transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:02] This episode of Knowing Faith is brought to you by Crossway, publisher of the Conversational Commentary Series. With warmth and clarity, these commentaries make in-depth Bible study accessible without diminishing the richness of God's word. Verse by verse, this series by Lydia Brown that guides readers through books of the ESV Bible to aid in personal study, group discussion, teaching and outreach. Pick up a copy of the Conversational Commentary Series wherever books are sold, or visit crossway.org/conversationalcommentary to learn how to get 30% off a free Crossway Plus account. Trauma can shake our faith to its core, leaving us feeling distant from God or even unsure if he's there at all. In Making Friends with Darkness, chaplain and educator, Nick Hamilton, enters the conversation on trauma recovery with a compassionate, scripture-centered approach. Drawing deeply from the Psalms, he offers an honest companion for those walking through loss, moral injury, or PTSD, not with formulas or quick fixes, but with space to wrestle with your questions and with God himself. This book is an invitation to healing and hope, helping bind up the brokenhearted and reminding us that God has not left us alone in the dark. Visit makingfriendswithdarkness.com to learn more. This is Kyle Worley, and I'm joining with my co-hosts, Jen Wilkin and JT English. And today, we are also joined by our friend, Mary Wiley. Mary is associate publisher at B&H, a Bible teacher and the author of a number of books, including Discovering the Bible, The Kids Guide to Reading and Understanding God's Word, and Everyday in the Bible, which is available for pre-order right now. It's a 52-week study through the whole of scripture that makes Old Testament and New Testament connections, and really just tying it all together theologically. Jerry, we're so glad to have you on the show. Welcome.

Speaker 2:
[02:01] Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1:
[02:02] You know, it's a little intimidating to have an editor on the show with us. You know? For real. Right, like, because there's a whole... Our audience, our community is really divided among two groups of people. One group of people thinks we definitely need the services of an editor in the first five to seven minutes, because it's a lot of banter, it's what we're doing right now. We're not talking about what we're actually talking about. We just kind of, you know, just muck it up a little bit, and they think an editor would serve us well. Then there's another audience that really loves that chit chat at the beginning. So Mary, as an editor, do you have any feedback for the Knowing Faith podcast? Anything you think we should be cutting more regularly?

Speaker 2:
[02:45] No red pen for me today. No notes. I'm the one that's honored to just be with you guys today.

Speaker 1:
[02:51] Well, listen, if anything changes, particularly if JT says anything that you think could be said better...

Speaker 3:
[02:56] Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

Speaker 1:
[02:58] Yeah, if JT says anything that you think could be improved on, refined, clarified, he definitely falls more into that category. Jen and I are usually first draft, write draft situation for Jen and I.

Speaker 3:
[03:11] I love a good editor. I know you guys don't think you need it. You do. I love it. I know that I need it. And I'm like, Mary, help me out. And she always does.

Speaker 1:
[03:19] Well, there you go. Well, maybe she'll help us this episode. As part of this episode, we are giving away five copies of the brand new CSB Women's Study Bible. To enter that giveaway, check the information, the show notes for this episode or go online, Knowing Faith social media or Twitter and enter that giveaway. That was really kind of CSB and B&H to make that happen. And it just felt appropriate because the episode that we have today is, is the Bible for everyone? Like really? Is the Bible really for everyone? And this is a part of a longer thing that we've been doing covering trippy, tricky, trippy, sometimes trippy topics.

Speaker 3:
[03:56] Speaking of editing.

Speaker 1:
[03:58] Yeah. Tricky topics and thorny questions. And we just wanted to pan out today. We've often said we believe the Bible is for everyone. Theology is for everyone. But like really, like do we really believe the Bible is for everyone? And it felt fitting to talk about this with Mary because Mary has been teaching the Bible. Mary has a book called Discovering the Bible, which is a kid's guide to reading and understanding God's words. And Mary is coming out with another book Every Day in the Bible. Mary, I'm believing that you think everybody should be in the Bible and that the Bible is for everyone, yes?

Speaker 2:
[04:31] Yes, the Bible is for everyone. Totally agree.

Speaker 1:
[04:34] Okay. But for real though, does it really feel like it's for everyone? Does it really feel like it's for kids and for women and for everybody? Or is it just kind of like you really need to have a seminary degree? Or you really need to be a Bible teacher? Or really need to have done X or Y or Z? Like what makes you feel confident saying the Bible is for everyone?

Speaker 2:
[04:55] Yeah, the Bible has always been for everyone. Long before there were classrooms in academia. Long before there were written spined Bibles that we have. Long before we were a literate society, the Bible was still for everyone. God was still meeting with Moses at Mount Sinai. God had things to say to his people and he has things to say to us today through his word.

Speaker 1:
[05:18] Yeah, but doesn't it feel like sometimes like there's a little bit of a entry ticket required? Like if you want to be serious about the Bible, doesn't it kind of feel like, uh, like what about folks who can't, like just make it super basic. What about folks who can't read?

Speaker 2:
[05:32] Yeah, you got a history of oral tradition, right? Of it being passed down far longer than the history of literacy. So literacy really took off in the 1450s with the Gutenberg Press. And until then, it was the stories that are passed down during bedtime, around a fire at night, during the coming and goings of their day. And there's a lot of strength in that. I wish we would, we would really recover a lot of that everyday-ness of telling the story of scripture to one another. I need the gospel preached to me all the time, because as much as I love to read God's words, sometimes I forget it. Just like Moses told his people in the wilderness, because we're forgetful, stiff-necked people, and we need that repetition. And so, yes, if you can't read, it is still for you. If you speak a language that the Bible hasn't been translated in, it is still for you. But God uses his people as mouthpieces at that point, and we need to be ready to be that.

Speaker 4:
[06:33] I think that oral tradition is an interesting piece of this, because, first of all, we do have short memories, I love that you started with a look back to help sort of root us in the answer to the question. But we talk all the time about how you can tell that you know something when you can tell it to someone else. And so part of what that oral tradition was doing is reinforcing the stories in the mind, not just of the listeners, but of the speakers themselves. And I wonder today, in a society that's literate, how much we have just sort of thrown over the idea of actually being able to sit down and tell the story to someone else without the aid of the copy of the text there.

Speaker 1:
[07:18] Well, I think part of the struggle, even, you know, as I hear you talk about a society that's literate, is it seems like, and I know this is just true of the word, but like we often use literacy in at least two different ways. One, the ability to read generally, like the ability to pick up a book and read words on pages and know the alphabet and be able to string words and make, it comprehends sentences. And then there's like a whole other side of literacy, which is the ability to understand or to read effectively, to engage with the text effectively. And, you know, I think that just about every study is telling us that even if our literacy, in terms of just like the ability to read, is, you know, commensurate with what it should be, the ability to read effectively seems to be diminishing, you know, and it seems like that's a challenge for people who want to get folks in any book, but specifically books where the imaginative gap can feel more significant, like books like the Bible, where it's like, gosh, it feels like there's a lot of distance between my world and the world of the Bible, though that's often more extreme than we, more extreme in imagination than it is in reality. But it is really difficult, I feel like, to help people think about bridging that gap in an effective way, right? I mean, like, that is, is that, do you feel that to be a challenge? Mary and Jen, you guys are doing a ton of Bible teaching. JT, you and I are both preaching regularly. Does it feel like that gap is wider than it was or about the same as it's always been?

Speaker 2:
[08:50] I heard recently that it's not just Bible literacy that's really struggling, it is literacy in general. People are struggling to comprehend longer texts, they're becoming a really fast reading society. When I say fast, I don't mean we can read a lot of words per minute, but that we're reading really small pieces of content. That's really the extent. I, of course, work in book publishing. It makes me so sad to hear that most Americans don't read a single book during the year. The next step beyond that is a grand percentage only reads one. So we're just not readers. It's not just you have to explain the biblical concepts. You got to take them back to the ancient Near East, which just like you said, Kyle, is so different from our Western context. But you also have to define words you don't expect to have to define to in many ways level the playing field. We all can understand God's words. We all can comprehend exactly what's happening throughout the highs and lows of that story.

Speaker 4:
[09:56] You know, this is actually another hot topic we could discuss. But I wonder if, I mean, not here, but I'm saying we can do a whole episode on it. I wonder if that doesn't account for the popularity of the chosen. Like as we move toward being less literate, the chosen sort of steps into the gap of the storyteller from when the oral tradition used to uphold the words of scripture. But think of the power that we give to that one storyteller who is saying, this is what the New Testament account says. So that's interesting to me. And then I think another thing that we've seen layered on top of the illiteracy issue and the shortened attention spans is what I call quiet time culture, which couldn't have existed before we all had a written copy of the Bible, but we have sort of canonized it. And so again, not saying don't have a quiet time, but what we find so often or I find so often, especially in women's spaces, is the belief that the time that I spend interacting with the Bible alone is the most significant interaction I have with scripture. And that's an idea that would have been just utterly foreign to anyone living before a printed copy of the text, which is most people. And so I think it's a gift that we have printed copies of the text, I think, given much required. But I also think that that historical look over your shoulder moment helps to right size the significance of the personal time in scripture.

Speaker 1:
[11:33] Yeah, I actually want to stay on this for a moment because I want to say some things about the value of storytelling artifacts or devices that are the biblical text. But to do that, I think we need a bigger frame here at JT. Could you just share with our audience a little bit about the distinction between magisterial and ministerial authority when it comes to kind of the reform theological considerations on how God's word related to other forms of communication or testimony or witness bearing or instruction? Could you just give that distinction for folks and help them lay that context for us? Because I want to make some comments, and I think that frame would be helpful.

Speaker 3:
[12:11] Yeah, I hope this is what you're wanting me to say. But God's word and God's people have always had, at least Protestants believe, the relationship of God's word comes first and it creates God's people. Meaning that God's word has a magisterial authority. It is the authority. Haco Obermann talks about different kinds of ways tradition has worked and different kinds of authority have worked. And for God's people, the Bible is the sole authority. Now, there's a ministerial authority that is the Church, but the Church doesn't create God's word. The Church is created by God's word. And so we sit underneath it. We sit as people who receive God's word, who hear God's word, who obey God's word, who want to read and enjoy God's word. And so whether we're using kind of Haco Obermann's different uses of tradition one or tradition zero or tradition two or a magisterial or ministerial authority, what we're saying is that the Bible is the sole authority for the Christian life. It alone is what is sufficient, authoritative. And it's because it's a fundamentally different text than any other text. Paul tells Timothy that it is inspired. He uses two Greek words there, theos and the word for spirit, numa, to say that this is actually the very voice, the breath, the speaking words of God. So I loved what Mary was saying a moment ago is this isn't just God's speech in the past. It's where God continually meets and speaks to his people. In other words, it's not just an artifact or a relic of revelation to God's people centuries ago. It's where God's people continually go. And that's Kyle, maybe what you're getting at. That's what gives it its magisterial authority is it's not God spoke in times past, though he did. It's that God is speaking. I love the way Boving puts it. He talks about the Bible as God's ongoing rapport between heaven and earth. It's where, or as Calvin would say, it's how God lists or kind of has talk with his people. So it's authority. That isn't to say that there isn't other ministerial authorities in our life, like pastors or other church forms of authority, but we are all underneath the authority of God's word. Is that what you're going for, Kyle?

Speaker 1:
[14:26] That's exactly right. And the reason I wanted that's such a helpful frame. It's a good reminder. I know for some of our audience that will be new. For others, that'll be a refresher. But that distinction is really helpful because there are other things in the Christian life that can be significant. Like JT, Jen, and I, and Mary have all written books. And we want those books to be helpful. And those books talk about truths of God. They talk about God's word. Those books either deal with application of or interpretation of God's word. But they do not possess the authority of God's word. They're hopefully helpful tools. And there's a whole kind of constellation. There's a whole bucket of helpful tools that are maybe to greater or lesser degrees more or less helpful. I was in the National Cathedral a couple of weeks ago in DC with my daughter. And if you've never been to the National Cathedral and you ever have a chance to go, it's gorgeous. It's beautiful. It's stunning. And the stained glass there is just out of this world. It's really, really a lovely, lovely place. And as we were walking around, they're all throughout the National Cathedral are these beautiful stained glass settings. Some of them are scriptural stories that have been set to stained glass. Some of them are stories from kind of or presentations of nature or the created order. Some of them are scenes from church history. And the National Cathedral is full of all of this kind of iconography. Some of it's more helpful, some of it's less helpful. But the reason I bring that up is that as I was talking with my daughter about stained glass, one of the things that I was talking with her about is that, hey, why do you think they've taken the time or that cathedrals and churches took the time to make these beautiful presentations? And she was like, well, to honor the Lord. I was like, yeah, absolutely, you know, beauty can honor the Lord when it's rightly rendered and offered with excellency and worship as its goal. But one of the reasons that maybe a lot of people don't know about stained glass is that it was initially there in part to be an instructive tool, like a teaching tool for illiterate communities where you could point at it and you could tell the story. Look, hey, that's Jesus feeding the 5,000 right there, right? There he is. He's feeding them. This is Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount. He's teaching them and you could point to those who could not read the text and you could tell the story. It was a visual illustration. And I think about Jen, you brought up the chosen. And I've been thinking about how maybe when we think about these kinds of visual tools, it's a it's an over exaltation of them for them to be controlling narrative imaginatively. I think that's them out kicking their coverage or out maybe over functioning beyond what's what's good and proper. Like if somebody told me, yeah, I don't just, you know, I'm not interested in reading the Bible, even though I have it in my language and I have a Bible at home. I really just like watching the chosen. I'd say, I got to tell you, I think that's concerning to me on a number of fronts. Namely, God's word is qualitatively and categorically different than the show.

Speaker 4:
[17:27] So no stained glass either?

Speaker 1:
[17:29] No, I'm not saying that the stained glass could...

Speaker 4:
[17:31] You hate stained glass. That's what I heard.

Speaker 1:
[17:32] I love stained glass. I love stained glass. And the jury is kind of out for me on the chosen. But I will say, I think those tools can be more or less helpful. But the question is, do we have the right standard by which to assess their fidelity? And if that's not in place, their helpfulness, I think, diminishes in a disproportionate way. What do you make of this?

Speaker 4:
[17:55] I want to hear what Mary has to say, for sure. I think about, so I've done a lot of thinking about cathedrals. And there, there, and I, because I grew up in a church that was a modern inter, it was not a modern interpretation, it was a modern representation of a European cathedral. And so even things like the architecture, you know, the shape of the windows are praying hands, their pomegranates worked in the architecture. The ceiling had a, had a little finial that came down that was supposed to represent a mustard seed. And there was a book in the back of the pew that was called the eye gate. And you could pick it up and the eye gate told you this, what all of the symbolism was meant to point to with the scriptures. But I think that the thing that we forget about the cathedral purpose in serving illiteracy, is that it was also the only place where they were hearing the scriptures read. And so they were hearing the text laid up against every image that was there to shape their understanding. And that's something that the Chosen doesn't do.

Speaker 1:
[18:55] That's true. That's a good point. It privatizes that experience.

Speaker 4:
[18:58] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[18:58] Decontextualizes it. That's not, yeah, you're not wrong.

Speaker 4:
[19:01] And I mean, I haven't watched The Chosen, so I don't want to like assume things about it. But I wonder if in an age where we love the therapeutic and we double down on eminence at the expense of transcendence, if the Chosen doesn't step in to fill a felt need that is worth analyzing, because the cathedral, by contrast, is about transcendence. It's about transcendence and eminence, but it balances both.

Speaker 5:
[19:35] Are you tired of shallow discipleship in your life, the life of your church or small group? God is inviting you into deeper places, real participation in his story, real understanding of who he is and what he has done, and a more meaningful practice of following in his ways. For the last 10 years, JT, Jen, and Kyle have been teaching a program called Deep Discipleship in their local churches, and they have now worked with Lifeway to make this available to everyone everywhere. Whether you're an individual looking to go deeper, a church leader looking for an accessible way to invite your small groups, classes and student ministry, or a home school family looking for curriculum for your high school students, go check out the Deep Discipleship program at lifeway.com/deepdiscipleship.

Speaker 1:
[20:28] Are you one of the millions of Christians searching for a path from anxiety to assurance? If so, Overflowing Peace by author and Bible teacher, Tara Dew, should be your next read. This verse by verse exploration of Psalm 23 reveals the complete, total, and matchless peace only found while walking with our good shepherd. Perfect for personal reading, small group study, or as a gift for anyone longing for peace in turbulent times. Visit overflowingpeacebook.com to get your copy today. What do you make of all this? Because Mary, if I ever remember correctly, I think you're doing your doctoral work on beauty. Is that right?

Speaker 2:
[21:06] Well, the verdict is still out on what that is actually going to look like. I was studying beauty and then I realized that the guy I wanted to study had written more than a hundred books, had opened his own publishing company, so he could say whatever he wanted and he really needed an editor, and I don't really want to be that for him.

Speaker 1:
[21:24] Oh gosh, I got trapped in the Baltimore Trap. It's really good, but boy, is it a bog.

Speaker 4:
[21:29] Is he alive or dead?

Speaker 1:
[21:31] Oh, he's very much dead.

Speaker 4:
[21:32] Okay, okay, okay. I was just making sure. He wasn't going to listen to the podcast and get his feelings hurt.

Speaker 2:
[21:37] He might. He's like, all these people don't want to study me anymore, it's a wordy. I agree with you, Jen, that I think so often if we're missing out on the transcendence, talking about eminence, thinking about the the relatability of Jesus, just being able to see him on a screen or to see someone obviously playing him on a screen can almost become too trite, too close, where we lose the transcendence, the majesty of God, the awe that is required of him, of us for him. But I believe tools point us to the text well. So I mean, I work on books every day of my life, and I believe books are an excellent tool to get us into the word. Now, should books be the only thing you ever use for your spiritual development? No, because they are not the inspired word of God, and anyone writing them is a fallible person. Anyone preparing the chosen is a fallible person. And so the likelihood that we're going to get every single detail right is low. And I hope that anyone who comes into contact with my teaching, they immediately are taking anything I say to the text and determining, does this align? Do I agree? Is this truly something that we find in the word of God? Because it's what's sharper than a double edged sword. It's what's good for teaching, rebuking, and correcting, and training in all righteousness, not my words. Now, I want to be a tool, but those stained glass windows, books, maybe even the chosen, they're really intended to just be a vehicle to get you to the real thing. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[23:22] I don't know if this illustration is accurate. I'm going to test it out here, and then you guys can tell me where it's wanting or where it's not. I was recently talking with somebody because I've been watching The Chosen. So many folks are watching it.

Speaker 3:
[23:36] Sometimes I need to stop twitching right now.

Speaker 4:
[23:39] I was like, oh, that's a big drop there.

Speaker 1:
[23:43] I've been watching The Chosen. I have mixed feelings about it. Sometimes I'm like, wow, this is really good. Sometimes I'm like, I don't know that this is super helpful. I think that if somebody came to me and were like, I am watching The Chosen, and I am watching a lot, or for example, I'm reading a bunch of Christian books. I'd be like, these things can be like Gatorade. They're not bad for you, but if you're using them as a water replacement, this is bad. Like do not replace water with Gatorade. I know it says it has electrolytes in it. Your body needs water. And if you just drink Gatorade, you might not feel it at first, but over the long haul, I promise you, it's not gonna be good for you long term. And so, what I've been saying is like, I'm not prepared to say that, you know, this is gonna sound terrible. I'm not prepared to say the Chosen is hard liquor, you know, or even that the Chosen is-

Speaker 4:
[24:37] Captive Baptist, there he is.

Speaker 1:
[24:38] Is Mountain Dew. But I am prepared to say, it's not water. The only thing that's water that's sustaining for the Christian life in a unique way is the Christian life needs the water of God's word in the way that our body needs water. And if we go apart from it, we should expect the kind of dryness, aridity and unhealth to become a really leading factor. How does that strike you? Does that sound crazy? Does that does that illustration just sound like it makes sense or no?

Speaker 2:
[25:09] It immediately makes me think about those things that maybe are Mountain Dew. And I do want people to consume Gatorade more than I want them to consume Mountain Dew. So if we're trading reading Christian books for reading garbage books, then that's a wise swap. But again, it's not we're not going back to the well that draws up the living water for our life.

Speaker 3:
[25:35] I like that.

Speaker 1:
[25:35] I'm going to add that. I'm going to keep building on this.

Speaker 2:
[25:37] One more angle.

Speaker 1:
[25:38] JT, were you going to say something a second ago?

Speaker 3:
[25:40] I was. I just took kind of double down on this conversation. I read a book several years ago, so I looked up the notes because it's been a while. But you guys know who Henry Kissinger is or you may be familiar. He's a foreign policy analyst. He passed away a few years ago. He wrote a book in 2022 on leadership where he talked about this. He wasn't talking from a Christian perspective. I don't know if he was a believer or not, but he wasn't speaking about discipleship and literacy of the word. But one of the things he says in this book is he talks about the ongoing cultural shift between the printed world and the visual world. The way that he talks about it, and Jen, I think it will resonate with what you just talked about with transcendence and eminence is wide imagery for deep literacy. And what he says is, is images speak at a more emotional register and intensity than words. In other words, television and social media rely on images that inflame our passions while the word educates the mind. His point was more related to foreign policy and leadership development. And his exact quote was, he says, From such a process, I doubt if a Churchill, a Roosevelt or a DeGaul can emerge, because we're no longer cultivating the kind of virtues of depth that reading or literacy provides. And so maybe translating what he's saying here to the church, and what I've seen in Colorado is, we all minister in different parts of the world and even have the opportunity to teach in different parts of the world. When I was in seminary, there was kind of maybe an implicit assumption that, well, here's the Bible Belt where we're going to teach the Bible, where the Bible is taught. And if you go plant a church or minister in a place at Colorado, or maybe a kind of a more post-Christian western place, what you need to do is you need to kind of reach people with like an appetizer before you really give them the meal of scripture. And I just got to tell you guys, and I think it's going to become increasingly true, not just of Colorado or the post-Christian west, but where you minister in Texas and in Nashville of like, my experience is not only is the literacy rate down, but the Bible literacy rate is virtually zero in Colorado. But what we're reaching people with is the word, because the word does the work. I mean, I could go on with story after story after story of non-Christian, post-Christian, kind of secular, apathetic, you know, meta-modern western person who lives in Colorado. I teach them the word, and it's like scales fall off of their eyes. Like, why didn't anybody tell me this? I didn't know these stories existed. I didn't understand God had spoken to his people. So one of the things that I just, I think there's kind of been this assumption in evangelicalism that let's reach people and then give them the word. And I just think what we would all agree on, what we want our listeners to know is we reach them with the word.

Speaker 4:
[28:17] With the word, absolutely.

Speaker 3:
[28:18] The word is what is working upon people. And so whether we're using Kissinger's idea or even the ideas of kind of discipleship and Bible literacy is the reason we're passionate about literacy isn't because we want it to be like the 2.0 for discipleship, but because it is what does the work of discipleship from beginning to end.

Speaker 1:
[28:37] Yeah, that's exactly right.

Speaker 4:
[28:39] For all of the listeners who fall into my age demographic, I will tell JT later that you pronounce it Kissinger.

Speaker 3:
[28:47] That, and I was like, I think I'm getting this wrong. I was like, I'm just going to say it fast. If I say it fast, nobody will know.

Speaker 4:
[28:53] But also it's fascinating to me that he wrote on that. I mean, I poke and fund it to you a little. But it's fascinating that he wrote on that because I think he pegged it. And I think we would add in the Christian circle, we would add music to that.

Speaker 3:
[29:06] So here's what he said at the end of this chapter. I pulled it up. He says, the way forward is intense reading that can help leaders cultivate the mental distance from external stimuli and personalities that sustain a sense of proportion. Books offer a reality that is reasonable, sequential and orderly, a reality that can be mastered or at least managed only by reflection and planning. So he's saying, read, read, read. I think that's true if you want to be a leader, but it's certainly true if you want to be a disciple.

Speaker 1:
[29:34] No doubt about that. Do you think his brother, Hank Hugginger agreed with that?

Speaker 2:
[29:40] Hey. Hey. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3:
[29:43] You know what we should start doing, Kyle? I could do foreign policy words and you could do Old Testament names.

Speaker 1:
[29:48] That would be a whole episode.

Speaker 4:
[29:51] Fred Fist Bumpinger.

Speaker 1:
[29:54] Okay, Mary. Mary. Bring us home, Mary.

Speaker 2:
[29:57] I don't like anything.

Speaker 4:
[29:58] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[29:58] All right.

Speaker 1:
[30:00] Steve Smoochinger.

Speaker 4:
[30:01] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[30:02] There you go.

Speaker 4:
[30:04] We could wander into some dangerous territory.

Speaker 1:
[30:06] We really could. We need to walk away from this. So, hey, Mary, I do want to, so the Bible is for everyone. I do want to zero in on this a little bit. I think there is, and seminaries have done a good job, publishers have done a good job, are increasingly trying to do this more effectively. It felt to me like there is at least a shadow or a specter or a caricature or a misunderstanding that kind of like, okay, the Bible is for everyone, but the really deep theology stuff, that's mostly for the dudes. That's like, we want everybody reading the Psalms, and we sure want to make sure that the women know where the Psalms are. We want them to know where the Psalms are and Proverbs 31 is. And then let's leave the deep things of the Bible to the pastors and professors and those guys are guys. You are editing books, you're doing advanced theological training, you're teaching people the Bible with a theological angle. Maybe just talk a little bit about what your experience of this has been. And what do you say to women who have fallen in love with Bible study or Bible reading? Let's just say they've fallen in love with reading their Bible. They've fallen in love with devotional Bible reading, but they're a bit skeptical of deeper study in God's word or doctrine. How do you go, hey, I'm not telling you to quit just devotional Bible reading, but I am trying to invite you into something that maybe you have a little bit of reticence to step into.

Speaker 2:
[31:46] Sure. I mean, first, I would say, yes, let's love our Bibles. Let's be in our Bibles. But I do think there's a little bit of a false dichotomy in the minds of many who would think that Bible study is actually something that happens without any theological reflection or doctrinal engagement. And that actually isn't true. If we are doing any kind of questioning of who is God in this passage, what is true of him? Or what does this mean for the church? Then we are doing theological work even in our even in our devotional Bible study moments. And so I do want to say, hey, those aren't separate things. But it also is not something that women have to go to seminary to get. Now, I'm a glutton for punishment. I love to write papers. I love to sit in a classroom. That is not for everyone. And that is okay. But I will never forget about 15 years ago, I was serving on staff at my local church. And my pastor was telling me about what he was going to teach for the next semester during Wednesday nights. And he was like, I'm going to teach the Old Testament. We're going all the way through the Old Testament with the men. And the women are going to do a study on friendship. And I said, no, they're not. Said, I'm going to sit in the back of the classroom. And we're just going to bring all the women in. And you won't see us, but we'll be there. And not to say that friendship is not an appropriate topic for both men and women. It absolutely is. We need deep community. We need fellowship. We need to be images of Christ to one another. We need to know how to do that. But there was this vast misunderstanding that women were uninterested and in many cases, unable to really grasp the broader truths of scripture. And what I was seeing when I was teaching women was the opposite, is that they're asking deep questions, in many cases, because their kids are coming home and saying, hey, I heard the word the Trinity at church. I don't know what to do with that. How do I explain it? And so what I saw was women who deeply wanted to know their Bibles, deeply wanted to know theological information, but did not know the avenues by which to find it, because they weren't being served that. They were being served appetizers rather than real meals and told to just kind of make it work for the day. And that's not what we want to do for women. We want to call any disciple upward, right? We want to expand their imagination of what could be true about their discipleship. Just like the transcendence of art draws your eye upward, that's our goal as tools, as living pieces of art for God, as we reflect our Savior. And so for one, women don't have to be intimidated by that. And something that's really big in both, I teach children's ministry every Sunday. I think any believer should serve in children's ministry because it will force you to figure out what it is that you actually believe in how to communicate it, which is the work of theology. It's how do we think and speak about God. The things I'm learning in even PhD work are not things that any believer would be surprised about. But I'm learning the language of faith. I'm learning to be clear and a bit more excellent in the way that we speak about God and the things that he's doing in the world. And so that's our goal as those studying our Bibles, studying theology. We want to be really good at how we think and how we speak about God so that, not so we can win arguments, not so that we can be the most important person in the room, but so that we can live it rightly and share it.

Speaker 1:
[35:36] That's good. One of the things that we really love, and not to plug the Deep Discipleship Program, though, where I'm always looking for a chance. But one of the things that we discovered with the Deep Discipleship Program is how activating it was for women in churches, for whom the traditional routes of deeper theological training were just not accessible or available. They weren't open.

Speaker 2:
[36:01] That's right.

Speaker 1:
[36:02] And we saw that there was a hunger there, and there was a drive there that had really just kind of been, the ceiling had kind of been so low on the accessibility component that it was incredible to see that kind of activation. I mean, like, that's something that I feel like even now, we still hear about with churches that are running that, is just that churches are seeing when they're able to offer this, women are oftentimes the first responders to interest in it. Because historically, it's just been less accessible to them as a group, right?

Speaker 4:
[36:37] Well, I think you even see it in Bible study attendance. Like when you have a men's study and a women's study, even when they're studying the same thing, there's usually about half as many men that come if you have healthy Bible study culture at your church. And I think that too is a sign, people are like, well, it's because women are different. Well, on the one hand, yes, women do love to gather. We do. But also, women are hungry. And I think a lot of times, and I'm not dogging on men, but I think men innately recognize there are many opportunities available to them. And women innately recognize that there are few. And that drives some of the attendance numbers as well. And I'm with you, Mary, I see the same thing. And I thought it was interesting, as you were talking about teaching children, because that's one of my big things too. I remember I started in 7th grade, girls. And I'm like, maybe I'll make it to the show at some point, like I'll get to teach actual human adults. And then it was like, wait a minute, this is where those really important skills get developed. And if you think about like where we started, where you said, you know, look back to when people weren't literate. And that's really what you're doing when you move into the children's space, is you're learning to communicate things to people who aren't proficient readers. And so it forces you back into that. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[37:54] Yeah. Reading in second grade, that first semester, it is painful, but I want them to read it in their little words. And learn to ask big questions about it.

Speaker 4:
[38:07] And I think you never feel more acutely, James 3.1, not many of you should presume to teach, than when you're teaching children. And that's something you don't ever want to lose when you begin teaching adults.

Speaker 2:
[38:18] And there's something so sweet about the way they ask questions that I wish was true in our adult classrooms. I wish, and what I hope in my teaching, is that we will see people comfortable asking the real questions that they have. Every Sunday we spend time asking questions of the text. The first 10 are comprehension. The next 10 are what they actually want to know. What does it mean to be a Christian? Why did my dog die? What do I do when I fail God and I feel like I can't? Like, what is repentance? What do I even do? I think adults are scared to ask the questions that feel theological in nature, feel like they should already know all the answers. And that's the work of discipleship. That's the work of growth for us.

Speaker 4:
[39:04] Well, don't invite JT and Kyle to answer the question about pets. Yeah, I heard.

Speaker 2:
[39:09] Kyle, come on.

Speaker 1:
[39:10] No, Kyle, that's a JT and Kyle thing.

Speaker 3:
[39:13] That's a whole Christian tradition question. You guys want to answer it?

Speaker 4:
[39:17] Okay. All right.

Speaker 1:
[39:18] Well, Mary, we'll bring you on the next time that we want to hear some heresy about pets in heaven.

Speaker 2:
[39:23] Deal.

Speaker 1:
[39:25] Hey, listen, and Mary, thank you for jumping on. We were so glad to have you. Thank you for jumping on.

Speaker 2:
[39:30] Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1:
[39:31] Listen, if you've been listening to the show, I want to encourage you to go grab a copy of one of Mary's books. Maybe you're going to go over and pre-order Everyday in the Bible, which is available for pre-order right now, as you're listening to this episode. Don't forget to enter the giveaway to win a copy of the CSB Women's Study Bible. Details on that giveaway are on Knowing Faith social media. They were included in our most recent newsletter, and they are also in the show notes for this episode. So go enter that giveaway and win a CSB Women's Study Bible. They would love to send you one. Thank you for listening to the podcast today. Don't forget to check out our sponsors through our web page link in the show notes or online at trainthechurch.com under the Knowing Faith podcast web page. We hope you enjoyed the discussion. Grace and peace.