November 28, 2025 • 53 mins
In this episode, I’m joined by Faith Womack, known to many as Bible Nerd Ministries, for a deeply refreshing conversation on how to read Scripture with clarity, curiosity, and joy. Faith shares her own story of growing up with mishandled and misapplied Bible teaching, and how learning the basics of hermeneutics transformed everything for her. We talk about context, genre, the big story of God’s redemption, why so many of us default to reading ourselves into the text, and how Scripture becomes truly alive when we allow it to reveal who God is rather than simply serve our needs. If you’ve ever felt bored, intimidated, confused, or stuck in your Bible reading, this episode is a hopeful path back toward awe, depth, and worship. And as Faith reminds us, understanding the Word isn’t reserved for scholars, it’s an invitation extended to every follower of Jesus.
Faith Womack is the founder of Bible Nerd Ministries and a content creator who aims to inspire Christians to get back into the Word of God. Her courses, including “Bible Study Bootcamp” and “Theology Bootcamp,” have reached thousands, and her Bible study content has reached over 10 million people on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
Faith aims to empower Christians not only to understand the Bible but also to enjoy it. Her debut book, No More Boring Bible Study: Why Taking Scripture Seriously Is Easier and More Exciting Than You Think releases from Zondervan in November 2025.
Faith has a B.A. in biblical and theological studies from Covenant College and a M.A.T.S. from Erskine Seminary. When she’s not filming or teaching, Faith spends her time with her family going on hikes, crafting and drinking way too much coffee.
Faith's Book:
Faith's Recommendation:
The Incarnate Christ and His Critics
Connect with Joshua: jjohnson@shiftingculturepodcast.com
Go to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy.
Follow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Threads, Bluesky or YouTube
Consider Giving to the podcast and to the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below
Get the Presence over Power collection at shiftingculturepodcast.com/store
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Faith Womack (00:31):
It's the story of God redeeming his people for His
glory. So every single passage,every single chapter, every
single verse, in some way, callsus to heart of worship, to
living off of that.
Joshua Johnson (00:54):
You Josh, hello and welcome to the shift in
culture podcast in which we haveconversations about the culture
we create and the impact we canmake. We long to see the body of
Christ look like Jesus. I'm yourhost. Joshua Johnson, when so
many of us were handed a way ofreading the Bible that was thin,
fear based or even weaponized.
It's no wonder scripture canfeel confusing or as faith
(01:14):
Womack is bold enough to name itboring. But it doesn't have to
stay that way. In this episode,Faith invites us to rediscover
the Bible as a living,compelling story of God's
redemption, not a rule book tomaster, not a self help manual
to cherry pick, but a narrativethat reveals who God is and how
he draws near to his people. Wetalk about mishandled Scripture,
(01:35):
the lenses we unknowingly bringto the text, and how context,
genre and the big story of Godcan transform our reading from
shallow to deeply life giving.
So if you've ever felt stuck orconfused, disillusioned or numb
when opening the Bible. Thisconversation is a warm, clear,
hopeful guide back to the wonderof the Bible. Here is my
(02:00):
conversation with faith. Womack,faith, welcome to shifting
culture. Excited to have you on.
Thanks for joining me. Yeah,thanks for having me. We're
gonna dive deep in the Bible,your new book, no more boring
Bible study. We're going to talkabout, actually, how to engage
the Bible in ways that are notboring. It is going to be a good
conversation. You start yourbook out of a story of basically
(02:22):
how scripture is mishandled inyour own home. Take me into that
season for you. How did that wayof viewing scripture, like
shape, the way that you viewedyourself and God and your family
and your role in the world.
Unknown (02:39):
Yeah, I grew up in a home that my parents kind of
just threw us into church. Theyweren't regular churchgoers
before they had kids, and so itwas a lot of like, oh, well, we
as good people, ought to dothis. We ought to look like
that, and just kind of followingcultural Christianity in a lot
of ways, not really havingconviction for why we weren't
watching Harry Potter, but justknowing that that's what
(02:59):
Christians ought not to do. Youknow, that was the big debate
when I was growing up. And sothe handling, or rather the
mishandling of Scripture, wasrampant in my household, and
actually used for hate to sayit, it's a strong word, but for
abuse in my household. And so Igrew up in this context, but was
really concerned for truth andconcerned for, like, what does
(03:20):
truth actually mean for my life?
Oddly enough, like, I got thisreally unique name of faith. I'm
like, a spur of the momentmoment in the hospital between
my parents. They're like, weneed to have faith that the Lord
will provide, like, financiallyfor our family. So let's just
name her faith. And you know, mysisters have cool names like
Chloe and Olivia, but I feellike even things like that,
where the Lord just has alwayshad his hand over my life, and
I've felt convicted for thingsmaybe a little bit stronger. And
(03:43):
so early on in life, I rememberwrestling with Scripture and
going, Why does why does it justnot make sense for me, and why
do people go this direction withit and not this direction? Or
how do we know that this istruly what Scripture says? And
so I really remember, eventhough I was growing up in the
church and I went to VacationBible School, and I, like, had
(04:04):
checked all the boxes, justfeeling really lost, like in my
own personal Bible studies. Andlike, mind you, I feel like most
sixth graders aren't doing aBible study In the mornings in
the evenings, but that was me,you know, really wanting to seek
the Lord and seek truth. And ittook me years. Actually. It
wasn't until I pursued, like, aformal education in college to
really get the training andbasics of hermeneutics, how do
we read, interpret andeventually apply scripture to
(04:26):
our lives? And so I think thechurch, for so many decades,
like we've focused on getting ittranslated in all the different
languages. We focused on goodtranslations, you know, good
resources like study Bibles. Andnow it's time that we start to
educate the capital C church inthe basics of hermeneutics. How
are we handling it? Because, youknow, while we do believe in the
perspicuity of Scripture, whatis necessary for salvation is
(04:48):
clear in Scripture there islike, you don't just
automatically get downloadedinformation around the exile,
right? You don't automaticallyget downloaded like, who wrote
this letter, when and why,right? And so even at a really
early age, I fell for abuse. Ifell for mishandling of
Scripture, and even fell for thelie that it's really tough to
truly understand Scripturebecause I wasn't equipped with
just those basic tools. Andafter going through, you know,
(05:11):
undergrad and eventuallyseminary, I just the big thing.
I remember this was before Imarried my husband, but he was
in the classes with me in myundergrad. And I was like,
standing outside of one of ourlecture halls, and I was like,
all Christians need to know thisstuff, like all Christians. And
he was just kind of like, yeah,yeah, totally. Hermeneux is
great, you know. But I was like,no, actually, all Christians
need this and speak. From my ownpast of abuse, and so that's
(05:31):
what has really like set me onthis path of this being my
passion, kind of like littlenerdy niche of sorts.
Joshua Johnson (05:41):
I mean, you, you talk about a moment of like
opening a letter and, yeah, init saying you're cursed, and
using scripture to say thatyou're cursed, you then had some
clarity in that moment. It movedfrom from fear into some some
clarity. Oh, this is mishandlingof Scripture. This isn't what
(06:01):
Scripture actually says. It'stwisted. Where do you think that
discernment came in? And how didthat clarity of seeing the
twisting of Scripture move youinto a place of wanting to
really know what the scripturesays.
Unknown (06:16):
Yeah, so it was Exodus 20. I believe the blessing, if
you honor your mother andfather, you'll live long and
happy in the land that I'vegiven you, which is a clear
blessing in Scripture. And myfather had used that to say,
basically the boundaries I hadset with him, because he was
being pretty abusive, and Istarted to kind of catch up on
it, distance myself. He said,Well, you're not honoring me by
not letting me reach out to youand stalk you in all the things.
(06:38):
And so therefore you're cursedto die young. And it took me all
but two seconds to just look itup in Scripture and see that
it's a blessing, it's not acurse. And that was a light bulb
moment for me. If someone'swilling to take a blessing in
Scripture and turn it into acurse. And they're not really
treating it as truth. They'retreating it as something to be
manipulated. And so I wouldreally say it's the checking,
(06:59):
like going back and looking, youknow, there's so many Bible
verses we use out of context. Inthe Christian circles where two
or three are gathered, we usethat out of context. We use
philomene's 413, out of context.
You know, Judge not. We use thatout of context. There's so many
Bible verses that we use out ofcontext, and all you have to do
is just go, context, and all youhave to do is just go look at it
in the Bible. Go wait, where isthat Bible verse found? And is
that really what's going onthere? The answer, oftentimes,
sadly enough, is that's notwhat's going on in that passage.
(07:22):
It might be talking aboutsomething completely different.
And the beauty about context is,when you look at a Bible passage
in context, it's always going totake the Bible study of sorts
deeper. It's always going totake your knowledge of the word
deeper. It's going to take it tothe heart. When we take stuff
out of context, we'd make itlike this shallow understanding,
but it's so much richer thanthose shallow understandings. If
we
Joshua Johnson (07:44):
grew grew up in the church, we get a hermeneutic
given to us like we're justformed by that. And if we don't
actually sit and actually knowhow to start to read the Bible,
see what the context is, thenwe're just going to live with
what we are given. And for onething, I mean, you're talking
about, you know, no more boringBible study. That means you're
(08:08):
reading the Bible. And today, intoday's age, most people don't
want to read. They don'tactually want to look it up for
themselves. They want to begiven it to them. They want to
go to your YouTube page and say,What does faith say about this?
So I could figure this out. Howdid you start to help people say
(08:30):
that actually reading scripture,and reading is good for you.
Unknown (08:35):
Ephesians talks about how scripture is our sword, our
sword for battle. And I lovethat, because it really shows me
why the enemy does so muchmental work in our brains to
discourage us from picking upour Bibles, because it is our
sword for battle against him.
Think of all the movie sceneswhere the enemy knocks the sword
out of the good guy's hands,right? Or, you know, even Luke,
I am your father, moments wherewe're like, taken off guard, and
(08:58):
we're like, I can't fight right?
Like we take those lies and werun with them, and we let our
Bible sit on our nightstanddusty while it is literal truth.
If we believe it's true, we'lltreat it like it is, and we'll
read it. And so I think it'ssimply just that first step of
being aware of the fact that I'mavoiding it that makes that
gives me the opportunity to say,Wait, why am I avoiding it? Do I
(09:21):
really believe it's true? Andthat's how my book starts off
with, with, if we believe it'strue, we'll treat it as truth.
We won't misuse it. We'llactually read it. We'll wrestle
with what's a faithful readingof it, etc. And so we first have
to ask ourselves, do we believeit's true, or do we just believe
it's something we ought to read?
You know, check that box. Kindof feel like you can measure up
better before God, and then moveon with your day. Like, what is
(09:42):
it actually? Is it somethingthat just needs to be boiled
down and explained to us? Or dowe truly believe that we have
the Holy Spirit? I mean, we weare the one of the most equipped
generations, more than everbefore, with the most resources,
with the most education, withthe most information at like a
fingertips reach to be able tounderstand the Bible. And I
think about the generationsbefore me. It's not long before
(10:05):
me that we were Catholic. I'mactually first generation
protest, and then Jewish beforethat. So, like it is, I do not
take it lightly. My ability tobe able to go online at logos or
Atla, you know, all theseresources that they have for
pastors and Bible studyers Anddo a simple word study without
being a Greek or Hebrew scholar.
(10:25):
You know, I took my basicclasses, but, you know, not that
much, and be able to do a richword. Study up for free online,
right? Like, we are moreequipped than any generation
before. And if we really believeit's true, I think we'll utilize
what we've been given. In fact,if I think, if people are
listening to this podcast andthey're interested on having a
greater conviction and passionin their Bible studies, like,
clearly they're called then,because that's a God given
(10:47):
desire, that's not an earthlydesire to want to enjoy Bible
study more. That's like, that'slike, I am born again in Christ.
That is a desire, clearly givenfrom God, right? And so I
believe that's a desire that heplaces in our heart, that he
wants to fulfill, that he's morethan ready to fulfill, if only
we will stop believing the lies.
That's only for the Greek andHebrew scholars or the super
trained pastors, and that it'ssomething that we can actually
enjoy every day.
Joshua Johnson (11:09):
I think one of the things is you said in the
previous answer, you're talkingabout context, and the
importance of context of whenwe're reading the Bible. Take me
into the story of the Bible,then help us get a big picture
so that we don't just cherrypick our verses and say, Hey,
this is great verse. I'm goingto hold on to that, but we
actually know what the story ofGod is in our lives. What's the
(11:32):
big picture? STORY OF GOD?
Unknown (11:35):
Yeah, this Bible is a story of God redeeming his
people for His glory. And Igotta be honest, I did not make
that up. I got that fromsomewhere, but I cannot seem to
find it anywhere. The Bible is astory of God redeeming his
people for His glory. It is thestory of God's redemption
period. End of story. It's notthe story of us, as much as we
would love it to be about us andus be the main character. We
(11:55):
often read it that way. It is astory of God redeeming his
people for His glory. So anytimeyou're in the Bible, it's always
unpacking God's work, unpackingGod's redemption in some sort of
way, Old Testament, lookingforward and pointing to our need
for Christ through the roles ofProphet, Priest and King. Jesus
is the perfect Prophet, Priestand King. So it's constantly
looking and showing us our needfor our Savior. Then the New
(12:16):
Testament is unpacking theperson and work of Christ. So
what does the cross mean for oursalvation or our soteriology?
What does the cross mean for howwe worship? What is baptism? All
those things, right? So OldTestament pointing towards our
need for Christ, New Testamentunpacking what that means for
worship and living. And we seethat through different kind of
like, quote, unquote chapters inthis big meta narrative of the
(12:38):
Bible of creation, fall,redemption and consummation.
Now, I know so often we think ofconsummation as something on the
wedding night, but consummation,in legal terms, is the
fulfillment of a contract. Sowe're moving from creation then
the fall which ruined it all. Myson once said Fall is what
messed everything up. And Ithought that was so good, like
in his simple, little four yearold mind. But we have creation,
(12:59):
then we have fall, then we haveredemption on the cross, and
we're all looking forward toconsummation. And so no matter
where you are in the Bible, it'sreally nice to, like, kind of
keep these benchmarks in yourbrain of, okay, this is the
ultimate so it's looking forwardto Christ, and this is after the
fall. So we're seeing theconsequences of the fall, but
this is all part of the story ofGod redeeming his people for His
glory. And so I get to look andsee what is this revealing about
(13:21):
God? What is this revealingabout his redemption? And having
those little benchmarks, thoselittle things that are super
easy to memorize in your brain,no matter where you are, no
matter how confusing yourHabakkuk or judges or numbers,
you can always have thesebenchmarks to kind of move off
of and quickly get into deepexegesis without being super,
super lost.
Joshua Johnson (13:40):
You just had a good question there in the
middle of your answer was, whatdoes this reveal about God?
Instead of, what does thisreveal about where I should go
to college? Or what does thisreveal about my you know, where
my next $500 is going to comefrom, like? So how do we ask
that question? So take me intoBible study and saying, if, if
(14:02):
this is a story of God, and wewant to ask that question, what
does this reveal about God? Whatis something that we could start
to do as we're looking atscripture, to ask that question.
And how does that reframeeverything? If we're not just
asking about how he could giveme something, but what does it
(14:22):
reveal about God?
Unknown (14:24):
Yeah, the easiest way to put this is kind of sadly
explaining what it's not so it'snot going into scripture, going,
Okay, God, what man should Imarry? What house should I buy?
What, you know, degree should Iget? All those kind of big life
questions that we often finallyturn to Scripture. We're like,
Okay, I need the clouds apart.
You know, I'm in my book, I usea random example from Hosea and
a bear verse. And, you know, acollege student going, should I
(14:46):
go to Texas A and M or Baylor?
And they open up and they see aBible verse that happens to
mention a bear, and they couldtake that as they should go to
Baylor. Or, if you read theBible verse, it's actually
negative about the bear. And somaybe they could take it as they
shouldn't go to Baylor. And theproblem with that kind of
reading in yourself into thetext, reading your problems into
the text, is, one, you're notlooking at context, but then two
(15:07):
is, it's doing ice Jesus, whichis, I know, a little bit of
intimidating word, but it'sreally simple. It's just looking
for yourself in the text. Youtext. You aren't in the text
there. It's actually unpackingGod's heart for redemption over
in his people. And so we, weboil scripture down to be so
thin and about about ourselves,we're very self centered in our
hermeneutic and it actuallysuper cheapens the Bible. You
(15:28):
know, I when I talk aboutcontext, when I talk about, you
know, looking. What God isrevealing about himself in
Scripture. I think a lot oftimes it can come off as, like,
being politically correct, orlike, you just need to try
harder. You're not doing enough,you're not reading it right.
Like, some kind of, like,academic I'm better than you
kind of thing. But really, whatit is is we're we're ripping
from Scripture the richness thatis there, and we're twisting it.
(15:49):
You know, if I wrote a loveletter to my husband and he went
and read it to like mygranddaughter. 20 years from
now, I'd be really bummed out,because I'm like, Honey, that
was for you. That was, that wasin this kind of context of my
marriage to you, my love for youin this era of our lives with
our specific hardships, ourspecific doubts, our specific
whatever, and you're taking itout of the context and using it
(16:11):
for somebody else, and we dothat so often with God's word,
and it cheapens it. We miss somuch of their life changing
richness that does eventuallythen change what college we go
to, what man we wear, what housewe buy, all those big things.
But it all starts first withbeing God centered, looking at
what it reveals about God andhis hand in his people, his hand
in redemption, his guidance, hislove. One thing that the Bible
(16:32):
often is working off of, orreferencing or alluding to is
Exodus, 34 verses six and seven,which is really important Bible
verse where God basically sayswho he is. He defines himself.
It's one of the unique passes ofscripture where God is defining
himself. You know, a godmerciful and gracious, slow to
anger and abounding stuff, fastlove and mercy. And so many
times we see that alluded tothroughout the rest of the Old
Testament, even into the NewTestament, and those words are
(16:53):
echoed throughout the Psalmsover and over again and all
those good things. And I thinkthat is what the rest of
Scripture. When we talk aboutscripture, quoting scripture and
Scripture speaking to eachother, like the intertextuality,
the connectedness of Scripture,it's that it's constantly
marinating on those rich truthsof who God is, and having that
effect everything in biblicalhistory and worship, and so we,
(17:14):
too should do that, and itactually makes our Bible study
so much deeper, taking ourselvesout of the picture and just
responding in worship.
Joshua Johnson (17:20):
I think that's good. I mean, you just talked
about one lens that we use toread the Bibles. Was, what does
it say about me? It's all aboutme, which it's not so. What are
some other lenses that maybetypical people in Western
Christianity start to use thatare maybe unhelpful, or we don't
even realize that we're usingthem, that maybe the Bible
(17:42):
wasn't written this way, and tothis type of people,
Unknown (17:45):
another really easy one is that we just read it,
expecting from the text what Wehow we view text today. So, you
know, we think of texts today.
Think of like Facebook posts orarticles online or newspaper
articles, or even like blogposts or comments or tweets like
think about all like how we viewliterature today and the ways
that we consume it. We have veryhigh standards for exactness and
(18:09):
numbers. We have very highstandards for frequency and for
how how you handle or quotesomebody. And scripture, you
know, is ancient, and there'sdifferent expectations which
reveal theological uses. And so,you know, skeptics of the Bible
will often talk aboutcontradictions in Scripture. You
know, why does First Chroniclessay that it was 38 meters and or
(18:31):
cubits. And, you know, Samuelsays it's 18 cubits, or whatever
it is, you know, like we have toremember that scriptures, what
Scriptures, purpose and use was,what was this genre for even
historical narratives thatunpack a historical account of a
battle or whatever had for theirmain purpose in the ancient
least, they were theological innature. They were a theological
(18:52):
history. This is the god ofthese people, and this is how he
conquers over the other gods.
And this is how that revealsabout our identity as a people,
not as individuals. And then, ofcourse, that impacts, you know,
a lot of it is written duringthe exile, right after the
exile. That impacts the way thatwe face the trials of exile. You
know, keeping in mind all thosethings and having those affect
(19:13):
our reading only takes our Biblestudy so much deeper. But when
we come into the text and we'rereading modern things like, oh,
this genealogy doesn't matter.
It's just like whatever itpoints to Christ and moving on,
we miss the theologicalrichness. When we go to the text
and we're like, hey, this wordseems really big, let me skim
over it, because it doesn'tmatter. That's because today, we
don't view words with as muchpower. We throw them around like
(19:33):
they're cheap, right? We, we, wedon't even value texts like they
did in the first century withPaul's letters, those were
expensive. Those were costly.
Those took a ton of time. Theyhad to be delivered by hand, by
foot, you know, copied by hand,like those letters. There's
nothing that Paul or any of theEpistles like, there's nothing
(19:54):
of substance there that's justthrown in. Everything was
costly, everything was thoughtout, everything was intentional.
And that affects how we read it.
We don't just cut out parts thatwe don't like. We don't just say
maybe it could be taken eitherway. It doesn't matter, you
know, like we wrestle with that,we read that we so anyway, I'm
kind of ranting at this point,but our modern views of text
really can sometimes stunt theways that we see richness in the
(20:16):
passages.
Joshua Johnson (20:20):
So besides, like looking at the text through a
modern lens of how we view texttoday, what are other things
that are like unhelpful like.
Who are the people that thatthis was written to compared to,
say, Western, modern peopletoday? What would we miss if
(20:40):
we're not reading it throughlike, maybe a collectivist lens,
and we're reading it through anindividualistic lens? Who are
the people that were receivingthese texts and it was written
to you, yeah,
Unknown (20:56):
oftentimes it is for God's people. Oftentimes. I
mean, I keep mentioning theexile for some reason in this
podcast, but there's, like, youknow, there's a lot of exilic
passages in the Bible, and let'sbe real, most Christians don't
even know what the exile is,right? Like, most Christians
were never even taught that, youknow? So we need to ask those
questions, and you can even doit with a simple Google search
and figure out, okay, when wasthis book written? Was it
(21:17):
written during the exile orafter the exile? That's the
difference between Kings andChronicles. They're the same
history just told before andafter the exile. This is why
we're going into exile, and thisis why we're coming out of
exile, and we should still befaithful to God. You know, that
impacts the way that you read,the different emphases that they
have, because one will kind ofoverlook David and Bathsheba sin
and then other, the other onewill kind of really highlight
it. This is why we're going intextile guys, you know. So who
(21:39):
is it written for? So when wekeep in mind the cultural
moment, like who wrote it towhom and why, as much as that
sounds like boring academicstruggles, it so enhances our
reading. Okay, easy one, Johnfour. John four. We all know
woman at the well, many of usare picturing the chosen scene
right now as we talk about it,right? Jesus meeting the
(22:00):
Samaritan woman. I think most ofus know that like Samaritans and
Jews, they didn't like eachother, especially Jews didn't
like the Samaritans. You know,they had very derogatory ways of
referring to them. They would goout of their way to not interact
with them. But many of us missthe fact that this is purposely,
I would argue, purposely. Rightafter Jesus meets with
Nicodemus, Nicodemus is a goodJew. Nicodemus gets the whole
(22:22):
John 316, presented to him, andhe doesn't respond in faith. He
walks away confused in the darkof night. But then Jesus must go
meet with a Samaritan woman, andwhere does he meet her? At
Jacob's well. You know, Abraham,Jacob Moses. They all met their
wives at Wells, but here, Jesusmust meet a woman, and he
presents her so much better thanjust another husband and a sixth
(22:43):
husband or whatever it is. No hepresents her the living water, a
life giving water that meets thethirst of her souls and friends.
You know, he was doingeverything a not good Jew would
do, like one talking to a dirtySamaritan. Two, a man at talking
to a woman at a well in themiddle of the day, so she's a
rejected woman, like, there'she's going to samarita like
talking to a Samaritan woman onpurpose, like there's so many
(23:03):
like, no, no's here. But that asthe original Jewish audience, we
should see that and go, Wait,wow. Jesus offers us so much
more. And we make thoseconnections to Jacob's, well, we
make those connections to Jesus,kind of expanding what we
thought was like our piousbetterness, that we're so much
(24:06):
better. We're Jews full blood,right? That kind of stuff makes
those passages not just anotherscene in a great TV show, but
something that's life changing.
Of Lord, I resonate with that Ihave sought all my life for
things that will not satisfy mysoul, Lord and you alone will do
that. And you call me out in themiddle of the day, in the middle
of my brokenness, and you offerme that living water, Lord, may
(24:26):
I respond in that same way. Socontext, cultural context, it
really doesn't take that muchwork. We just have to be invited
into it and trust that we can doit.
Joshua Johnson (24:37):
Do you remember a time in your life where you've
you read Scripture and certainpassage of scripture and you
were like, hey, this doesn'treally resonate, or I don't
really get what's going on. Andthen you actually went into some
of the context and what wasactually happening, and it
reframed everything for you,
Unknown (24:58):
absolutely Ruth in particular. You know, I'm a
woman, and Ruth is one of thosebooks. Congratulations. It's
wonderful. But, you know, we getour certain books. We get like,
Esther, we get Ruth, we getproverbs 31 we just kind of
like, do those over and over andover again, right? And, you
know, once you kind of do it,once you're like, I got it
mastered in my book, we talkedabout this. That's the
familiarity poison. You kind ofthink, like, I've done it. I did
(25:19):
the VBS week on it. I've taughtit to the youth group, like, I
know this passage of Scripture,I've kind of got it down. And
when I came back around to it,it was actually this last year
or two, you know, sitting thereat the beginning of the book of
Ruth, and you've got Abimelechleaving God's land, which is the
house of bread. Literally, heleaves a house of bread for
bread, he leaves for food thehouse of bread. There's irony
(25:43):
there. And this book that Ithought was all about Ruth just
being a good daughter in law, Ireally would have told you
that's like the main core heartof that book. This book doesn't
even start with Ruth. This bookstarts with an unfaithful man
leaving God's people and leavingGod's house for bread, this
irony of doubt, this irony ofhim not trusting God for His
provision. And then it stilldoesn't even start with Ruth. It
(26:06):
starts with Naomi. And Naomi isthe main character, and she's
the one doing all the moving andthe doing, and she's returning
back to God and to his peopleand going back home. And Ruth
comes along with her. But it,you know, it's. All about Naomi,
and I'm thinking in particularin chapter one, and she declares
that she is empty. And over andover again, this word is
repeated throughout the book.
Shub of returning, going back.
(26:26):
And she goes back right beforeharvest and harvest bread to the
house of bread. And Ruth keepscoming back at the end of each
chapter with more and more breadin her arms, returning back
Shub, going back to God, goingback to his people, placing her
faith in God. And that when weget to the end of the book, once
(26:47):
again, you get anothergenealogy, but this time it's a
genealogy of life, of birth, andit points to Christ. And Naomi
is no longer empty and bitter,but now she's holding a grandson
the lineage of Christ, who, thenlater in John six, stands up and
says, I am the bread of life.
You see, it just takes ourunderstanding of a biblical
passage so much deeper when werid ourselves of that. You know,
(27:09):
it strokes our ego to be likeI'm so familiar with Ruth. I
know Ruth. You know, I did VBS.
I taught that to the youthgroup. You know, when we look at
it with new, fresh eyes, we seeJesus. We see so much more. We
see all these literary elements,this, this thematic play on
bread, and how God trulysatisfies our thirstings and and
to go to him alone and place ourfaith in Him alone. And then
(27:31):
when Jesus stands up and saysand declares that he is the
bread of life, I think any gooda Jew would have made that
connection, would know what'sgoing on here. And we too ought
to, we too ought to and live offof that, you know, I don't want
to, there to be ever a day thatI eat bread, and I don't think
about how Jesus truly satisfiesthe hunger of my soul, you know.
So yes, and the same thing couldbe said for Jonah. The same
(27:53):
thing could be said for so manyof those kind of classic
passages. We say we know, but wemiss a lot of depth.
Joshua Johnson (27:58):
And that, I think, begs the question for us
that when we read the Bible,sometimes we don't realize what
we're reading. And I think genreis important in the midst of
reading the Bible. So take methrough some of like the genres
that are happening in the Biblethat can we don't know how to
(28:19):
read each one of them. So whatare the genres of the Bible?
Unknown (28:23):
Yeah, in my book, we work through some of the most
popular ones. I'm going to be sofor real, though, guys, our
first go to when in Christiancircles, when we talk about the
genres of the Bible is to groupthem. Okay, so this book is
historical narrative, this bookis poetry. This book is that.
And the more you study it, themore you see that those lines
are blurred. It's you'll be in ahistorical narrative book, and
you're like reading a history.
And then all of a sudden, Mosesbreaks out in song, and it's a
(28:45):
rich, poetic song with lots ofbeautiful theology, but it ought
not be read the same way, right?
It's not treated the same waythrough the rest of Scripture.
And so genre isn't easy, cut anddry lines, but through my book,
we work through some of the mostpopular ones, like Wisdom
literature. We look at poetry,we look at historical
narratives, we look at theepistles, we look at the
(29:05):
Gospels. Those are such like, Ithink a lot of us are like,
Okay, I know how to read agospel. I know how to read a
history. Like, those are prettystraightforward, but if we don't
actually slow down and evaluatehow we make assumptions about
those texts, we won't realizehow much we kind of misread them
or assume we know stuff whenlike, for example, the Gospels,
most of us assume that they'retrying to convince us to
(29:27):
believe, but the gospels werewritten to pre existing
believers to encourage them intheir faith, and they were all
written to kind of differentaudiences, like Matthew's
writing to specifically a Jewishaudience, Mark's Writing to
those who are being persecutedand suffering. And so his
picture of Jesus is a little bitmore suffering and loner, um,
you know, like they all havetheir different angles or
different specialties, and thatactually takes our understanding
(29:48):
of the text so much deeper. Weget to see their themes. We get
to see their emphases. That'swhy Matthew starts off with the
genealogy, because he's writingto Jews. And he's like, I really
want you to see that Jesus isthe Promised Messiah. Like this
is coming from the bloodline,like you bloodline. Like that is
so incredibly rich. So when westudy these genres, what we see
is they're not actually kind ofhow we think of them in our
modern day genres. And so theway that I outline it in my book
(30:11):
is it's not just a historytextbook, it's not just the
song, it's not just a movie,it's not just a poem, it's not
just a clue book. They're somuch more than what we expect of
them. They're so much deeper andso much more life changing. And
so though it might seem a littlebit negative to have every
single chapter, you know, notjust a history book, not just a
rule book, not just a letter, Ido that on purpose to show us
that there's so much more inthem than maybe what we expect
(30:33):
originally.
Joshua Johnson (30:33):
So as we're looking at the different genres,
knowing, hey, there's even in ahistorical narrative, we're
going to run up against poetry,we're going to run up against
some, some other things. Andthen we could figure out, okay,
this is what they're trying tosay. This is what, how it
reveals God to us. How then dowe as just, not just leave it at
(30:55):
a place of like, Hey, we'rereading the Bible, we understand
it, but how do we then start toapply it to our lives
faithfully, and not justunderstand the Bible, but
actually live what it's tryingto say without it being like,
Miss applied.
Unknown (31:14):
Yeah, this is one of the top questions I get from
people. We're so ready forapplication, and that is a good,
godly desire for it to affectour lives, absolutely. But I
would argue in this in the mostgentle way. I don't want to make
anyone mad listening in, but ifwe are struggling to apply it to
our lives, that's because we'restruggling to truly understand
it. Because any kind of biblicalpassage in context, it does
(31:37):
absolutely change our lives andconvict us if we're properly
understanding it. So if you'resomebody reading the Bible and
you're like, I just want to knowwhat college I check out. I just
want to know go back to whatdoes it actually say, right?
Because I know how frustratingit is, but we're so quick to
jump to application that shouldbe a natural thing. Let me just
give you a general rule ofthumb. Application is always
worship. So if your applicationisn't leading you to some kind
(31:59):
of living out, living out, aworshipful response to Jesus, as
he is here in Matthew seven, orwhatever, or worshipful response
to this is how we worship inresponse to God's, you know,
redemption or whatever. If it'snot leading to you to some kind
of worshipful living, you'reprobably missing what's going on
here, because, again, it's thestory of God redeeming his
people for His glory. So everysingle passage, every single
(32:21):
chapter, every single verse, insome way, calls us to heart of
worship, to living off of that.
And of course, that transformsthe way that you view your
college decisions, your marriagedecisions, your house blindness,
and all of those things, butit's with God at the center. So
if you're struggling withapplication, really, what you're
probably struggling with isunderstanding. And you get to
you are invited on this journeyof digging a little bit deeper.
(32:42):
And it sounds like work, itsounds boring, it sounds like
it's this academic thing, andwe're putting these burdens on
you. But really what it is is solife giving. It's actually not
that hard, and it actually makesScripture come alive. And I
think the reason why, I mean,obviously my book is titled
number one Bible study.
Obviously, Scripture is notboring, but we kind of secretly
(33:03):
believe it's boring because wedon't understand it. And the
moment we start understanding itis when it comes alive to us,
and it changes our life, and weenjoy and we grow, get on fire
for the word. So we first haveto start with how. How are we
misunderstanding it? How can weunderstand it, and then
scripture just becomes so muchmore interesting and life
giving.
Joshua Johnson (33:23):
So when you're saying that all of our
application leads us intoworship and worshipful living,
does that mean that we just sitaround and sing worship songs
and don't do anything in ourlife? What does worshipful
living look like for people?
Unknown (33:37):
Yeah, I think so often we think of, yeah, a very narrow
sense of worship. But I believewe can worship by faithfully
doing the dishes. I believe wecan worship by discipling our
kids, by speaking truth againstlies and culture. I believe we
can worship through, you know,filming a podcast or drinking
water to take care of ourbodies, like all of our life
(33:58):
ought to be worship in everywhether you're driving right now
or cooking right now, whatever,like all of our life ought to be
worship and informed by the Godof Scripture, who has redeemed
us. So no even micro thing, noteven going to the restroom,
should not be defined absolutelytransformed by the fact that I
am a redeemed child of GodAlmighty, who not only created
(34:20):
the world but gave me a hope ofheaven, who not only created the
scenarios where I have mytroubles, where I have my
doubts, where I have mymountains to climb, and all
those things, but he is the Godwho has redeemed me and promised
(35:32):
me this redemption, and who hascalled me and loves me and has
sought me that changes the wayWe do all things because we are
then on purpose. We are called.
We have clarity of who we areand whose we are, but you don't
really know who you are and whatdecisions you should make off of
those things, if you don't knowwhose you are and more about the
God you belong to, that doestransform all of our living but
I think we get so so caught upin the specifics that we miss
(35:56):
the big picture that does changethe specifics.
Joshua Johnson (36:01):
Couple days ago, we were reading acts 237, to 47
which the early church is whatthe early church is doing. And
like one of the things thatreally stood out to me was that
in verse 43 they said a deepsense of awe came over them, and
the apostles perform manymiraculous times and wonders.
(36:22):
And I think a lot of times whenI think of Bible study, I don't
think of awe, and I don't thinkof wonder. I think of like, Hey,
I'm looking at some some text,how, when we are maybe familiar
with the Bible, or maybe, likewe've gone through this, it's
just a text, how do we recoversome of this awe and this wonder
(36:45):
that even the early church wasexperiencing?
Unknown (36:50):
Yeah, oh, I love that passage. Okay, so I love that
you went there first of all,because absolutely so good. So,
okay, discovering the awe reallycomes again back to do we
understand what's happeninghere, and if it sounds dry, if
it sounds boring, if we're nothaving that worshipful wow
moment with Scripture, we haveto ask ourselves, what are we
(37:11):
missing? Because Scripture tellsus it is alive and active.
Scripture tells it that'sHebrews four second Timothy
tells us it is profitable for.
Teaching, rebuking, correctingall things for training in
righteousness. It is scriptureis something that is constantly
working on us, even when wedon't feel it. And so if we are
going to allow ourselves to comenumb to it, let our eyes glaze
over, treat it like it's notabsolutely life changing, we are
(37:33):
forgetting what it is. We areforgetting how powerful and what
a gift it is. And so I think weregain that all in that heart of
worship, when we remindourselves that it is truth
itself. You know, every singlemorning, and I mean, I create
content around this, I'm like,go read your Bibles. Guys, like,
that's who I am online, right?
(37:53):
And yet, every single morning,the enemy hits me with those
lies. If you have somethingbetter to do. You could be doing
this. You could be doing that.
You probably ought to. Oh, whatabout that email? Oh, what about
that laundry in the dryer, etc,right? Like every single morning
and every single morning, mysolution to those lies that
sound really, really convincingis, but I believe this alone is
truth. Yes, the laundry willeventually get folded, but this
(38:15):
is truth, and this affects theway that I fold the laundry. You
know, this affects every part ofmy life, and I am living not
worshipful. I'm living notinformed by truth itself when
I'm gonna live unto myself andwhat I think I need to get done
on my to do list today. So wejust have to remind ourselves
what it is and what Scripturesays about itself can be really
convicting.
Joshua Johnson (38:35):
I think in our spiritual life, we always hit
some sort of a wall in ourspiritual life. We hit a wall
with reading the Bible. We hit awall with like seeing God around
us, like we don't feel hispresence anymore, like we're
like we're it feels empty, butthere is actually depth in there
that we don't actually see whenwe hit the wall, that there's
(38:57):
some beautiful thing to get usthrough it. So in those times,
and I think there's a lot ofpeople, I think this is why, to
be honest, this is why peoplecall it a midlife crisis.
Because I think there is acrisis in midlife where there's
a spiritual crisis, where whatserved us in the past is not
serving us in the future, andthere's a big wrestling with
(39:17):
moving into something new. Andso I think when we're reading
scripture, I want to know like,how do we let things fall away
that served us in the past, andsee scripture then with fresh
eyes and new eyes, to know thatthere may be something new that
God wants to do with us, becausescripture is alive and active
(39:40):
that will serve us into thefuture. I see a lot of people,
if they if they stay in theiryouthful zeal, like what brought
them to Christ in the firstplace, they are like, Man, this
isn't serving they're notgrowing in maturity and moving
forward. How do we shift? How dowe move in those life
(40:02):
transitions, into new things? InScripture, you know, there's
Unknown (40:06):
this word that I've been thinking about all week.
It's a Hebrew word. It's used inNehemiah two, when Nehemiah is
inspecting the wall. It's theHebrew word for inspecting. But
what's really interesting aboutit, I'm going to botch this with
sabar. It's he's inspecting withhope expectant trust. He's
reevaluating the wall in thescope of I'm called to rebuild
(40:26):
this and we see it used a coupleother times. I think it's like
total of nine times in the OldTestament. But every single time
it's, it's a inspection withhope and trust. So I think we
need to revisit passages ofScripture, or revisit God and
His Word with this expectanthope and trust that this really
will change my life, if I justtrust God to meet me here, and
(40:47):
if I just trust God truly doescare, that God truly does meet
me here in His Word, while theenemy does lie, and it's so
heavy and it's so convictingthat it's like we could do
better things. We could justtrust somebody else to execute
it for us. We could just trustsomebody else and what they say
about God and what they sayabout the word it is an
invitation that God hasintimately called us on, each
(41:08):
individually, and is calling youon if you're listening to this,
because he wants you, not yourunderstanding through somebody
else, through your pastor,through a book or a devotional.
He wants your heart, yourpassions, and he is ready and
waiting and would love to pourinto you this fire and passion
for the Word of God, if you'lljust trust Him to do that, and
(41:30):
if you'll just trust his word tobe sufficient, right? I think so
often we fall for the lies oflike, well, I don't know, does
it? Is it really going to helpanything? Is it really gonna
change anything? It's like,well, what else are you gonna
do? Turn to alcohol. You gonnaturn to the world. You're gonna
turn to the news. Really gonnaturn to fellow broken sinners.
Are you gonna rest your faith inJesus Christ, which is the whole
point of salvation anyway,right? Do we truly believe this
(41:53):
is true? Do we truly believethat God is our only hope in
life and death? Do we trulybelieve he is the more than just
our lifeline. He is oureverything. I think of the Shema
in Deuteronomy, six to love, theword our God, with all our
heart, with all our soul, withall our everything. Do we truly
choose that over even ourdoubts, our depression, our
(42:14):
loss, our feeling like a boattossed in the wind and the sea?
He's Do we truly believe that hewill readily stand up and calm
that storm, because he is reallythe one that brings peace, that
was the first word of Jesus'mouth, resurrected Savior, when
he appears before the disciples,He declares, I reign a peace. Do
we truly believe that he isready, waiting, willing, at any
(42:34):
given moment to declare peace ofour lives and to fill us up with
that life giving water. I lovethe richness of Scripture and
how it speaks through time andspace of no matter what age, no
matter what generation, nomatter what season of life, we
were all seeking for exactlythat, and that can only be found
in Christ.
Joshua Johnson (42:51):
You went into like, are we loving God with all
your heart, soul, mind andstrength at the Shema, right?
And then you said, Okay, he'sgoing to then fill us with
living water, he's going to fillus with peace. I find it when
we're getting to this place ofBible study, or we're trying to
love God with all of ourstrength, if we don't receive
(43:12):
the love of God for us, it'shard for me to give all of that
love back to God because Ihaven't received it. So usually,
when I I'm trying to love Godwithout my strength, if I'm
doing it out of my own it's notall of me. It's not enough. It's
there because I haven't posturedmyself to receive the love of
(43:33):
God. And if I'm reading theBible as it revealing God to me,
one of the things that he wantsto do is he wants to say, You're
my beloved child, and I want tofill you with my love I have. I
mean, I've just, in my life,gone through, you know, I've
been a missionary overseas inthe Middle East. I've led a
(43:56):
missions organization. We liketo love the world. We like to
love God. And I see so manymissionaries and so many people
try to love out of their ownstrength, and they forget to
receive the love of God. So inour Bible, how do we not make it
just a striving to please God,but actually then start to
receive what God has for us init. How do we move from from
(44:21):
striving to surrender? I mean,you
Unknown (44:23):
just, I think Scripture at no point says, Yep, and this
is where you measure up, andthis is where you do more and
you be more, and that's when youearn your salvation, and that's
when God finally chooses to loveyou. I think from the very
beginning, God's love is ondisplay again, the story of God
redeeming his people for Hisglory. He has been redeeming you
day one, right? Like he hisheart is for your redemption his
(44:47):
whole incarnation. You know, aswe're filming, we're warming up
towards Christmas, and that's soexciting to study God's love
that literally sent him tohumble himself to the form of a
baby born in a barn surroundedby poop and animals and smells
and all those things, like Godis Love is one that has already
been declared. Do we believe it?
Do we trust it? Do we rest init? Are we still stupidly
(45:09):
striving? Are we still stupidlyrelying on ourselves? Because
what that is that's striving,that like relying on ourselves
to muster up and be more and domore, is essentially self
worship. That's us on thethrone. That's, that's, uh, you
know, offering sacrifices toourselves, right? And do we
truly like, have we come to theends of ourself enough to be
like, Lord, I desperately needyou, and I bring nothing,
(45:30):
absolutely nothing, to thetable. But I believe, as
scripture has declared aboutyou, that you are more than
enough for me and my needs andmy emptiness, my nothingness, I
say all the time. I probably sayit too many times, but God is
big enough, is enough to workin, through and despite us. And
I think we focus a lot on Godworking in us. I think we focus
a lot on like, God's gonna workthrough me, especially if you're
(45:52):
in ministry. My husband's apastor. You know, it's so easy
to get burned out. And even justministry here in the States. We
haven't done full time ministrywork, but man, I can imagine
overseas as well. So in throughbut we forget that God is
constantly working despite us aswell. I think of David. I think
of even like pagan like KingCyrus. I think of Pharaoh, like
God can work despite us. So howmuch more when we are willingly
(46:16):
on our knees saying, Lord, useme. Fill me up, send me out. I'm
fully dependent on you, but welove to put ourselves on those
thrones that we know better,that we know more, that we can
do enough be more measureenough.
Joshua Johnson (46:32):
I want to know what discernment starts to look
like. I've seen so many peopleuse scripture either out of
context or something, and thefruit isn't really there in
their lives. How do we know whatis true? We believe that the
Bible is true. How doesdiscernment start to work when
we're reading the Bible andstudying the Bible?
Unknown (46:53):
I'm assuming you're kind of leaning towards the gray
areas, the things that aredebated in church circles. Yeah,
like, you know, it does comedown to hermeneutics, the
different stances on baptism,the mode of baptism, women and
their roles in the home and thechurch, you know, all those big
debates, sacraments, all thethings come down to
hermeneutics, how we're handlingthose passage of scripture. And
I think so often we're in theseculture wars of debating, but we
(47:16):
haven't truly studied the. Howthe Other Side got to their
conclusion, we haven't botheredto try and understand their
hermeneutic and because of that,we're just speaking past each
other. A lot of times it comesdown to semantics. A lot of
times it comes tomisunderstandings or broad over
generalizations. And I thinkthat's really my passion, of why
I care so much about educatingand hermeneutics, because we
(47:37):
can't ever get to the part ofdebates if we haven't first
studied, and we need to debateless and study more. And so I
think when if you're wrestlingwith discernment on those
topics, you first have to startwith prayer. You first have to
evaluate your hermetic. You haveto evaluate their hermetic and
what might be wrong about it.
But ultimately, we have tounderstand the core doctrines of
the faith, like lowercase oorthodoxy versus these tertiary
or secondary things and whythere can be room for grace, but
(48:01):
also where the line is drawn.
Discernment doesn't beginwithout first wrestling and
asking those hard questions. Andso many of us want to get into
comment wars and put our ring inthe fight on, you know, that
random post on social media orwell, so and so says this about
that passes. So and So saysthat. And none of us are
actually going back to Scriptureand just sitting in Scripture
(48:23):
and God's truth, and it's so notworshipful, and it's so not
really pursuing truth. It'spursuing party lines. And I
think, like you alluded toMatthew seven with the fruit,
Jesus tells us, like, that'swhen you know it's like false
teachers is when they don't havefruit that matches, right? Like
we have to look at the fruit ofwhat is being spoken with, of
what is being taught, and alsobe ready and willing to extend
(48:45):
grace in the debates, because weunderstand why they're debated.
But then, of course, on theother side of that is use
discernment on where that oh,this is where the line is drawn.
So lot going on there, this verynuanced thing, but hopefully I
did sufficient answer there.
Joshua Johnson (49:01):
That's good.
What do you think faith is yourhope for your readers to pick up
your book, no more pouring Biblestudy?
Unknown (49:08):
Yeah, I would feel like I failed if someone read my book
and didn't walk away with agreater love and fire and
passion for the Word of God. Imean, I know this sounds so like
patting my back, but when I knowI technically wrote it, I did
write it. I did. It's nottechnical. I did, but it's so
many different versions of me.
You know, I wrote it over like,three years and through many
(49:29):
different seasons of my life, ofgrowth and things like that. So
when I read it, it doesn't feellike it's from me. And so it has
made me love scripture more andview scripture with higher
regard and excitement and fueledmy fire for the word. And so
that's my prayer for readers. Ithink you can read a million
books in your life, but if theydon't make you love and seek the
Lord more than like kind of lowkey, what's the point? Right? So
(49:52):
my heart is for exactly that,that it won't just end with my
book, but readers will feelinvited on this lifelong
adventure of studenthood. Of ofyou know, we don't master God's
word, but rather, we're invitedon this lifelong journey of
feasting on God's word, andthat's actually really life
giving and exciting
Joshua Johnson (50:11):
and faith. I have a couple quick questions
here at the end. I like to askone, if you go back to your 21
year old self, what advice wouldyou
Unknown (50:18):
give your identity is not tied up in what you do. It's
great advice. Only I believe it.
Joshua Johnson (50:28):
It takes a lifetime to work that out, but
it is true. It's very truethat's not your your identity,
it's not tied up in what you do.
You're a lot more than that.
Yeah, anything you've beenreading or watching lately, you
recommend.
Unknown (50:41):
Ooh, I have been, I've been enjoying it's a little bit
heavy. It's a little bit meaty,but the incarnate Christ and His
critics by komakowski andBowman, and it's been really,
really good and rich. It'sthick, but like, if you want to
wrestle with the deity andhumanity of Christ, and yeah,
again, his critics highlyrecommend,
Joshua Johnson (51:03):
well, no more boring Bible study is going to
be available anywhere books aresold, so go and get that fall in
love with the Bible study inScripture so that you know that
the Bible is alive. It couldcome and it could actually serve
you well, that it could pointyou back to how it reveals God
is there anywhere you'd like topoint people to? How could they
(51:24):
connect with you and what you'redoing?
Unknown (51:27):
Yeah, across all social medias, I'm Bible nerd
ministries. You could also justtype in Bible nerd, and I'll
come up my little tackyhighlights and big smile, but
I'd love to hear that you guyscame from here and, you know,
shifting culture podcast, andlet me know that way we can
touch base and can give you alla shout out, but I would love to
(51:47):
see y'all on YouTube, Instagram,tick tock all the things
perfect.
Joshua Johnson (51:50):
Well, faith.
Thank you for this conversation.
Thanks for leading through theBible and the Bible so that we
could actually not have any moreboring Bible studies, but we
could actually see the Bible asalive and active in our lives.
It's a beautiful, beautifulthing. So thank you, faith. It
was fantastic. Thanks for havingme. You. You.
It's the story of God redeeming his people for His
glory. So every single passage,every single chapter, every
single verse, in some way, callsus to heart of worship, to
living off of that.
Joshua Johnson (00:54):
You Josh, hello and welcome to the shift in
culture podcast in which we haveconversations about the culture
we create and the impact we canmake. We long to see the body of
Christ look like Jesus. I'm yourhost. Joshua Johnson, when so
many of us were handed a way ofreading the Bible that was thin,
fear based or even weaponized.
It's no wonder scripture canfeel confusing or as faith
(01:14):
Womack is bold enough to name itboring. But it doesn't have to
stay that way. In this episode,Faith invites us to rediscover
the Bible as a living,compelling story of God's
redemption, not a rule book tomaster, not a self help manual
to cherry pick, but a narrativethat reveals who God is and how
he draws near to his people. Wetalk about mishandled Scripture,
(01:35):
the lenses we unknowingly bringto the text, and how context,
genre and the big story of Godcan transform our reading from
shallow to deeply life giving.
So if you've ever felt stuck orconfused, disillusioned or numb
when opening the Bible. Thisconversation is a warm, clear,
hopeful guide back to the wonderof the Bible. Here is my
(02:00):
conversation with faith. Womack,faith, welcome to shifting
culture. Excited to have you on.
Thanks for joining me. Yeah,thanks for having me. We're
gonna dive deep in the Bible,your new book, no more boring
Bible study. We're going to talkabout, actually, how to engage
the Bible in ways that are notboring. It is going to be a good
conversation. You start yourbook out of a story of basically
(02:22):
how scripture is mishandled inyour own home. Take me into that
season for you. How did that wayof viewing scripture, like
shape, the way that you viewedyourself and God and your family
and your role in the world.
Unknown (02:39):
Yeah, I grew up in a home that my parents kind of
just threw us into church. Theyweren't regular churchgoers
before they had kids, and so itwas a lot of like, oh, well, we
as good people, ought to dothis. We ought to look like
that, and just kind of followingcultural Christianity in a lot
of ways, not really havingconviction for why we weren't
watching Harry Potter, but justknowing that that's what
(02:59):
Christians ought not to do. Youknow, that was the big debate
when I was growing up. And sothe handling, or rather the
mishandling of Scripture, wasrampant in my household, and
actually used for hate to sayit, it's a strong word, but for
abuse in my household. And so Igrew up in this context, but was
really concerned for truth andconcerned for, like, what does
(03:20):
truth actually mean for my life?
Oddly enough, like, I got thisreally unique name of faith. I'm
like, a spur of the momentmoment in the hospital between
my parents. They're like, weneed to have faith that the Lord
will provide, like, financiallyfor our family. So let's just
name her faith. And you know, mysisters have cool names like
Chloe and Olivia, but I feellike even things like that,
where the Lord just has alwayshad his hand over my life, and
I've felt convicted for thingsmaybe a little bit stronger. And
(03:43):
so early on in life, I rememberwrestling with Scripture and
going, Why does why does it justnot make sense for me, and why
do people go this direction withit and not this direction? Or
how do we know that this istruly what Scripture says? And
so I really remember, eventhough I was growing up in the
church and I went to VacationBible School, and I, like, had
(04:04):
checked all the boxes, justfeeling really lost, like in my
own personal Bible studies. Andlike, mind you, I feel like most
sixth graders aren't doing aBible study In the mornings in
the evenings, but that was me,you know, really wanting to seek
the Lord and seek truth. And ittook me years. Actually. It
wasn't until I pursued, like, aformal education in college to
really get the training andbasics of hermeneutics, how do
we read, interpret andeventually apply scripture to
(04:26):
our lives? And so I think thechurch, for so many decades,
like we've focused on getting ittranslated in all the different
languages. We focused on goodtranslations, you know, good
resources like study Bibles. Andnow it's time that we start to
educate the capital C church inthe basics of hermeneutics. How
are we handling it? Because, youknow, while we do believe in the
perspicuity of Scripture, whatis necessary for salvation is
(04:48):
clear in Scripture there islike, you don't just
automatically get downloadedinformation around the exile,
right? You don't automaticallyget downloaded like, who wrote
this letter, when and why,right? And so even at a really
early age, I fell for abuse. Ifell for mishandling of
Scripture, and even fell for thelie that it's really tough to
truly understand Scripturebecause I wasn't equipped with
just those basic tools. Andafter going through, you know,
(05:11):
undergrad and eventuallyseminary, I just the big thing.
I remember this was before Imarried my husband, but he was
in the classes with me in myundergrad. And I was like,
standing outside of one of ourlecture halls, and I was like,
all Christians need to know thisstuff, like all Christians. And
he was just kind of like, yeah,yeah, totally. Hermeneux is
great, you know. But I was like,no, actually, all Christians
need this and speak. From my ownpast of abuse, and so that's
(05:31):
what has really like set me onthis path of this being my
passion, kind of like littlenerdy niche of sorts.
Joshua Johnson (05:41):
I mean, you, you talk about a moment of like
opening a letter and, yeah, init saying you're cursed, and
using scripture to say thatyou're cursed, you then had some
clarity in that moment. It movedfrom from fear into some some
clarity. Oh, this is mishandlingof Scripture. This isn't what
(06:01):
Scripture actually says. It'stwisted. Where do you think that
discernment came in? And how didthat clarity of seeing the
twisting of Scripture move youinto a place of wanting to
really know what the scripturesays.
Unknown (06:16):
Yeah, so it was Exodus 20. I believe the blessing, if
you honor your mother andfather, you'll live long and
happy in the land that I'vegiven you, which is a clear
blessing in Scripture. And myfather had used that to say,
basically the boundaries I hadset with him, because he was
being pretty abusive, and Istarted to kind of catch up on
it, distance myself. He said,Well, you're not honoring me by
not letting me reach out to youand stalk you in all the things.
(06:38):
And so therefore you're cursedto die young. And it took me all
but two seconds to just look itup in Scripture and see that
it's a blessing, it's not acurse. And that was a light bulb
moment for me. If someone'swilling to take a blessing in
Scripture and turn it into acurse. And they're not really
treating it as truth. They'retreating it as something to be
manipulated. And so I wouldreally say it's the checking,
(06:59):
like going back and looking, youknow, there's so many Bible
verses we use out of context. Inthe Christian circles where two
or three are gathered, we usethat out of context. We use
philomene's 413, out of context.
You know, Judge not. We use thatout of context. There's so many
Bible verses that we use out ofcontext, and all you have to do
is just go, context, and all youhave to do is just go look at it
in the Bible. Go wait, where isthat Bible verse found? And is
that really what's going onthere? The answer, oftentimes,
sadly enough, is that's notwhat's going on in that passage.
(07:22):
It might be talking aboutsomething completely different.
And the beauty about context is,when you look at a Bible passage
in context, it's always going totake the Bible study of sorts
deeper. It's always going totake your knowledge of the word
deeper. It's going to take it tothe heart. When we take stuff
out of context, we'd make itlike this shallow understanding,
but it's so much richer thanthose shallow understandings. If
we
Joshua Johnson (07:44):
grew grew up in the church, we get a hermeneutic
given to us like we're justformed by that. And if we don't
actually sit and actually knowhow to start to read the Bible,
see what the context is, thenwe're just going to live with
what we are given. And for onething, I mean, you're talking
about, you know, no more boringBible study. That means you're
(08:08):
reading the Bible. And today, intoday's age, most people don't
want to read. They don'tactually want to look it up for
themselves. They want to begiven it to them. They want to
go to your YouTube page and say,What does faith say about this?
So I could figure this out. Howdid you start to help people say
(08:30):
that actually reading scripture,and reading is good for you.
Unknown (08:35):
Ephesians talks about how scripture is our sword, our
sword for battle. And I lovethat, because it really shows me
why the enemy does so muchmental work in our brains to
discourage us from picking upour Bibles, because it is our
sword for battle against him.
Think of all the movie sceneswhere the enemy knocks the sword
out of the good guy's hands,right? Or, you know, even Luke,
I am your father, moments wherewe're like, taken off guard, and
(08:58):
we're like, I can't fight right?
Like we take those lies and werun with them, and we let our
Bible sit on our nightstanddusty while it is literal truth.
If we believe it's true, we'lltreat it like it is, and we'll
read it. And so I think it'ssimply just that first step of
being aware of the fact that I'mavoiding it that makes that
gives me the opportunity to say,Wait, why am I avoiding it? Do I
(09:21):
really believe it's true? Andthat's how my book starts off
with, with, if we believe it'strue, we'll treat it as truth.
We won't misuse it. We'llactually read it. We'll wrestle
with what's a faithful readingof it, etc. And so we first have
to ask ourselves, do we believeit's true, or do we just believe
it's something we ought to read?
You know, check that box. Kindof feel like you can measure up
better before God, and then moveon with your day. Like, what is
(09:42):
it actually? Is it somethingthat just needs to be boiled
down and explained to us? Or dowe truly believe that we have
the Holy Spirit? I mean, we weare the one of the most equipped
generations, more than everbefore, with the most resources,
with the most education, withthe most information at like a
fingertips reach to be able tounderstand the Bible. And I
think about the generationsbefore me. It's not long before
(10:05):
me that we were Catholic. I'mactually first generation
protest, and then Jewish beforethat. So, like it is, I do not
take it lightly. My ability tobe able to go online at logos or
Atla, you know, all theseresources that they have for
pastors and Bible studyers Anddo a simple word study without
being a Greek or Hebrew scholar.
(10:25):
You know, I took my basicclasses, but, you know, not that
much, and be able to do a richword. Study up for free online,
right? Like, we are moreequipped than any generation
before. And if we really believeit's true, I think we'll utilize
what we've been given. In fact,if I think, if people are
listening to this podcast andthey're interested on having a
greater conviction and passionin their Bible studies, like,
clearly they're called then,because that's a God given
(10:47):
desire, that's not an earthlydesire to want to enjoy Bible
study more. That's like, that'slike, I am born again in Christ.
That is a desire, clearly givenfrom God, right? And so I
believe that's a desire that heplaces in our heart, that he
wants to fulfill, that he's morethan ready to fulfill, if only
we will stop believing the lies.
That's only for the Greek andHebrew scholars or the super
trained pastors, and that it'ssomething that we can actually
enjoy every day.
Joshua Johnson (11:09):
I think one of the things is you said in the
previous answer, you're talkingabout context, and the
importance of context of whenwe're reading the Bible. Take me
into the story of the Bible,then help us get a big picture
so that we don't just cherrypick our verses and say, Hey,
this is great verse. I'm goingto hold on to that, but we
actually know what the story ofGod is in our lives. What's the
(11:32):
big picture? STORY OF GOD?
Unknown (11:35):
Yeah, this Bible is a story of God redeeming his
people for His glory. And Igotta be honest, I did not make
that up. I got that fromsomewhere, but I cannot seem to
find it anywhere. The Bible is astory of God redeeming his
people for His glory. It is thestory of God's redemption
period. End of story. It's notthe story of us, as much as we
would love it to be about us andus be the main character. We
(11:55):
often read it that way. It is astory of God redeeming his
people for His glory. So anytimeyou're in the Bible, it's always
unpacking God's work, unpackingGod's redemption in some sort of
way, Old Testament, lookingforward and pointing to our need
for Christ through the roles ofProphet, Priest and King. Jesus
is the perfect Prophet, Priestand King. So it's constantly
looking and showing us our needfor our Savior. Then the New
(12:16):
Testament is unpacking theperson and work of Christ. So
what does the cross mean for oursalvation or our soteriology?
What does the cross mean for howwe worship? What is baptism? All
those things, right? So OldTestament pointing towards our
need for Christ, New Testamentunpacking what that means for
worship and living. And we seethat through different kind of
like, quote, unquote chapters inthis big meta narrative of the
(12:38):
Bible of creation, fall,redemption and consummation.
Now, I know so often we think ofconsummation as something on the
wedding night, but consummation,in legal terms, is the
fulfillment of a contract. Sowe're moving from creation then
the fall which ruined it all. Myson once said Fall is what
messed everything up. And Ithought that was so good, like
in his simple, little four yearold mind. But we have creation,
(12:59):
then we have fall, then we haveredemption on the cross, and
we're all looking forward toconsummation. And so no matter
where you are in the Bible, it'sreally nice to, like, kind of
keep these benchmarks in yourbrain of, okay, this is the
ultimate so it's looking forwardto Christ, and this is after the
fall. So we're seeing theconsequences of the fall, but
this is all part of the story ofGod redeeming his people for His
glory. And so I get to look andsee what is this revealing about
(13:21):
God? What is this revealingabout his redemption? And having
those little benchmarks, thoselittle things that are super
easy to memorize in your brain,no matter where you are, no
matter how confusing yourHabakkuk or judges or numbers,
you can always have thesebenchmarks to kind of move off
of and quickly get into deepexegesis without being super,
super lost.
Joshua Johnson (13:40):
You just had a good question there in the
middle of your answer was, whatdoes this reveal about God?
Instead of, what does thisreveal about where I should go
to college? Or what does thisreveal about my you know, where
my next $500 is going to comefrom, like? So how do we ask
that question? So take me intoBible study and saying, if, if
(14:02):
this is a story of God, and wewant to ask that question, what
does this reveal about God? Whatis something that we could start
to do as we're looking atscripture, to ask that question.
And how does that reframeeverything? If we're not just
asking about how he could giveme something, but what does it
(14:22):
reveal about God?
Unknown (14:24):
Yeah, the easiest way to put this is kind of sadly
explaining what it's not so it'snot going into scripture, going,
Okay, God, what man should Imarry? What house should I buy?
What, you know, degree should Iget? All those kind of big life
questions that we often finallyturn to Scripture. We're like,
Okay, I need the clouds apart.
You know, I'm in my book, I usea random example from Hosea and
a bear verse. And, you know, acollege student going, should I
(14:46):
go to Texas A and M or Baylor?
And they open up and they see aBible verse that happens to
mention a bear, and they couldtake that as they should go to
Baylor. Or, if you read theBible verse, it's actually
negative about the bear. And somaybe they could take it as they
shouldn't go to Baylor. And theproblem with that kind of
reading in yourself into thetext, reading your problems into
the text, is, one, you're notlooking at context, but then two
(15:07):
is, it's doing ice Jesus, whichis, I know, a little bit of
intimidating word, but it'sreally simple. It's just looking
for yourself in the text. Youtext. You aren't in the text
there. It's actually unpackingGod's heart for redemption over
in his people. And so we, weboil scripture down to be so
thin and about about ourselves,we're very self centered in our
hermeneutic and it actuallysuper cheapens the Bible. You
(15:28):
know, I when I talk aboutcontext, when I talk about, you
know, looking. What God isrevealing about himself in
Scripture. I think a lot oftimes it can come off as, like,
being politically correct, orlike, you just need to try
harder. You're not doing enough,you're not reading it right.
Like, some kind of, like,academic I'm better than you
kind of thing. But really, whatit is is we're we're ripping
from Scripture the richness thatis there, and we're twisting it.
(15:49):
You know, if I wrote a loveletter to my husband and he went
and read it to like mygranddaughter. 20 years from
now, I'd be really bummed out,because I'm like, Honey, that
was for you. That was, that wasin this kind of context of my
marriage to you, my love for youin this era of our lives with
our specific hardships, ourspecific doubts, our specific
whatever, and you're taking itout of the context and using it
(16:11):
for somebody else, and we dothat so often with God's word,
and it cheapens it. We miss somuch of their life changing
richness that does eventuallythen change what college we go
to, what man we wear, what housewe buy, all those big things.
But it all starts first withbeing God centered, looking at
what it reveals about God andhis hand in his people, his hand
in redemption, his guidance, hislove. One thing that the Bible
(16:32):
often is working off of, orreferencing or alluding to is
Exodus, 34 verses six and seven,which is really important Bible
verse where God basically sayswho he is. He defines himself.
It's one of the unique passes ofscripture where God is defining
himself. You know, a godmerciful and gracious, slow to
anger and abounding stuff, fastlove and mercy. And so many
times we see that alluded tothroughout the rest of the Old
Testament, even into the NewTestament, and those words are
(16:53):
echoed throughout the Psalmsover and over again and all
those good things. And I thinkthat is what the rest of
Scripture. When we talk aboutscripture, quoting scripture and
Scripture speaking to eachother, like the intertextuality,
the connectedness of Scripture,it's that it's constantly
marinating on those rich truthsof who God is, and having that
effect everything in biblicalhistory and worship, and so we,
(17:14):
too should do that, and itactually makes our Bible study
so much deeper, taking ourselvesout of the picture and just
responding in worship.
Joshua Johnson (17:20):
I think that's good. I mean, you just talked
about one lens that we use toread the Bibles. Was, what does
it say about me? It's all aboutme, which it's not so. What are
some other lenses that maybetypical people in Western
Christianity start to use thatare maybe unhelpful, or we don't
even realize that we're usingthem, that maybe the Bible
(17:42):
wasn't written this way, and tothis type of people,
Unknown (17:45):
another really easy one is that we just read it,
expecting from the text what Wehow we view text today. So, you
know, we think of texts today.
Think of like Facebook posts orarticles online or newspaper
articles, or even like blogposts or comments or tweets like
think about all like how we viewliterature today and the ways
that we consume it. We have veryhigh standards for exactness and
(18:09):
numbers. We have very highstandards for frequency and for
how how you handle or quotesomebody. And scripture, you
know, is ancient, and there'sdifferent expectations which
reveal theological uses. And so,you know, skeptics of the Bible
will often talk aboutcontradictions in Scripture. You
know, why does First Chroniclessay that it was 38 meters and or
(18:31):
cubits. And, you know, Samuelsays it's 18 cubits, or whatever
it is, you know, like we have toremember that scriptures, what
Scriptures, purpose and use was,what was this genre for even
historical narratives thatunpack a historical account of a
battle or whatever had for theirmain purpose in the ancient
least, they were theological innature. They were a theological
(18:52):
history. This is the god ofthese people, and this is how he
conquers over the other gods.
And this is how that revealsabout our identity as a people,
not as individuals. And then, ofcourse, that impacts, you know,
a lot of it is written duringthe exile, right after the
exile. That impacts the way thatwe face the trials of exile. You
know, keeping in mind all thosethings and having those affect
(19:13):
our reading only takes our Biblestudy so much deeper. But when
we come into the text and we'rereading modern things like, oh,
this genealogy doesn't matter.
It's just like whatever itpoints to Christ and moving on,
we miss the theologicalrichness. When we go to the text
and we're like, hey, this wordseems really big, let me skim
over it, because it doesn'tmatter. That's because today, we
don't view words with as muchpower. We throw them around like
(19:33):
they're cheap, right? We, we, wedon't even value texts like they
did in the first century withPaul's letters, those were
expensive. Those were costly.
Those took a ton of time. Theyhad to be delivered by hand, by
foot, you know, copied by hand,like those letters. There's
nothing that Paul or any of theEpistles like, there's nothing
(19:54):
of substance there that's justthrown in. Everything was
costly, everything was thoughtout, everything was intentional.
And that affects how we read it.
We don't just cut out parts thatwe don't like. We don't just say
maybe it could be taken eitherway. It doesn't matter, you
know, like we wrestle with that,we read that we so anyway, I'm
kind of ranting at this point,but our modern views of text
really can sometimes stunt theways that we see richness in the
(20:16):
passages.
Joshua Johnson (20:20):
So besides, like looking at the text through a
modern lens of how we view texttoday, what are other things
that are like unhelpful like.
Who are the people that thatthis was written to compared to,
say, Western, modern peopletoday? What would we miss if
(20:40):
we're not reading it throughlike, maybe a collectivist lens,
and we're reading it through anindividualistic lens? Who are
the people that were receivingthese texts and it was written
to you, yeah,
Unknown (20:56):
oftentimes it is for God's people. Oftentimes. I
mean, I keep mentioning theexile for some reason in this
podcast, but there's, like, youknow, there's a lot of exilic
passages in the Bible, and let'sbe real, most Christians don't
even know what the exile is,right? Like, most Christians
were never even taught that, youknow? So we need to ask those
questions, and you can even doit with a simple Google search
and figure out, okay, when wasthis book written? Was it
(21:17):
written during the exile orafter the exile? That's the
difference between Kings andChronicles. They're the same
history just told before andafter the exile. This is why
we're going into exile, and thisis why we're coming out of
exile, and we should still befaithful to God. You know, that
impacts the way that you read,the different emphases that they
have, because one will kind ofoverlook David and Bathsheba sin
and then other, the other onewill kind of really highlight
it. This is why we're going intextile guys, you know. So who
(21:39):
is it written for? So when wekeep in mind the cultural
moment, like who wrote it towhom and why, as much as that
sounds like boring academicstruggles, it so enhances our
reading. Okay, easy one, Johnfour. John four. We all know
woman at the well, many of usare picturing the chosen scene
right now as we talk about it,right? Jesus meeting the
(22:00):
Samaritan woman. I think most ofus know that like Samaritans and
Jews, they didn't like eachother, especially Jews didn't
like the Samaritans. You know,they had very derogatory ways of
referring to them. They would goout of their way to not interact
with them. But many of us missthe fact that this is purposely,
I would argue, purposely. Rightafter Jesus meets with
Nicodemus, Nicodemus is a goodJew. Nicodemus gets the whole
(22:22):
John 316, presented to him, andhe doesn't respond in faith. He
walks away confused in the darkof night. But then Jesus must go
meet with a Samaritan woman, andwhere does he meet her? At
Jacob's well. You know, Abraham,Jacob Moses. They all met their
wives at Wells, but here, Jesusmust meet a woman, and he
presents her so much better thanjust another husband and a sixth
(22:43):
husband or whatever it is. No hepresents her the living water, a
life giving water that meets thethirst of her souls and friends.
You know, he was doingeverything a not good Jew would
do, like one talking to a dirtySamaritan. Two, a man at talking
to a woman at a well in themiddle of the day, so she's a
rejected woman, like, there'she's going to samarita like
talking to a Samaritan woman onpurpose, like there's so many
(23:03):
like, no, no's here. But that asthe original Jewish audience, we
should see that and go, Wait,wow. Jesus offers us so much
more. And we make thoseconnections to Jacob's, well, we
make those connections to Jesus,kind of expanding what we
thought was like our piousbetterness, that we're so much
(24:06):
better. We're Jews full blood,right? That kind of stuff makes
those passages not just anotherscene in a great TV show, but
something that's life changing.
Of Lord, I resonate with that Ihave sought all my life for
things that will not satisfy mysoul, Lord and you alone will do
that. And you call me out in themiddle of the day, in the middle
of my brokenness, and you offerme that living water, Lord, may
(24:26):
I respond in that same way. Socontext, cultural context, it
really doesn't take that muchwork. We just have to be invited
into it and trust that we can doit.
Joshua Johnson (24:37):
Do you remember a time in your life where you've
you read Scripture and certainpassage of scripture and you
were like, hey, this doesn'treally resonate, or I don't
really get what's going on. Andthen you actually went into some
of the context and what wasactually happening, and it
reframed everything for you,
Unknown (24:58):
absolutely Ruth in particular. You know, I'm a
woman, and Ruth is one of thosebooks. Congratulations. It's
wonderful. But, you know, we getour certain books. We get like,
Esther, we get Ruth, we getproverbs 31 we just kind of
like, do those over and over andover again, right? And, you
know, once you kind of do it,once you're like, I got it
mastered in my book, we talkedabout this. That's the
familiarity poison. You kind ofthink, like, I've done it. I did
(25:19):
the VBS week on it. I've taughtit to the youth group, like, I
know this passage of Scripture,I've kind of got it down. And
when I came back around to it,it was actually this last year
or two, you know, sitting thereat the beginning of the book of
Ruth, and you've got Abimelechleaving God's land, which is the
house of bread. Literally, heleaves a house of bread for
bread, he leaves for food thehouse of bread. There's irony
(25:43):
there. And this book that Ithought was all about Ruth just
being a good daughter in law, Ireally would have told you
that's like the main core heartof that book. This book doesn't
even start with Ruth. This bookstarts with an unfaithful man
leaving God's people and leavingGod's house for bread, this
irony of doubt, this irony ofhim not trusting God for His
provision. And then it stilldoesn't even start with Ruth. It
(26:06):
starts with Naomi. And Naomi isthe main character, and she's
the one doing all the moving andthe doing, and she's returning
back to God and to his peopleand going back home. And Ruth
comes along with her. But it,you know, it's. All about Naomi,
and I'm thinking in particularin chapter one, and she declares
that she is empty. And over andover again, this word is
repeated throughout the book.
Shub of returning, going back.
(26:26):
And she goes back right beforeharvest and harvest bread to the
house of bread. And Ruth keepscoming back at the end of each
chapter with more and more breadin her arms, returning back
Shub, going back to God, goingback to his people, placing her
faith in God. And that when weget to the end of the book, once
(26:47):
again, you get anothergenealogy, but this time it's a
genealogy of life, of birth, andit points to Christ. And Naomi
is no longer empty and bitter,but now she's holding a grandson
the lineage of Christ, who, thenlater in John six, stands up and
says, I am the bread of life.
You see, it just takes ourunderstanding of a biblical
passage so much deeper when werid ourselves of that. You know,
(27:09):
it strokes our ego to be likeI'm so familiar with Ruth. I
know Ruth. You know, I did VBS.
I taught that to the youthgroup. You know, when we look at
it with new, fresh eyes, we seeJesus. We see so much more. We
see all these literary elements,this, this thematic play on
bread, and how God trulysatisfies our thirstings and and
to go to him alone and place ourfaith in Him alone. And then
(27:31):
when Jesus stands up and saysand declares that he is the
bread of life, I think any gooda Jew would have made that
connection, would know what'sgoing on here. And we too ought
to, we too ought to and live offof that, you know, I don't want
to, there to be ever a day thatI eat bread, and I don't think
about how Jesus truly satisfiesthe hunger of my soul, you know.
So yes, and the same thing couldbe said for Jonah. The same
(27:53):
thing could be said for so manyof those kind of classic
passages. We say we know, but wemiss a lot of depth.
Joshua Johnson (27:58):
And that, I think, begs the question for us
that when we read the Bible,sometimes we don't realize what
we're reading. And I think genreis important in the midst of
reading the Bible. So take methrough some of like the genres
that are happening in the Biblethat can we don't know how to
(28:19):
read each one of them. So whatare the genres of the Bible?
Unknown (28:23):
Yeah, in my book, we work through some of the most
popular ones. I'm going to be sofor real, though, guys, our
first go to when in Christiancircles, when we talk about the
genres of the Bible is to groupthem. Okay, so this book is
historical narrative, this bookis poetry. This book is that.
And the more you study it, themore you see that those lines
are blurred. It's you'll be in ahistorical narrative book, and
you're like reading a history.
And then all of a sudden, Mosesbreaks out in song, and it's a
(28:45):
rich, poetic song with lots ofbeautiful theology, but it ought
not be read the same way, right?
It's not treated the same waythrough the rest of Scripture.
And so genre isn't easy, cut anddry lines, but through my book,
we work through some of the mostpopular ones, like Wisdom
literature. We look at poetry,we look at historical
narratives, we look at theepistles, we look at the
(29:05):
Gospels. Those are such like, Ithink a lot of us are like,
Okay, I know how to read agospel. I know how to read a
history. Like, those are prettystraightforward, but if we don't
actually slow down and evaluatehow we make assumptions about
those texts, we won't realizehow much we kind of misread them
or assume we know stuff whenlike, for example, the Gospels,
most of us assume that they'retrying to convince us to
(29:27):
believe, but the gospels werewritten to pre existing
believers to encourage them intheir faith, and they were all
written to kind of differentaudiences, like Matthew's
writing to specifically a Jewishaudience, Mark's Writing to
those who are being persecutedand suffering. And so his
picture of Jesus is a little bitmore suffering and loner, um,
you know, like they all havetheir different angles or
different specialties, and thatactually takes our understanding
(29:48):
of the text so much deeper. Weget to see their themes. We get
to see their emphases. That'swhy Matthew starts off with the
genealogy, because he's writingto Jews. And he's like, I really
want you to see that Jesus isthe Promised Messiah. Like this
is coming from the bloodline,like you bloodline. Like that is
so incredibly rich. So when westudy these genres, what we see
is they're not actually kind ofhow we think of them in our
modern day genres. And so theway that I outline it in my book
(30:11):
is it's not just a historytextbook, it's not just the
song, it's not just a movie,it's not just a poem, it's not
just a clue book. They're somuch more than what we expect of
them. They're so much deeper andso much more life changing. And
so though it might seem a littlebit negative to have every
single chapter, you know, notjust a history book, not just a
rule book, not just a letter, Ido that on purpose to show us
that there's so much more inthem than maybe what we expect
(30:33):
originally.
Joshua Johnson (30:33):
So as we're looking at the different genres,
knowing, hey, there's even in ahistorical narrative, we're
going to run up against poetry,we're going to run up against
some, some other things. Andthen we could figure out, okay,
this is what they're trying tosay. This is what, how it
reveals God to us. How then dowe as just, not just leave it at
(30:55):
a place of like, Hey, we'rereading the Bible, we understand
it, but how do we then start toapply it to our lives
faithfully, and not justunderstand the Bible, but
actually live what it's tryingto say without it being like,
Miss applied.
Unknown (31:14):
Yeah, this is one of the top questions I get from
people. We're so ready forapplication, and that is a good,
godly desire for it to affectour lives, absolutely. But I
would argue in this in the mostgentle way. I don't want to make
anyone mad listening in, but ifwe are struggling to apply it to
our lives, that's because we'restruggling to truly understand
it. Because any kind of biblicalpassage in context, it does
(31:37):
absolutely change our lives andconvict us if we're properly
understanding it. So if you'resomebody reading the Bible and
you're like, I just want to knowwhat college I check out. I just
want to know go back to whatdoes it actually say, right?
Because I know how frustratingit is, but we're so quick to
jump to application that shouldbe a natural thing. Let me just
give you a general rule ofthumb. Application is always
worship. So if your applicationisn't leading you to some kind
(31:59):
of living out, living out, aworshipful response to Jesus, as
he is here in Matthew seven, orwhatever, or worshipful response
to this is how we worship inresponse to God's, you know,
redemption or whatever. If it'snot leading to you to some kind
of worshipful living, you'reprobably missing what's going on
here, because, again, it's thestory of God redeeming his
people for His glory. So everysingle passage, every single
(32:21):
chapter, every single verse, insome way, calls us to heart of
worship, to living off of that.
And of course, that transformsthe way that you view your
college decisions, your marriagedecisions, your house blindness,
and all of those things, butit's with God at the center. So
if you're struggling withapplication, really, what you're
probably struggling with isunderstanding. And you get to
you are invited on this journeyof digging a little bit deeper.
(32:42):
And it sounds like work, itsounds boring, it sounds like
it's this academic thing, andwe're putting these burdens on
you. But really what it is is solife giving. It's actually not
that hard, and it actually makesScripture come alive. And I
think the reason why, I mean,obviously my book is titled
number one Bible study.
Obviously, Scripture is notboring, but we kind of secretly
(33:03):
believe it's boring because wedon't understand it. And the
moment we start understanding itis when it comes alive to us,
and it changes our life, and weenjoy and we grow, get on fire
for the word. So we first haveto start with how. How are we
misunderstanding it? How can weunderstand it, and then
scripture just becomes so muchmore interesting and life
giving.
Joshua Johnson (33:23):
So when you're saying that all of our
application leads us intoworship and worshipful living,
does that mean that we just sitaround and sing worship songs
and don't do anything in ourlife? What does worshipful
living look like for people?
Unknown (33:37):
Yeah, I think so often we think of, yeah, a very narrow
sense of worship. But I believewe can worship by faithfully
doing the dishes. I believe wecan worship by discipling our
kids, by speaking truth againstlies and culture. I believe we
can worship through, you know,filming a podcast or drinking
water to take care of ourbodies, like all of our life
(33:58):
ought to be worship in everywhether you're driving right now
or cooking right now, whatever,like all of our life ought to be
worship and informed by the Godof Scripture, who has redeemed
us. So no even micro thing, noteven going to the restroom,
should not be defined absolutelytransformed by the fact that I
am a redeemed child of GodAlmighty, who not only created
(34:20):
the world but gave me a hope ofheaven, who not only created the
scenarios where I have mytroubles, where I have my
doubts, where I have mymountains to climb, and all
those things, but he is the Godwho has redeemed me and promised
(35:32):
me this redemption, and who hascalled me and loves me and has
sought me that changes the wayWe do all things because we are
then on purpose. We are called.
We have clarity of who we areand whose we are, but you don't
really know who you are and whatdecisions you should make off of
those things, if you don't knowwhose you are and more about the
God you belong to, that doestransform all of our living but
I think we get so so caught upin the specifics that we miss
(35:56):
the big picture that does changethe specifics.
Joshua Johnson (36:01):
Couple days ago, we were reading acts 237, to 47
which the early church is whatthe early church is doing. And
like one of the things thatreally stood out to me was that
in verse 43 they said a deepsense of awe came over them, and
the apostles perform manymiraculous times and wonders.
(36:22):
And I think a lot of times whenI think of Bible study, I don't
think of awe, and I don't thinkof wonder. I think of like, Hey,
I'm looking at some some text,how, when we are maybe familiar
with the Bible, or maybe, likewe've gone through this, it's
just a text, how do we recoversome of this awe and this wonder
(36:45):
that even the early church wasexperiencing?
Unknown (36:50):
Yeah, oh, I love that passage. Okay, so I love that
you went there first of all,because absolutely so good. So,
okay, discovering the awe reallycomes again back to do we
understand what's happeninghere, and if it sounds dry, if
it sounds boring, if we're nothaving that worshipful wow
moment with Scripture, we haveto ask ourselves, what are we
(37:11):
missing? Because Scripture tellsus it is alive and active.
Scripture tells it that'sHebrews four second Timothy
tells us it is profitable for.
Teaching, rebuking, correctingall things for training in
righteousness. It is scriptureis something that is constantly
working on us, even when wedon't feel it. And so if we are
going to allow ourselves to comenumb to it, let our eyes glaze
over, treat it like it's notabsolutely life changing, we are
(37:33):
forgetting what it is. We areforgetting how powerful and what
a gift it is. And so I think weregain that all in that heart of
worship, when we remindourselves that it is truth
itself. You know, every singlemorning, and I mean, I create
content around this, I'm like,go read your Bibles. Guys, like,
that's who I am online, right?
(37:53):
And yet, every single morning,the enemy hits me with those
lies. If you have somethingbetter to do. You could be doing
this. You could be doing that.
You probably ought to. Oh, whatabout that email? Oh, what about
that laundry in the dryer, etc,right? Like every single morning
and every single morning, mysolution to those lies that
sound really, really convincingis, but I believe this alone is
truth. Yes, the laundry willeventually get folded, but this
(38:15):
is truth, and this affects theway that I fold the laundry. You
know, this affects every part ofmy life, and I am living not
worshipful. I'm living notinformed by truth itself when
I'm gonna live unto myself andwhat I think I need to get done
on my to do list today. So wejust have to remind ourselves
what it is and what Scripturesays about itself can be really
convicting.
Joshua Johnson (38:35):
I think in our spiritual life, we always hit
some sort of a wall in ourspiritual life. We hit a wall
with reading the Bible. We hit awall with like seeing God around
us, like we don't feel hispresence anymore, like we're
like we're it feels empty, butthere is actually depth in there
that we don't actually see whenwe hit the wall, that there's
(38:57):
some beautiful thing to get usthrough it. So in those times,
and I think there's a lot ofpeople, I think this is why, to
be honest, this is why peoplecall it a midlife crisis.
Because I think there is acrisis in midlife where there's
a spiritual crisis, where whatserved us in the past is not
serving us in the future, andthere's a big wrestling with
(39:17):
moving into something new. Andso I think when we're reading
scripture, I want to know like,how do we let things fall away
that served us in the past, andsee scripture then with fresh
eyes and new eyes, to know thatthere may be something new that
God wants to do with us, becausescripture is alive and active
(39:40):
that will serve us into thefuture. I see a lot of people,
if they if they stay in theiryouthful zeal, like what brought
them to Christ in the firstplace, they are like, Man, this
isn't serving they're notgrowing in maturity and moving
forward. How do we shift? How dowe move in those life
(40:02):
transitions, into new things? InScripture, you know, there's
Unknown (40:06):
this word that I've been thinking about all week.
It's a Hebrew word. It's used inNehemiah two, when Nehemiah is
inspecting the wall. It's theHebrew word for inspecting. But
what's really interesting aboutit, I'm going to botch this with
sabar. It's he's inspecting withhope expectant trust. He's
reevaluating the wall in thescope of I'm called to rebuild
(40:26):
this and we see it used a coupleother times. I think it's like
total of nine times in the OldTestament. But every single time
it's, it's a inspection withhope and trust. So I think we
need to revisit passages ofScripture, or revisit God and
His Word with this expectanthope and trust that this really
will change my life, if I justtrust God to meet me here, and
(40:47):
if I just trust God truly doescare, that God truly does meet
me here in His Word, while theenemy does lie, and it's so
heavy and it's so convictingthat it's like we could do
better things. We could justtrust somebody else to execute
it for us. We could just trustsomebody else and what they say
about God and what they sayabout the word it is an
invitation that God hasintimately called us on, each
(41:08):
individually, and is calling youon if you're listening to this,
because he wants you, not yourunderstanding through somebody
else, through your pastor,through a book or a devotional.
He wants your heart, yourpassions, and he is ready and
waiting and would love to pourinto you this fire and passion
for the Word of God, if you'lljust trust Him to do that, and
(41:30):
if you'll just trust his word tobe sufficient, right? I think so
often we fall for the lies oflike, well, I don't know, does
it? Is it really going to helpanything? Is it really gonna
change anything? It's like,well, what else are you gonna
do? Turn to alcohol. You gonnaturn to the world. You're gonna
turn to the news. Really gonnaturn to fellow broken sinners.
Are you gonna rest your faith inJesus Christ, which is the whole
point of salvation anyway,right? Do we truly believe this
(41:53):
is true? Do we truly believethat God is our only hope in
life and death? Do we trulybelieve he is the more than just
our lifeline. He is oureverything. I think of the Shema
in Deuteronomy, six to love, theword our God, with all our
heart, with all our soul, withall our everything. Do we truly
choose that over even ourdoubts, our depression, our
(42:14):
loss, our feeling like a boattossed in the wind and the sea?
He's Do we truly believe that hewill readily stand up and calm
that storm, because he is reallythe one that brings peace, that
was the first word of Jesus'mouth, resurrected Savior, when
he appears before the disciples,He declares, I reign a peace. Do
we truly believe that he isready, waiting, willing, at any
(42:34):
given moment to declare peace ofour lives and to fill us up with
that life giving water. I lovethe richness of Scripture and
how it speaks through time andspace of no matter what age, no
matter what generation, nomatter what season of life, we
were all seeking for exactlythat, and that can only be found
in Christ.
Joshua Johnson (42:51):
You went into like, are we loving God with all
your heart, soul, mind andstrength at the Shema, right?
And then you said, Okay, he'sgoing to then fill us with
living water, he's going to fillus with peace. I find it when
we're getting to this place ofBible study, or we're trying to
love God with all of ourstrength, if we don't receive
(43:12):
the love of God for us, it'shard for me to give all of that
love back to God because Ihaven't received it. So usually,
when I I'm trying to love Godwithout my strength, if I'm
doing it out of my own it's notall of me. It's not enough. It's
there because I haven't posturedmyself to receive the love of
(43:33):
God. And if I'm reading theBible as it revealing God to me,
one of the things that he wantsto do is he wants to say, You're
my beloved child, and I want tofill you with my love I have. I
mean, I've just, in my life,gone through, you know, I've
been a missionary overseas inthe Middle East. I've led a
(43:56):
missions organization. We liketo love the world. We like to
love God. And I see so manymissionaries and so many people
try to love out of their ownstrength, and they forget to
receive the love of God. So inour Bible, how do we not make it
just a striving to please God,but actually then start to
receive what God has for us init. How do we move from from
(44:21):
striving to surrender? I mean,you
Unknown (44:23):
just, I think Scripture at no point says, Yep, and this
is where you measure up, andthis is where you do more and
you be more, and that's when youearn your salvation, and that's
when God finally chooses to loveyou. I think from the very
beginning, God's love is ondisplay again, the story of God
redeeming his people for Hisglory. He has been redeeming you
day one, right? Like he hisheart is for your redemption his
(44:47):
whole incarnation. You know, aswe're filming, we're warming up
towards Christmas, and that's soexciting to study God's love
that literally sent him tohumble himself to the form of a
baby born in a barn surroundedby poop and animals and smells
and all those things, like Godis Love is one that has already
been declared. Do we believe it?
Do we trust it? Do we rest init? Are we still stupidly
(45:09):
striving? Are we still stupidlyrelying on ourselves? Because
what that is that's striving,that like relying on ourselves
to muster up and be more and domore, is essentially self
worship. That's us on thethrone. That's, that's, uh, you
know, offering sacrifices toourselves, right? And do we
truly like, have we come to theends of ourself enough to be
like, Lord, I desperately needyou, and I bring nothing,
(45:30):
absolutely nothing, to thetable. But I believe, as
scripture has declared aboutyou, that you are more than
enough for me and my needs andmy emptiness, my nothingness, I
say all the time. I probably sayit too many times, but God is
big enough, is enough to workin, through and despite us. And
I think we focus a lot on Godworking in us. I think we focus
a lot on like, God's gonna workthrough me, especially if you're
(45:52):
in ministry. My husband's apastor. You know, it's so easy
to get burned out. And even justministry here in the States. We
haven't done full time ministrywork, but man, I can imagine
overseas as well. So in throughbut we forget that God is
constantly working despite us aswell. I think of David. I think
of even like pagan like KingCyrus. I think of Pharaoh, like
God can work despite us. So howmuch more when we are willingly
(46:16):
on our knees saying, Lord, useme. Fill me up, send me out. I'm
fully dependent on you, but welove to put ourselves on those
thrones that we know better,that we know more, that we can
do enough be more measureenough.
Joshua Johnson (46:32):
I want to know what discernment starts to look
like. I've seen so many peopleuse scripture either out of
context or something, and thefruit isn't really there in
their lives. How do we know whatis true? We believe that the
Bible is true. How doesdiscernment start to work when
we're reading the Bible andstudying the Bible?
Unknown (46:53):
I'm assuming you're kind of leaning towards the gray
areas, the things that aredebated in church circles. Yeah,
like, you know, it does comedown to hermeneutics, the
different stances on baptism,the mode of baptism, women and
their roles in the home and thechurch, you know, all those big
debates, sacraments, all thethings come down to
hermeneutics, how we're handlingthose passage of scripture. And
I think so often we're in theseculture wars of debating, but we
(47:16):
haven't truly studied the. Howthe Other Side got to their
conclusion, we haven't botheredto try and understand their
hermeneutic and because of that,we're just speaking past each
other. A lot of times it comesdown to semantics. A lot of
times it comes tomisunderstandings or broad over
generalizations. And I thinkthat's really my passion, of why
I care so much about educatingand hermeneutics, because we
(47:37):
can't ever get to the part ofdebates if we haven't first
studied, and we need to debateless and study more. And so I
think when if you're wrestlingwith discernment on those
topics, you first have to startwith prayer. You first have to
evaluate your hermetic. You haveto evaluate their hermetic and
what might be wrong about it.
But ultimately, we have tounderstand the core doctrines of
the faith, like lowercase oorthodoxy versus these tertiary
or secondary things and whythere can be room for grace, but
(48:01):
also where the line is drawn.
Discernment doesn't beginwithout first wrestling and
asking those hard questions. Andso many of us want to get into
comment wars and put our ring inthe fight on, you know, that
random post on social media orwell, so and so says this about
that passes. So and So saysthat. And none of us are
actually going back to Scriptureand just sitting in Scripture
(48:23):
and God's truth, and it's so notworshipful, and it's so not
really pursuing truth. It'spursuing party lines. And I
think, like you alluded toMatthew seven with the fruit,
Jesus tells us, like, that'swhen you know it's like false
teachers is when they don't havefruit that matches, right? Like
we have to look at the fruit ofwhat is being spoken with, of
what is being taught, and alsobe ready and willing to extend
(48:45):
grace in the debates, because weunderstand why they're debated.
But then, of course, on theother side of that is use
discernment on where that oh,this is where the line is drawn.
So lot going on there, this verynuanced thing, but hopefully I
did sufficient answer there.
Joshua Johnson (49:01):
That's good.
What do you think faith is yourhope for your readers to pick up
your book, no more pouring Biblestudy?
Unknown (49:08):
Yeah, I would feel like I failed if someone read my book
and didn't walk away with agreater love and fire and
passion for the Word of God. Imean, I know this sounds so like
patting my back, but when I knowI technically wrote it, I did
write it. I did. It's nottechnical. I did, but it's so
many different versions of me.
You know, I wrote it over like,three years and through many
(49:29):
different seasons of my life, ofgrowth and things like that. So
when I read it, it doesn't feellike it's from me. And so it has
made me love scripture more andview scripture with higher
regard and excitement and fueledmy fire for the word. And so
that's my prayer for readers. Ithink you can read a million
books in your life, but if theydon't make you love and seek the
Lord more than like kind of lowkey, what's the point? Right? So
(49:52):
my heart is for exactly that,that it won't just end with my
book, but readers will feelinvited on this lifelong
adventure of studenthood. Of ofyou know, we don't master God's
word, but rather, we're invitedon this lifelong journey of
feasting on God's word, andthat's actually really life
giving and exciting
Joshua Johnson (50:11):
and faith. I have a couple quick questions
here at the end. I like to askone, if you go back to your 21
year old self, what advice wouldyou
Unknown (50:18):
give your identity is not tied up in what you do. It's
great advice. Only I believe it.
Joshua Johnson (50:28):
It takes a lifetime to work that out, but
it is true. It's very truethat's not your your identity,
it's not tied up in what you do.
You're a lot more than that.
Yeah, anything you've beenreading or watching lately, you
recommend.
Unknown (50:41):
Ooh, I have been, I've been enjoying it's a little bit
heavy. It's a little bit meaty,but the incarnate Christ and His
critics by komakowski andBowman, and it's been really,
really good and rich. It'sthick, but like, if you want to
wrestle with the deity andhumanity of Christ, and yeah,
again, his critics highlyrecommend,
Joshua Johnson (51:03):
well, no more boring Bible study is going to
be available anywhere books aresold, so go and get that fall in
love with the Bible study inScripture so that you know that
the Bible is alive. It couldcome and it could actually serve
you well, that it could pointyou back to how it reveals God
is there anywhere you'd like topoint people to? How could they
(51:24):
connect with you and what you'redoing?
Unknown (51:27):
Yeah, across all social medias, I'm Bible nerd
ministries. You could also justtype in Bible nerd, and I'll
come up my little tackyhighlights and big smile, but
I'd love to hear that you guyscame from here and, you know,
shifting culture podcast, andlet me know that way we can
touch base and can give you alla shout out, but I would love to
(51:47):
see y'all on YouTube, Instagram,tick tock all the things
perfect.
Joshua Johnson (51:50):
Well, faith.
Thank you for this conversation.
Thanks for leading through theBible and the Bible so that we
could actually not have any moreboring Bible studies, but we
could actually see the Bible asalive and active in our lives.
It's a beautiful, beautifulthing. So thank you, faith. It
was fantastic. Thanks for havingme. You. You.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Betrayal: Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a brand new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack. And make sure to check out Seasons 1-4 of Betrayal, along with Betrayal Weekly Season 1.