's glorious providence.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: I was midway through a doctorate in biblical theology when I was well got the opportunity to to write God's story, and so I had in a sense been doing that and had been reading some wonderful things and and just starting to um particularly see the links between the scriptures, not not these sort of atomized where you got Genesis and then there's this and there's that, and and they're very disparate, but but seeing some of this unity and as you see these themes being recapitulated again and again.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so then when the opportunity came to to write the book, actually, in a sense, I'd already done pretty much all the reading.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I got to I'd just been reading some of the best things written.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I I got to sort of try and then it's the best test of if you know something, try try and write that in a simple form.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think so Jim Hamilton was my supervisor, and I think the thing I learned from him was just um really believe the scriptures to be coherent and um interlinked and later authors to pick up on previous authors, and um and I and I think some sometimes the easy way out when you're reading the Bible is go, that doesn't fit, and oh maybe a later editor ruined that, or that doesn't fit, and I'm rather than going, maybe I just haven't worked hard enough at it.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: What this is very confusing.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: Why does so and so get down to Egypt here or what?
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: But just to think, well, that must be that's how the Lord wanted it, that's how the authors wrote it, they knew what they were doing, just keep working, and actually you you discover you dive into the scriptures and you see there is a beauty and a coherence, and all sorts of things you would never um yeah, you might you might miss if you just sort of didn't did didn't didn't think.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna assume the biblical authors know what they're doing.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna assume that they um that they're actually writing inspired by the Spirit of God and actually very thoughtfully and reflectively as well.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so um just really therefore expecting links and correspondences and be and being open to those.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um I did a I did a literature degree first time around, and I was choosing a book for my second year, I think it was, and I kind of suggested a few things to my tutor, and she said, That's that's not a good enough book, it won't repay that much study.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: It you know, she she she said, and I wish I could get the quote exactly in that as far as I know, not a Christian believer, but but she said, only a truly great book can you just study and just the just start to see more and more coherence to it.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um a lesser book, things won't eventually, if you study it hard enough, things won't really fit.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: But a really great book, you'll start to see more and more links, and just only a great author could author a book like that.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's the case of the scriptures, the the greatest author, and therefore we can expect that um you know Isaiah will be picking up on Exodus, and Isaiah itself is picked up in uh in Matthew, and and and just start to see all these links in this glorious tapestry, just to use another image.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I think that was the thing in my study was just expect to see a coherency here, expect to see a beauty, right?
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and three years of hard study and then one year writing the book, and I'm only more persuaded of the the unity of the scriptures, um, but not a sort of a flat uniformity, but all these diverse themes, but they're all linked together, all point to Christ.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's been really exciting.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_03: Who were some of the uh helpers that you had along the way who were sort of in informing the way that you were reading the scriptures?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Probably going back, it would be um something like God's Big Picture by Vaughan Roberts uh and Graeme Goldsworthy.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd had that was probably my first taster of sort of something of this this this unity to the scriptures.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: But then recently, Jim Hamilton's own book, God's Glory and Salvation Through Judgment, um, I found terrifically helpful.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, someone like Greg Beale, who is um an American theologian who's uh phenomenally uh gifted and bright.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: His books tend to be quite long, so not probably the first book I'd give to someone, but more and more people are drawing on his work.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things he's noticed is just how temple imagery and God wanting to dwell with his people is a big theme throughout the Bible, and so that was that was one that actually, though you can write very weighty books on it, you can tell the whole Bible story a little about that.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, God created um you know, placed Adam and Eve in a in a garden, this this this sort of temple-like place, all the all the imagery in the garden is very temple imagery, but they were there to go out from there to fill and subdue the earth, but cast out of the garden due to sin, and a uh you know, an angel with a flaming sword um placed at the entrance to the garden to prevent them coming back, and they've been cast out to the east.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then um actually this Sunday I'm preaching on Joshua and the conquest of Jericho, and just the just before the people cross into the promised land from the east, so reversing the direction, and they meet an angel with a flaming sword, um, but now saying, Come back in.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: So the Lord is bringing his people back into this temple garden paradise that's now the promised land.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: But what happens when they're in the promised land?
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, they sin, just as Adam sinned in the garden, they're cast out again to the east, um, and uh and they're cast out into exile and death.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but God still wants to dwell with his people, and so he promises he'll bring them back, there'll be a new exodus, they'll come back into the land.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they did come back into the land, but that wasn't quite what it should be because the temple wasn't there.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it wasn't quite the presence of God as it should have been.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: The temple, well, sorry, the temple was there, but wasn't filled with fire, wasn't filled with the presence of God.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: This wasn't life as it should be.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then John the Baptist even takes people back to the Jordan and they have another going through the Jordan experience.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: Is then you you you need to come fully into the presence of God, and and it's in Jesus we see these things who um who brings his people, he went out.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he went out of the city, he bore that curse by being cast out of the presence of God.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: And what happened?
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: The temple curtain, emblazoned with cherubim, angel, that that that guard that would keep you out.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus, Jesus went out, died, suffered curse, the temple curtain torn in two, so we could come back in.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the the the picture at the end is is really the beginning as it should have always been and would always be, which is the garden has become a city, has become the whole world.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: In the center of it is not Adam ruling over things, but Christ, the second Adam ruling over things, and we his people are there enjoying God's presence forever, which is what God always intended, plans fulfilled.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so there we go.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's Greg Beale.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, and I've probably gone too fast there, but it's thrilling to see well, among so many things, but one of them is um Jesus isn't plan B.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's pretty important.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, it's not like the Old Testament.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the devil sort of won there, and then Jesus came along and and fixed a few things, but or even this world, the devil won, but we've got a new we've got the new heavens and the new earth, but this world rather seeing this is God's this is God's one plan, promises fulfilled, all in Christ, all leading to the new heavens and the new earth, um, where we'll dwell with God forever.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: And the dwelling with God, of course, it's a relational image.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: God wants to dwell with his people, and that's what we look forward to.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's the glory of the new heavens and the new earth.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: They will see his face, we will behold our savior, we'll be with him forever.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so actually, so much is transformed by just, I mean, there's one one sort of theme you trace through, but seeing that perspective that our hope is is not simply in life after death, wonderful though that is.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: Our hope is not simply in salvation from hell and judgment, wonderful though that is.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: Our hope is not even in free forgiveness, justification by faith.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Wonderful there they are.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: Our hope is Christ, who we will dwell with forever.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: And when you see that is the theme or one big theme of the Bible, start to finish, that's that's really exciting.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_03: That's very exciting.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um let me let me throw up a question, though, because uh sometimes I have seen people get excited about patterns in the Bible and be in danger of missing the person, if you see what I mean.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_03: And and what I've seen is that you can tell people there's this there's this pattern about whatever it is, exile and return, or it's this this temple pattern, or whatever else.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_03: And you can show the repeating pattern, and that that gives you um a kind of a huh, so it all fits together kind of moment.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_03: And that I think gets you excited for at least six months.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_03: Um and then you can tie that together with oh, and Jesus ties the pattern together because Jesus is the temple or or or that kind of thing.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_03: But how do we how do we avoid teaching the pattern at the expense of the person?
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_03: And how how should we read the Bible such that the person is is front and center?
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so important.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um I mean, I just reminded of Jesus in John 5, speaking to the Pharisees and religious teachers, is you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so, in one sense, it's it's simply restating your question.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: But just just to be aware, what are the scriptures for?
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: For well, all the scriptures, and of course, when Jesus is here speaking of the scriptures, all that's written at this point is the Old Testament.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: So he's saying the Old Testament testifies to him.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a there's a doctrine of scripture for the Old Testament, unless we see it as testifying to Jesus, we're not we're not we're not reading it rightly, but even that is insufficient, right?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, as one who spent much of my life diligently studying the scriptures, or at least if my supervisor asks you, I diligently study the scriptures.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um that in itself, though good is insufficient, it's come to Christ that you may have life, and and therefore it's not even knowing that the Old Testament points to Jesus, or even be able to explain how the Old Testament points to Jesus.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: But as we're reading the scriptures, we're not simply a sort of just it's a book out there.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've most of books I've got on my shelves here, are probably Bible commentaries and things, but um I might have got a history book, and I can read a history of a Queen of England or something.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that that there's no there's no relationship there, it's just information, I store it away, probably forget it, and that's about as far as it goes.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: When we read the scriptures, it's an encounter with God.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: The the Bible's a covenantal book, it's the address of a king to his people, and so part a part of the problem um is is actually our doctrine of scripture.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: If our doctrine of if the way we think of the Bible doesn't have Jesus in it enough, then when we study the Bible, we might not have Jesus in it enough.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: But if we hear if we hear the scriptures as the voice of our king addressing us, it's that it's it's a profoundly relational book.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, then we we can't just read it like that history book and go, oh, that's an interesting fact.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: But rather I'm being addressed by the king, and so I fall on my face and and say, Speak, Lord, your servant listens.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: And um just as an aside, as someone who teaches the scriptures, how can I best help those who are listening and engaging the scriptures to have that sense?
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: I uh stand up in church and say, I'm you know, Joshua, um five or six, the the Jericho passage for this Sunday.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, will I stand up and say, I'm okay, I we've just read Joshua five and six.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: Let me explain that to you.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: That that just sounds like, well, there's just some informational content, just get that right.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Rather, can I, in the way I speak, the way I introduce, try to say, the Lord is speaking to us here.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: So as an Isaiah, as the word doesn't go out of his mouth and not achieve you know what he sends it.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the rain coming from heaven, it makes things grow.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: When God speaks, it's for a purpose.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Psalm 29, the voice of the Lord makes the wilderness shake.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's the power that's at work when we open the scriptures to have uh I'd love to be better at communicating something of that.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: When when this God spoke, stars were born.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: When this God spoke, a universe came into being.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: When this God spoke, Lazarus came out of the tomb, he's speaking to us now, right?
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think that that sense, therefore, uh, are we Bible people?
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: Are we Jesus people?
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: If we are if we put the question like that, we've misunderstood what the scriptures are, I think, um, because we're hearing the voice of our of our king.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so and so I'm just trying to think, how can I have that sense of being in the presence of God, hearing the address of my king?
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh as I, you know, trying to help other people have something of that as well, rather than just a an object of study.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because at the beginning of our interview I asked you about Tumbling Sky and about um how Psalm 30 was kind of speaking into your suffering in that moment, and and you said something like, um, um, I should have known this stuff because I was a church leader and I've, you know, been to the right Bible colleges and all the rest of it.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um how is it where do we go wrong when we can study the scriptures and yet not hear them as the living voice of Christ?
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: I I do think expectation.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: I I think how we Yes sort of how we open the book.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um Yes.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, the the the the Church of England, this is the word of the Lord, thanks be to God.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: Though I understand how some people can can see that as just that the sort of that it become very formulaic at the end that it's what you say at the end of a reading, but but something to convey um this is this is God's very word.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think just to keep on priming ourselves, um, I was at a conference, um, a Christian conference from a uh uh over in America a number of years ago, and with with apologies to any Americans listening, for a Brit, um much of it felt quite over the top.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: When that was the size of the lunches, I was doing pretty well, but much of it felt quite over the top just because cultures are different, and that's not a better or worse thing.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: But but the way the conference began, I admit I I felt a little bit of um kind of oh, this isn't quite my thing being British, it's a bit American and over the top because the the conference began and it was you know, the Lord is gonna work powerfully among us today.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: I know the Lord is gonna do his work in each of you, and just it all felt quite okay.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's not how conferences I've been to begin.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um it was it was very kind of um sort of overemphasized, and I know I know the Lord is gonna do this, and and how do I know that?
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then and then open Isaiah and says, because the Lord has promised, and they say, 'cause at this conference we will preach God's word, and the Lord has promised when his word is preached.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I kind of I just had to rebuke myself that I just assume, oh, it's probably just a cultural thing.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: But I think I was so programmed to thinking, I'm gonna come to a conference and I'm gonna hear some talks, and maybe I'll go home with some notes.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: And um, if I'm lucky, I'll get a coffee and a Danish at the mid-morning break.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: And rather than we're about to have two days of being addressed by the creator of the universe, and so we tremble, but we rejoice.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's neah Nehemiah 8 as they as the law is read, they tremble, um, but they rejoice, and and that is what's happening when we come to the scriptures, yeah.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: But can we have a sense of expectancy?
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think, yeah.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that that that this is what's happening because I think if I'm primed to expect so little, then I think that will shape the experience.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas I suddenly thought, actually, yeah, why don't we yeah, read Psalm 29 before the Bible reading?
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the voice we're about to hear now, or or or something.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um is extraordinary, isn't it?
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um the voice of the Lord is over the waters, the God of glory thunders, the Lord thunders over the mighty waters, the voice of the Lord is powerful, the voice of the Lord is majestic, the voice of the Lord breaks the cedars, the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_03: And notice how the voice of the Lord and the Lord are paralleled here.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_03: What the voice does, the Lord does.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_03: He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, Syrian like a wild ox, the voice of the Lord strikes with flashes of lightning, the voice of the Lord shakes the desert, the Lord shakes the desert of Kadesh, the voice of the Lord twists the oaks and strips the forests bare, and all in his temple cry glory.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_03: Whereas somewhat like a more dialogical style of sermon, you know, it's like, no, there's a scat that that sense of yeah, top-down address.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: And and just even even as we pray before the reading and preaching of God's word, Lord, you know, strike like flashes of thunder, um, make the wilderness shake, uh flash forth flames of fire, and may all your people cry glory.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then the word of God is just yeah.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: We we all we're doing at that point is not hyping up, but simply walking in step with what the Lord has promised.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: But and and I'm rebuking myself here because I'm I so easily sort of bring things down to a very horizontal, sort of mundane level.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, so-and-so is gonna read, so-and-so is gonna explain it, and then we'll all go and have coffee and um and and just just having that something of that sort of I mean it's maybe it's the quorum deo, the in the presence of God, addressed by God, that that awe and wonder, um, and and sort of tremble before the Lord.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I yeah, I need to preach that to myself regularly.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_03: I do wonder in our tribe, I mean, we we did an episode um a month ago on uh John Stott and his legacy.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_03: And um so we we said all the nice things about John Stutt at that stage, but I I did I did raise one question about John Stott's uh kind of model of preaching, um, which I can I continue to think has shaped us in our tribe, and I'm not convinced it's shaped us 100% in in the right way.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_03: If it's this horizontal thing where there's the the ancient world of Corinth, let's say, and then there's the modern day you know congregation who needs to hear something, it's the preacher who stands in the middle between then and now, and it's the preacher that is the bridge builder who is able to bring things from and at that stage I think that is to posit the preacher as the great mediator who is you know a able with his scholarship and his rhetoric and and everything else to uh to make the the ancient contemporary and that sort of thing.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_03: And and of course John Stock was just such an incredible communicator, like he could pull he could pull it off.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_03: But I I do wonder whether that's where whereas when I talk to a lot of my free church um brothers and sisters, they they stand a lot more in the stream of a Martin Lloyd Jones who it's there's a lot of verticality to a Martin Lloyd Jones's sort of understanding of the preacher and preaching, it's logic on fire, it's divine address, it's you know, buckle up kiddo.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_03: You're about you're about to hear something right now.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_03: And I I I need I need to be blessed a lot more by that tradition, I think, because I I think I've been I've been raised in the in a more horizontal tradition.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I isn't that why it's so good that we're different and learn from one another.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: As in, there's no one tradition or one person um that will sort of see things clearly, and and therefore I think it's just so helpful to be prepared to learn from you know learn from folks who are um from a different context, a different culture, um, a different age.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's interesting.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: I've been been reading more and more in some of the early church and medieval church and and just how how folks would preach back then.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and some of it's very different, and some of them think, well, they obviously hadn't been to the conference I've been to and learned how to preach properly.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um but and and probably there are some things we would say, yeah, you know, over over the years, God by his spirit through the church has helped us into, you know, there are lots of insights along the way, but but let's not assume that everything, you know, the folks who sort of fought and and died for the faith and and brought us our great creeds, um, probably knew something about uh about handling the scriptures, and therefore there'll be things to learn from.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: And something of that um again, again, something that that that that vertical approach and um and certainly Christ in all the scriptures, and there'll be there'll be things we can learn from.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so it's good not to have a sort of a chronological snobbery, um, or a a sort of a tribal snobbery that that only only my tribe or only my age will will have insights.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think God's church through the ages by his spirit, um, I think there's there's lots to learn from.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and it's wonderful when we can be blessed by one of the reasons I you know spent a bit of time in the states.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: My doctorate was over in the states, one of the reasons, apart from finances, um was to be aware that there will be different influences shaped by different people.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope I had some things to to bring to them, much as I received many many things from people from a different context who read the same Bible as me.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: But I it's only when you get people from outside of your context you start to go, well, I thought this was the only way to put that verse into practice.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: But you read the same verse and you do it that way, and I now see that's just as biblical.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe some of what I was doing was cultural rather than strictly biblical, and it can help us sort of weigh our our own biases, preferences.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because I mean the Bible is addressed to the church, you know, it's the word of Christ address addressed to God's people and given for worship that we might hear his voice.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_03: And I I do wonder whether uh post-Enlightenment Christians and then in the academy sort of take the Bible out of the church and put it into the academy and dissect it and sit over it in judgment and individualise it.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um and part of reclaiming the scriptures and putting them back in the context in which they're intended is is reading together with all the saints and and reading in the church.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_03: Um are there ways that we as churches can enjoy the scriptures?
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_03: Because I'm I I'm always struck by the fact that you know, in our tradition the quiet time is sort of the barometer of my spiritual health, where I've got my own individual copy of the Bible, which I you know sit on my lap and and read by myself.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_03: And I think it's important that we, you know, personally encourage ourselves in the Lord.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_03: But how how do we make it a team sport?
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_03: Or or how do how do we remember that it's a team sport and actually read the read the scriptures in a communal way?
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_01: I wish I had a good answer to that.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um I mean I do I'm sure part of it comes from Sundays, I think, I I think as we as we gather on the Lord's Day and to see that as so profoundly um formative for us as a community.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um and actually as a I'm not a church leader at present in in that direct way.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sort of training others and and preaching, but not not leading a local congregation.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but as someone who preaches quite a lot, even just the way we apply, um if every application is to individual one and two and three and four, um, then we sort of give the sense that this is this is a book that we we read as individuals gathered in the same building rather than okay, you know, hear what the Holy Spirit says to the churches.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um so something of that sense that um that I think Sunday isn't just I don't know, mate, it you know, isn't just what one one time in the week when we get the word of God and to be honest, we've got sermons on podcasts and a whole bunch of other things as well.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: I almost would love to see, I may be overstating now, but but just to sort of get rid of a lot of the of those things and say no, it's as we as we gather with this people on this day, that then the Lord speaks to us and we uh and and we together respond.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, of course, there's Such blessings from um you know resources available online and and books and podcasts and whatever it may be.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: But I think if that eclipses in any sense when we gather as God's people on on a Sunday and together hear his word, I think we just need to realize that is something, I think there is something unique and special about that.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, um, that is different to my personal quiet time or a small group Bible study or whatever else.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: And and to anything we can do to try and raise our expectations, our valuing of of that, that that Lord's day when we we're not just gathering together to hear a talk, we're gathering as God's people.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's a sort of a Sinai type, you know, voice of the Lord or or um Hebrews 12, you know, yeah.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_01: Mount Zion if we're gonna get Hebrews 11, but even more than that, but but it's it's it's that together we hear God's voice and respond, um, just to really treasure and value that.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: And in a sense, then as we read our Bibles and go to small groups and all the lots of other good things, in a sense, they've been shaped and informed by that, that, that, that sort of that Lord's Day, I I think.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, rather than perhaps they rival it.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: And well, I've read my Bible a lot this week and I listened to sermons in the car, so maybe I don't need church on a Sunday.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's the danger if if all these other good things might displace the unique gathering of God's people with that very vertical um sense as a as a community gathered to hear his word.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's good.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_03: That's good.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_03: Um, a couple of quick questions to finish.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, one is how do you um how do you guard against people's feeling that the Bible is such a big book, it's such a technical book?
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_03: Um little old me, I can't understand it.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_03: You know, obviously the reformers were very big into the perspicuity of the scriptures, uh, which is not that the scriptures are easy, um, but that we we we can understand what what God would have us certain certainly to know as regards our salvation and and um our relationship with Christ.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um if you write a book called God's story, um the Bible explained, um, how do you guard against people thinking, ah, I need technical expertise in order to get into the book?
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, really good question.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um Well, I mean starting with the perspicuity of the scriptures, it's important, isn't it, to to think what is and isn't meant by that.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um I f as far as I understand, um it's saying it's saying the scriptures are scriptures are clear.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_01: God speaks clearly those who say some parts are harder than others, but um we still have you know Ephesians 4.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um God gave the apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_01: And therefore there are roles for those, there are teaching roles in the church, and so I don't I think if we take perspiguity scripture to mean it should be just me and my Bible and nobody else, and all will be okay.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I I wonder if that is is pushing a helpful thing, but but be but but too far because we are to be as a community gathered together, and the Lord has equipped some people with particular roles.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I I um I sort of don't want because obviously the Lord will the Lord keeps his people, but I don't want to just assume that the default position is just me, a Bible, and God as the default sort of interpretive community.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, it's it's a it's a community together as a church, both sort of the church we're part of, but also the church through through the centuries.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and within that church, the Lord has has equipped various people with roles, some of which includes teaching and helping others.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't want to sort of overburden people with thinking I should be able to just open Leviticus and on my own, day one as a new Christian, make sense of it.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think there are places that are much easier to start.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to absolutely affirm we can, anyone can read the scriptures.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I would also say the Lord has has given us the church, he's given us people with particular gifts to to help, and so not to despise those, um, but uh we need to make sure we use those as the um sort of ministers in terms of servants of of rather than sort of becoming you know getting in the way.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so I yeah, I I do think just encouraging people, I mean the you know, just the gospel, such an obvious place to start.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh read the gospels, meet Jesus.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um I so often preaching on some of the gospels, I think, what what am I what am I doing here?
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: Why am I speaking?
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_01: Just we read the gospels, we encounter Christ.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and sometimes my temptation is when I'm a preacher, I I better have some things to say and fill up time.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_01: And um when actually we we just hear the voice of Christ.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I think in some places check him out, huh?
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_03: Huh?
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_03: That's preaching, isn't it?
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: Check him out, huh?
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, and sometimes just just you know, just reading reading a passage verse by verse slowly.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, wouldn't that be a good use of 10 minutes in in church?
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: Just reading the passage very slowly, a line at a time, giving a chance for us to reflect.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I do think there are other parts that it's helpful to have people say, okay, we we might not immediately understand all these sacrifices in Leviticus.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_01: We know that they're fulfilled in Christ, but quite how and quite why does that matter?
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: To have people is to help to help us do that, I I see as a helpful thing, so long as we don't um put that in place of reading the scriptures.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_01: So someone described a good book as like a map to a foreign country.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um it it can help orient us, but we don't spend our time looking at the map.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_01: The purpose of it is so that we can go and explore the country.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that that foreign country or that that country, that glorious country is the scriptures.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: Anything that can help us help us do that, wonderful.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but if we find ourselves just looking at the map and not reading the Bible, that's that's probably when something's gone a bit wrong.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_03: And if you can hold up the book and some of the pages for us, I mean people will see immediately that when it says the Bible explained, it's it's not um trying to give us the algorithm that we can crack, but um it's it's a beautifully produced um work.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, yeah, show us show us some of these these pages.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_03: And what's the thinking behind it?
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, lots of lots of pictures and um illustrations and um yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_03: And that's a very deliberate decision.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_03: Why why why have you gone that route?
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um partly because um a little bit what I was saying about sort of temple imagery and and various things, though it might be unfamiliar to us, actually, some of these things we can trace through are not particularly complex.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_01: And anything that I'm really pleased that this book they've they've done a great job um putting it together in a way that doesn't look intimidating, that you need to have a PhD in this and that to be able to understand the Bible.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_01: So this is trying to say the Bible is is a book we can all access.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_01: Here's a guide that might help you along the way and really just get you to then put this book down and read the Bible itself.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so um when when we were sort of conceiving it, or they they were sort of saying what they were aiming for, but sort of new new Christians was the sort of the prime the prime audience, and so we we tried to make it accessible for new Christians.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_01: I hope there'll be lots for people who've been a Christian for years, but rather than saying understanding the Bible as one book is only for super advanced Christians, actually saying no, to see the Bible as one story is is something that's so helpful for all Christians, and particularly one story pointing to Jesus.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: John 5, the scriptures testify to him so we may come to him and have life.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so um I think that's where people find it hard.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: They they read the book of Numbers, they read the book of Ezekiel and think, I know this must point to Jesus, but I don't quite know how.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's it's a it's a it's a loving, a loving thing if we can say, okay, here are some of the ways we can see Christ here.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: I I I find great joy in helping people to see Christ in the scriptures.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_01: So that was one of the goals in in making it simple and accessible, was so that people really don't just read these books, yeah, just at a distance, but go, Numbers helps me treasure my savior.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_01: Ezekiel helps me treasure my savior.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that was that was the goal.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_03: That's right, as Jesus says, these are the scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's why the scriptures are given.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I very much hope that uh the book blesses the socks of people and uh gets them into the good book.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_03: I know that uh all your ministry is really uh getting people alive to the life-giving powers within the scriptures and showing them their saviour uh in that book.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_03: So uh yeah, I really hope that it does a great, a great work of uh not only getting people to enjoy uh your book, but uh people to enjoy God's book.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Matt Searles, thanks so much for joining us.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: Pleasure.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: Good to be here.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_02: Well, there we go.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for listening.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_02: Hope you enjoyed that conversation.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_02: I was certainly very encouraged by what Matt said there.
• 53:38
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• 54:33
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