Examining Scripture: Ways to Go Into and Read the Bible

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Welcome to Examining Scripture. We seek to encourage
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believers in Jesus Christ to drink from the Word
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of Life. As God's revelation to mankind, we want
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to demystify the Bible and help you find what
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God has to say about the circumstances you're
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facing. We're not pastors or theologians. We're
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sinners just like you who, by the grace of God,
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have come to saving faith in Jesus Christ. If
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we can thirst for Scripture, so can you. Hi,
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I'm your host, Bob Redd. along with co -host
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Anne Burke. Thank you for joining us in another
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episode of Examining Scripture. Hi Anne. Hi Bob.
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Happy New Year. Yeah, the holidays are past and
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for us it's a wonderful time. We absolutely love
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the time of Thanksgiving and as it rolls into
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Christmas and what that's all about. and then
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the new year. It's interesting for me, the new
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year is just another day. It's not that I don't
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celebrate it or recognize that we ought to. A
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new year brings great hope, right? But for me,
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my new year is Easter. It's Easter morning and
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it's going to church and praising. the risen
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Lord or, you know, the thing we celebrate, which
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is the risen Lord that walks the earth in his
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glorified body and spends time with humanity
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one last little bit of time before he ascends
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to sit at the right hand of the Father. Well,
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the great thing about Christians is that we can
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celebrate Christmas every day of the year and
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we can celebrate Easter every day of the year.
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Yeah. Amen to that. Today's topic I'll introduce
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it this way. We're examining Scripture, and our
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thesis is The Bible Intimidates Believers, and
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it's believers we speak to primarily, although
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if you're a non -believer and you're here, welcome,
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we're glad you're here. We hope that what we
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share in this podcast illuminates your hearts
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as well as the hearts of those who we target,
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which are other believers. Because our thesis
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is The Bible Intimidates Believers, We as believers
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tend to not go into Scripture as we ought to,
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and sometimes it's because we just don't know
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where to begin. Today is going to be a fun conversation
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between Anne and I about how each of us goes
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into Scripture, what is some of our motivation,
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what is some of the things that we seek to accomplish
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in going into the Word, and then maybe at the
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end we'll have some thoughts or recommendations
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for how you, as someone who doesn't traditionally
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go into Scripture very often, might develop ways
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to do that and make it easier for you to go into
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Scripture. And I guess the first question I've
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got for you, Anne, is what ways do you approach
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going in and reading Scripture? Well, A couple
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things I guess I could say, seeing as how it's
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January, the great month for making and breaking
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New Year's resolutions. I will share that oftentimes
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on January 1st, I say to myself, this year I'm
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going to read through the whole Bible in a year.
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Well, I did that in 2024, and I still haven't
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made it all the way through yet. So I'm a little
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behind schedule. But that doesn't mean that I
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haven't read the Bible. I mean, I'm still studying
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and reading, just not in the, read a little bit
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in order every day. But I do, I have tried that.
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I've tried reading straight through from Genesis
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to Revelation and Genesis is great and Exodus
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is exciting. And then I hit Leviticus and I feel
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like sometimes I met a brick wall. But you know,
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you get through that and then Isaiah and Jeremiah,
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those big prophet books, they're another bit
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of a struggle, but still worth reading, obviously.
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But, you know, it's hard to get, or it's easy
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to get off track, I should say. I've also tried
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to read through the Bible chronologically in
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a year so that you're reading the books not in
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the order that they're printed, but in the order
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that they were written and when they happened
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in history. And that's been interesting. But
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aside from just the reading, I am involved in
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a Bible study that has been very good for me.
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Because I need the accountability with other
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people of saying, you know, did you do your Bible
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study this week? Yeah Well, yes, I did the questions
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or you know, I did most of the questions and
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and so then When I do my Bible study homework,
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I'm going into the scriptures for a little different
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reason So that's how I would start off answering
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your question Well, you really put a lot out
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there I too have read through the Bible front
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to back, meaning from Genesis to Revelation.
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I did it once. And I determined that it's the
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equivalent of running a marathon. Yeah. And I
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can't say because I did it when I was quite young.
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I was a new believer. I was in my 20s and it
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just felt like something I wanted to do. And
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I think that's somehow what some people feel
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about it. tackling a marathon. It's just something
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I think I want to try to do once. And I did it.
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And it's, as you say, a wonderful thing to do.
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I think, though, sometimes, particularly if people
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say, well, I want to do this in a prescribed
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time period, like within a year, sometimes that
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can impose burdens on us that all of a sudden
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we're reading to get to a to check the box so
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to speak and not reading to actually digest what
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it is we're reading. That's true and plus if
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you get behind a couple days then you feel overwhelmed
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then you're like oh I'm never going to catch
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up and then you say why bother and then you just
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you know do something else instead. That's right.
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And I still would recommend someone do it. I
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would just suggest that as you do it, you don't
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allow those human feelings to get involved. Like
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you say, if you skip a few days, becomes overwhelming,
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you may just quit. Well, maybe the objective
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isn't to get there in a time frame, but to get
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there in the end. I think that's a good, I think
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that's good advice. What I love about what you
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also said was reading the Bible in the chronological
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order. It's really important to understand that
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the construction of the Bible man -made as it
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is, right? The actual books in the Bible are
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inspired by God, by the Holy Spirit, and the
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placement of the books in the Bible, meaning
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those that were determined to be canon law or
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being God's Word are certainly very much inspired,
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right? But there are other things that aren't
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inspired, and some of those are just the orders
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of the books themselves, right? Right. So you
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don't have to read them in order. And when you
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learn or realize that some of them were going
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out at the same time, like the the first and
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second kings and the first and second chronicles,
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like a lot of those stories overlap and you'll
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get like a slightly different perspective sometimes
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like in one book it will tell you the king did
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these five things and then in the other book
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it will say oh yeah he did these but he also
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did this and this and that right so you get a
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more complete picture of what's happening during
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the times of the kings of Israel and then like
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also the prophets are speaking to God's people
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during that time too. So like it will mention,
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you know, this prophet Isaiah once said something
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to this king. But then Isaiah's got a whole book
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of his own where you can see the prophecies that
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God wanted to tell through him. So it all sort
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of meshes together, or you have the opportunity
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to see how it meshes together when you don't
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just read from Genesis to Revelation. Yeah, that's
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right and you know, it's funny you mentioned
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the the Kings which is really Is a bit of a sidebar
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here a rabbit trail I came to really learn about
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the books of the Kings as we say When I was reading
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the prophets, so for example one of the ways
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I decided boy, I'm done with reading scripture
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one way, how might I go into scripture differently
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to see if I can learn something that I haven't
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learned before about what God has to say about
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himself, his revelation to us. And so I decided,
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you know what, I'm going to read the prophets
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and I'm going to start with Isaiah. And what's
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interesting is, of course, Many of you may not
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know, but if you begin to do these kinds of inquiries,
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Isaiah wrote to the southern kingdom after Solomon,
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after David was king and then Solomon was king,
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then Rehoboam came and he did some things where
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he listened to his young advisors rather than
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his wise older advisors. and the decisions he
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took were, if you will, against God's will, and
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it ended up splitting the kingdom where 10 of
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the tribes of Israel were the northern kingdom,
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which was called Israel, and the two tribes of
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the south, that's Benjamin and Judah, became
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the southern kingdom. And what's interesting
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in reading that, then the prophets, in the case
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of Isaiah, writing around 700, BC or so, was
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writing to the southern kingdom of Judah, and
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you read a few prophets later, you come to Amos,
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and Amos, actually having grown up from around
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Jerusalem, which is in the southern kingdom,
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was prophesying to the northern kingdom of Israel.
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And so it's these very kinds of things, subtleties,
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if you will, or historical, historical nuances
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that you just talked about and that we find when
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we pick a topic and lo and behold, we find out
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that this prophet is talking at this time in
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history and he's speaking to these people. Right.
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Yeah, it helps you get a better perspective of
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what's going on and how the prophecies apply
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to the nation of Israel that they were spoken
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to and then have all these prophecies come true.
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And when will they come true? Because we know
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we talked a little bit last time about prophecies
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fulfilled by Jesus' birth. Isaiah's got a lot
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of those things to say. And some prophecies have
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partially come true, but they're still coming
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true in the future. So it's interesting. Sometimes
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you don't get all your questions answered. Sometimes
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it makes you have more questions, which is kind
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of good because it makes you want to go a little
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bit deeper into the scriptures. But then sometimes
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you just have to say, okay, Lord, I don't understand.
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And one day when you want me to understand, you'll
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reveal it to me. Yeah, and Isaiah is a very interesting
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book to cover because... 65 or so verses are
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quoted in the New Testament and the thing that
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people tend to call Isaiah this little Bible
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and again these things are not They're man -made
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and here I'm talking about the Chapters and the
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verses that we've created those are all man -made
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when the Bible was penned or in the case of the
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Isaiah when he wrote his scrolls and He was writing
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in a continuous fashion. There were no chapter
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breaks, there were no verse breaks, and we have
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since put that into our current common Bible
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so that it makes it easier for you and I to refer
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if we want to talk about Isaiah 55 verse 8 through
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12 or 8 through 11. You and I know where to go
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in the scripture, where to go in Isaiah to find
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the verses that we're going to cover together,
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right? Right. Yeah, it does make the chapters
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and verses make it easy for us to all find the
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same page. That's right. And the thing that's
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interesting about Isaiah is it's sixty six chapters
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and the Bible has sixty six books. And what's
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also interesting about Isaiah is the first thirty
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nine chapters are really about Israel before
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the exile, right, before the Babylonian exile.
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And starting in chapter 40, going through the
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end of 66, chapter 66, of course, now we're talking
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about most of the prophetic events that are talked
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about that we find in the New Testament. And
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of course, those twenty seven verses from forty
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to sixty six actually correspond with the fact
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that there are twenty seven books in the New
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Testament. So keep in mind that's not that's
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not spiritual or scriptural. It's just happenstance
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with the way our framers decided to break up
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the Book of Isaiah. But it's an interesting artifact,
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if you will. Sure. And you could, I suppose,
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argue if that was inspired by God or not to make
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that quote unquote coincidence, the 39 and 27.
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I didn't I never heard that before. That is very
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interesting. Yeah. And you could, of course,
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we could surmise that. But we want to be careful
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to say these things are for sure inspired by
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God. Right. And these things are interesting.
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Let's say it that way. Very good. Okay. Well,
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you know, it's funny because In my study of I
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of Isaiah and the other prophets what was interesting
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is I was drawn to the idea of the fact that they
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were talking about certain people mostly kings,
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right and So then it inspired me to say well
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Where else in scripture? are there references
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from a historical perspective so it can give
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me more context. And you and I have talked about
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the importance of context in understanding scripture
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in the past. And what I learned and found out
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was the history books. And here I'm speaking
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about the history books of the kings were very,
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very important in how they connect the prophets.
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And of course prophets are messengers of God
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to the people versus the history books, which
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were, if you will, recording what actually was
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going on amongst, in this case, the nation Israel.
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And so it is interesting in that sense. Well,
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to take it a little further, in my reading of
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the prophets, what I came to find out is originally
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in the Old Testament scrolls, now we're talking
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about the Jewish Bible, that Samuel and the kings
00:16:19.470 --> 00:16:21.970
were sort of combined. It was called the books
00:16:21.970 --> 00:16:26.210
of the kings. And in fact, Samuel was one book
00:16:26.210 --> 00:16:30.889
and Kings was another book. And the book of Samuel
00:16:30.889 --> 00:16:34.470
talks about the kingdom of Israel when it was
00:16:34.470 --> 00:16:38.149
united and then Kings, which we now understand
00:16:38.149 --> 00:16:42.610
as first and second kings. was the recorded history
00:16:42.610 --> 00:16:45.950
of the divided kingdom, if you will, starting
00:16:45.950 --> 00:16:50.929
with Sam with Solomon and going on to the end
00:16:50.929 --> 00:16:54.330
of the kingship, which is the beginning of the
00:16:54.330 --> 00:16:57.730
exile. Well, that was interesting. But what I
00:16:57.730 --> 00:17:03.190
also found out was that was the Jewish Bible.
00:17:03.190 --> 00:17:07.990
Well, there came along the Hebrews decided that
00:17:07.990 --> 00:17:11.880
after the nations were split, they call it the
00:17:11.880 --> 00:17:15.359
diaspora, they then decided that they needed
00:17:15.359 --> 00:17:18.799
to translate the Hebrew Bible into Greek, which
00:17:18.799 --> 00:17:21.700
was the common language at the time, and that's
00:17:21.700 --> 00:17:25.859
known as the Septuagint. That Septuagint is 70,
00:17:26.500 --> 00:17:31.140
and it's 70 because there were seven, seven zero,
00:17:31.920 --> 00:17:39.529
70 Jewish leaders, rabbis, theologians who translated
00:17:39.529 --> 00:17:43.690
the Hebrew Bible into Greek. And at that time,
00:17:43.750 --> 00:17:47.950
what they did is they broke up Kings into first
00:17:47.950 --> 00:17:50.809
and second Kings to make it easier because it's
00:17:50.809 --> 00:17:55.230
such a long book. They broke up Samuel into first
00:17:55.230 --> 00:17:58.849
and second Samuel for the same reason. And they
00:17:58.849 --> 00:18:03.609
broke up Chronicles because Chronicles was also
00:18:03.609 --> 00:18:07.109
a long historical book. And when did they do
00:18:07.109 --> 00:18:10.930
this? The first five books of the Old Testament
00:18:10.930 --> 00:18:15.569
were translated in the third century about 282
00:18:15.569 --> 00:18:18.970
BC. The other books of the Old Testament were
00:18:18.970 --> 00:18:24.630
translated in the second and very early first
00:18:24.630 --> 00:18:29.650
century BC. Though it was before the New Testament.
00:18:29.829 --> 00:18:33.690
happened. That's right. So it's interesting that
00:18:33.690 --> 00:18:37.630
they would translate something into Greek because
00:18:37.630 --> 00:18:41.430
the Jewish people weren't too keen on outsiders
00:18:41.430 --> 00:18:45.150
partaking in their spiritual traditions were
00:18:45.150 --> 00:18:47.170
they? I mean the whole building of the temple
00:18:47.170 --> 00:18:49.750
you had only the Jewish people could go inside
00:18:49.750 --> 00:18:51.490
everybody else had to stay outside and then that
00:18:51.490 --> 00:18:53.609
there's all the New Testament conflict with the
00:18:53.609 --> 00:18:57.019
Jews and the Gentiles. Well I think that Back
00:18:57.019 --> 00:19:01.720
to what we said, you know, what is really certain
00:19:01.720 --> 00:19:06.220
to be scriptural from God and what maybe is from
00:19:06.220 --> 00:19:12.339
God providentially? The reason why, to talk just
00:19:12.339 --> 00:19:15.039
really quickly about the history of Israel, Israel
00:19:15.039 --> 00:19:17.559
had its own kingdom. Its height of its kingdom,
00:19:17.720 --> 00:19:20.259
kingship, was with David and the beginning of
00:19:20.259 --> 00:19:23.339
Solomon's reign. And then it started to slowly
00:19:23.339 --> 00:19:26.279
decline. It started to split apart where you
00:19:26.279 --> 00:19:28.640
had the northern kingdom of Israel and you had
00:19:28.640 --> 00:19:31.740
the southern kingdom of Judah. Israel, the northern
00:19:31.740 --> 00:19:36.160
kingdom, was conquered, if you will, by the Assyrians
00:19:36.160 --> 00:19:40.220
in the 700 B .C .s. And when I say conquered,
00:19:40.559 --> 00:19:43.559
what they did is they dispersed the nation of
00:19:43.559 --> 00:19:47.660
Israel. At that time, that diaspora, as they
00:19:47.660 --> 00:19:50.759
called her, the dispersion, sent people away
00:19:50.759 --> 00:19:54.279
and and as would happen as they settled in these
00:19:54.279 --> 00:19:59.359
other countries, particularly in the areas outside
00:19:59.359 --> 00:20:02.220
of what was the traditional kingdom of Israel.
00:20:02.589 --> 00:20:06.109
they started to take on the local language. OK,
00:20:06.430 --> 00:20:08.869
so they did it. They did it for their own people
00:20:08.869 --> 00:20:12.950
and the new generations of Israelites that didn't
00:20:12.950 --> 00:20:18.670
necessarily know Hebrew as well. Exactly. OK.
00:20:19.390 --> 00:20:24.029
And what's interesting is we see that in the
00:20:24.029 --> 00:20:26.509
beginning of the Book of Acts, right? In chapter
00:20:26.509 --> 00:20:32.759
two, Peter stands up and gives us wonderful sermon,
00:20:32.839 --> 00:20:36.940
and before he does that, we see in chapter 2
00:20:36.940 --> 00:20:40.160
the receiving of the Holy Spirit, and the comment
00:20:40.160 --> 00:20:43.700
is that these people are speaking in a crazy
00:20:43.700 --> 00:20:47.140
language. Maybe we can look that up the day of
00:20:47.140 --> 00:20:52.000
Pentecost, Acts chapter 2, and if we read Acts
00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:56.339
2 verse 1 through 13, would you read that for
00:20:56.339 --> 00:21:00.430
us, Anne? When the day of Pentecost came, they
00:21:00.430 --> 00:21:03.970
were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound
00:21:03.970 --> 00:21:06.670
like the blowing of a violent wind came from
00:21:06.670 --> 00:21:09.049
heaven and filled the whole house where they
00:21:09.049 --> 00:21:11.890
were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues
00:21:11.890 --> 00:21:15.009
of fire that separated and came to rest on each
00:21:15.009 --> 00:21:17.609
of them. All of them were filled with the Holy
00:21:17.609 --> 00:21:20.490
Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as
00:21:20.490 --> 00:21:23.240
the Spirit enabled them. Now there were staying
00:21:23.240 --> 00:21:26.180
in Jerusalem God -fearing Jews from every nation
00:21:26.180 --> 00:21:29.500
under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd
00:21:29.500 --> 00:21:32.880
came together in bewilderment because each one
00:21:32.880 --> 00:21:36.559
heard them speaking in his own language. Utterly
00:21:36.559 --> 00:21:39.460
amazed, they asked, are not all these men who
00:21:39.460 --> 00:21:43.380
are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each
00:21:43.380 --> 00:21:46.259
of us hears them in his own native language?
00:21:46.619 --> 00:21:50.579
Parthians, Medes and Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia,
00:21:50.779 --> 00:21:54.940
Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia
00:21:54.940 --> 00:21:58.119
and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near
00:21:58.119 --> 00:22:01.460
Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts
00:22:01.460 --> 00:22:06.140
to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs, we hear them declaring
00:22:06.140 --> 00:22:09.920
the wonders of God in our own tongues. Amazed
00:22:09.920 --> 00:22:13.680
and perplexed, they asked one another, what does
00:22:13.680 --> 00:22:16.779
this mean? Some however made fun of them and
00:22:16.779 --> 00:22:19.819
said they've had too much wine And then Peter
00:22:19.819 --> 00:22:22.220
goes on to give his sermon saying hold on these
00:22:22.220 --> 00:22:25.019
people are not drunk with wine They are truly
00:22:25.019 --> 00:22:30.660
speaking now imagine back in 700 BC the nation
00:22:30.660 --> 00:22:35.160
of Israel was split and dispersed and so these
00:22:35.160 --> 00:22:39.660
people developed these other languages and one
00:22:39.660 --> 00:22:44.660
of the things that was very specific was in the
00:22:44.660 --> 00:22:48.400
the synagogues or in these gatherings that they
00:22:48.400 --> 00:22:53.039
would only speak in hebrew uh it's almost like
00:22:53.039 --> 00:22:57.160
imagine going to a church where the church church
00:22:57.160 --> 00:23:01.880
service is in latin right and we've all have
00:23:01.880 --> 00:23:04.980
ever had that chance in italy or france or someplace
00:23:04.980 --> 00:23:08.079
you go into a a church and you're not hearing
00:23:08.079 --> 00:23:10.660
italian you're not hearing french you're hearing
00:23:10.660 --> 00:23:14.569
actually a service in latin so in some ways we
00:23:14.569 --> 00:23:18.269
don't understand where here we are at Pentecost
00:23:18.269 --> 00:23:21.849
and the the keep in mind the time frame that
00:23:21.849 --> 00:23:27.650
that was was at the time of Passover and There's
00:23:27.650 --> 00:23:30.809
at the time of Passover in Jerusalem always this
00:23:30.809 --> 00:23:35.170
great pilgrimage of Jews who come to worship
00:23:35.170 --> 00:23:38.490
Here it is for the very first time where these
00:23:38.490 --> 00:23:42.799
people have heard services in their adopted native
00:23:42.799 --> 00:23:47.559
language. These people had come and would know
00:23:47.559 --> 00:23:53.960
Hebrew as it related to the worship of the temple
00:23:53.960 --> 00:23:57.460
or temple worship, but it would be solely in
00:23:57.460 --> 00:23:59.779
Hebrew. They may know that, but they can't actually
00:23:59.779 --> 00:24:03.220
speak Hebrew. And so here at Pentecost, you have
00:24:03.220 --> 00:24:07.480
the Holy Spirit descend upon the disciples and
00:24:07.849 --> 00:24:11.589
they all of a sudden are speaking all of these
00:24:11.589 --> 00:24:14.589
different languages, the kinds of languages you
00:24:14.589 --> 00:24:18.230
just read in Acts chapter two, and they're hearing
00:24:18.230 --> 00:24:23.829
for the first time the Jewish worship, the temple
00:24:23.829 --> 00:24:29.589
worship in their own tongue, and they're just
00:24:29.589 --> 00:24:34.289
blown away. Yes, it was an amazing day in the
00:24:34.289 --> 00:24:39.069
life of the church. not just because, well, because
00:24:39.069 --> 00:24:41.990
you could hear the worship going on in your own
00:24:41.990 --> 00:24:44.450
language, but the thing that made that possible
00:24:44.450 --> 00:24:48.690
was the Holy Spirit. Right? Which as believers,
00:24:48.769 --> 00:24:51.470
we're very blessed now that the Holy Spirit indwells
00:24:51.470 --> 00:24:55.710
us. We're also very blessed to have the Bible
00:24:55.710 --> 00:24:58.349
in our own language. Not everybody in the world
00:24:58.349 --> 00:25:01.130
has that yet. And I know there's people out there
00:25:01.130 --> 00:25:03.990
doing mission work and translating it so that
00:25:03.990 --> 00:25:07.740
other people in their native tongue can see and
00:25:07.740 --> 00:25:11.400
hear the words of God to us. The simple fact
00:25:11.400 --> 00:25:13.299
that we have the scripture in our own language
00:25:13.299 --> 00:25:17.480
and knowing that this is God's message to humanity,
00:25:17.539 --> 00:25:21.000
this is God's love letter to us, is something
00:25:21.000 --> 00:25:23.759
that should compel us to want to understand it
00:25:23.759 --> 00:25:26.460
and know it, right? If somebody that loved you
00:25:26.460 --> 00:25:28.440
very much sent you a letter and it showed up
00:25:28.440 --> 00:25:31.099
in your mailbox, you wouldn't leave it in your
00:25:31.099 --> 00:25:33.460
mailbox. You wouldn't bring it in and put it
00:25:33.460 --> 00:25:36.170
on a shelf. you would bring it in and open it
00:25:36.170 --> 00:25:38.490
and read it, and you probably would save it and
00:25:38.490 --> 00:25:40.549
reread it and reread it again the next month,
00:25:41.049 --> 00:25:44.630
right? And so this is how some people view the
00:25:44.630 --> 00:25:47.910
scriptures as God's love letter to us. And God
00:25:47.910 --> 00:25:51.410
wants us to know what it says, and he wants to
00:25:51.410 --> 00:25:55.390
spend time with us as we open the pages of the
00:25:55.390 --> 00:25:57.329
Bible, right? We have the Holy Spirit to teach
00:25:57.329 --> 00:26:00.210
us, and we have God just to speak to our hearts
00:26:00.210 --> 00:26:03.329
as we read his word, helping us understand what
00:26:03.329 --> 00:26:06.880
it says. And I like that analogy, the love letter,
00:26:07.039 --> 00:26:10.319
because it is in fact that very way, isn't it?
00:26:10.339 --> 00:26:15.680
As we start to enter into reading Scripture,
00:26:16.079 --> 00:26:20.279
we tend to develop a bond with our God, right,
00:26:20.279 --> 00:26:24.380
with our Lord and Savior, and things are revealed
00:26:24.380 --> 00:26:27.680
to us. And we've said it many times here that
00:26:27.680 --> 00:26:31.980
you and I maybe have read a certain passage multiple,
00:26:32.079 --> 00:26:37.220
multiple, multiple times. And our mind, our heart,
00:26:37.400 --> 00:26:40.460
our spirit is just in a different place, and
00:26:40.460 --> 00:26:44.099
we come across those bits of Scripture, we read
00:26:44.099 --> 00:26:46.640
it, we read those verses, and they have a whole
00:26:46.640 --> 00:26:49.140
new, deeper meaning for us, don't they? They
00:26:49.140 --> 00:26:53.480
do. Yes. Simple things like there's a lot of
00:26:53.480 --> 00:26:55.420
Scripture that talks about marriage. Well, you
00:26:55.420 --> 00:26:57.619
read that when you're single, and you see it
00:26:57.619 --> 00:26:59.400
one way, but then after your marriage, you read
00:26:59.400 --> 00:27:01.910
it then, and it... takes on a new meaning, right?
00:27:01.910 --> 00:27:05.069
The same with verses about families and children,
00:27:05.289 --> 00:27:07.930
right? Before I was a mother, I read the verses
00:27:07.930 --> 00:27:09.829
about, you know, train up a child in the way
00:27:09.829 --> 00:27:12.049
he should go, and children know about your parents
00:27:12.049 --> 00:27:13.950
and the Lord, and, you know, there's all kinds
00:27:13.950 --> 00:27:17.329
of guidance for parents. But before you're a
00:27:17.329 --> 00:27:19.789
parent, it doesn't mean quite as much, or it's
00:27:19.789 --> 00:27:22.069
something different. You just view it differently.
00:27:22.329 --> 00:27:25.869
And as your life experience changes, the scriptures
00:27:25.869 --> 00:27:29.000
apply to you. maybe in a slightly different way,
00:27:29.019 --> 00:27:32.000
or it takes a greater depth of meaning for you.
00:27:32.259 --> 00:27:34.460
Yeah, I think it resonates differently, doesn't
00:27:34.460 --> 00:27:37.440
it? Yeah, that's a good way to say it. Yeah,
00:27:37.779 --> 00:27:41.519
and I think that is really the case for all of
00:27:41.519 --> 00:27:44.680
us, and when we go into Scripture, I don't know
00:27:44.680 --> 00:27:48.019
if I can put it this way that my experience is
00:27:48.019 --> 00:27:50.539
the same for others, but when I go into Scripture
00:27:50.539 --> 00:27:53.779
and I spend time there, I actually want to spend
00:27:53.779 --> 00:27:57.400
more time. Isn't it sort of building on itself?
00:27:57.480 --> 00:28:00.500
You read it and you say, gee whiz, I should do
00:28:00.500 --> 00:28:04.539
this more. And then you find that, boy, I just
00:28:04.539 --> 00:28:07.240
learned something or this really touched my heart.
00:28:07.720 --> 00:28:11.579
And you then want to do more of it. Yes, I think
00:28:11.579 --> 00:28:14.980
that's how it's supposed to work. And I know
00:28:14.980 --> 00:28:17.680
we've talked a lot about the Old Testament. and
00:28:17.680 --> 00:28:20.559
the prophets and the kings. And if you're new
00:28:20.559 --> 00:28:22.740
to the Bible, that may not be the best place
00:28:22.740 --> 00:28:26.619
to start, right? That's right. There are good,
00:28:27.339 --> 00:28:29.680
well, obviously Proverbs is a wonderful book
00:28:29.680 --> 00:28:33.099
that has a lot of wisdom and practical things
00:28:33.099 --> 00:28:36.240
to say about living. And I've heard some people
00:28:36.240 --> 00:28:39.599
that will take and they'll read one proverb a
00:28:39.599 --> 00:28:42.740
day for like a whole month. Yes, that's right.
00:28:43.079 --> 00:28:47.109
31 chapters in Proverbs. The long months have
00:28:47.109 --> 00:28:50.250
31 days, so you could easily do that. And just
00:28:50.250 --> 00:28:53.849
sort of keep reading yourself through the Proverbs
00:28:53.849 --> 00:28:57.009
until you become familiar with them. Even Psalms.
00:28:57.190 --> 00:29:00.589
I know when Pat and I were first married, we
00:29:00.589 --> 00:29:03.950
made a little chart at Little Squares so that
00:29:03.950 --> 00:29:06.529
we could check off and read through the Book
00:29:06.529 --> 00:29:08.289
of Psalms. We didn't necessarily have to go in
00:29:08.289 --> 00:29:09.730
order, but we could keep track of which ones
00:29:09.730 --> 00:29:11.829
we'd read. And we just would read through the
00:29:11.829 --> 00:29:14.920
Book of Psalms and then... start all over again.
00:29:15.039 --> 00:29:17.839
I mean, there's so many wonderful things there
00:29:17.839 --> 00:29:21.779
that you can learn about the Lord and about yourself
00:29:21.779 --> 00:29:25.259
and how he sees us. But then also, like in the
00:29:25.259 --> 00:29:27.940
New Testament, right? Probably a good place to
00:29:27.940 --> 00:29:30.400
start might be the Gospels, telling the story
00:29:30.400 --> 00:29:32.880
of Jesus. What do you think, Bob? Do you have
00:29:32.880 --> 00:29:36.579
a favorite Gospel? Well, I think it's very common
00:29:36.579 --> 00:29:40.519
for us to point to the book of John, which is
00:29:40.519 --> 00:29:43.119
the gospel of John. And people ask, well, why
00:29:43.119 --> 00:29:47.000
that? And I think the important thing, John has
00:29:47.000 --> 00:29:50.299
written, John's gospel is written very differently
00:29:50.299 --> 00:29:54.359
than Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which are called
00:29:54.359 --> 00:29:57.160
the synoptic gospels, meaning there's a lot of
00:29:57.160 --> 00:30:00.220
similar stories told from a different perspective.
00:30:01.079 --> 00:30:04.880
John's gospel was written last of the four gospels
00:30:04.880 --> 00:30:08.799
and John takes the perspective of wanting to
00:30:08.799 --> 00:30:13.079
show the deity of Christ, the fact that he is
00:30:13.079 --> 00:30:17.740
truly God, truly man, and so he opens up to the
00:30:17.740 --> 00:30:23.240
reader the fact that this is the second person
00:30:23.240 --> 00:30:28.099
of the triune Godhead and that he came to this
00:30:28.099 --> 00:30:33.440
earth and he came to save and he came to introduce
00:30:33.440 --> 00:30:37.299
the people at their level, meaning at a human
00:30:37.299 --> 00:30:42.319
level, who this awesome, true and living God
00:30:42.319 --> 00:30:45.759
is. And we see that throughout John's gospel.
00:30:45.819 --> 00:30:49.220
And I think that's why we tend to point believers
00:30:49.220 --> 00:30:53.000
or people in general who haven't gone into scripture,
00:30:53.539 --> 00:30:58.799
read the gospel of John because it's the, perhaps
00:30:58.799 --> 00:31:02.569
in my opinion, one of the fullest. revelations
00:31:02.569 --> 00:31:05.470
of who Christ is. Of course, all of scripture
00:31:05.470 --> 00:31:10.089
is about Christ, but John in particular reveals
00:31:10.089 --> 00:31:14.990
many aspects of who our great God and Savior
00:31:14.990 --> 00:31:18.730
is. So for a person that isn't used to reading
00:31:18.730 --> 00:31:21.029
the Bible very often or doesn't know where to
00:31:21.029 --> 00:31:24.630
begin, that might be a nice place to start. Yeah,
00:31:24.690 --> 00:31:27.309
I think it'd be a great place to start. And we
00:31:27.309 --> 00:31:30.750
always say. Also, or I tend to say, someone will
00:31:30.750 --> 00:31:33.670
ask, well, then where would I go after reading
00:31:33.670 --> 00:31:38.369
the Gospel of John? And really the two, I think,
00:31:38.670 --> 00:31:42.130
best places to go if you've come to saving faith
00:31:42.130 --> 00:31:45.269
in Jesus Christ is to read the book of Romans,
00:31:45.410 --> 00:31:51.690
which is really a treatise on the theology of
00:31:51.690 --> 00:31:56.720
belief, right, of faith. And then the other One
00:31:56.720 --> 00:32:01.420
I would recommend is 1 John, that's John's letter.
00:32:01.440 --> 00:32:03.660
It's a small letter in the back of the Bible.
00:32:04.160 --> 00:32:07.720
And 1 John, where John's gospel is talking about
00:32:07.720 --> 00:32:10.500
humanity in general, those who believe and don't
00:32:10.500 --> 00:32:13.960
believe, to open their eyes. He is speaking in
00:32:13.960 --> 00:32:19.099
1 John, his first letter to believers and giving
00:32:19.099 --> 00:32:22.740
them a sense of the assurance of faith and what
00:32:22.740 --> 00:32:28.380
it is to live. like Jesus lives. The interesting
00:32:28.380 --> 00:32:33.400
thing you mentioned about Proverbs and Psalms,
00:32:33.799 --> 00:32:39.960
sometimes we want to find answers to our stuff,
00:32:40.039 --> 00:32:43.180
what's going on in our lives. And your recommendation
00:32:43.180 --> 00:32:47.420
to read Proverbs, because there's 37 chapters
00:32:47.420 --> 00:32:50.990
and you could read, they're not very long. 31.
00:32:51.269 --> 00:32:55.849
Sorry, 31. Thank you. And you can read that in
00:32:55.849 --> 00:32:58.269
a month, right? One chapter at a time. Well,
00:32:58.289 --> 00:33:02.410
the other thing about the Psalms is there's a
00:33:02.410 --> 00:33:05.349
lot of healing in reading the Psalms. And if
00:33:05.349 --> 00:33:09.589
you're troubled, there's a lot that God has to
00:33:09.589 --> 00:33:14.569
say about the world we live in and the circumstances
00:33:14.569 --> 00:33:17.490
we find. And so I don't know about you, Anne,
00:33:17.509 --> 00:33:22.240
but I find Psalms to be quite useful in times
00:33:22.240 --> 00:33:24.799
where I'm in need of being picked up. I'm in
00:33:24.799 --> 00:33:30.519
need of healing. Yeah, Psalms are great. Well,
00:33:30.720 --> 00:33:33.220
now that makes me think of, you know, if you're
00:33:33.220 --> 00:33:36.400
looking for a verse about a particular topic,
00:33:36.859 --> 00:33:40.220
right, you can obviously start with Psalms or
00:33:40.220 --> 00:33:42.079
Proverbs or whatever, but I mean, there's a lot
00:33:42.079 --> 00:33:45.589
of online tools. that are helpful too. Like if
00:33:45.589 --> 00:33:47.490
it's someone's birthday and I want to send a
00:33:47.490 --> 00:33:49.809
card with an encouraging verse, I can just Google
00:33:49.809 --> 00:33:53.109
like verses of encouragement or verses about
00:33:53.109 --> 00:33:55.450
this or verses about that. And then I'll get
00:33:55.450 --> 00:33:58.029
a whole bunch of them that I can look at and
00:33:58.029 --> 00:34:00.950
say, oh, this one particularly applies to this
00:34:00.950 --> 00:34:03.829
person or this one applies to this situation.
00:34:04.960 --> 00:34:07.380
those are other ways. I mean, in the old days
00:34:07.380 --> 00:34:09.559
we had a concordance, the big book with all the
00:34:09.559 --> 00:34:11.900
topics in it, and you'd have to page through.
00:34:12.119 --> 00:34:13.860
It's about, you know, thicker than a phone book,
00:34:13.940 --> 00:34:17.159
some of those concordances. But all this is online
00:34:17.159 --> 00:34:21.079
now, so if you're looking for a particular topic
00:34:21.079 --> 00:34:23.280
or theme and you want to know what the Bible
00:34:23.280 --> 00:34:26.000
has to say about it, that's another way to figure
00:34:26.000 --> 00:34:29.539
out where to look. Yeah, another way is some
00:34:29.539 --> 00:34:32.320
of these letters in the New Testament are very
00:34:32.320 --> 00:34:35.409
long, are they? No, some of them are short. In
00:34:35.409 --> 00:34:37.389
fact, you know it would it be helpful to say
00:34:37.389 --> 00:34:43.250
like to go through Which what books of the Bible
00:34:43.250 --> 00:34:47.630
fit into which categories? Sure, like we've we
00:34:47.630 --> 00:34:49.469
know the Gospels are the first four books of
00:34:49.469 --> 00:34:51.210
the New Testament Matthew Mark Luke and John
00:34:51.210 --> 00:34:55.170
and you talked about letters or epistles That's
00:34:55.170 --> 00:34:58.800
just a fancy word for somebody writing a letter
00:34:58.800 --> 00:35:01.360
to a church or some of them are to individual
00:35:01.360 --> 00:35:04.760
people. Like, how can we understand how those
00:35:04.760 --> 00:35:08.260
are set up? Well, it's interesting. I've heard
00:35:08.260 --> 00:35:11.539
someone say probably the first time I heard it
00:35:11.539 --> 00:35:13.860
was from Alistair Begg, but I don't know that
00:35:13.860 --> 00:35:16.280
I can attribute it to Alistair Begg. He summed
00:35:16.280 --> 00:35:19.139
up the Bible this way. He said in the Old Testament,
00:35:19.780 --> 00:35:23.900
Christ is promised. He said or predicted, I should
00:35:23.900 --> 00:35:27.420
say. He said in the Gospels, Christ is experienced.
00:35:27.719 --> 00:35:33.360
In the Acts, Christ is preached. He said, in
00:35:33.360 --> 00:35:36.500
the letters, Christ is explained. And he said,
00:35:36.559 --> 00:35:40.199
in Revelation, Christ is promised. So it is really
00:35:40.199 --> 00:35:43.840
interesting. Old Testament predicted. In the
00:35:43.840 --> 00:35:47.980
gospels, he's experienced. In the Acts, he's
00:35:47.980 --> 00:35:50.739
preached. In the letters, he's explained. And
00:35:50.739 --> 00:35:54.639
in Revelation, he's promised, I should say. So
00:35:54.639 --> 00:35:57.969
anyway, Back to your point, in the New Testament,
00:35:58.190 --> 00:36:01.469
what we find is the gospels are really just that.
00:36:01.710 --> 00:36:05.449
It's the experience of Christ's life, the good
00:36:05.449 --> 00:36:08.929
news that God came to save sinners, and he is
00:36:08.929 --> 00:36:13.369
revealed in all his glory from four very different
00:36:13.369 --> 00:36:17.110
perspectives. And then what we see in Acts is
00:36:17.110 --> 00:36:22.980
the preaching of This Nazarene, Jesus, as Paul
00:36:22.980 --> 00:36:27.039
says, or sorry, Peter says in his first sermon
00:36:27.039 --> 00:36:30.380
in chapter two of Acts, right? This Jesus of
00:36:30.380 --> 00:36:35.000
Nazareth. So the book of Acts is all about John,
00:36:35.360 --> 00:36:39.280
Peter, and Paul and others preaching the gospel
00:36:39.280 --> 00:36:43.480
to the outside world. And they start, right?
00:36:43.519 --> 00:36:46.659
They start in Jerusalem. They go to Samaria.
00:36:47.079 --> 00:36:49.639
and to Judea, to Samaria, and throughout the
00:36:49.639 --> 00:36:54.539
whole world, which is really our challenge as
00:36:54.539 --> 00:36:57.360
believers that we are to preach the gospel, right,
00:36:57.380 --> 00:36:59.760
and to preach the gospel to everybody. These
00:36:59.760 --> 00:37:04.440
letters have been written to explain our belief,
00:37:04.619 --> 00:37:07.659
our faith. So it's one thing to experience Christ,
00:37:07.719 --> 00:37:11.599
it's one thing to preach him, but for our benefit,
00:37:11.760 --> 00:37:15.440
meaning there was going to be a time when the
00:37:15.440 --> 00:37:19.480
people who actually lived amongst Christ in the
00:37:19.480 --> 00:37:24.480
early time of his appearing in Palestine, at
00:37:24.480 --> 00:37:26.800
some point in time, these people were going to
00:37:26.800 --> 00:37:32.920
die and that they needed to provide and make
00:37:32.920 --> 00:37:38.659
sure that the theology of who Christ is was something
00:37:38.659 --> 00:37:42.480
that can be carried on. not by eyewitness, but
00:37:42.480 --> 00:37:45.340
by the written word, if you will, scripture.
00:37:45.760 --> 00:37:50.960
And then finally, revelation is the hope that
00:37:50.960 --> 00:37:54.659
we have as believers that we will one day be
00:37:54.659 --> 00:37:58.119
with Christ and we will do that certainly when
00:37:58.119 --> 00:38:02.380
he comes to take us individually. And there will
00:38:02.380 --> 00:38:06.739
be a period that is explained in scripture where
00:38:06.739 --> 00:38:09.179
Christ will come and some people will be alive.
00:38:09.440 --> 00:38:13.159
and he will take them to be with him. And finally,
00:38:13.159 --> 00:38:16.960
he will set up what we call his kingdom. And
00:38:16.960 --> 00:38:20.019
that is really twofold. The first is his millennial
00:38:20.019 --> 00:38:23.639
kingdom. We will reign with him. And then there's
00:38:23.639 --> 00:38:26.320
finally the what we call the eternal state in
00:38:26.320 --> 00:38:30.900
the new heaven, the new earth and the new Jerusalem.
00:38:30.940 --> 00:38:36.880
So that's the structure of of the Bible in particularly
00:38:36.880 --> 00:38:41.260
the New Testament. And so going into and reading
00:38:41.260 --> 00:38:46.119
any one of these books helps us to see either
00:38:46.119 --> 00:38:48.500
Christ being preached, learning about Christ
00:38:48.500 --> 00:38:53.820
or having Christ explain. So, right. So you talked
00:38:53.820 --> 00:38:55.980
about, so you mentioned Revelation. That book
00:38:55.980 --> 00:38:58.860
was written by John, the same guy that wrote
00:38:58.860 --> 00:39:01.760
the Gospel of John, first John, second John and
00:39:01.760 --> 00:39:04.480
third John. Right. And but that's a different
00:39:04.480 --> 00:39:08.000
that prophecy books at the at the end. But like
00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:10.360
the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the name
00:39:10.360 --> 00:39:12.639
of the book is the guy that wrote them. But starting
00:39:12.639 --> 00:39:17.940
at Romans, Romans is the first letter. That's
00:39:17.940 --> 00:39:22.239
right. Does that go through Philemon? It does,
00:39:22.239 --> 00:39:25.780
right? So the name of the book is the person
00:39:25.780 --> 00:39:28.820
that's receiving the letter. Romans is the letter
00:39:28.820 --> 00:39:31.880
to the church at Rome. Galatians is to the church
00:39:31.880 --> 00:39:35.269
at Galatia. First Timothy, Timothy didn't write
00:39:35.269 --> 00:39:37.250
it. He's the one that got the letter. Is that
00:39:37.250 --> 00:39:40.190
how it works? That is how it works. And your
00:39:40.190 --> 00:39:44.690
point also about reading things chronologically,
00:39:44.909 --> 00:39:48.070
it's interesting because the way Paul's letters
00:39:48.070 --> 00:39:50.929
are set up and all of the letters in the New
00:39:50.929 --> 00:39:53.969
Testament are set up so that it's the longest
00:39:53.969 --> 00:39:57.730
letter first, in this case Romans, and in Paul's
00:39:57.730 --> 00:40:01.230
writings the last shortest letter is Philemon
00:40:01.230 --> 00:40:06.059
and all of them are in that that way. What's
00:40:06.059 --> 00:40:10.780
interesting is Galatians or the first book of
00:40:10.780 --> 00:40:15.019
Thessalonica are considered to be the earliest
00:40:15.019 --> 00:40:18.599
books that Paul wrote. I think the accepted practice
00:40:18.599 --> 00:40:21.239
is that Galatians is the first one, but there
00:40:21.239 --> 00:40:23.920
can be some argument whether that was the book
00:40:23.920 --> 00:40:28.150
of Thessalonians versus Galatians. Okay. And
00:40:28.150 --> 00:40:32.269
then we've got Hebrews. Yes, and after Paul's
00:40:32.269 --> 00:40:35.630
writings, right, so it's Paul's longest letter
00:40:35.630 --> 00:40:39.269
to Paul's shortest letter, then all of the other
00:40:39.269 --> 00:40:42.449
canonized letters, that means the letters that
00:40:42.449 --> 00:40:46.050
were determined to be of the Holy Spirit, come
00:40:46.050 --> 00:40:50.130
in order again by length. So Hebrews is the longest
00:40:50.130 --> 00:40:53.329
of those additional letters. And then we see
00:40:53.329 --> 00:40:57.190
James, which is the next longest, and so forth,
00:40:57.289 --> 00:41:00.610
all the way to the end, which are three very
00:41:00.610 --> 00:41:05.670
short letters, second John, third John, and finally
00:41:05.670 --> 00:41:08.329
the book of Jude, which is one chapter itself.
00:41:09.110 --> 00:41:12.329
And then James and first and second Peter are
00:41:12.570 --> 00:41:15.210
also letters, but not necessarily to a specific
00:41:15.210 --> 00:41:18.309
person. That's right. They are what I would argue
00:41:18.309 --> 00:41:22.070
is that they're they're letters to all of us.
00:41:22.409 --> 00:41:25.309
Yes. Well, we can all I mean, yes, we can also
00:41:25.309 --> 00:41:27.190
learn things from letters that were written to
00:41:27.190 --> 00:41:29.710
other people. But it is interesting to note a
00:41:29.710 --> 00:41:32.630
little bit of difference as you approach them,
00:41:32.630 --> 00:41:35.550
you know, especially for the first time. So,
00:41:35.869 --> 00:41:39.010
yeah, if you have a short letter, and do you
00:41:39.010 --> 00:41:42.250
see anything wrong with? Well, if you take 1
00:41:42.250 --> 00:41:44.789
John, for example, it's five chapters. It's not
00:41:44.789 --> 00:41:49.309
a particularly big book. Do you see where there's
00:41:49.309 --> 00:41:52.550
some value if someone said, okay, I'm going to
00:41:52.550 --> 00:41:56.210
read a chapter per day, but because there's only
00:41:56.210 --> 00:41:59.250
five chapters, I'm going to read a chapter per
00:41:59.250 --> 00:42:04.010
day and then start over in 1 John chapter 1 through
00:42:04.010 --> 00:42:08.010
1 John chapter 5, and maybe in 20 days I will
00:42:08.010 --> 00:42:12.090
have read each chapter successively. four times,
00:42:12.110 --> 00:42:15.050
or put it differently, in 20 days I will have
00:42:15.050 --> 00:42:19.170
read the whole book of 1 John four times. I think
00:42:19.170 --> 00:42:22.750
that's a great idea. I mean, the older I get,
00:42:22.989 --> 00:42:25.230
the more things I forget the first time I hear
00:42:25.230 --> 00:42:28.889
them, right? So to be in this book of 1 John
00:42:28.889 --> 00:42:31.449
and sort of sit there for a while and read it
00:42:31.449 --> 00:42:34.480
over and over and over, I think there can be
00:42:34.480 --> 00:42:36.980
a lot of benefit to that. I mean, it helps you
00:42:36.980 --> 00:42:39.420
get it in your head and maybe remember. And then
00:42:39.420 --> 00:42:43.079
as you read it, the Holy Spirit can reveal different
00:42:43.079 --> 00:42:46.780
things to you. The purpose of reading scripture
00:42:46.780 --> 00:42:49.000
is for you and your relationship with the Lord,
00:42:49.039 --> 00:42:51.559
right? We want to spend time with God and get
00:42:51.559 --> 00:42:53.780
to know him better. But as you do that, sometimes
00:42:53.780 --> 00:42:55.940
he will bring a person to your mind and be like,
00:42:56.739 --> 00:42:59.099
oh, and then you want to pray for a particular
00:42:59.099 --> 00:43:01.239
person about something that you read, you know,
00:43:01.260 --> 00:43:05.309
or... especially I mean even as I'm looking in
00:43:05.309 --> 00:43:08.670
1st John walking in the light I want my children
00:43:08.670 --> 00:43:11.929
to walk in the light so it could be yes Lord
00:43:11.929 --> 00:43:15.309
help me walk in your life but also bless my children
00:43:15.309 --> 00:43:18.489
so that they can do this too and you know the
00:43:18.489 --> 00:43:22.110
more time you spend there I think you just grow
00:43:22.110 --> 00:43:25.010
deeper in your relationship with the Lord and
00:43:25.010 --> 00:43:27.130
learn more and he reveals different things to
00:43:27.130 --> 00:43:30.280
you so yeah I think repetition is great. And
00:43:30.280 --> 00:43:33.179
we so we've kind of covered a full gamut here
00:43:33.179 --> 00:43:35.480
of saying well you could do the marathon and
00:43:35.480 --> 00:43:38.739
kind of run through The Bible start to finish
00:43:38.739 --> 00:43:40.960
and you could do that in one of two ways either
00:43:40.960 --> 00:43:42.840
the way in which it's organized or you could
00:43:42.840 --> 00:43:46.059
do it Chronologically in the way in which the
00:43:46.059 --> 00:43:49.559
books were written and that's certainly Each
00:43:49.559 --> 00:43:51.940
and every one of these suggestions are worthwhile,
00:43:51.940 --> 00:43:55.420
right? I've also seen read through the Bible
00:43:55.420 --> 00:43:58.280
books like where you read a little bit of New
00:43:58.280 --> 00:44:00.639
Testament, a little bit of Old Testament, a little
00:44:00.639 --> 00:44:04.519
bit of Proverbs and Psalms each day. So you're
00:44:04.519 --> 00:44:06.539
still getting the whole thing, but it's not like
00:44:06.539 --> 00:44:09.079
you're stuck in just one book for a long time.
00:44:09.099 --> 00:44:10.940
You get a little bit of everything and still
00:44:10.940 --> 00:44:14.460
make it through the Bible in different sections.
00:44:15.460 --> 00:44:18.199
Like you said, it doesn't have to be 365 days.
00:44:18.320 --> 00:44:20.679
You can push it to however many days it takes,
00:44:20.880 --> 00:44:24.099
but they divide it up a little bit so that you
00:44:24.099 --> 00:44:26.659
can get a little bit of everything. Yes, and
00:44:26.659 --> 00:44:29.920
I think that's actually a super way to do it
00:44:29.920 --> 00:44:32.920
if one says, I really want to read through the
00:44:32.920 --> 00:44:36.199
whole Bible. Well, being able to do it in the
00:44:36.199 --> 00:44:38.980
way you just described can be a fantastic way
00:44:38.980 --> 00:44:42.539
to do it. I think we're coming to the end here.
00:44:42.699 --> 00:44:45.440
And the last thing I would want to say, and we've
00:44:45.440 --> 00:44:48.699
said this many times in our podcasts, that the
00:44:48.699 --> 00:44:52.420
Bible is constructed whether it's a paper book
00:44:52.420 --> 00:44:56.039
Bible or whether it's a Bible app where there
00:44:56.039 --> 00:44:58.659
are references to what you're reading, and some
00:44:58.659 --> 00:45:03.139
of those references are to where you find a word
00:45:03.139 --> 00:45:06.460
or where you find that thought or that verse
00:45:06.460 --> 00:45:10.340
elsewhere in Scripture. And if in particular
00:45:10.340 --> 00:45:13.139
in today's world, if you're using a digital Bible,
00:45:13.340 --> 00:45:16.880
generally those are Bible apps of one form or
00:45:16.880 --> 00:45:20.559
another. And they're a great resource because
00:45:20.559 --> 00:45:23.960
not only do they have these references to other
00:45:23.960 --> 00:45:26.920
places where these words or these phrases are
00:45:26.920 --> 00:45:29.539
used in the Bible, you can click on them and
00:45:29.539 --> 00:45:32.280
they'll immediately take you there. So navigating
00:45:32.280 --> 00:45:35.320
back and forth between what you're reading and
00:45:35.320 --> 00:45:39.809
some support. of what you're reading in other
00:45:39.809 --> 00:45:43.050
parts of scripture makes it really interesting
00:45:43.050 --> 00:45:46.170
and fun and easy to navigate. And then finally,
00:45:46.630 --> 00:45:49.909
generally these digital Bible apps will have
00:45:49.909 --> 00:45:56.690
in the beginning of the book a synopsis of who
00:45:56.690 --> 00:46:00.969
wrote it. what the time frame was in which it
00:46:00.969 --> 00:46:06.110
was written, and maybe the outline of that particular
00:46:06.110 --> 00:46:10.010
book, what it's really saying in sort of an overview
00:46:10.010 --> 00:46:15.489
or a high level. And I think that's also important
00:46:15.489 --> 00:46:19.489
if you're new to scripture to be able to utilize
00:46:19.489 --> 00:46:21.710
those resources if you're saying, you know, I
00:46:21.710 --> 00:46:24.469
just read something I don't particularly understand.
00:46:25.099 --> 00:46:28.940
and then they can click on that verse and there
00:46:28.940 --> 00:46:32.079
will be some commentary to it and maybe some
00:46:32.079 --> 00:46:35.219
different verses that they can click on and bring
00:46:35.219 --> 00:46:39.739
greater context or greater color to what they're
00:46:39.739 --> 00:46:42.119
reading, right Anne? Yeah, I think that's a great
00:46:42.119 --> 00:46:45.820
idea. I mean, I have a favorite online commentary
00:46:45.820 --> 00:46:47.960
that I like to use when I get a little confused
00:46:47.960 --> 00:46:50.920
about something. Yeah, there's a lot of good
00:46:50.920 --> 00:46:54.460
tools out there. Yeah, well we hope this has
00:46:54.460 --> 00:46:59.400
been a value to you and help encourage you to
00:46:59.400 --> 00:47:02.880
not necessarily worry about where to start to
00:47:02.880 --> 00:47:06.119
go into Scripture, but to really say there's
00:47:06.119 --> 00:47:08.840
an infinite number of ways that you can do it
00:47:08.840 --> 00:47:12.539
and any of them and all of them will be edifying
00:47:12.539 --> 00:47:17.360
to you. Anne, would you take us out in praise
00:47:17.360 --> 00:47:23.079
and prayer? Absolutely. Father God we thank you
00:47:23.079 --> 00:47:26.880
so much that you have given us a Bible Lord Thank
00:47:26.880 --> 00:47:30.500
you for speaking your words through people to
00:47:30.500 --> 00:47:32.940
get it down on paper so that I can hold in my
00:47:32.940 --> 00:47:38.500
hand a copy of your word to me and it and we
00:47:38.500 --> 00:47:40.760
know you wrote it for everybody but it's a little
00:47:40.760 --> 00:47:43.260
more special to think God these are your words
00:47:43.260 --> 00:47:47.159
to me and you took the time to write them and
00:47:47.159 --> 00:47:50.659
speak them and ought to take the time to read
00:47:50.659 --> 00:47:54.280
them and listen and try to understand what it
00:47:54.280 --> 00:47:58.559
is that your message is and so I pray for all
00:47:58.559 --> 00:48:01.679
of our listeners that they would have the determination
00:48:01.679 --> 00:48:04.679
to start somewhere Lord even if it's just five
00:48:04.679 --> 00:48:07.400
minutes a day to spend time reading your word
00:48:07.400 --> 00:48:12.380
there's such depth and there's just so many good
00:48:12.380 --> 00:48:14.760
things that you have to say to us about all the
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things that happened to us in our lives. There's
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guidance. There's wisdom. There's encouragement.
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And Lord, we need all those things to get through
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our lives today. And so we thank you for your
00:48:27.559 --> 00:48:30.260
Bible and your Word that is a love letter to
00:48:30.260 --> 00:48:32.900
us. We thank you for your great love. We thank
00:48:32.900 --> 00:48:35.079
you for your encouragement. We thank you for
00:48:35.079 --> 00:48:38.019
your guidance. It's all right there at our fingertips,
00:48:38.179 --> 00:48:42.179
Lord. We praise you that you have opened a way
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for us to have a relationship with you through
00:48:43.900 --> 00:48:49.340
Jesus. And I pray that we would all be mindful
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of that as we go through our busy days, that
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we would remember to acknowledge you and thank
00:48:54.820 --> 00:48:56.980
you and be grateful to you for all that you've
00:48:56.980 --> 00:48:59.559
done for us. We love you, Lord. In Jesus name,
00:48:59.679 --> 00:49:06.179
we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Anne. Well, there
00:49:06.179 --> 00:49:08.800
you have it. We've enjoyed our conversation today
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and hope that you feel more equipped to examine
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scripture. Define what God has to say about the
00:49:15.019 --> 00:49:18.519
important circumstances you're facing in your
00:49:18.519 --> 00:49:21.760
life. Until next time, examine the scripture,
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drink from the word of life, and let the Bible
00:49:24.980 --> 00:49:25.960
feed your spirit.