Latest / Rooted & Real With Keenan / Episode 4: How We Got the Bible—and Why You Can Trust It
Transcript
- Keenan: Hey y'all, welcome back to Rooted and Real. I'm Keenan. a registered mental health counseling intern. And in this podcast, we have honest conversations about mental health, relationships, emotional resilience, and above all, faith. So before we begin, I say this all the time. Probably gonna have a like a pre recording of it, but for now, I'm just gonna say it. Here's your reminder. I'm a therapist, but I'm not your therapist. This podcast is not intended for education. I'm sorry. This podcast is intended for education, encouragement, and personal growth. It is not a substitute for individualized mental health treatment. Today we're gonna keep on trucking along on our Bible. Doctrine series. So let's review episode one. We asked the question: can you trust the Bible? Then in episode two, we talked about why truth matters for mental health. We looked at what happens when our feelings, fears, assumptions, or social media feeds become our highest authority. Today, we're gonna go one step deeper. We're asking this: how on earth did we actually get the Bible? Who the heck wrote it, who copied it, who decided which books belonged in it? How is it how it been changed? Wow, I cannot talk. Just so you guys know, it is really late at night here because I am a procrastinator and I waited too long to make this episode. So I noticed one of my episodes I was yawning too much, but I'm gonna try to not yawn as much. But let's keep going. So, you know, how did we actually get the Bible? Who wrote it? Who copied it? Who decided which books belonged in it? Has it been changed since the beginning? Did someone manipulate it? Did a group of religious leaders sit in a room? Hundreds of years after Jesus and vote on what Christians were allowed to believe. after thousands of years of copying and translating, can we have any real confidence that the Bible we read today reflects what the original writers intended to communicate? So those are fair questions. I get those questions a lot, especially people questioning Christianity, religion, stuff like that. So they're fair. It's not sinful to have questions. They're not sinful questions. They're not disrespectful questions. They should not threaten us. If Christianity is true, sh it should be able to handle honest investigation. God is not frightened by your questions. Truth does not need to hide from examination. Gonna tell you just believe because the Bible says so, or because your pastor says so, your debt parents say so, your best friend says so. I'm not gonna ask you that. I'm not gonna pretend that every historical question has a simple ⁓ answer. Instead, I want to walk you through the basic journey of the Bible, from ⁓ writings to handwritten manuscript to recognized collections. ⁓ To the translated Bible you may have sitting on your nightstand. My goal is not to turn you into a textual scholar in the next 40 some odd minutes. My goal is to help you become a more informed person. I want you to understand enough that the next time someone says the Bible was changed, you do not immediately panic or question change your faith. You don't We just don't want you to panic. You can slow it down and ask, what exactly do you mean by changed? Which passages are you referring to? What manuscript evidence are you looking at? Are you talking about copying, translations, interpretations, or a selection of the books? Because those are four different conversations. And one of the reasons people become overwhelmed is that all those questions get thrown into one big emotional pile. That is something I see in mental health all the time. When anxiety takes over, it often combines several different concerns into one terrifying conclusion. A person notices one uncomfortable fact and immediately jumps to nothing is trustworthy. been lied to. My faith is falling apart. Nothing is real. Everything I believe must be false. That's not careful reasoning. That is catastrophizing. And that's a word I've used on this show before. It is an understandable emotional response, but it is not necessarily an accurate conclusion. So today we're gonna slow down the conversation. we're going to separate the questions. We're going to examine what we know. We're going to talk about why this matters, not only for theology, but also for emotional stability, intellectual honesty, ⁓ and maturity. Maturity. So let's begin with the most basic fact. The Bible did not fall out of the sky as one finished. Beautiful leather bound book. It was not originally written with chapter numbers, verse numbers, maps, red letters, footnotes, a ribbon bookmark. The Bible is a collection of writings produced across different historical periods by different human authors in different circumstances. It contains history, it contains poetry, it contains wisdom literature. It contains laws, it contains prophecy, it contains biographies of Jesus. It contains letters written to early churches and Christian leaders. It contains apocalyptic literature filled with imagery and symbolism. The Old Testament was written primarily in Hebrew, and some portions in Aramaic. The New Testament it was written in Greek. Writers had different personalities, background, purposes, and audiences. They were not sitting together in one room creating a coordinating doc a coordinated document. They lived in different generations. They faced different problems. They wrote using different literacy styles. And yet, Christians believe these writings come together to tell one unified story. God creates, humanity rebels, since Damages our relationship with God, each other, ourselves, and creation. God begins a covenant relationship with his people. He promises redemption. Jesus enters human history. Jesus lives, teaches, dies, and rises and rises again. The gospel goes out to the nation. Christ forms his church, and history moves toward the return of Christ, final justice, resurrection in a new creation. That does not mean every passage is simple. It does not mean every author uses the same vocabulary. It doesn't mean there are no difficult questions. means the Bible has an overarching theological storyline despite its diversity. Now, Christians use a very important word to describe the Bible. That word is inspiration. Second Timothy 316 says, All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. Now, if we look at 2 Peter 121, it says this that people spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. Christians say scripture is inspired. We do not mean that the writers went into some kind of trance and became mindless robots. We do not mean that their personalities disappeared. We do not mean that every book sounds exactly the same. Paul sounds like Paul. Luke sounds like Luke. David's poetry sounds different from Moses' laws. John's writing sounds different from James's writing. Christian belief is that God worked through real human authors so that what they wrote communicated what God intended. There's a divine dimension in a human dimension. We will explore inspiration more deeply in episode four. For today, ⁓ we need to an important distinction. Inspiration is not the same thing as copying. Christians believe the original writings were. were inspired by God. But those writings then had to be copied. There were no printers, no photocopiers, were no digital files, there no cloud backup, there was no AI. If a synagogue, church, or Christian community wanted access to biblical book, someone had to make a handwritten copy. That process is called textual transmission. ⁓ And is usually where people become nervous. They think ⁓ Wait a minute, handwritten copies over hundreds of years? Surely that became a giant game of telephone. But copying a document is not the same as whispering a sentence in someone's ear. In the children's telephone game, one person hears a message one time, repeats it from memory, and then loses access to the original. That's not how manuscript transition worked. Copies existed alongside other copies. Communities were Read them publicly. Multiple manuscript traditions developed in different geological locations. Later scholars could compare surviving copies and identify and identify where the wording differed. Imagine that 100 people copied the same letter. Somebody accidentally misspelled a word. Somebody else repeated a word twice. Another person skipped a short phrase because two lines did similarly. Those are genuine copying differences. But because you have many copies to compare, you can usually identify where the variation happened. The existence of variations does not automatically destroy confidence in the text. In many cases, the variations are the reason scholars can reconstruct the earlier wording with greater care. This field is called textual confidence. Criticism. And I know the word criticism can sound negative, it can sound really bad. It does not mean attacking the Bible. It means carefully comparing manuscripts to determine the most likely earliest readings. Scholars examine things like which manuscripts are older? Where were they found? Do manuscripts differ from geographic regions? Agree. Which reading best explains how the other variations develop? Did a copyist accidentally repeat a word? Did someone change the word order without changing the meaning? Did a note written in the margin later get copied into the main text? Those are real questions. And responsible Christians, responsible researchers should not be afraid to acknowledge them. There are textual variations in biblical manuscripts. That is true. However, Saying there are textual variations is very different from saying nobody knows what the Bible originally said. are not the same claim. Most variations are small. they may involve spelling, word order, repeated words, omitted words, or differences that do not significantly change the meaning of sentence. There are some larger and more meaningful textual questions. Many modern Bibles openly identify them. You may see a footnote saying some manuscripts include dot dot dot dot dot. Other ancient manuscripts read dot dot dot dot dot. The earliest manuscripts do not include dot dot dot dot dot. The is not the translators hiding something from you. It's the opposite. They're showing you the evidence. They're saying, here is where the manuscripts differ. And here is why we translated the passages this way. That kind of transparency should build trust. A dishonest system hide its complications. A responsible system shows its work. Now we should also be careful not to exaggerate the evidence in other in the other direction. Some Christian speakers throw out massive manuscript numbers as if the number alone proves that every theological conclusion must be correct. That's too simplistic. Having many manuscripts gives scholars a large amount of material to compare. That is valuable. But the manuscripts vary in age, completeness, language, and significance. Some are extensive, some are tiny fragments, some contain almost an entire biblical collection. Some contain only a few verses. The strong argument is not simply we have a big number. So stop asking questions. The stronger argument is we possess a substantial and diverse manuscript tradition that can be examined, compared, debated, and studied openly. Christianity is not about asking you to trust texts for which no historical evidence exists. The evidence is available for investigation. A well-known manuscripts is the codex. Syntias. I probably Syntias. I was just saying Syntia. I probably said it wrong. Tell me in the comments how I'm supposed to say it. But well-known standard manuscript. It was handwritten in Greek during the fourth century. It contains the earliest surviving complete copy of the New Testament. Today's portions of it are held in several institutions. The digital images are available for scholars and the public to examine. Now, just think about that. You do not simply have to take a preacher's word for it. You do not, you can look at the images of the manuscript. You can examine the history for yourself. You can see the corrections made by ancient scribes. You can see that textual transmission was a real human process. The corrections do not prove the Bible was hopelessly corrupted. They show that scribes noticed mistakes, compared readings, and attempted to preserve the text carefully. Another major discovery was the Dead Sea scrolls. An ancient these ancient Jewish manuscripts were discovered in the beginning of the 1940s near the Dead Sea. Among them were biblical manuscripts that were much older than many previously available human Hebrew copies. One of the most famous is Is the great Isaiah scroll. It contains all 66 chapters of Isaiah dates from before the time of Jesus. Why did that matter? Because scholars could compare this ancient text with Hebrew manuscript traditions. The comparison revealed both stability and That is important. Sometimes Christians tell the story as though every word is absolutely identical. That overstates the evidence. There are differences, sure, but the discovery also demonstrated that the biblical text had been transmitted with substantial over a very long period. The general content and message of Isaiah had not been ⁓ in the Middle Ages. The scroll gave researchers a much earlier witness to the text. This is one of the patterns I want you to notice. Honest faith does not need exaggerated claims. We do not have to say there are zero textual differences. We do not have to pretend ancient copying was supernatural photocopying. We can say there are differences. Scholars study them. Most are minor. Some require more attention. Modern translations. Often disclose them. And the manuscript evidence provides a strong basis for knowing the content of the biblical writing. That is much more mature position than either extreme. One extreme says there are variations. So the Bible, so the entire Bible is worthless. The other extreme says there are no variations, and anyone who mentions them is attacking God. Now their response is intellectual responsible. Mature faith can handle complexity. That matters clinically as well. One mark of psychological flexibility is the ability to hold complexity without collapsing into panic. A rigid thinker often believes either everything is perfectly simple or nothing can be trusted. That is all our nothing thinking. Real life rarely works that way. Your marriage can be difficult and still worth protecting. A parent can have a parent can have failed you and still has shown have shown you love in many ways. A church can have hurt you without every Christian belief being false. A Bible ⁓ can contain a copying variation without the entire Christian faith collapsing. Emotional maturity means learning to evaluate each claim according to the evidence. Rather than reacting to everything as a total threat. Now let's address one of the big questions. Who decided which books belonged in the Bible? The word canon refers to the collection of writings recognized scripture by a religious community. The word does not mean a weapon. Canon with one N in this context refers to a rule, standard, or recognized collection. The Old Testament canon developed within the history of ancient Israel and Judaism. The New Testament canon developed within the early Christian church. And this process did not happen in one afternoon. The earliest Christians already had the Jewish scriptures. Jesus quoted Scripture. The Apostles quoted scripture. The early church read the Old Testament as God's word. the teachings of Jesus and writings connected to the apostles began circulating among the churches. Paul's letters were copied and shared. The gospels were read publicly. Certain writings gained widespread acceptance and authority within Christian communities. Other writings were disputed. Some were valued for teaching, but were not ultimately treated as scripture. Some were written, some were rejected because they were written too late, lacked a credible connection to the apostles, contradicted established Christian teachings, or were not broadly deceived by churches. The process was gradual. It involved discussion, it involved disagreement, it involved prayer. different Christian traditions have some differences in their old testament collection collections. Catholic Orxido Orthodox and Presper and Protestant Bibles do not have all the con do not all contain exactly the same Old Testament books. That is an important fact to acknowledge. When discussing the New Testament, however, the twenty seven books recognized by most Christian traditions become widely established through the life and discernment of the other church. Church councils later affirmed and recognized collections. They did not simply create the Christian faith from nothing. distinction matters. The Christian faith didn't come out of thin air. Recognition is not exactly the same as invention. Imagine a community has been singing a certain worship, sing certain worship songs for decades. Those songs are already known, used, memorized, and valued. Then the community eventually publishes an official hymn hymn hymnal containing those songs. The publication of the hymnal did not create the songs. It formally collected and recognized them. That illustration is not perfect, but it helps. The early church was already reading, copying, teaching, and using many of the New Testament writings before later councils formally list them. Now, you can have heard the claim that the council of Nicaea decided which books went into the Bible. That's a popular claim. It shows up online, it shows up in fictional stories, it gets repeated in videos, but the Council of Nicaea in AD three twenty five. Is primarily known for addressing controversy over the identity of Christ producing what became the association with the Nicene Creed. It is not a secret meeting where Constantine placed dozens of competing gospels on the table and personally chose the Bible. That didn't happen. That story makes for dramatic entertainment. It is not responsible for the summary of the canon's development. Again, That does not mean the canon process was simple. were debates. ⁓ were they were disputed. There were disputed writings. There were regional differences. There were political and cultural forces in the ancient world. Christians do not need to deny any of that. But the process was complex, does not equal the process was a conspiracy. Those are different statements. This is where discernment matters. A conspiracy explanation can feel emotionally powerful because it takes a complicated historical process and gives us one villain. Constantine controlled everything. The church hid the truth. The council rewrote Christianity. That kind of explanation provides emotional certainty. It gives us a simple story, but simple is not always accurate. In counseling, I often encourage people to notice the difference between an explanation that is emotionally satisfying and an explanation that is supported by evidence. Sometimes the most dramatic story is not the truest one. Now, let's discuss translation. A lot of people say the Bible has been translated so many times. That it cannot possibly resemble the original. They picture this. became Latin, Latin became old English, Old English became another form of English. Then someone translated that version again. And after centuries of translation, the original meaning disappeared. That is not generally how modern Bible translation works. Modern translation committees typically work from Clur critical editions of the Hebrew, Armaic, and Greek texts. In other words, they go back to the ancient language manuscript evidence. The ESV is not simply a translation of the NIV. The NIV is not simply a rewritten King James. The CSB is not a translation of another modern English Bible. Translation teams consult the original languages available textual evidence. They also compare how words and phrases are used in ancient literature. They examine grammar, they consider the context, they debate how best to describe the meaning in modern language. And because translation involves judgment, Different translations make different choices. Some translations aim for more of like a like a word-for-word approach. Others aim more for thought-for-thought approach. Some prioritize formal similarity to the structure of the original language. Others prioritize natural readability in the receiving language. That doesn't automatically mean one translation is honest and the other one's corrupt. Languages do not map. Perfectly into one another. A literal word-for-word rendering can sometimes sound confusing or even miscommunicate the meaning. ordinary expressions. If someone says it's raining cats and dogs, translating each word literally into another language might give the wrong impression. A good translator asks, What does this expression mean? How can I communicate that meaning accurately in a new language? Biblical translation involves similar challenges, ⁓ with Greater care because the text matters deeply to religious communities. That is why comparing translations can be helpful. It allows you to notice where translators made different decisions. You may prefer one translation for careful study and another for broader reading. Like I like the ESV for study and the NLT for broader reading. That's what I do. You can also use like study notes and interlinear tools if you want to go deeper. But let me offer this warning. Do not become so obsessed with finding the perfect translation that you stop reading the Bible. Some people spend years debating whether ESV, NIV, CSB, NASB, ⁓ or King James Version is the best. While rarely opening any of them. At some point You gotta ask yourself, are you even reading it? Are you listening to it? Are you learning the context? Are you allowing scripture to challenge you? Are you applying what you understand? A Bible can actually read thoughtfully. You actually read thoughtfully is more useful than six translations collecting dust while you argue online. Now, we've talked a lot about the Bible. Translations and all that, but let's talk, let's connect all that to mental health. What does the history of the Bible have to do with anxiety, depression, shame, relationships, even remotional ⁓ More than we might think. Human beings ⁓ frameworks for making a sense of life. We all have beliefs about who we are, what makes us valuable. What suffering means. What love requires, what happens when we fail, forgiveness is possible, whether evil will ultimately win, whether our lives have purpose. Those beliefs function like an internal map. In CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy, we often talk a lot about core beliefs. Core beliefs are deep assumptions about ourselves, other people, and how we see the world. A person may carry beliefs such as I'm unlovable. People cannot be trusted. I am only valuable when I perform. If I make a mistake, I'm a failure. I must control everything to remain safe. These beliefs influence thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. In the same way, our theological beliefs shape how we interpret life. What you believe about God affects how you respond to suffering. What you believe about grace affects how you respond to failure. What you believe about human worth affects how you treat yourself and others. What you believe about truth affects how you evaluate your emotions. What you believe about your forgiveness affects your relationships. That is why biblical trust matters. Not because the Bible is a magical object, not because owning one automatically makes you emotionally healthy. because reading one verse instantly erases trauma, depression, anxiety, or grief. But Scripture offers a framework that can challenge distorted beliefs and orient us towards truth. Anxiety might say if I cannot predict everything, I cannot handle every every anything. Scripture repeatedly reminds us that human beings are limited and that God is not. Shame may say you your worst mistake. The gospel steps in and says sin is real, but redemption is also real. Perfectionism may say you must earn love through flawless performance. Grace says salvation is a gift, not a trophy for perfect people. Loneliness may say you are completely abandoned. Scripture gives us language for lament while also pointing us towards God's presence and Christian community. Again, this does not mean we use Bible verses to silence emotions. That can become Spiritual bypassing. If someone is grieving, we do not throw a verse at them and tell them to stop crying. The Bible says Jesus wept. The psalms contain anger, confusion, sorrow, fear, and despair. Biblical faith. Does not require emotional dishonesty. It gives our emotions a larger context. It says your feelings matter, but they are not your only source of truth. pain is real, but it is not your entire story. Your questions are valid, but they do not have to become the final authority over reality. Now, some listeners may be thinking Keenan. I grew up being told never to question the Bible. Maybe honest questions were treated as rebellion. you were given shallow, so good answers. Maybe scripture was used to control you. Maybe someone quoted verses while behaving abusively. Maybe churches had church leaders who demanded trust without accountability. I want to say this clearly. the Bible is not the same thing as disproving the Bible. A person can use a good thing in a harmful way. A therapist can misuse psychological language. A parent can misuse authority. A leader can misuse loyalty. A church can misuse scripture. When that happens, the harm is real. But Part of healing is learning to separate God's word Separating God's word from the unhealthy behavior of people who claim to represent it. That process may take some time. You do not have to fake certainty. You do not have to pretend that nothing happened. But you can begin asking questions more specifically. What Was the problem the biblical text? Was it someone's interpretation? Was it the way authority was used? Was it a teaching taking out of context? Was it a leader protecting himself from accountability? Specific questions help us move beyond global conclusions. Instead of Christianity is unsafe, you might ask what specific behavior Was unsafe. Instead of the Bible's manipulative, you might ask, How was this passage interpreted and applied? Instead of I cannot trust anything, you might ask, What evidence would help me evaluate this particular claim? That is not minimizing spiritual trauma. It is helping your mind move from an overwhelming generalization toward careful discernment. Now, let me give you a practical framework like I usually do for evaluating claims about the Bible, about the Bible. I call it pause, define, examine, and respond. So step one, the first thing we do, pause. Do not allow a 30 second social media clip to dismantle your entire worldview because you have investigated the claim. A confident person can say, I do not know the answer yet. That is not a weakness. That is intellectual honesty. Second, define the claim. exactly is being alleged? The Bible was changed, is too vague. Changed where? Changed when. Which manuscript? Which verse? Are we discussing a translation difference? A textual variant? disagreement over interpretation? A difference between Christian canons, a copy writing error, a theological disagreement. Define the question. Let's define the question. Number three, ⁓ the evidence. Look for qualified sources. Read more than one perspective. Do not rely only on a person who agrees with what you already want to believe. An echo chamber, if you will. That applies to skeptics and to Christians. Confirmation bias affects all of us. Read responsible Christian scholars. Read responsible critical scholars. Look at manuscript resources. Read the footnotes in your Bible. Study the historical context. Step four, respond proportionately. Do not turn a small uncertainty into total collapse. Maybe a particular verse had a textual question that does not automatically erase the resurrection. Maybe Christians disagree about the authorship of a biblical book. That does not automatically mean Jesus never existed. Maybe a translation made a debatable wording choice. That does not mean all translators are conspiring against you. Respond to the size the evidence, not size of the emotion. That principle can change your life far beyond the Bible. It can help it. Marriage, parenting. It can help you when you receive criticism. It can help you when anxiety predicts disaster. It can help you read a frightening headline. Ask this what are the facts? What am I assuming? What is still unknown? What conclusion does the evidence actually support? That is rooted living. Now here's your practical challenge this week. First, identify the Bible translation you normally use. Look at the front pages. Read the translator's preference. Prefense. most people They'll just skip over it. But the prefense often explains the translation philosophy, the manuscript base, and the way difficult passages are handled. Second, find three footnotes involving manuscript differences. Don't panic. Take a breath, read them. how transparent the translators are. Ask difference the variation. actually makes. Third, compare one chapter into three translations. Maybe two, maybe four, but at least three. You could use the ESV, the NIV, the CSB, the NASB, NASB, NA NASB, or the NLT, or another trusted translation. Notice where the wording difference differs. Then ask Are they communicating different religions or are they making different decisions about how to express the same underlying passage? Fourth, write down one question you still have about the Bible. Not ten questions, Make it specific. Then spend some time investigating through responsible sources. Fifth, read one chapter of scripture each day this week and ask four questions. Here they are. What does this passage teach me about God? What does it teach me about people? What does it reveal about the world? What is one responsible way I can apply it? Do not ask what does this Bible do not ask only what does this verse mean to me? feelings and personal response matter, but the text had meaning before you opened it. Start with this. What was the author communicating? What was happening in the original context? Then move toward application. That protects us from making the Bible say anything we want. Before we close, I want to speak directly to the person who is questioning everything. Maybe you expected faith to mean never experiencing doubt. Maybe you feel guilty because questions keep coming. Maybe you are scared that one difficult issue will cause your whole faith to unravel. a breath. You do not have to solve every historical and theological question tonight. Faith is not pretending to know ⁓ you do not know. Faith is not shutting down your mind. Faith is trust. Grounded in the character of God, the person of Jesus Christ, the witness of Scripture, and the evidence available to us. You are allowed to learn. You're allowed to investigate. You're allowed to ask questions. You're allowed to say this. I believe, but I still have questions. The goal is not fragile certainty, the goal is mature trust. certainty says, if one detail becomes complicated, ⁓ done. Mature Trust says, I can face complexity without abandoning truth. The Bible has traveled through ⁓ real history. It was written by real people, ⁓ was copied by real scribes. It was preserved in real communities. Its manuscripts contain real variations. Its canon developed through a real historical process. Its translations require real human judgment. None of that should surprise us, though. teaches us that God works through human beings, not only around them. The same God who worked through imperfect apostles, churches, pastors, parents, and also worked through human transmission of scripture. We do not worship manuscripts. ⁓ Do not worship translators. We do not worship specific English edition. We worship God. But we believe scripture provides a trustworthy witness to who God is, what he has done, and how he calls us to live. If we look at Isaiah 48, chapter 40, verse 8, it says this: The grass withers, the flower fades. But the word of our God will stand forever. Jesus says this, Matthew 24, 35. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. The story of how we got the Bible is not a story that requires us to ignore history. It is a story that invites us to study history. It is not a story of blind faith. It is a story of writing. that were of writings that were copied, circulated, examined, preserved, collected, translated, challenged, defended and read across generations and cultures. And the book continues to confront us. It comforts us, it challenges our selfishness, it exposes our pride, and it gives language to our grief. It always points us to Jesus. It reminds us that our feelings are real but not infallible. It tells us that sin is serious, but grace is greater. It tells us that suffering is painful. But not permanent. It tells us that evil is real, but will not have the final word. And it tells us that God has not abandoned his creation. So can you trust the Bible in your hands? You should not answer that question only because somebody told you to. Study it, examine it, read it carefully, learn how it came to you. Bring your honest questions. Compare the claims with evidence. And most importantly, encounter the person at the center of its story, Jesus Christ. Find a community that's also studying the Bible and ask questions there. next time, next episode, we're going to talk about what Christians actually mean when they say the Bible is inspired. Does inspired mean ⁓ dictated every sentence? Did the writers retain their personalities? What does it mean to call scripture the word of God? how should inspiration affect the way we read difficult passages? That'll be episode four, what inspiration really means. So before we wrap this up, let's land this airplane. Airplane. Let's land the plane. I never say airplane. So think about this question. What is one belief you have about the Bible that you've never personally examined? Maybe it came from your parents, maybe it came from your church, maybe it came from TikTok or Instagram or Facebook or whatever. Maybe it came from a professor in your at college or in high school or a professor in school. Maybe it came from a painful, rough experience. Write it down. Then ask this what evidence supports this belief? What evidence challenge it and what would it look like for me to investigate it honestly rather than react to it emotionally? So this is your rooted and real challenge for this week. And as always, do not just listen to this episode and move on. Take one practical step. Read the Examine a footnote, compare two translations. Write down your questions. Start somewhere. Growth does not usually happen through one giant emotional moment. It happens through small, consistent, honest steps. So thank you all for spending this time with me and listening. If this episode helped you, share it with someone who has questions about the Bible, someone who's rebuilding their faith, or someone who has heard. That the Bible is not is nothing more than a conquered, than a corrupt game of telephone. Subscribe to Root and Real with Keenan so you do not miss the next episode in the DocU Doctrine series. please take a moment, leave a rating, leave a review. That helps more people find these conversations about mental health, relationships, emotional resilience, and biblical faith. And if you're looking for counseling support for you, yourself, your spouse, your kids, you can learn more about working with me and request a counseling appointment by visiting keenancrow.com. Again, that's keen and crowd.com. K-E-E-N-A-N-C-R-O-W-L-E-Y dot com. You do not have to navigate anxiety, burnout, relationship struggles, spiritual discernment, or Difficult life translation, transitions, translations, transitions entirely by yourself. Visit the website, learn more about my counseling services, use the appointment option to take the next step. Until next time, stay healthy, emotionally healthy, spiritually grounded, mentally strong, and above all, stay rooted and stay real.