October 28, 2024 • 56 mins
Reading the Bible without context is like assembling a jigsaw puzzle with just a few pieces. Gain the tools to uncover a more profound understanding of scripture as Sean Sloggett and John Rich guide you through the essential practice of contextual Bible study. With our insightful discussion, you'll differentiate between exegesis and eisegesis, ensuring that your interpretations are based on scripture, not personal biases. We'll share practical tips to enrich your study, helping you avoid common pitfalls even experienced readers face.
In this episode, we navigate the tricky waters of biblical interpretation, with an emphasis on the Old Testament's intricate layers of history, language, and culture. We unpack why understanding the Bible as a cohesive narrative centered on Jesus Christ's life and teachings is crucial. Through examples like "judge not," we show how easily meanings can be misconstrued when texts are stripped from their context. You'll learn how to approach scripture with a holistic mindset, preventing contradictions and fostering a more authentic faith.
Our conversation also highlights the value of open-mindedness and the magic that happens when we engage with diverse perspectives. We discuss how dialogues with atheists or academic scholars can shine new light on your faith journey. Approaching the Bible with an open heart and seeking guidance through prayer reinforces the belief that it's more than just ancient text—it's a living document. Join us for a thought-provoking episode where continuous learning and community interaction lead to a deeper appreciation and understanding of the scriptures.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's not about them, it's not about me.
Get yourself just completelyset aside and go back to
studying the Scripture, becauseyou will want to see something.
Some way, there is somethingthat you will come across and
you'll be like man.
I really think that it shouldbe this way and if you're not
(00:20):
careful, you'll convinceyourself that it is that way
through the scripture.
Welcome back to the EverydayChristian Podcast, where we
apply scriptural principles toeveryday Christian lives.
I'm Sean Sloggett.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
And I'm John Rich, and today we are going to talk
about how to read the Bible incontext.
Now, brother Sean, it's sort ofa simple.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
I'm already messing things up why?
Y'all are going to have toforgive us.
We're used to only having onecamera pointing on us.
This third camera is kind ofthrowing me off.
Yeah, I usually like do littlehead swivels and bobs and stuff.
Yeah, just to get it out whilehe is talking, because it's not
on me and I've already realizedI've done it once and then I
(01:09):
look up and realize the camera'son me, so if any point, you
just see me over here justtwitching out.
Um sorry, I have.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
If you don't see, it's because I used ai to edit
him just sitting still I have todo that.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
I don't know what hd is, but I just came back from
the doctor and he said I have 80of them.
So just where I'm at, oh mygosh this isn't dad joke hour.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
That was for a couple episodes back that's a good
joke it was pretty good.
I'll give you that one.
I I was trying to think of onethat beat it and I can't, so
ADHD, anyway, adhd-mi, all right.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Welcome to the Everyday Christian Podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
So yeah, welcome to the episode we are talking.
As I was saying before, thegreat dad joke that we are going
to be talking about Before myattention deficit squirrel just
jumped in.
Here we're going to be talkingabout how to read and, more
importantly, how to study theBible.
In here we're going to betalking about how to read and,
more importantly, how to studythe Bible in context.
So it is a practical sort ofpodcast, a little bit different
(02:12):
than what we typically do.
We try to take a subject likefasting we did last time talk
about that.
It is practical, but I believethat it is something that
everyone could listen, to,adhere to, to learn from.
Even myself, I feel like thereare times where I can take the
(02:32):
Bible out of context or I'llread something I'm like, oh you
know.
So we'll get into some of that,obviously, in this episode
looking at the dangers of takingthe Bible out of context,
looking at the additions orpluses to reading the Bible in
context I think is important tooand then I honestly want to
show the individuals who arelistening to this things that
(02:57):
you can do to read the Bible incontext and to study the Bible
in context as well, Brother Sean.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Yeah, I mean we all can agree that studying the
Bible I got to figure out whichcamera I'm supposed to be
looking at.
That one, that one.
This one right here, you got it.
I'm telling you all this isthrowing me for a loop, but we
all most of us, if not all of uscan agree that studying the
Bible and learning from the wordis very beneficial for us.
(03:25):
So this is something thatBrother John, brother, reverend,
dr President, president Johnhas that he brought to the table
.
Man y'all, I am all over.
Before we get started, I'mgoing to go ahead and promote us
(03:47):
real quick since Sean's allover the place.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
The Everyday Christian Podcast mugs.
If you want one, send us amessage, send us a text Some of
you have my number or message mepersonally or Sean personally.
They are $25 each.
I'll put them off the camerathere, maybe the middle one
there, throw it over there toSean so he can put it up on his
(04:10):
camera.
They are $25 each.
That includes shipping.
They are hot and cold tumblersthat have the Everyday Christian
Podcast.
If you want to buy one of thoseto support our channel, to
support our podcast, pleasemessage us, let us know.
Also, like share, subscribethose three things really really
help us.
They promote us.
I know we have individuals thatare listening for the first time
in this episode, but I know wehave several individuals that
(04:32):
have listened and commented,shared, messaged us, some
listeners that are listening tothis episode right now, that
have listened to us since dayone.
We are thankful for thosepeople and appreciate everything
that they've done.
But we have a call to actionand that is we need to share it
to continue to grow and continueto do the podcast themselves.
(04:55):
So I just wanted to point thatout there.
There's a lot of changes thatare going to be coming up, a lot
of differences in the podcast,things that we'll be doing
differently.
New guests we've talked aboutpotentially having on the show,
so there's going to be new logo,new logo we're working on.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
We've thrown a couple of those, a few, I think three
out now yeah, just just feelersout.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
There's nothing set in stone.
We're just trying to see.
We want what people like youknow new backdrop.
Eventually we're going to getto that.
I've got, we've had some ideasand have been throwing that
around as well.
We're just busy with life ingeneral and everything else
going on outside of just familyand work, and so eventually
(05:38):
we'll get there.
But studying and reading theBible in context yeah, Brother
Sean brought out this point.
I'll talk about it a little bitmore.
I know he will about how we caninterpret the Bible incorrectly
or how we can build incorrectdoctrines out of the Bible and
how there is danger in that.
And, like I said, I'll go intosome of that.
(06:00):
But I do believe that a lot ofreligions there's several out
there.
You know I told our youthyesterday that Christianity is
the number one religion in theworld, but there's so many
different?
yeah, there's different sidecategories I don't know if side
(06:22):
categories is the right word,but subcategories of
Christianity.
Some of them, I believe, arealmost 100% biblical in how they
were conceived or born orwhatever.
Some of them were born out of asingle verse, which I don't
feel like is correct ornecessary.
Some of those groups have beenin fellowship with one another.
(06:46):
You know I've seen churchesthat have had fellowships with
other churches that theybelieved one way full heartedly,
because of something the Biblesaid in the Old and New
Testament, and then this groupover here didn't really believe
that.
So it's important to understandcontext, to build doctrine, not
(07:08):
build doctrine to understandcontext, and I think that that's
what we're trying to aim.
One of the, I guess, goals ofthis podcast is that is, you
know, when you study the Bible,when you read it in context,
we'll explain what that means.
Obviously, I know we keepsaying that.
I keep saying that I should saybut it's important to know why
(07:29):
you should read it.
It's important to know how youshould do it.
It's important to practice it.
Don't just know why, don't justknow how, but do it Because
your relationship with Christ isgoing to grow and strengthen
over that.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Right it, because your relationship with Christ is
going to grow and strengthenover that.
On that point of the context ofit, I will admit some faults of
mine.
Yeah, I know, when I first, thefirst few times for sure that I
preached, I would come up witha thought and I'm not tearing
this down, just hear me out.
I would come up with a thoughtthat I wanted and then I would
(08:07):
study the Bible for it.
And I realized something laterand I want to read something
that I came across, because inmy notes I wrote down how do we
align, align or do we align theBible and Christ with us, or do
(08:29):
we align ourselves with theBible and Christ?
You know, aligning with Christmeans conforming our wants, our
desires, our values, ourthoughts, whatever, to him, to
his teachings, to the Bible, andputting ourselves behind him,
(08:56):
letting him be the guide,whereas aligning Christ or the
Bible with us is twisting,manipulating Christ's nature to
fit us and our values and ourdesires, which is not correct,
it's unbiblical.
And I realized at one pointthat I would come up with a
(09:20):
thought.
Whether it was right or wrong,that's neither here nor there,
but I would come up with athought and then I would go
study the scriptures and then Icould build my little sermonette
around that.
Right, because I had alreadypre-planned in my mind what I
(09:44):
wanted.
Right, because I had alreadypre-planned in my mind what I
wanted.
Right, and a lot of times,whether the message was right or
wrong.
Again, I was trying to alignthe scriptures to Sean Slogin
and what he had going on forWednesday night or whatever that
was had going on for Wednesdaynight or whatever that was, and
(10:08):
that's something that I fear,that I don't fear that it could
have.
It has happened because I'vebeen guilty of it.
So it's very important to, whenyou are studying these things
is to get self out of the way.
Yeah, and I actually talkedabout this a little bit last
sunday.
This is kind of weird.
(10:29):
This is actually the secondpodcast that we've done that.
Yeah, before we discussed it, itwas taught in a class.
Um, fasting came up before westarted talking about fasting.
Uh, but just aligning yourselfand getting yourself out of the
way.
We're still human.
(10:50):
We still make mistakes.
We're selfish.
Yeah, it's, it's in our nature,right?
Um, so we want things to agreewith us, we want things to align
with us, we want to be in ourcontext and our time, and you
know how we view things, and Itold my class that we have to be
(11:12):
able to get ourselves out ofthe way, and even more than that
and this is not a dig atanybody but we have to be able
to get our movement out of theway we have to be able to get
our pastors, our Sunday schoolteachers, get their opinions out
(11:33):
of the way, because we areinfluenced by them, yeah, which
most of the time, is a goodthing, right, I mean, if it's a
pastor or a Sunday schoolteacher, they're probably a
decent enough influence.
Yeah, or they wouldn't be there.
Right, and I know that there'sbad, there's good and bad, but
(11:58):
you still have to get them outof the way.
Yeah, it's not about them, it'snot about me.
Get yourself just completelyset aside and go back to
studying the scripture, becauseyou will want to see something
some way.
There is something that youwill come across that you'll be
like man.
I really think that it shouldbe this way, and if you're not
(12:22):
careful, you'll convinceyourself that it is that way
through the scripture.
So it's very important that weget self out of the way.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
You have to get that church culture out of the way,
like you're saying too.
I mean, I think about that toowhen we're talking about the
preaching.
It's like the worst part ofthat is when you can't find
anything in the Bible to bag upwhat you're thinking.
You know it's like man, or youknow you have those, those
sermons, those sermons at leastI have where it's like this is
(12:56):
going to get this crowd going.
Let's, let's find out what this.
You know it's terrible.
Look, I'm admitting to it infront of everybody.
I don't feel like I've.
I feel like for the most part,my heart was in the right place,
but I didn't always do theright thing when studying or
reading, and so it is sort of arevival of thought.
(13:19):
That's one of my favoritephrases.
It is sort of a revival ofthought when you make it up in
your mind that you're going tostudy and read the Bible in
context and study for yourself,because you're talking about,
like, getting these things outof the way.
Well, part of getting thosethings out of the way is
studying and reading foryourself and understanding what
(13:40):
you believe and why you believein and how and all those things.
And so I wanted to get in andI'll briefly go through these
and we can come back to them.
I won't be long but theimportance of why we should
avoid reading it out of contextor reading it from an eisegesis
(14:01):
standpoint.
Now, if you don't know whateisegesis means or exegesis
means, I'll try to explain thathere in a moment.
I know that's a big word thatpeople are like.
What is that?
You know?
What does that have to do?
Essentially, it means anexegesis study is bringing out
the scripture and applying it tome, whereas an eisegesis way of
studying is taking me andapplying it to scripture, which
(14:24):
is essentially what Sean wastalking about.
You know, you're not I tellpeople this all the time.
I can't remember who I heard itfrom the first time.
It might've been like PaulWasher or something like that,
one of those cool cats.
But one of my favorite phrasesis you're not David and you're
not facing a Goliath.
You may be facing things andthe principle is that God can
(14:45):
deliver you from those things,but I don't have a Goliath and
neither do you.
I know that's going to hurtsome people's feelings, but when
you get out of that mindset,you might hear the sirens by the
way, in the background.
I need to speak louder.
But when you get out of thatmindset or you're in that
mindset rather of reading theBible out of context, there's a
(15:05):
lot of danger to that.
You know you could read or whenyou read you won't look at it
or read it as an entire document.
Something that I think that it'simportant when reading the
Bible is understanding thatthere's an overarching theme and
that is what that Jesus Christcame, died, rose again and is
(15:28):
coming again.
That is the overarching themeof the entirety of the Bible.
There are things that you candig into and get down to more
granular detail of when you'restudying and reading the Bible,
but that is the overarchingtheme.
The problem is when we read itout of context, we read it in
such a way that it's justpiecemealed and it's several
(15:50):
letters or several books orseveral verses or several
chapters instead of a whole book.
So that's something.
I don't even have this in mynotes, but something that you
need to sort of understand ifyou don't understand it already
is everything grammatically thechapter separations, the verse
(16:11):
separations, all those thingsare man-made, all those things
were added to the Bible and tothe interpretation.
So when you're studying andreading the Bible that's
something that's important tounderstand is, in the Greek
there weren't those grammaticaldifferences and pauses and
periods and commas and all thosethings.
(16:32):
There wasn't the separation ofverses.
It's just something that wasput in to help us understand it
better and thank God for it, Ithink.
But understand that when you'rereading it it's not just
something that's pieced togetherverse by verse, it's something
that is whole.
When you read it read the wordof God out of context you put
yourself in places of scripturewhere you don't belong, and
(16:55):
that's why you have issues thatstem from Old Testament
documents where people say youcan or cannot do X Y Z.
But then you read three verseslater and it's like well, if I
can't do X Y Z here, then Ican't do X Y Z here.
Well, that's because you'rereading it out of context.
(17:16):
You're putting yourself in aplace of scripture where you
don't belong.
You put yourself in danger ofmisinterpreting what a verse is
saying and then you builddoctrines that aren't even there
.
Those are dangers.
Those are dangerous.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
I can show you, using the scripture, where it's okay
to kill the king and where it'snot okay.
So which one is it?
Yeah, right.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Exactly.
It all goes back down to that,and that's where the studying
comes in to play.
There too, I think that if alot of you have more faith than
even I do, this is such a rabbittrail, but some of you have way
more faith than even I do, eventhough you don't read the Bible
in context.
You have way more faith than I,because if I read the Bible
(18:01):
like some of you read the Bible,I'd have a hard time trusting
and believing in God, becauseit's like well, the Bible here
says don't do this, but then theBible over here says you can do
this.
So which is it?
Does the Bible contradictitself?
I don't believe it does.
The contradiction is you takingit out of context.
(18:25):
That's the entire point of this.
The contradiction is you notunderstanding each piece and how
it is a part of a whole, theother Go ahead, no, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
No, no, no, you're fine, go ahead the literary type
of it, yeah, you know.
Is it poetry?
Is it a prophecy?
Right, right, is it a letterthat Paul wrote to one of the
churches?
You know, those things are veryvital to it.
And then I like to dig deeper.
(18:57):
I really enjoy history, oh,yeah, so when you're reading the
Bible and I'm not degrading theBible, it is a roadmap, but
it's also a history book.
Yeah, use that to youradvantage, right?
What's going on during thattime?
Yeah, you know, they had wars.
(19:20):
They had times of peace.
Yeah, there were othercountries.
There were all these thingsgoing on, just like is happening
in our world today.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
You know, we have earthquakes, we have floods, we
have these horrible hurricanesthat have hit the East Coast and
pray for them while we're at it, right, absolutely.
But we have all these thingsgoing on in our lives.
We get up in the morning andyou've got a to-do list that you
have to do, yeah, and you layyour head down at night and
(19:54):
you're like, man, I got nine ofthe 11 things I needed to get
done today and I mean, look atthe current events that was
going on, study the historybehind it, study the culture
behind it.
I took some classes in collegeabout it was more or less the
(20:20):
history of.
So we didn't just study history, but we studied the paintings,
we studied the, the art, a lotof the stuff like that that
happened with it, and and youcame to actually understand a
lot of it a lot better.
Um, like there was a paintingthat that we did a study on.
I couldn't even tell you therewere.
(20:42):
If I remember exact, if Iremember to correct there was a
lady looking out of a window.
It was a painting and there wasa dog painted beside her.
And you see the painting andyou're just like, okay.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
You know, whatever, if you like art or you, don't,
move on.
But if you studied I believe itwas during the Renaissance time
.
But if you studied, I believeit was during the Renaissance
(21:17):
time.
But if you studied more, youdug down deep into that you
would understand that the guythat painted this suffered with
depression, or that that timeframe.
You know things going on duringthat.
It was a time of war, a time ofpeace.
So in this painting the sun isshining through the window and
her face is lit up.
So that was in their time, whensomebody's face was glowing
like that.
It was a time of peace in theirlife.
(21:38):
Yeah, you see the dog sittingbeside her, and dogs have always
been companions and friends andand somebody who sticks close.
You know a dog will never leaveyou, you know you.
You walk out of the door.
It's wagging its tail.
You open the door when you comeback home and it's still
sitting there wagging his tail.
(21:59):
It seems like.
So.
There's all these things thatyou get to actually draw out of
it.
You know the painter was notfeeling lonely.
He had people around him atthat time.
Yeah, so you study all this andjust this seemingly simple
painting ends up telling thisstory, yeah, and then they would
(22:21):
play songs for us in class andyou could just tear these songs
apart and put them back togetherand there were so many
different things like that thatwe were learning and trying to
figure out.
And it was very eye-openingbecause you got to study the
(22:41):
context behind a lot of this andyou get to learn about the
history of them.
We did some on the Bible timesand I know this is kind of my
own rabbit trail.
Like when Jesus was born, therewas hierarchy set up and it was
.
It's very conflicting when youstudy history, right, because in
(23:05):
times of hierarchies you didn'tmove up or down levels More, so
you could move down, but it wasstill very rare.
If you were born a pauper, ifyou were born poor, you were
poor.
You weren't going to getwealthy, you just live your life
out.
(23:25):
If you were born into royalty,guess what?
Your family was royalty.
There's no way around it, right?
I mean, look at King David,that lineage.
It was royalty, yeah, and itstayed royalty.
So you study all these thingsand then they talk about a king
being born in a manger, a kingbeing born in a poorhouse, a
(23:51):
king being born to a carpenter.
Yeah, one of the nobodies,right, and it was very and that
was some of the trouble that alot of those people had in that
time was they're trying tounderstand how does somebody
that's poor going to end upliving in a palace one of these
days?
Yeah, because they saw this guythat's working for his dad.
(24:14):
His dad's got a carpenter shopin the back or whatever.
So you, you study a lot of thishistory and stuff and it's very
eye-opening to those currentevents that they were struggling
with and it brings a lot moreto the table.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Something else too when you're studying and this
goes hand-in-hand with whatyou're talking about is you have
to understand that reading theBible, studying it, you're
bridging a gap.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
And the biggest part of that is the time gap, because
you're not only having tobridge the gap between who
translated the Bible to yourself, you're also having to bridge
the gap from the original textto the translator.
And so it's sort of like I kindof chuckle.
(25:04):
My son asked me the other day.
He said, dad, he's like, why isthe a word in the bible?
That's exactly what he asked me, you know, and I just laughed,
you know.
It's just funny to me, um, thathe was just so curious because
he's like, why can't I say thatif it's in the bible?
You know was like, well, youhave to understand, jackson,
(25:25):
when they interpreted the Bible,that word wasn't a bad word
like it is today.
I said, when they say certainthings, those words don't mean
the same thing that they meanright now.
I said, and not to mention,when they translated it, it was
from a different word that theytranslated from, and he we just
(25:48):
talked about that for a littlebit he sort of kind of sort of
understood.
Hopefully he'll understand alittle bit better and won't cuss
, but that's, that's something,that.
Is it really cussing, if youjust see?
Speaker 1 (25:58):
it If it's in the bio you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Yeah, right, but that's something that you need
to understand, though, whenyou're reading and studying, is
you're having to bridge that gaptoo.
You cannot just take a word inthe Bible or a phrase in the
Bible and apply it to me rightnow, and there's reason for that
.
You have to go back and youhave to look at what word it was
(26:24):
interpreted from, what was thepurpose of that word, et cetera,
and going on from there.
Like there is history andunderstanding the history behind
everything.
Understanding the historybehind you know why God said
don't eat shrimp.
Understanding the historybehind you, know why Paul wrote
(26:46):
to the Corinthian church andsaid women need to be silent in
the church.
Like there, it doesn't meanwhat you think that it means.
There's reason, there's purposein that.
That came up last time.
Yeah, I bet it did, but italways does.
But at least that entirecontext.
But there's a reason for that.
It's because there is.
(27:08):
You know, we talk about theEveryday Christian Podcast here.
It is right up here.
You apply scriptural principlesto everyday Christian lives.
That's our goal, and the reasonwhy is because there are so
many principles you can drawfrom the Bible that you can
glean from.
But that does not mean thatevery single thing in the Bible
(27:28):
or every single thing that'swritten like.
The Bible says that Mary andthem left their land that they
were in and they moved back totheir homeland because of the
law, you know, because of taxreasons, more than likely, mary
rode on a donkey and rode it toBethany or Bethlehem, right,
(27:48):
that's that there's.
There's nothing in the Biblethat says that, by the way, but
most people interpret it thatthat's probably what happened.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
However, have you never seen the movie the star?
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Yeah, Well, of course of course, that's what she
rides the donkey but yeah,donkey, but yeah, but aside from
that, there's really nothing inthat.
There's nothing in her ridingthe donkey.
That applies to me, right?
I know that's a silly point,but like I can go, I go further.
Obviously it's like um, who wasin the bible, was elijah elisha
(28:21):
who shot the arrows.
I I'm sorry I'm drawing a blank.
There are things in the Bible,though, that happen in the Old
Testament that have nothing todo with me, like I'm not
shooting arrows.
Instead of you to smote theground, yeah, if I smite the
ground however many times likethis, you know that has nothing
to do with me.
(28:42):
Is there principle there?
That's where I glean from that,and people are like yo, I'm
tired of you talking aboutprinciple.
That's what I get, though it'slike there is stuff in the Bible
that I can apply.
There's stuff in the OldTestament I can apply to me
today.
I'm not saying that it's not,but I am saying is there are
things in the Bible, when youread it in context, understand
(29:03):
the history, understand the time, understand the language,
understand all of those gapsthat you're going to read it and
be like why am I applying thisto my life but not this to my
life?
And I think that's important.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
There are some things I believe you'll agree with
this.
Yeah, I will.
There are some things that canapply directly to you.
Yeah, and if you want examples,go read the Ten Commandments
Exactly.
There's no principle, maybekind of.
I mean it's don't do it Right,thou shalt not kill, thou shalt
not commit adultery, thou shaltnot steal.
(29:38):
Okay, that's commandments,that's Bible.
But to say that I have to goout and slay my giant, right?
I mean, please don't.
I know there's some tall peoplearound here and I may be one of
them, sean's one of the giants.
I'd like to live a little bitlonger here on earth.
(29:59):
If my wife took that scriptureliteral, I wouldn't have been
married for 10 years, right,scripture literal I wouldn't
have been married for 10 years,right.
But yeah, I mean, there aredefinitely things that are on a
principle basis but not others,and there's, you know, one thing
that I tell my kids in my classabout, that is is how.
(30:20):
Or I ask them I say how much ofit have you read?
Or I ask them I say how much ofit have you read?
Because when we first startedout and I'm not, I mean, it's
whatever, I hate trying tocorrect myself all the time they
would come and ask me aquestion about a scripture and I
would back up three or fourscriptures, yeah, and read it,
(30:41):
and then read several scripturesafter that.
And read it and then readseveral scriptures after that.
And I started telling them like,hey, I love that you have
questions, please continue toask them, but do me this favor
before you come back with aquestion, yeah, read it.
At minimum, read the wholechapter.
Yeah, if you want to read thewhole book or read several
(31:03):
chapters before or after, great,but at a minimum read the whole
chapter.
Yeah, and, to my dismay, Ihaven't gotten near as many
questions as I liked recently.
Way to go, way to fail, butit's, yeah, way to fail, but
(31:23):
it's failing in a good way, yeah, failing up.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Kamala.
Because, they are learning.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Sorry, everybody, and I don't care if they want to
come ask me questions or not.
I want to be there for them.
But they're beginning tounderstand and learn a lot of
these things without ever havingto bring them to class.
Yeah, because and thisscripture doesn't make sense oh
well, paul is talking directlyto this church.
Oh yeah, well, I can see herewhere he's saying this, this and
(31:59):
this I don't.
Okay, well, that makes sense.
Yeah, yeah, and then I don'tget asked any questions, which
bums me out.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Which one of my favorite parts of that is
whenever people they'll quote ascripture to me yeah, and it's
that you don't even have to readthe whole chapter.
You don't have to read chaptersfour or chapters after, you
just have to read the wholeverse and then you get the.
(32:26):
I mean obviously still do that,but some people they'll say
something like a three letterphrase, three word phrase, and
they're like well, what aboutthis?
It's like there's more to thatverse.
Go ahead and finish that verseand then you're going to know
yeah, judge not, judge not,that's the big one.
You know that's.
That's taken out of context.
But so, yeah, that that is thething you know.
And that's the benefit ofreading the Bible in context.
You read the Bible as a whole,not just pieces.
(32:48):
You glean from the laws and theprinciples of the Bible as they
are to apply to you.
You have a better understandingof God's intent.
It helps you have a strongerfoundation and understanding of
God's word.
All those things are good whenreading the Bible in context.
But, yeah, that is a problem.
I've thought of a couple offthe top of my head.
(33:09):
I'm not going to mention butJust go with it.
No, I'm not going to.
We're out of here.
We'll just keep digging deeperand deeper.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
But that is sort of Will somebody throw us a shovel
if we get too deep?
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Yeah, for real, we need help getting out.
That is what's interesting too,is you know I talked about
earlier about doctrines beingbuilt off one verse.
Some doctrines are built off ofone phrase in a verse that is
actually, like you know, withoutholiness, no man shall see the
Lord.
Okay, well, that's not what thescripture says.
(33:41):
The Bible says follow peacewith all men and holiness,
without which no man shall seethe Lord.
That's the correct reading ofthat scripture, sadly, a lot of
people don't follow, buteverything else is all pieced
together.
It's all eliminated from that,and the phrase that is used and
it's not even the right phraseis without holiness, no man
(34:05):
shall see the Lord.
And you know, that was the oneI thought of and that's when you
told me to dig.
So here I am.
But that is the problem withreading the Bible out of context
.
Studying the Bible out ofcontext is those doctrines,
those lifestyles, those beliefsystems are built off those
things, and I want everybody tounderstand this.
(34:27):
I think that a lot of whatcertain people believe is
probably correct to an extent,meaning I think that people add
additional measure to the Bibleor additional context to the
Bible.
That's not there too.
It's like we take things out ofcontext because we read
something and instead of justtaking it at face value and
(34:52):
applying it to our life, we addway more to it and then we want
to apply it to everyone's life.
That's a problem too when youread the Bible in context.
Here I am, I don't need ashovel anymore, take your shovel
back.
Here I am, I don't need ashovel anymore, take your shovel
back.
But I want to get into how canI read the Bible in context?
I think that's important.
We've touched up on a lot ofthat and I understand, too, like
(35:14):
some of these things are goingto be different.
You know, sean has his own ideaof how he studies and reads the
Bible.
I have my own idea of how Istudy and read the Bible, but I
think that it starts again we'vetalked a little bit about this
already but I think it startswith a foundation understanding
what you're reading, understandthe document that you're reading
(35:35):
.
So, like when I read the Bible,I like to understand the who,
what, when, where and why.
Like who wrote it, who werethey and why.
Like who wrote it, who werethey writing to?
When did they write it?
Where did they write it?
Why did they write it?
But I also do something.
I don't know if I ever gave youthis book.
I've mentioned this book onthis podcast before but the
(35:57):
who's, who, where's where?
I always go to that If I'mdoing any sort of study.
It's not, you know, a tell-all,it's not something that has all
the answers by any means, but Ialways like to read that
because, like, oh, I know whowrote this, david.
Okay, let me go and look aboutand read about David and see
what was going on in his life,and so it gives that detail,
(36:20):
like the Psalms.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Yeah, the Psalms you can read.
You can read a back-to-backPsalms.
Yeah, the Psalms.
You can read back-to-backPsalms and one of them, he's
like bless the Lord, oh, my soulloves him.
And then life's great Lord,please take me out of this
miserable You're like dude, youflipped a switch, but one of
them he wrote in a cave and oneof them he wrote when he was on
(36:42):
the throne and they're timesapart, they're several years.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
You know, whatever apart it's like the story.
There's actually a couple ofthese Like we just did a virtual
youth class, which here's myplug for you If you want more
information about the Bible,join our virtual class.
We have one coming up, probablywhen this episode releases, but
message us for more details.
Now back to what I was talkingabout.
We talked about Touch, my, notmine anointed.
(37:09):
You know that was a big classthat we did here recently and
there I tell people all the timewhen you're reading the
scripture, don't take a verseand build belief system out of
it.
If there's a verse in the Bibleand over here in the Bible it
says it, and over here in theBible it says it, over here,
over here in the Bible it saysit, and over here in the Bible
it says it.
You're probably pretty good totake that as literal and
something I should apply, orprinciple I should apply to
(37:29):
myself.
But if there's one verse herethat says it and every other
verse seemingly contradicts itor doesn't say it, then you need
to study it a little bit more.
So like Touch, not MineAnointed is a good example of
that, because it actually is inthe Bible twice.
Now if you're reading it andyou're like, oh well, it's in
the Bible twice, so that's whatit means.
(37:50):
Well, it's in the Bible inPsalms.
And then it's in 2 Chronicles.
And Psalms is recording David,who was written about in 2
Chronicles.
So it's actually technicallyone.
David's just writing a songabout the things that about in 2
Chronicles.
So it's actually technicallyone David's just writing a song
about the things that happenedin 2 Chronicles.
But people don't understandthat.
(38:15):
Or there's Psalm.
I'm trying to think I'm goingto mess it up, but it's talking
about Lord.
Many are they who rise upagainst me, many there who
trouble my soul.
He's talking about when his sonwas trying to kill him.
You know, and that goes back toSamuel.
So you can read the Bible incontext.
And to me, when you set thosefoundations of like we talked
(38:36):
about the history, the time, thewho, what, when, where and why,
the digging into the characterstudy of who wrote that verse,
the cross-referencing in theBible, you're like, well, what
is that?
Get your Tom Chin Chainreference Bible, it will save
your life.
There are other ones thatobviously out there Don't, but
(38:56):
you'll be reading.
I love that You'll be readingthe scripture and you'll look on
the side and it'll have across-reference verse and then
you can go to that and you cansee and start piecing it
together that way as well, sothat that would be one of my
main, for me, objectives when Iread the Bible is is I need to
(39:16):
set a foundation, I need tounderstand the purpose, I need
to understand the who, what,when, where and why, and then I,
I.
Secondly, I need to understandthe time and culture.
We've talked about that.
I'm going to say it again youneed to understand the time and
culture, the things that theywore in the old Testament.
You better believe it.
We're actually a little bitdifferent than what they wore in
(39:37):
the new Testament, and I don'tknow who needs to hear this.
It's going to shock some of you.
Honestly, the things that theywore in the New Testament are
probably not things that you'rewearing today.
I'm being sarcastic, obviously,but understanding the culture,
reading and studying it,understanding the time gap,
(39:58):
understanding the languages, allof those things are important
when studying and reading theBible.
But first I'm going to say itagain, then I'll pass it over to
Sean but first understand thewho, the what, when, where, why,
how?
Ask yourself that it's the mostbasic thing.
There are so many deeper thingsyou can do when studying the
(40:19):
Bible.
There are so many differentthings that you can do.
But if you would just startwith that as a foundation and
say, oh, this is who wrote it,oh, this is what they were going
through, this is what theyfaced, this is where they were
born, this is what they camefrom, and then you start to
slowly piece those thingstogether and understand why they
(40:40):
wrote it.
It's like reading Matthew, mark,luke and John.
If you read those four gospelsand read the same accounts,
you'll understand that theywrite it a little bit
differently or they interpretedit a little bit differently.
Well, there's reason for that.
The man Luke was a physician.
I was going to ask why is that?
He's going to obviously writemore about certain healing and
(41:06):
physical ailments.
Matthew was a tax collector, sohe's going to write more about
things like hey, judas, you knowhe tried to give however much
money back to the.
He was paid this much.
You know there's things in theBible and there's reasons.
When they interpret the Bible,the language that they use is
(41:29):
interesting to know who wrote it, because then you can
understand why they said whatthey said or said it in the way
that they said it.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
I heard one guy was talking about the four gospels
and he said, if I put a bike outin between everybody and let
them look at it for five minutesand then take it away and ask
everybody to explain to me thatbike, he said it may have
(41:58):
tassels on it.
It may have blue pedals.
It may have a red seat.
The bike may have been red, youknow all.
It may had a horn on it.
It may have had a.
It may have a red seat.
The bike may have been red, youknow.
It may have had a horn on it.
It may have had a basket upfront.
Whatever he said, but when youtake them all apart, you can
look at it.
Yeah, and two of them may say,hey, it has tassels on it, but
(42:20):
the other two didn't Right.
Does that mean that it's youknow?
Yeah, no, it didn't right.
Does that mean that it's youknow?
Yeah, no, it doesn't meanthey're wrong, it's just they
didn't notice that detail aboutit.
Um, so that's you know.
That's obviously something thatyou look after.
But study, uh, you know, instudying these things, study it
for yourself, study with othersand bounce ideas off of them.
(42:45):
You know I talk to Jonathan here.
Sometimes We'll call him up andbe like hey, what do you think
about it?
Let's talk a little bit aboutthis and he'll bring up a point
and I'll bring up a point andwe'll go back and forth on it.
The great thing about it is, ifyou guys don't agree, that's
something you know.
(43:06):
That's more for you to digdeeper on and that's something I
told my.
Something I told my kids wasyou know, when you're studying
these things, get it foryourselves and then go talk to
somebody about it.
Yeah, I said, because if youcan go, I said I don't care if
it's me or somebody else, so ifyou want to come talk to me
(43:28):
about it, we'll talk about it.
Yeah, I said, if I agree withyou and we agree with the Bible,
then cool, we got somethingright.
Right, and we agree with theBible, then cool, we got
something right.
If I don't agree with you, thatmeans we both need to go back
and do some more studying,because it's very likely one of
(43:49):
us might be wrong.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
Or misunderstanding the scripture.
Yeah, and then when we figureit out, we can come back
together, talk about it againand say, hey, I see where you're
coming from because you knowthis year.
So I think having others aroundyou is very, very important.
Yeah, but it needs to be thosewho can get themselves out of
(44:16):
the way as well.
Mm-hmm, because there are thosepeople who still believe of the
way as well, because there arethose people who still believe
it their way, and that's verydangerous.
I want to be careful when I'msaying these type of things.
I don't want it to come acrossthat this is the way I believe
(44:38):
and it's this is my way kind ofthing but it's not it's.
it's the Bible, it's Christ.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
I think, too, it is important to sort of see, to an
extent, opposing views ofwhatever it is as well, it does
cause you to want to dig deeper.
And then it's also I'm tellingyou like some of you are going
to think I'm crazy for this, Ijust like to do this.
I think that it's important tolisten to individuals that maybe
(45:09):
don't have anything to do withChristianity, but they just
studied the Bible and they readit, and they read it and they'll
they'll say something about itand it's like okay, let me go
back and read that again andstudy that out.
And it's not that I'm doing itbecause I'm trying to give up on
God or whatever.
I'm doing it because I want toknow more.
And to me, those individualsthat maybe weren't raised in
(45:31):
church, they've got such a goodunderstanding of the Bible, way
more than those who areChristians.
And the reason why is becauseof what he just said.
It's an unbiased view of theBible.
It's going in and settingyourself aside and not just
reading it because you want toread something into it.
It's reading it so that you cantake something out of it.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
And I think that just personal opinion.
Take it or leave it.
I think that you can advanceyour knowledge much easier and
much faster if you will do thatand you will allow yourself to
be convinced otherwise.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
Yeah, an open mind is what that is.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
It's being open-minded.
Yeah, I have talked withatheists before and I try my
hardest not to go in there witha mindset you'll never convince
me otherwise, right.
And it's not because I'mquestioning my faith, it's not
(46:36):
because I have doubts, but I'mdoing this, I'm setting myself
up to be open to them, because Iknow people that will go in and
have a debate, and it's you'rewrong, you're an idiot.
How can you not see?
Well, it's because they don'tstudy the Bible, or they've
never studied that side of it,the Bible, or they've never
(46:59):
studied that side of it.
And they're trying to convinceyou of something that they have
spent maybe years pouringthemselves into to study.
And you're doing the same thing.
You've spent years pouring andstudying and trying to be the
best Christian you can.
And now, when you go out totalk to them, you're stupid,
like how could you not believe?
(47:20):
I've heard these kind of thingsbefore.
Oh yeah, from Christians andnon-Christians.
Right, and you know, from theoutside looking in, they've
poured their heart and soul intosomething and now you're saying
you're an idiot, you need tothink like me.
I'm sorry, I don't blame themif they don't want to.
(47:42):
Exactly, yeah, treat somebodylike trash and then see, go.
I mean, I'm not saying, do it,but think about it.
If you went home and treatedyour spouse horribly, go ahead,
treat them like trash.
Yeah, go home and treated yourspouse horribly, go ahead, treat
them like trash.
Go home and treat your spouselike trash.
You know, if you went home andtreated people horribly your
(48:04):
spouse, your kids and stuff andI believe this wholeheartedly
you treat your kids bad, they'regoing to treat you bad, oh yeah
.
And then you're going to wonder, well, why don't they respect
me?
Well, because you're aknucklehead.
Speaker 2 (48:15):
Yeah, you're a jerk.
Speaker 1 (48:22):
Because that's the way that that relationship is
built.
So I go in open-minded withthese things.
I'm like hey, if you think youcan convince me otherwise, I
don't question my faith.
I'll say it again, I don'tquestion it, I don't doubt it.
Do I doubt certain aspects ofit?
Yes, because I'm still learning, like everybody else is.
There's a very, very, very,very, very slim chance you're
(48:46):
going to convince me to be anatheist, right, but I'm going to
open my mind to it and try it,because I also want you to come
in open-minded.
Hey, this guy is taking histime to listen to me.
He's not sitting there just tothrow a rebuttal at me.
He's actually being honest andsincere about it, and that'll
cause them to open back up wherethey can be like hey, maybe
(49:11):
this guy does have a littlesomething.
Because, trust me, if I'm goingto be nice to you, there's a
much better chance of meconvincing you to become a
Christian than if I'm—I mean,we've heard stuff like this.
You know, people are like man.
I went to that church.
Nobody smiled, nobody talked tome, nobody came and shook my
hand, nobody even acknowledged Iwas there.
(49:34):
They all looked so unhappy.
Yeah, why would I want to goback.
No idea, you're right.
Why would you want to go back?
So, when studying these things,be open-minded.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
Two weeks, we're going to be the Everyday Atheist
podcast, because his mind isway too open when studying it.
No, I'm kidding.
That is true, though, andthat's like you said.
That's how you need to read theBible too.
Honestly, read the Bible withan open mind as well, and maybe
your mind will be changed, Ithink, but it all takes that
getting yourself out of the wayfrom that, so I do pray that
(50:15):
something in this episode helpedyou in some way.
I also want to challenge youPray about it.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
I mean, I didn't.
It sounds like you're aboutdone, but let me throw this in
there.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
Pray about it, right?
I mean, the word of God isanointed.
The word of God is is there fora reason?
It's it, it, the Bible is alive, alive.
So pray about it.
Let god direct you.
Right again, let him direct you.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
Don't let your thoughts and your wants and your
what do you think it isdirected, but let god direct you
, yeah, go in with open eye andpray about it, and I think
that's a challenge for everybodyhere is find something that you
believe, pick a topic.
Just everybody here is findsomething that you believe.
Speaker 1 (50:59):
Pick a topic, just pick a topic.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
Find something that you believe, find something that
you've been rehearsed tobelieve and just study it, just
dig deep into it.
Don't just read a couple ofverses either.
Read chapters, read books,learn intent, learn history,
learn the reasons why, findprinciple.
All those things are importantand I pray that somewhere along
(51:22):
the way we've helped you in thispodcast, in this lesson, to
understand the importance ofreading the Bible in context,
because not only do you causedanger for yourself and learning
or coming up with differentdoctrines and different belief
systems, but you potentiallybecome dangerous for someone
(51:44):
else, because when you set yourfaith and foundation on
something that is out of contextor is a lie, then if anyone
comes against that, you're goingto argue or you're going to
push back.
So it's important to have afoundation, it's important to be
strong in what you believe, butbe strong in what you believe
(52:07):
with context, and I think you'llgo a lot further that way.
Speaker 1 (52:11):
And if this seems to be kind of a hot topic, so I'm
just going to hit it.
So I'm just going to hit it.
If anybody, if you're askingquestions and trying to learn
these, figure these things out,and somebody in leadership calls
you out for challengingauthority, I'm here, I'm doing
it.
Yeah, ask them how they figuredout and learned what they.
(52:33):
What they learned.
Yeah, because, if they'rehonest, one of two things
happened they studied, theyasked questions, they learned
themselves, which is what you'retrying to do or they blindly
followed.
Yeah, and if they blindlyfollowed, there's a problem.
Absolutely yeah, I have noproblems with asking questions.
(52:56):
I have no problem with learning.
You can do it in the wrongspirit, you can do it wrong, but
if you're learning, trying tobe a better Christian, then
please learn it, try to be abetter Christian.
And if they're right and Ithink that sometimes this is
(53:17):
where they get kind of my youknow, a lot of times when
they're in leadership, all theysee is the kickback yeah, oh
well, you're just challenging,you're just challenging, you're
just challenging, you're justchallenging.
Maybe it is that they actuallydid five things right.
You just didn't have to gochallenge them on it or not
(53:40):
challenge, but ask them about it.
So in reality, you're askingthem one out of five or one out
of six, so they're doing alittle bit better, but don't let
these people shut you down.
You're learning to try to be abetter Christian.
You're learning to be a betterhuman being.
(54:01):
You're learning to draw closerto Christ.
You're learning to win soulsfor the kingdom of God.
Please study and learn.
Don't let these people shut youdown.
Amen.
Speaker 2 (54:15):
Praise God.
Well, that's the end of ourepisode.
I want to thank everybody forlistening and taking the time to
.
I pray that this challenged youin some way.
Again, the challenge is findsomething that you believe, find
a verse, find whatever it isthat you feel like you have a
foundation on, and go back,study it for yourself, read it
in context, find all of thesethings that break down, that
(54:39):
make the Bible complete.
I believe, and I think, thatyou'll go a lot further, but I
just wanted to again thankeverybody for listening.
If you are listening, like share, subscribe to our podcast.
You can subscribe on YouTube.
We're on there as well, please.
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It helps us to grow.
It helps us to reach more andmore people, so it's very, very
(55:01):
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(55:24):
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(56:05):
you again for for tuning in.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (56:08):
God bless you.
It's not about them, it's not about me.
Get yourself just completelyset aside and go back to
studying the Scripture, becauseyou will want to see something.
Some way, there is somethingthat you will come across and
you'll be like man.
I really think that it shouldbe this way and if you're not
(00:20):
careful, you'll convinceyourself that it is that way
through the scripture.
Welcome back to the EverydayChristian Podcast, where we
apply scriptural principles toeveryday Christian lives.
I'm Sean Sloggett.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
And I'm John Rich, and today we are going to talk
about how to read the Bible incontext.
Now, brother Sean, it's sort ofa simple.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
I'm already messing things up why?
Y'all are going to have toforgive us.
We're used to only having onecamera pointing on us.
This third camera is kind ofthrowing me off.
Yeah, I usually like do littlehead swivels and bobs and stuff.
Yeah, just to get it out whilehe is talking, because it's not
on me and I've already realizedI've done it once and then I
(01:09):
look up and realize the camera'son me, so if any point, you
just see me over here justtwitching out.
Um sorry, I have.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
If you don't see, it's because I used ai to edit
him just sitting still I have todo that.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
I don't know what hd is, but I just came back from
the doctor and he said I have 80of them.
So just where I'm at, oh mygosh this isn't dad joke hour.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
That was for a couple episodes back that's a good
joke it was pretty good.
I'll give you that one.
I I was trying to think of onethat beat it and I can't, so
ADHD, anyway, adhd-mi, all right.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Welcome to the Everyday Christian Podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
So yeah, welcome to the episode we are talking.
As I was saying before, thegreat dad joke that we are going
to be talking about Before myattention deficit squirrel just
jumped in.
Here we're going to be talkingabout how to read and, more
importantly, how to study theBible.
In here we're going to betalking about how to read and,
more importantly, how to studythe Bible in context.
So it is a practical sort ofpodcast, a little bit different
(02:12):
than what we typically do.
We try to take a subject likefasting we did last time talk
about that.
It is practical, but I believethat it is something that
everyone could listen, to,adhere to, to learn from.
Even myself, I feel like thereare times where I can take the
(02:32):
Bible out of context or I'llread something I'm like, oh you
know.
So we'll get into some of that,obviously, in this episode
looking at the dangers of takingthe Bible out of context,
looking at the additions orpluses to reading the Bible in
context I think is important tooand then I honestly want to
show the individuals who arelistening to this things that
(02:57):
you can do to read the Bible incontext and to study the Bible
in context as well, Brother Sean.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Yeah, I mean we all can agree that studying the
Bible I got to figure out whichcamera I'm supposed to be
looking at.
That one, that one.
This one right here, you got it.
I'm telling you all this isthrowing me for a loop, but we
all most of us, if not all of uscan agree that studying the
Bible and learning from the wordis very beneficial for us.
(03:25):
So this is something thatBrother John, brother, reverend,
dr President, president Johnhas that he brought to the table
.
Man y'all, I am all over.
Before we get started, I'mgoing to go ahead and promote us
(03:47):
real quick since Sean's allover the place.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
The Everyday Christian Podcast mugs.
If you want one, send us amessage, send us a text Some of
you have my number or message mepersonally or Sean personally.
They are $25 each.
I'll put them off the camerathere, maybe the middle one
there, throw it over there toSean so he can put it up on his
(04:10):
camera.
They are $25 each.
That includes shipping.
They are hot and cold tumblersthat have the Everyday Christian
Podcast.
If you want to buy one of thoseto support our channel, to
support our podcast, pleasemessage us, let us know.
Also, like share, subscribethose three things really really
help us.
They promote us.
I know we have individuals thatare listening for the first time
in this episode, but I know wehave several individuals that
(04:32):
have listened and commented,shared, messaged us, some
listeners that are listening tothis episode right now, that
have listened to us since dayone.
We are thankful for thosepeople and appreciate everything
that they've done.
But we have a call to actionand that is we need to share it
to continue to grow and continueto do the podcast themselves.
(04:55):
So I just wanted to point thatout there.
There's a lot of changes thatare going to be coming up, a lot
of differences in the podcast,things that we'll be doing
differently.
New guests we've talked aboutpotentially having on the show,
so there's going to be new logo,new logo we're working on.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
We've thrown a couple of those, a few, I think three
out now yeah, just just feelersout.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
There's nothing set in stone.
We're just trying to see.
We want what people like youknow new backdrop.
Eventually we're going to getto that.
I've got, we've had some ideasand have been throwing that
around as well.
We're just busy with life ingeneral and everything else
going on outside of just familyand work, and so eventually
(05:38):
we'll get there.
But studying and reading theBible in context yeah, Brother
Sean brought out this point.
I'll talk about it a little bitmore.
I know he will about how we caninterpret the Bible incorrectly
or how we can build incorrectdoctrines out of the Bible and
how there is danger in that.
And, like I said, I'll go intosome of that.
(06:00):
But I do believe that a lot ofreligions there's several out
there.
You know I told our youthyesterday that Christianity is
the number one religion in theworld, but there's so many
different?
yeah, there's different sidecategories I don't know if side
(06:22):
categories is the right word,but subcategories of
Christianity.
Some of them, I believe, arealmost 100% biblical in how they
were conceived or born orwhatever.
Some of them were born out of asingle verse, which I don't
feel like is correct ornecessary.
Some of those groups have beenin fellowship with one another.
(06:46):
You know I've seen churchesthat have had fellowships with
other churches that theybelieved one way full heartedly,
because of something the Biblesaid in the Old and New
Testament, and then this groupover here didn't really believe
that.
So it's important to understandcontext, to build doctrine, not
(07:08):
build doctrine to understandcontext, and I think that that's
what we're trying to aim.
One of the, I guess, goals ofthis podcast is that is, you
know, when you study the Bible,when you read it in context,
we'll explain what that means.
Obviously, I know we keepsaying that.
I keep saying that I should saybut it's important to know why
(07:29):
you should read it.
It's important to know how youshould do it.
It's important to practice it.
Don't just know why, don't justknow how, but do it Because
your relationship with Christ isgoing to grow and strengthen
over that.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Right it, because your relationship with Christ is
going to grow and strengthenover that.
On that point of the context ofit, I will admit some faults of
mine.
Yeah, I know, when I first, thefirst few times for sure that I
preached, I would come up witha thought and I'm not tearing
this down, just hear me out.
I would come up with a thoughtthat I wanted and then I would
(08:07):
study the Bible for it.
And I realized something laterand I want to read something
that I came across, because inmy notes I wrote down how do we
align, align or do we align theBible and Christ with us, or do
(08:29):
we align ourselves with theBible and Christ?
You know, aligning with Christmeans conforming our wants, our
desires, our values, ourthoughts, whatever, to him, to
his teachings, to the Bible, andputting ourselves behind him,
(08:56):
letting him be the guide,whereas aligning Christ or the
Bible with us is twisting,manipulating Christ's nature to
fit us and our values and ourdesires, which is not correct,
it's unbiblical.
And I realized at one pointthat I would come up with a
(09:20):
thought.
Whether it was right or wrong,that's neither here nor there,
but I would come up with athought and then I would go
study the scriptures and then Icould build my little sermonette
around that.
Right, because I had alreadypre-planned in my mind what I
(09:44):
wanted.
Right, because I had alreadypre-planned in my mind what I
wanted.
Right, and a lot of times,whether the message was right or
wrong.
Again, I was trying to alignthe scriptures to Sean Slogin
and what he had going on forWednesday night or whatever that
was had going on for Wednesdaynight or whatever that was, and
(10:08):
that's something that I fear,that I don't fear that it could
have.
It has happened because I'vebeen guilty of it.
So it's very important to, whenyou are studying these things
is to get self out of the way.
Yeah, and I actually talkedabout this a little bit last
sunday.
This is kind of weird.
(10:29):
This is actually the secondpodcast that we've done that.
Yeah, before we discussed it, itwas taught in a class.
Um, fasting came up before westarted talking about fasting.
Uh, but just aligning yourselfand getting yourself out of the
way.
We're still human.
(10:50):
We still make mistakes.
We're selfish.
Yeah, it's, it's in our nature,right?
Um, so we want things to agreewith us, we want things to align
with us, we want to be in ourcontext and our time, and you
know how we view things, and Itold my class that we have to be
(11:12):
able to get ourselves out ofthe way, and even more than that
and this is not a dig atanybody but we have to be able
to get our movement out of theway we have to be able to get
our pastors, our Sunday schoolteachers, get their opinions out
(11:33):
of the way, because we areinfluenced by them, yeah, which
most of the time, is a goodthing, right, I mean, if it's a
pastor or a Sunday schoolteacher, they're probably a
decent enough influence.
Yeah, or they wouldn't be there.
Right, and I know that there'sbad, there's good and bad, but
(11:58):
you still have to get them outof the way.
Yeah, it's not about them, it'snot about me.
Get yourself just completelyset aside and go back to
studying the scripture, becauseyou will want to see something
some way.
There is something that youwill come across that you'll be
like man.
I really think that it shouldbe this way, and if you're not
(12:22):
careful, you'll convinceyourself that it is that way
through the scripture.
So it's very important that weget self out of the way.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
You have to get that church culture out of the way,
like you're saying too.
I mean, I think about that toowhen we're talking about the
preaching.
It's like the worst part ofthat is when you can't find
anything in the Bible to bag upwhat you're thinking.
You know it's like man, or youknow you have those, those
sermons, those sermons at leastI have where it's like this is
(12:56):
going to get this crowd going.
Let's, let's find out what this.
You know it's terrible.
Look, I'm admitting to it infront of everybody.
I don't feel like I've.
I feel like for the most part,my heart was in the right place,
but I didn't always do theright thing when studying or
reading, and so it is sort of arevival of thought.
(13:19):
That's one of my favoritephrases.
It is sort of a revival ofthought when you make it up in
your mind that you're going tostudy and read the Bible in
context and study for yourself,because you're talking about,
like, getting these things outof the way.
Well, part of getting thosethings out of the way is
studying and reading foryourself and understanding what
(13:40):
you believe and why you believein and how and all those things.
And so I wanted to get in andI'll briefly go through these
and we can come back to them.
I won't be long but theimportance of why we should
avoid reading it out of contextor reading it from an eisegesis
(14:01):
standpoint.
Now, if you don't know whateisegesis means or exegesis
means, I'll try to explain thathere in a moment.
I know that's a big word thatpeople are like.
What is that?
You know?
What does that have to do?
Essentially, it means anexegesis study is bringing out
the scripture and applying it tome, whereas an eisegesis way of
studying is taking me andapplying it to scripture, which
(14:24):
is essentially what Sean wastalking about.
You know, you're not I tellpeople this all the time.
I can't remember who I heard itfrom the first time.
It might've been like PaulWasher or something like that,
one of those cool cats.
But one of my favorite phrasesis you're not David and you're
not facing a Goliath.
You may be facing things andthe principle is that God can
(14:45):
deliver you from those things,but I don't have a Goliath and
neither do you.
I know that's going to hurtsome people's feelings, but when
you get out of that mindset,you might hear the sirens by the
way, in the background.
I need to speak louder.
But when you get out of thatmindset or you're in that
mindset rather of reading theBible out of context, there's a
(15:05):
lot of danger to that.
You know you could read or whenyou read you won't look at it
or read it as an entire document.
Something that I think that it'simportant when reading the
Bible is understanding thatthere's an overarching theme and
that is what that Jesus Christcame, died, rose again and is
(15:28):
coming again.
That is the overarching themeof the entirety of the Bible.
There are things that you candig into and get down to more
granular detail of when you'restudying and reading the Bible,
but that is the overarchingtheme.
The problem is when we read itout of context, we read it in
such a way that it's justpiecemealed and it's several
(15:50):
letters or several books orseveral verses or several
chapters instead of a whole book.
So that's something.
I don't even have this in mynotes, but something that you
need to sort of understand ifyou don't understand it already
is everything grammatically thechapter separations, the verse
(16:11):
separations, all those thingsare man-made, all those things
were added to the Bible and tothe interpretation.
So when you're studying andreading the Bible that's
something that's important tounderstand is, in the Greek
there weren't those grammaticaldifferences and pauses and
periods and commas and all thosethings.
(16:32):
There wasn't the separation ofverses.
It's just something that wasput in to help us understand it
better and thank God for it, Ithink.
But understand that when you'rereading it it's not just
something that's pieced togetherverse by verse, it's something
that is whole.
When you read it read the wordof God out of context you put
yourself in places of scripturewhere you don't belong, and
(16:55):
that's why you have issues thatstem from Old Testament
documents where people say youcan or cannot do X Y Z.
But then you read three verseslater and it's like well, if I
can't do X Y Z here, then Ican't do X Y Z here.
Well, that's because you'rereading it out of context.
(17:16):
You're putting yourself in aplace of scripture where you
don't belong.
You put yourself in danger ofmisinterpreting what a verse is
saying and then you builddoctrines that aren't even there
.
Those are dangers.
Those are dangerous.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
I can show you, using the scripture, where it's okay
to kill the king and where it'snot okay.
So which one is it?
Yeah, right.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Exactly.
It all goes back down to that,and that's where the studying
comes in to play.
There too, I think that if alot of you have more faith than
even I do, this is such a rabbittrail, but some of you have way
more faith than even I do, eventhough you don't read the Bible
in context.
You have way more faith than I,because if I read the Bible
(18:01):
like some of you read the Bible,I'd have a hard time trusting
and believing in God, becauseit's like well, the Bible here
says don't do this, but then theBible over here says you can do
this.
So which is it?
Does the Bible contradictitself?
I don't believe it does.
The contradiction is you takingit out of context.
(18:25):
That's the entire point of this.
The contradiction is you notunderstanding each piece and how
it is a part of a whole, theother Go ahead, no, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
No, no, no, you're fine, go ahead the literary type
of it, yeah, you know.
Is it poetry?
Is it a prophecy?
Right, right, is it a letterthat Paul wrote to one of the
churches?
You know, those things are veryvital to it.
And then I like to dig deeper.
(18:57):
I really enjoy history, oh,yeah, so when you're reading the
Bible and I'm not degrading theBible, it is a roadmap, but
it's also a history book.
Yeah, use that to youradvantage, right?
What's going on during thattime?
Yeah, you know, they had wars.
(19:20):
They had times of peace.
Yeah, there were othercountries.
There were all these thingsgoing on, just like is happening
in our world today.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
You know, we have earthquakes, we have floods, we
have these horrible hurricanesthat have hit the East Coast and
pray for them while we're at it, right, absolutely.
But we have all these thingsgoing on in our lives.
We get up in the morning andyou've got a to-do list that you
have to do, yeah, and you layyour head down at night and
(19:54):
you're like, man, I got nine ofthe 11 things I needed to get
done today and I mean, look atthe current events that was
going on, study the historybehind it, study the culture
behind it.
I took some classes in collegeabout it was more or less the
(20:20):
history of.
So we didn't just study history, but we studied the paintings,
we studied the, the art, a lotof the stuff like that that
happened with it, and and youcame to actually understand a
lot of it a lot better.
Um, like there was a paintingthat that we did a study on.
I couldn't even tell you therewere.
(20:42):
If I remember exact, if Iremember to correct there was a
lady looking out of a window.
It was a painting and there wasa dog painted beside her.
And you see the painting andyou're just like, okay.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
You know, whatever, if you like art or you, don't,
move on.
But if you studied I believe itwas during the Renaissance time
.
But if you studied, I believeit was during the Renaissance
(21:17):
time.
But if you studied more, youdug down deep into that you
would understand that the guythat painted this suffered with
depression, or that that timeframe.
You know things going on duringthat.
It was a time of war, a time ofpeace.
So in this painting the sun isshining through the window and
her face is lit up.
So that was in their time, whensomebody's face was glowing
like that.
It was a time of peace in theirlife.
(21:38):
Yeah, you see the dog sittingbeside her, and dogs have always
been companions and friends andand somebody who sticks close.
You know a dog will never leaveyou, you know you.
You walk out of the door.
It's wagging its tail.
You open the door when you comeback home and it's still
sitting there wagging his tail.
(21:59):
It seems like.
So.
There's all these things thatyou get to actually draw out of
it.
You know the painter was notfeeling lonely.
He had people around him atthat time.
Yeah, so you study all this andjust this seemingly simple
painting ends up telling thisstory, yeah, and then they would
(22:21):
play songs for us in class andyou could just tear these songs
apart and put them back togetherand there were so many
different things like that thatwe were learning and trying to
figure out.
And it was very eye-openingbecause you got to study the
(22:41):
context behind a lot of this andyou get to learn about the
history of them.
We did some on the Bible timesand I know this is kind of my
own rabbit trail.
Like when Jesus was born, therewas hierarchy set up and it was
.
It's very conflicting when youstudy history, right, because in
(23:05):
times of hierarchies you didn'tmove up or down levels More, so
you could move down, but it wasstill very rare.
If you were born a pauper, ifyou were born poor, you were
poor.
You weren't going to getwealthy, you just live your life
out.
(23:25):
If you were born into royalty,guess what?
Your family was royalty.
There's no way around it, right?
I mean, look at King David,that lineage.
It was royalty, yeah, and itstayed royalty.
So you study all these thingsand then they talk about a king
being born in a manger, a kingbeing born in a poorhouse, a
(23:51):
king being born to a carpenter.
Yeah, one of the nobodies,right, and it was very and that
was some of the trouble that alot of those people had in that
time was they're trying tounderstand how does somebody
that's poor going to end upliving in a palace one of these
days?
Yeah, because they saw this guythat's working for his dad.
(24:14):
His dad's got a carpenter shopin the back or whatever.
So you, you study a lot of thishistory and stuff and it's very
eye-opening to those currentevents that they were struggling
with and it brings a lot moreto the table.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Something else too when you're studying and this
goes hand-in-hand with whatyou're talking about is you have
to understand that reading theBible, studying it, you're
bridging a gap.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
And the biggest part of that is the time gap, because
you're not only having tobridge the gap between who
translated the Bible to yourself, you're also having to bridge
the gap from the original textto the translator.
And so it's sort of like I kindof chuckle.
(25:04):
My son asked me the other day.
He said, dad, he's like, why isthe a word in the bible?
That's exactly what he asked me, you know, and I just laughed,
you know.
It's just funny to me, um, thathe was just so curious because
he's like, why can't I say thatif it's in the bible?
You know was like, well, youhave to understand, jackson,
(25:25):
when they interpreted the Bible,that word wasn't a bad word
like it is today.
I said, when they say certainthings, those words don't mean
the same thing that they meanright now.
I said, and not to mention,when they translated it, it was
from a different word that theytranslated from, and he we just
(25:48):
talked about that for a littlebit he sort of kind of sort of
understood.
Hopefully he'll understand alittle bit better and won't cuss
, but that's, that's something,that.
Is it really cussing, if youjust see?
Speaker 1 (25:58):
it If it's in the bio you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Yeah, right, but that's something that you need
to understand, though, whenyou're reading and studying, is
you're having to bridge that gaptoo.
You cannot just take a word inthe Bible or a phrase in the
Bible and apply it to me rightnow, and there's reason for that
.
You have to go back and youhave to look at what word it was
(26:24):
interpreted from, what was thepurpose of that word, et cetera,
and going on from there.
Like there is history andunderstanding the history behind
everything.
Understanding the historybehind you know why God said
don't eat shrimp.
Understanding the historybehind you, know why Paul wrote
(26:46):
to the Corinthian church andsaid women need to be silent in
the church.
Like there, it doesn't meanwhat you think that it means.
There's reason, there's purposein that.
That came up last time.
Yeah, I bet it did, but italways does.
But at least that entirecontext.
But there's a reason for that.
It's because there is.
(27:08):
You know, we talk about theEveryday Christian Podcast here.
It is right up here.
You apply scriptural principlesto everyday Christian lives.
That's our goal, and the reasonwhy is because there are so
many principles you can drawfrom the Bible that you can
glean from.
But that does not mean thatevery single thing in the Bible
(27:28):
or every single thing that'swritten like.
The Bible says that Mary andthem left their land that they
were in and they moved back totheir homeland because of the
law, you know, because of taxreasons, more than likely, mary
rode on a donkey and rode it toBethany or Bethlehem, right,
(27:48):
that's that there's.
There's nothing in the Biblethat says that, by the way, but
most people interpret it thatthat's probably what happened.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
However, have you never seen the movie the star?
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Yeah, Well, of course of course, that's what she
rides the donkey but yeah,donkey, but yeah, but aside from
that, there's really nothing inthat.
There's nothing in her ridingthe donkey.
That applies to me, right?
I know that's a silly point,but like I can go, I go further.
Obviously it's like um, who wasin the bible, was elijah elisha
(28:21):
who shot the arrows.
I I'm sorry I'm drawing a blank.
There are things in the Bible,though, that happen in the Old
Testament that have nothing todo with me, like I'm not
shooting arrows.
Instead of you to smote theground, yeah, if I smite the
ground however many times likethis, you know that has nothing
to do with me.
(28:42):
Is there principle there?
That's where I glean from that,and people are like yo, I'm
tired of you talking aboutprinciple.
That's what I get, though it'slike there is stuff in the Bible
that I can apply.
There's stuff in the OldTestament I can apply to me
today.
I'm not saying that it's not,but I am saying is there are
things in the Bible, when youread it in context, understand
(29:03):
the history, understand the time, understand the language,
understand all of those gapsthat you're going to read it and
be like why am I applying thisto my life but not this to my
life?
And I think that's important.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
There are some things I believe you'll agree with
this.
Yeah, I will.
There are some things that canapply directly to you.
Yeah, and if you want examples,go read the Ten Commandments
Exactly.
There's no principle, maybekind of.
I mean it's don't do it Right,thou shalt not kill, thou shalt
not commit adultery, thou shaltnot steal.
(29:38):
Okay, that's commandments,that's Bible.
But to say that I have to goout and slay my giant, right?
I mean, please don't.
I know there's some tall peoplearound here and I may be one of
them, sean's one of the giants.
I'd like to live a little bitlonger here on earth.
(29:59):
If my wife took that scriptureliteral, I wouldn't have been
married for 10 years, right,scripture literal I wouldn't
have been married for 10 years,right.
But yeah, I mean, there aredefinitely things that are on a
principle basis but not others,and there's, you know, one thing
that I tell my kids in my classabout, that is is how.
(30:20):
Or I ask them I say how much ofit have you read?
Or I ask them I say how much ofit have you read?
Because when we first startedout and I'm not, I mean, it's
whatever, I hate trying tocorrect myself all the time they
would come and ask me aquestion about a scripture and I
would back up three or fourscriptures, yeah, and read it,
(30:41):
and then read several scripturesafter that.
And read it and then readseveral scriptures after that.
And I started telling them like,hey, I love that you have
questions, please continue toask them, but do me this favor
before you come back with aquestion, yeah, read it.
At minimum, read the wholechapter.
Yeah, if you want to read thewhole book or read several
(31:03):
chapters before or after, great,but at a minimum read the whole
chapter.
Yeah, and, to my dismay, Ihaven't gotten near as many
questions as I liked recently.
Way to go, way to fail, butit's, yeah, way to fail, but
(31:23):
it's failing in a good way, yeah, failing up.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Kamala.
Because, they are learning.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Sorry, everybody, and I don't care if they want to
come ask me questions or not.
I want to be there for them.
But they're beginning tounderstand and learn a lot of
these things without ever havingto bring them to class.
Yeah, because and thisscripture doesn't make sense oh
well, paul is talking directlyto this church.
Oh yeah, well, I can see herewhere he's saying this, this and
(31:59):
this I don't.
Okay, well, that makes sense.
Yeah, yeah, and then I don'tget asked any questions, which
bums me out.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Which one of my favorite parts of that is
whenever people they'll quote ascripture to me yeah, and it's
that you don't even have to readthe whole chapter.
You don't have to read chaptersfour or chapters after, you
just have to read the wholeverse and then you get the.
(32:26):
I mean obviously still do that,but some people they'll say
something like a three letterphrase, three word phrase, and
they're like well, what aboutthis?
It's like there's more to thatverse.
Go ahead and finish that verseand then you're going to know
yeah, judge not, judge not,that's the big one.
You know that's.
That's taken out of context.
But so, yeah, that that is thething you know.
And that's the benefit ofreading the Bible in context.
You read the Bible as a whole,not just pieces.
(32:48):
You glean from the laws and theprinciples of the Bible as they
are to apply to you.
You have a better understandingof God's intent.
It helps you have a strongerfoundation and understanding of
God's word.
All those things are good whenreading the Bible in context.
But, yeah, that is a problem.
I've thought of a couple offthe top of my head.
(33:09):
I'm not going to mention butJust go with it.
No, I'm not going to.
We're out of here.
We'll just keep digging deeperand deeper.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
But that is sort of Will somebody throw us a shovel
if we get too deep?
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Yeah, for real, we need help getting out.
That is what's interesting too,is you know I talked about
earlier about doctrines beingbuilt off one verse.
Some doctrines are built off ofone phrase in a verse that is
actually, like you know, withoutholiness, no man shall see the
Lord.
Okay, well, that's not what thescripture says.
(33:41):
The Bible says follow peacewith all men and holiness,
without which no man shall seethe Lord.
That's the correct reading ofthat scripture, sadly, a lot of
people don't follow, buteverything else is all pieced
together.
It's all eliminated from that,and the phrase that is used and
it's not even the right phraseis without holiness, no man
(34:05):
shall see the Lord.
And you know, that was the oneI thought of and that's when you
told me to dig.
So here I am.
But that is the problem withreading the Bible out of context
.
Studying the Bible out ofcontext is those doctrines,
those lifestyles, those beliefsystems are built off those
things, and I want everybody tounderstand this.
(34:27):
I think that a lot of whatcertain people believe is
probably correct to an extent,meaning I think that people add
additional measure to the Bibleor additional context to the
Bible.
That's not there too.
It's like we take things out ofcontext because we read
something and instead of justtaking it at face value and
(34:52):
applying it to our life, we addway more to it and then we want
to apply it to everyone's life.
That's a problem too when youread the Bible in context.
Here I am, I don't need ashovel anymore, take your shovel
back.
Here I am, I don't need ashovel anymore, take your shovel
back.
But I want to get into how canI read the Bible in context?
I think that's important.
We've touched up on a lot ofthat and I understand, too, like
(35:14):
some of these things are goingto be different.
You know, sean has his own ideaof how he studies and reads the
Bible.
I have my own idea of how Istudy and read the Bible, but I
think that it starts again we'vetalked a little bit about this
already but I think it startswith a foundation understanding
what you're reading, understandthe document that you're reading
(35:35):
.
So, like when I read the Bible,I like to understand the who,
what, when, where and why.
Like who wrote it, who werethey and why.
Like who wrote it, who werethey writing to?
When did they write it?
Where did they write it?
Why did they write it?
But I also do something.
I don't know if I ever gave youthis book.
I've mentioned this book onthis podcast before but the
(35:57):
who's, who, where's where?
I always go to that If I'mdoing any sort of study.
It's not, you know, a tell-all,it's not something that has all
the answers by any means, but Ialways like to read that
because, like, oh, I know whowrote this, david.
Okay, let me go and look aboutand read about David and see
what was going on in his life,and so it gives that detail,
(36:20):
like the Psalms.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Yeah, the Psalms you can read.
You can read a back-to-backPsalms.
Yeah, the Psalms.
You can read back-to-backPsalms and one of them, he's
like bless the Lord, oh, my soulloves him.
And then life's great Lord,please take me out of this
miserable You're like dude, youflipped a switch, but one of
them he wrote in a cave and oneof them he wrote when he was on
(36:42):
the throne and they're timesapart, they're several years.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
You know, whatever apart it's like the story.
There's actually a couple ofthese Like we just did a virtual
youth class, which here's myplug for you If you want more
information about the Bible,join our virtual class.
We have one coming up, probablywhen this episode releases, but
message us for more details.
Now back to what I was talkingabout.
We talked about Touch, my, notmine anointed.
(37:09):
You know that was a big classthat we did here recently and
there I tell people all the timewhen you're reading the
scripture, don't take a verseand build belief system out of
it.
If there's a verse in the Bibleand over here in the Bible it
says it, and over here in theBible it says it, over here,
over here in the Bible it saysit, and over here in the Bible
it says it.
You're probably pretty good totake that as literal and
something I should apply, orprinciple I should apply to
(37:29):
myself.
But if there's one verse herethat says it and every other
verse seemingly contradicts itor doesn't say it, then you need
to study it a little bit more.
So like Touch, not MineAnointed is a good example of
that, because it actually is inthe Bible twice.
Now if you're reading it andyou're like, oh well, it's in
the Bible twice, so that's whatit means.
(37:50):
Well, it's in the Bible inPsalms.
And then it's in 2 Chronicles.
And Psalms is recording David,who was written about in 2
Chronicles.
So it's actually technicallyone.
David's just writing a songabout the things that about in 2
Chronicles.
So it's actually technicallyone David's just writing a song
about the things that happenedin 2 Chronicles.
But people don't understandthat.
(38:15):
Or there's Psalm.
I'm trying to think I'm goingto mess it up, but it's talking
about Lord.
Many are they who rise upagainst me, many there who
trouble my soul.
He's talking about when his sonwas trying to kill him.
You know, and that goes back toSamuel.
So you can read the Bible incontext.
And to me, when you set thosefoundations of like we talked
(38:36):
about the history, the time, thewho, what, when, where and why,
the digging into the characterstudy of who wrote that verse,
the cross-referencing in theBible, you're like, well, what
is that?
Get your Tom Chin Chainreference Bible, it will save
your life.
There are other ones thatobviously out there Don't, but
(38:56):
you'll be reading.
I love that You'll be readingthe scripture and you'll look on
the side and it'll have across-reference verse and then
you can go to that and you cansee and start piecing it
together that way as well, sothat that would be one of my
main, for me, objectives when Iread the Bible is is I need to
(39:16):
set a foundation, I need tounderstand the purpose, I need
to understand the who, what,when, where and why, and then I,
I.
Secondly, I need to understandthe time and culture.
We've talked about that.
I'm going to say it again youneed to understand the time and
culture, the things that theywore in the old Testament.
You better believe it.
We're actually a little bitdifferent than what they wore in
(39:37):
the new Testament, and I don'tknow who needs to hear this.
It's going to shock some of you.
Honestly, the things that theywore in the New Testament are
probably not things that you'rewearing today.
I'm being sarcastic, obviously,but understanding the culture,
reading and studying it,understanding the time gap,
(39:58):
understanding the languages, allof those things are important
when studying and reading theBible.
But first I'm going to say itagain, then I'll pass it over to
Sean but first understand thewho, the what, when, where, why,
how?
Ask yourself that it's the mostbasic thing.
There are so many deeper thingsyou can do when studying the
(40:19):
Bible.
There are so many differentthings that you can do.
But if you would just startwith that as a foundation and
say, oh, this is who wrote it,oh, this is what they were going
through, this is what theyfaced, this is where they were
born, this is what they camefrom, and then you start to
slowly piece those thingstogether and understand why they
(40:40):
wrote it.
It's like reading Matthew, mark,luke and John.
If you read those four gospelsand read the same accounts,
you'll understand that theywrite it a little bit
differently or they interpretedit a little bit differently.
Well, there's reason for that.
The man Luke was a physician.
I was going to ask why is that?
He's going to obviously writemore about certain healing and
(41:06):
physical ailments.
Matthew was a tax collector, sohe's going to write more about
things like hey, judas, you knowhe tried to give however much
money back to the.
He was paid this much.
You know there's things in theBible and there's reasons.
When they interpret the Bible,the language that they use is
(41:29):
interesting to know who wrote it, because then you can
understand why they said whatthey said or said it in the way
that they said it.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
I heard one guy was talking about the four gospels
and he said, if I put a bike outin between everybody and let
them look at it for five minutesand then take it away and ask
everybody to explain to me thatbike, he said it may have
(41:58):
tassels on it.
It may have blue pedals.
It may have a red seat.
The bike may have been red, youknow all.
It may had a horn on it.
It may have had a.
It may have a red seat.
The bike may have been red, youknow.
It may have had a horn on it.
It may have had a basket upfront.
Whatever he said, but when youtake them all apart, you can
look at it.
Yeah, and two of them may say,hey, it has tassels on it, but
(42:20):
the other two didn't Right.
Does that mean that it's youknow?
Yeah, no, it didn't right.
Does that mean that it's youknow?
Yeah, no, it doesn't meanthey're wrong, it's just they
didn't notice that detail aboutit.
Um, so that's you know.
That's obviously something thatyou look after.
But study, uh, you know, instudying these things, study it
for yourself, study with othersand bounce ideas off of them.
(42:45):
You know I talk to Jonathan here.
Sometimes We'll call him up andbe like hey, what do you think
about it?
Let's talk a little bit aboutthis and he'll bring up a point
and I'll bring up a point andwe'll go back and forth on it.
The great thing about it is, ifyou guys don't agree, that's
something you know.
(43:06):
That's more for you to digdeeper on and that's something I
told my.
Something I told my kids wasyou know, when you're studying
these things, get it foryourselves and then go talk to
somebody about it.
Yeah, I said, because if youcan go, I said I don't care if
it's me or somebody else, so ifyou want to come talk to me
(43:28):
about it, we'll talk about it.
Yeah, I said, if I agree withyou and we agree with the Bible,
then cool, we got somethingright.
Right, and we agree with theBible, then cool, we got
something right.
If I don't agree with you, thatmeans we both need to go back
and do some more studying,because it's very likely one of
(43:49):
us might be wrong.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
Or misunderstanding the scripture.
Yeah, and then when we figureit out, we can come back
together, talk about it againand say, hey, I see where you're
coming from because you knowthis year.
So I think having others aroundyou is very, very important.
Yeah, but it needs to be thosewho can get themselves out of
(44:16):
the way as well.
Mm-hmm, because there are thosepeople who still believe of the
way as well, because there arethose people who still believe
it their way, and that's verydangerous.
I want to be careful when I'msaying these type of things.
I don't want it to come acrossthat this is the way I believe
(44:38):
and it's this is my way kind ofthing but it's not it's.
it's the Bible, it's Christ.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
I think, too, it is important to sort of see, to an
extent, opposing views ofwhatever it is as well, it does
cause you to want to dig deeper.
And then it's also I'm tellingyou like some of you are going
to think I'm crazy for this, Ijust like to do this.
I think that it's important tolisten to individuals that maybe
(45:09):
don't have anything to do withChristianity, but they just
studied the Bible and they readit, and they read it and they'll
they'll say something about itand it's like okay, let me go
back and read that again andstudy that out.
And it's not that I'm doing itbecause I'm trying to give up on
God or whatever.
I'm doing it because I want toknow more.
And to me, those individualsthat maybe weren't raised in
(45:31):
church, they've got such a goodunderstanding of the Bible, way
more than those who areChristians.
And the reason why is becauseof what he just said.
It's an unbiased view of theBible.
It's going in and settingyourself aside and not just
reading it because you want toread something into it.
It's reading it so that you cantake something out of it.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
And I think that just personal opinion.
Take it or leave it.
I think that you can advanceyour knowledge much easier and
much faster if you will do thatand you will allow yourself to
be convinced otherwise.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
Yeah, an open mind is what that is.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
It's being open-minded.
Yeah, I have talked withatheists before and I try my
hardest not to go in there witha mindset you'll never convince
me otherwise, right.
And it's not because I'mquestioning my faith, it's not
(46:36):
because I have doubts, but I'mdoing this, I'm setting myself
up to be open to them, because Iknow people that will go in and
have a debate, and it's you'rewrong, you're an idiot.
How can you not see?
Well, it's because they don'tstudy the Bible, or they've
never studied that side of it,the Bible, or they've never
(46:59):
studied that side of it.
And they're trying to convinceyou of something that they have
spent maybe years pouringthemselves into to study.
And you're doing the same thing.
You've spent years pouring andstudying and trying to be the
best Christian you can.
And now, when you go out totalk to them, you're stupid,
like how could you not believe?
(47:20):
I've heard these kind of thingsbefore.
Oh yeah, from Christians andnon-Christians.
Right, and you know, from theoutside looking in, they've
poured their heart and soul intosomething and now you're saying
you're an idiot, you need tothink like me.
I'm sorry, I don't blame themif they don't want to.
(47:42):
Exactly, yeah, treat somebodylike trash and then see, go.
I mean, I'm not saying, do it,but think about it.
If you went home and treatedyour spouse horribly, go ahead,
treat them like trash.
Yeah, go home and treated yourspouse horribly, go ahead, treat
them like trash.
Go home and treat your spouselike trash.
You know, if you went home andtreated people horribly your
(48:04):
spouse, your kids and stuff andI believe this wholeheartedly
you treat your kids bad, they'regoing to treat you bad, oh yeah
.
And then you're going to wonder, well, why don't they respect
me?
Well, because you're aknucklehead.
Speaker 2 (48:15):
Yeah, you're a jerk.
Speaker 1 (48:22):
Because that's the way that that relationship is
built.
So I go in open-minded withthese things.
I'm like hey, if you think youcan convince me otherwise, I
don't question my faith.
I'll say it again, I don'tquestion it, I don't doubt it.
Do I doubt certain aspects ofit?
Yes, because I'm still learning, like everybody else is.
There's a very, very, very,very, very slim chance you're
(48:46):
going to convince me to be anatheist, right, but I'm going to
open my mind to it and try it,because I also want you to come
in open-minded.
Hey, this guy is taking histime to listen to me.
He's not sitting there just tothrow a rebuttal at me.
He's actually being honest andsincere about it, and that'll
cause them to open back up wherethey can be like hey, maybe
(49:11):
this guy does have a littlesomething.
Because, trust me, if I'm goingto be nice to you, there's a
much better chance of meconvincing you to become a
Christian than if I'm—I mean,we've heard stuff like this.
You know, people are like man.
I went to that church.
Nobody smiled, nobody talked tome, nobody came and shook my
hand, nobody even acknowledged Iwas there.
(49:34):
They all looked so unhappy.
Yeah, why would I want to goback.
No idea, you're right.
Why would you want to go back?
So, when studying these things,be open-minded.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
Two weeks, we're going to be the Everyday Atheist
podcast, because his mind isway too open when studying it.
No, I'm kidding.
That is true, though, andthat's like you said.
That's how you need to read theBible too.
Honestly, read the Bible withan open mind as well, and maybe
your mind will be changed, Ithink, but it all takes that
getting yourself out of the wayfrom that, so I do pray that
(50:15):
something in this episode helpedyou in some way.
I also want to challenge youPray about it.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
I mean, I didn't.
It sounds like you're aboutdone, but let me throw this in
there.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
Pray about it, right?
I mean, the word of God isanointed.
The word of God is is there fora reason?
It's it, it, the Bible is alive, alive.
So pray about it.
Let god direct you.
Right again, let him direct you.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
Don't let your thoughts and your wants and your
what do you think it isdirected, but let god direct you
, yeah, go in with open eye andpray about it, and I think
that's a challenge for everybodyhere is find something that you
believe, pick a topic.
Just everybody here is findsomething that you believe.
Speaker 1 (50:59):
Pick a topic, just pick a topic.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
Find something that you believe, find something that
you've been rehearsed tobelieve and just study it, just
dig deep into it.
Don't just read a couple ofverses either.
Read chapters, read books,learn intent, learn history,
learn the reasons why, findprinciple.
All those things are importantand I pray that somewhere along
(51:22):
the way we've helped you in thispodcast, in this lesson, to
understand the importance ofreading the Bible in context,
because not only do you causedanger for yourself and learning
or coming up with differentdoctrines and different belief
systems, but you potentiallybecome dangerous for someone
(51:44):
else, because when you set yourfaith and foundation on
something that is out of contextor is a lie, then if anyone
comes against that, you're goingto argue or you're going to
push back.
So it's important to have afoundation, it's important to be
strong in what you believe, butbe strong in what you believe
(52:07):
with context, and I think you'llgo a lot further that way.
Speaker 1 (52:11):
And if this seems to be kind of a hot topic, so I'm
just going to hit it.
So I'm just going to hit it.
If anybody, if you're askingquestions and trying to learn
these, figure these things out,and somebody in leadership calls
you out for challengingauthority, I'm here, I'm doing
it.
Yeah, ask them how they figuredout and learned what they.
(52:33):
What they learned.
Yeah, because, if they'rehonest, one of two things
happened they studied, theyasked questions, they learned
themselves, which is what you'retrying to do or they blindly
followed.
Yeah, and if they blindlyfollowed, there's a problem.
Absolutely yeah, I have noproblems with asking questions.
(52:56):
I have no problem with learning.
You can do it in the wrongspirit, you can do it wrong, but
if you're learning, trying tobe a better Christian, then
please learn it, try to be abetter Christian.
And if they're right and Ithink that sometimes this is
(53:17):
where they get kind of my youknow, a lot of times when
they're in leadership, all theysee is the kickback yeah, oh
well, you're just challenging,you're just challenging, you're
just challenging, you're justchallenging.
Maybe it is that they actuallydid five things right.
You just didn't have to gochallenge them on it or not
(53:40):
challenge, but ask them about it.
So in reality, you're askingthem one out of five or one out
of six, so they're doing alittle bit better, but don't let
these people shut you down.
You're learning to try to be abetter Christian.
You're learning to be a betterhuman being.
(54:01):
You're learning to draw closerto Christ.
You're learning to win soulsfor the kingdom of God.
Please study and learn.
Don't let these people shut youdown.
Amen.
Speaker 2 (54:15):
Praise God.
Well, that's the end of ourepisode.
I want to thank everybody forlistening and taking the time to
.
I pray that this challenged youin some way.
Again, the challenge is findsomething that you believe, find
a verse, find whatever it isthat you feel like you have a
foundation on, and go back,study it for yourself, read it
in context, find all of thesethings that break down, that
(54:39):
make the Bible complete.
I believe, and I think, thatyou'll go a lot further, but I
just wanted to again thankeverybody for listening.
If you are listening, like share, subscribe to our podcast.
You can subscribe on YouTube.
We're on there as well, please.
We need those followers.
It helps us to grow.
It helps us to reach more andmore people, so it's very, very
(55:01):
important to us.
Obviously, you can find us onthe social media networks of
your choice by searching atpodcast for him, at podcast the
number for him.
You can also find us on podcastplatform of your choice by
searching the everyday, everydayday, or two separate words the
everyday Christian podcast.
And don't forget about our $25mugs, the everyday Christian
(55:24):
mugs.
If you are wanting to sponsorus, support us in any way,
please, please, message us.
You can buy these mugs for just$25.
It is free shipping, including.
They are hot and cold mugs.
They keep your your your drinkshot.
You keep your coffee hot.
They keep your ice drinksfreezing cold for I think, like
24 hours or something like that.
(55:45):
I don't know.
I'm making that up, obviously,as we go, but they do keep your
drinks hot and your drinks cold.
So please, please, please, buythose to support our show and,
um, if you are a sponsor of ourshow in any way, that is one way
that you can help us continueto reach those who are listening
to us.
So, god bless everybodylistening and we want to thank
(56:05):
you again for for tuning in.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (56:08):
God bless you.
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