Latest / Read, Do, & Tell / Ep 3: Why Does Bible Literacy Matter?

Transcript

Ep 3: Why Does Bible Literacy Matter? · Read, Do, & Tell

• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to This Reading Mamas podcast.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: I am Becky of This Reading Mama, and I'm Amy.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad to be back.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Today we're going to talk about the topic of Bible literacy again, but we've defined it in episode one and two.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: So today we want to talk about why does Bible literacy even matter?
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think about Lon Solomon, this would be the so what?
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: So what of Bible literacy?
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: So we've got several reasons we've kind of noodled through, talked through, and let's just talk about them today.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: The first one would be to know God with our head, to reason well.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: So when we think about the Christian faith, it's a reasonable faith.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: There are reasons to believe the Bible is true.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: There are reasons to believe God exists.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Our faith is not an empty faith.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a blind faith.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: We are never told to check our brains at the door when we go to church, when we read his word.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: We're told to engage with his word using our minds.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I think of Isaiah 118, God says to the people, Come, let us reason together.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: In Matthew 22, 37, this is where Jesus is asked, What's the greatest commandment?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, to love the Lord your God.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: And he says this list of things, but one of the things he says is to love the Lord your God with all your mind.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then in Romans 12, 1 through 2, we're told to renew our mind through the word.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Part of number one again is to know God with our heart.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: This is where we want to live well.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Where the first one was we want to reason well.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: This one is to live well.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: So the Christian faith is to be lived out.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: Our beliefs should overflow into our behavior.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: So it makes me think of James 1.22.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I quoted this one in both of the other episodes too.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: But we're not to just be hearers of the word, we're to be doers of the word.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I, we didn't really talk about this, but I think about um it later in that passage, it talks about God's word being a mirror to us, that when we look at it and we see something sinful, we are to change it.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: We are to, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to change it.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like I tell the kids when I teach them it's like looking in the mirror and you have a big old piece of spinach in your teeth or a booger hanging out your nose.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: You don't walk away and just go, oh, it's no big deal.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: You fix it because it's ugh.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's how our sin should be for us when we we see it in God's word.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then in John 13, 35, Jesus says to his disciples, the world will know you are my disciples if you love one another.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: So they're living out that Christian faith.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then in Galatians 5, 22 and 23, you have the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's contrasted from the passage in the passage above to the fruit of the flesh, which are not pretty things.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I think about this, our pastor just recently went through the book of Galatians on Sunday night, and he said something I thought that was kind of cool.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: It really resonated with me.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: He talked about an artificial Christmas tree and how on the outside it might look like a real Christmas tree, and maybe it's got some fake fruit on it or ornaments.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: And you get up to it and you're like, this is not, I mean, we have an artificial tree this year, and it's really not the same as the live one.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: It just doesn't smell as good.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's anyway, it's still pretty, but but you get up close to it and you're like, these are these needles are fake.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like you can't even smell the smell of a tree, and there's no real fruit on it.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: I would never like pull one of those ornaments off and eat it because it's not real.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: But if you contrast that to a real Christmas tree, it's gonna smell like the tree.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna have, it'll still have ornaments on it, but you know what I'm saying?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like the tree is gonna be rooted into the ground, and out of it is going to come the fruit.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're to be more like that real Christmas tree and not a fake one.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: I like that really stuck with me.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: So in Christian circles, especially, and even in the world, is it the head versus the heart, or do they go together?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: And we would contend that they go together.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: So when you have knowledge, so when you have head knowledge without heart knowledge or without obedience, that's dangerous.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: In in James 2.14, he says, What good is it for a man to claim to have faith, but he has no deeds?
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And if you look up what knowledge and understanding is, knowledge is the basic foundation of truth.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: So if we're looking at the Bible, knowledge of the Babel of the Babel, knowledge of the Bible is having the basic foundation of what God's word is and understanding the Bible is where you use what you know to apply it.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you take your emotions that you have and you look at it from a biblical standpoint of what does God tell me about this?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Is what I'm feeling accurate.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you can comprehend what the word says, you can interpret it properly, you can apply the knowledge in your life.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's the difference between knowing it and having it in your heart.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's both of them.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot have understanding without knowledge.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: And if you do, if you but you can have knowledge without understanding, right?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that would be bad.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: You think about the Pharisees.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, their hearts were far from the Lord.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: But on the flip side, you can have you can have emotional response without knowledge, but that's also dangerous.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think of like these big revivals or um at the end of a youth conference when they kind of have this, I would say manipulative in a way, music playing that's kind of it, it kind of stirs these kids' emotions.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: And my daughter was just telling me about one that she went to, and these kids are coming forward, and yes, they may have knowledge, but you can't assume that they have the knowledge.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: You want to you want to check that knowledge before you're just like, yep, check you're a Christian now, yep, you're a follower of Jesus.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because if they don't truly know who Jesus is, if they don't really truly know what sin is and what Christ did for them, and they don't understand that in their heart and in their head, they have both of them, and you just let them go off into life and you're not discipling them and teaching them, that can be dangerous too.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's it would be a poor witness to who Jesus is.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And in Philippians 2, verse 12, it tells us that we should work out our salvation because it's God who is working that out through his Holy Spirit in us, and we're called to be obedient to it.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: So our head knowledge has to be balanced with heart knowledge, and our heart knowledge has to be balanced with our head knowledge.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually both, and you do see that in the life of Jesus because it tells us in John when the word became flesh, we saw his glory as and it says that he was full of grace and he was full of truth.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of that head and heart.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's both.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it's important for us to um be in God's word because that's how we maintain our relationship with the Lord.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, how do you know the God you confess to be Lord if you don't spend time with him?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: And Joshua um he's told, meditate on it daily, day and night, actually, so that you may be careful to do what it says.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the writer of Psalm 119, he says that he seeks God to learn about his righteousness.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: He says that he seeks him with all his heart so that he doesn't go astray.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: He asks God to direct his paths, to teach him his precepts.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I meditate on it, I remember it, and I obey it.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: So he knows that the words of God are true, and he wants to live that out.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then we have in John 15, where um God is saying to us, he says, Remain in me, and I will remain in you.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so just as Becky was talking about the fruits of the Spirit, we don't bear the fruits of the Spirit by ourselves, or I think it actually says the fruit of the Spirit, and these are all the characteristics of what the fruit of the Spirit looks like in Galatians um 5.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: But he says, You can't bear the fruit by yourself, not without me.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: So remain in me, and you will bear much fruit.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: So we will be good witnesses of what it is to be like Jesus and and ultimately bring people to the saving knowledge of who Jesus is.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: So we remain in him, we have a relationship with him.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a marriage, right?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: So we spend more time with our husband and we know him more, we love them more because of the time that we dedicate to that to our husbands.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so it's out of our love for who God is in the same way that we spend time with him.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And um, in spending time, we come to know what he expects of us and we want to be obedient to him.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Psalm 119, 32 says that I run in the path of your commands, for you have broadened my understanding, and that goes back to the knowledge and understanding.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I know who you are, and because I know who you are, I am able to understand how I'm to live.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: In another um version, it even says that last part of you have broadened my understanding.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: It says, You've given me a heart that is willing.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And um, first John 2, 3 talks about how we know that we know him if we obey his commands.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, David Guzak, who is a teacher of the word, he says it's a simple loving obedience that is natural to us because of the result of our fellowship with God.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people try and complicate the time that we spend with God.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: It really is just simple obedience.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's knowing that he wants you to be with him, and because you love him, you too, in return, want to be with him.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: John 14, 15 says, if you love me, you will obey what I command.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: So, number four is a little much to unpack, but I think it's very important.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: So when we have Bible literacy, when we think of it, the reason one of the reasons it matters is because knowing God's word, studying it, having an obedient life out of what he commands protects us from ourselves, it protects us from bad theology, and it protects us from the lies of the culture.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, first let's just talk about protecting from ourselves.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I think of like it is left on our own.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: I really do think it's very easy to justify our sin, to justify our opinions, to justify our attitudes.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: We might say, well, my husband made me mad, that's why I acted the way I did.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: Or my kid made me mad, or well, at least I don't do what she does, or at least I didn't murder somebody.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: We tend to see our sin as less repulsive than it really is when it comes to we see other people's sins.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh wow, that I can really see her sin, but it's not so big of a deal with me.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: We just finished going through a book called Respectable Sins by Jerry Bridges, and he talks a lot about this how there are sins we quote unquote do respect, even in the church, um, that don't seem so bad.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like, uh let me tell you what, you need to pray for this person.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: And we're really what we're doing is we're gossiping.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: So we tend to sugarcoat our sin and make it not sound as bad as it really is.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I would also say that if we're not reading and heeding God's word, we're we're gonna believe it's very possible we'll believe a lie that we're telling ourselves.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: So not only do we want to be protected from ourselves, we also want to be protected from bad theology.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: There's a phrase that says, bad theology hurts people.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I believe the root of bad theology is really Bible illiteracy.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: So we're much more inclined to believe and fall for bad theology if we're not in God's word and we don't know God's word.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: So bad theology from the pulpit, from I've heard from some pulpits, is you know, you're a good person, or God wants you to be happy, or God is loving and he would not punish you.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: I also think of false teachers.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: False teachers to me are a little more they might be enthusiastic or a great speaker, but false teachers, scripture tells us that on purpose they lead people astray.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so a false teacher may take and twist God's word, but it may just be a little twist, like majority of it's truth, but just twist it just enough to where people fall for it.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: False teachers also want to tickle people's ears, they want to tell people what they want to hear.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody likes to be told you're a sinner, they like to be told they're good.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then false teachers end up tearing people's lives apart because people follow the lie instead of following the truth found in God's word.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: Did you want to add something?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, when I when I first started studying the Bible, one of the first analogies that I remember being taught was that of someone who works in a bank.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: They study the real the real bill so that when they get a false bill, they know that it's a counterfeit.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the same for those who study God's word.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: We can identify what is true theology versus bad theology because we are in the truth often, if not daily.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: So we have protection from ourselves, protection from bad theology, but also protection from the lies of the culture.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: So we are surrounded by lies.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: Our culture's message is counter-biblical.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: But if we're reading and heeding God's word, we're going to recognize these lies instead of living by them.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: So we have knowing God's word, it helps us to be in the world because we can't, we're not taking ourselves out of the world.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: We're living in the world, but we're not of the world, as Jesus said.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's important that we're in the word because that allows us to explain and share it with other people.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Our faith is personal, but it's not private.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: So we don't just um it's not just between God and myself that I'm a believer and God knows I'm a believer, but it should be something that permeates every aspect of our life, our family, our jobs, um, just being out in the public sphere, where we go, the grocery store, shopping, whatever it may be, um, it should be something that people see in us all the time.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: We're supposed to contend for and share our faith with other people.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: And when we share our faith, the word contend means to defend it so or affirm that it is true.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: So when we share it, we're gonna have to defend why we believe what we believe, which is what 1 Peter 3, 15 through 16 says.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: It says, always be ready to give an answer or to defend your faith why you believe what you believe.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: Colossians 4 6 goes right along with 1 Peter.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: It tells us our speech should be gracious, seasoned with salt, but it says that we should know how to answer each person.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think of that word contend for.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: We were talking about how it's kind of like tug of war, where you have truth on one side and lies on the other side, and we're not gonna give up any ground.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna struggle and we're gonna pull and we're gonna defend the truth.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: Not because necessarily God needs us or has to have us do that, but we're told to do that in the culture that we live in.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: Matthew 28, 19 through 20, we know this as the Great Commission, one of the last things Jesus said before he ascended to the Father.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: And he tells us as we're going into the nations, we're to make disciples.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: We are to baptize them, we are to also teach them to obey the things that God has commanded.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I love this.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: He's not just saying, go out and make a convert and be excited and never talk to them ever again.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's talking about making disciples.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: And really, that's the messy part.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: You're teaching people what are the commands of Jesus?
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: What does he ask us to do?
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: Why do we obey his commands?
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: We run and we run in the path of his commands because he's given us a willing heart and he's given us that understanding.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really fleshing out all the things we talked about today.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: And Paula's a great example of that because he doesn't just go and share the message of Jesus with others.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: But when people come to faith in who Jesus is, he is there not only to teach them, but when he leaves, he always follows up.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: He sends letters of encouragement or he sends other believers to encourage them and help them to continue to stay steadfast in their faith.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: So let us be determined as Ezra to study the Word of God, to obey it, and teach it to all the world.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.