A Small Shift in How We Read the Bible | Small Shifts, Big Faith Wk 2 | Lent Study 2026

1:16 Yeah. Here's the key to Lent. This is really important as we think about the Lent season. You know, we're beginning the Lent season. We're a little bit into it now. And over the course of Lent, we can practice spiritual practices, Christian practices, purposeful practices that shape and transform our life over time. And, you know, Lent is the 40 days leading up to Easter that helps us prepare our hearts, our minds to fully experience the joy, the celebration of Easter. And through the season of Lent, you know, we go through a season of repentance and renewal, inward reflection and transformation to deepen our faith. And in this season, practices like help us grow deeper in our faith. But here's the thing, like Bo just said, we're not looking at these big changes that we might make in our life that, well, maybe for some of us, we need to make a big change. But most often what ends up happening is that you make a big change and it only lasts so long.

2:17 What we're really talking about are these small incremental changes, these shifts that we can make in our lives through practices that help us think differently, experience our faith differently, and connect with God differently. These are everyday kind of practices that help us both receive God's grace, but then also respond with our lives to God's grace. And so there's actually some science to this. It's really cool. The science that would suggest that small shifts lead to this big impact over the course of our lives. And really, the answer to, you know, how that works is connected to our brain science and how our brains function. Our brains are wired to form habits and respond to cues and rewards and routines. Charles Duhigg has written a lot about this. Others have written about it as well.

3:11 But Charles Duhigg writes about what he calls the habit loop. So you think about a habit loop, and we have an image on the screen there for you. But you think about a habit loop. So there's a cue. That's like a trigger. There's a routine. That's like a behavior that's built. And then, you know, the end of that loop is the reward. So you go through a queue that kind of gets you started and it begins to form a routine. And then on the other side of that routine, there's this reward. So a few examples of this might look like the queue being the end of a meeting. And what do you do at the end of the meeting? Well, you build a routine. You check your email at the end of a meeting. And then the reward for that is you feel productive or you feel like you're caught up on work, right? Sometimes that's just, that's a huge reward, right? You're finally caught up. Another example of this is the cue. You see a notification pop up on your phone, right? And you're triggered like, oh man, I got to respond to that. So the routine becomes you check social media. I can tell you, I probably scroll a little too often on social media.

4:14 And then the reward for that, scrolling and scrolling and scrolling, is feeling connected. If you're not connected, maybe you're entertained, right? So this kind of describes that habit loop. And what happens over time is that this cycle, from the cue to the routine to the reward, that cycle becomes automatic. It just happens. And the next thing you know, you have this whole system built, and you perform your routine without consciously even thinking about it. So the idea is that if we introduce a small shift in how we go about our days, if we introduce a practice or even think about how we practice our faith and kind of build around small shifts, we might find that these practices have a big impact in our life. I don't know, but describe for us what that looks like for you in your life. Yeah. So, you know, my wife and I, we felt like in a season that we needed to focus on being a little more healthy. And one thing that we noticed, you talk about a cue, we both love coffee. So we would wake up in the morning, having that urge, that cue to like, I need coffee. But what we decided was to make a routine of going to the gym or working out or some type of exercise before we could have the reward of coffee. And so again, that was a small shift that led to a big change for us becoming more healthy. Yeah. One idea. I'm a huge coffee fan. I might have to build in some habits like that as well. Well, this relates to what we're doing over the course of this Lent study. So each week, we're going to propose one small, simple shift that we can make in our spiritual lives that deepen our faith life, that have the possibility of transforming not just our faith life, but the whole of our lives. And so today, we're talking about the shift in how we read the Bible. Just an interesting note that maybe you've seen this in some of your study, but Bible sales are actually up right now. They're trending in a positive direction. More people are reading their Bible today than previously noted. And so

6:23 that's just an interesting thing to note. And I thought it was really important for us to talk about as a spiritual practice. There's a small shift we can make in our daily lives, the shift in how we read the Bible. I don't know about you, Bo, but I love reading my Bible. I love reading scripture. There are also challenges to it. How does that work in your life? Yeah. You know, for a long time, I just viewed my Bible reading as prep for speaking or preaching or leading a devotion or Bible study. But that's not good. You know, I need to be able to read it on my own and on my own pace and for my own pleasure and benefit of what God might be trying to say to me. So I build it in really to my afternoon schedule. I spend a lot of time around the lunchtime doing that. For me, reading scripture is also something I try to integrate pretty regularly into my life. And like you described, even beyond just like studying for a sermon or, you know, teaching like this, like it's important to be integrated into the whole of our lives. Reading the Bible is really important to our faith.

7:23 Yeah. And you might expect, you know, two pastors to tell you that you should be reading the Bible. No surprise. No surprise. But why? Why should we? Why should we read the Bible? Well, let's get into like what the Bible is to begin to answer that. Right. So let's understand what the Bible is. Let's call this in three minutes. We're going to understand the Bible in three minutes. Let's see if we can do that. So the Bible, right, from the Greek word biblos or biblia, which means book or books, it includes these two collections, the Old Testament and the New Testament. And within this one Bible, you have 66 different books written by many authors over about a period of 1,200 to 1,500 years, and none of it is written in English. It surprises some people, right? But the ancient Hebrew, the Greek, Jesus, of course, spoke in Aramaic. He would have spoken in Hebrew as well, but none of the Bible was written in English. And the entirety of this book, like the overarching narrative, is that it tells the story of God in relation to God's people, God's love and redeeming grace to restore all of creation, all people across human history to him, to restore all things to his love, his goodness, his mercy. This is like the story of scripture, the story of the Bible. So in the Old Testament, we read the ancient stories of the Israelite people, God's people. We read about their laws and their rules for how to live. It's the history of a nation, and it captures really compelling stories, but it also includes poetry and wisdom literature, as well as these prophetic calls from the prophets who would challenge the people of Israel to connect and reconnect with God whenever they fell away. They called to the sense of justice that the people of Israel had as they returned to God. And, you know, we read stories about the exodus from slavery and exile and freedom, returning to their home and the restoration

9:31 of God's people. This is all contained in the Old Testament and its major sections include the Torah, which is the law and the instruction, the Nevi'im, which includes the prophets, and then the Ketuvim, which includes the writings. That composes the whole of what we might call the Hebrew Bible. And what's important to note is that, you know, that was Jesus. That was Jesus's Bible. That's right. Those were the words of scripture that he turned to. And I especially think about the book of Psalms and the prayers, the songs that were collected in that book, many of which were written by King David, but maybe others over time, Jesus would have known those. He would have recited them. He would have sung them maybe with the disciples as they walked together down the road. Like this was Jesus. This was his book. This was the book that he turned to, even if they didn't always have physical copies. Sometimes you'd have to go to the local synagogue, and that was where you read.

10:26 It wasn't just one book, but a collection of scrolls. So Jesus, there are stories of Jesus going to the synagogue, and they would open the scroll, and they would read these words. That's what we today have in the New Testament. The Old Testament. That's the Old Testament. Yeah, so the Bible's divided into two big chunks. That was a great overview of the Old Testament. We have the New Testament as well, and there's 27 documents written over about 100 years, and these include the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which tell the story of Jesus so beautifully. It also includes the book of Acts, which is the history of the early church and what the church did and how it started. It also includes letters from the Apostle Paul and others to early churches, and it It concludes with Revelation, which is a book of prophecy that's complex and complicated, but it still points to that same idea of God restoring all things through Christ. And so that's a quick overview of the Bible, but beyond what it is, how do we learn from it?

11:25 How do we take these words, these stories, these people, and inspire, encourage, and challenge, and deepen our faith? Yeah, I think there are probably two kind of common ways of thinking about how we read the Bible, to understand it more deeply, more richly, to apply it to our lives. Those two ways being, one, Bible study. So Bible study is an important rhythm of engaging with Scripture. And, you know, Bible study looks like reading for understanding, digging into Scripture to understand its history, its context, people and places and what was happening and why it was happening. Oftentimes it looks like reading scholars and scholarly research into hundreds of years sometimes of biblical scholarship, trying to gain clarity and understanding from the text, and then figuring out how do we apply it to our lives. That's Bible study.

12:20 You can spend your entire life studying scripture and learning new insights. I find as I read the Bible, like I've been studying it for some time. I have a few degrees. Like you've studied it for a long time as you've led churches. And I find like there's always something new that I'm learning when I read scripture. That's Bible study. But there's another way that we can read it as well. It's devotionally, like reading the Bible devotionally, trying to gain from scripture something that enriches our spiritual lives. that's just beyond study, but really kind of enriches us spiritually. And one way of doing that is called Lectio Divina. We'll explain that in just a minute, but Lectio Divina means divine reading. And this kind of reading kind of slows us down. You read a little more slowly. You read phrases and words and maybe pray as you're reading over those words. It's a way of allowing the scriptures to speak to you and asking God to speak to you through scripture. Another way of reading the Bible is to use scripture as prayer. And so sometimes I find myself just reading over lines and using those as prayers. I've returned to the Psalms often for that. I've mentioned the Psalms already. And much like Jesus practiced his prayer life in the Psalms, quoting from the Psalms, I've integrated a practice in my life where I just read over the Psalms and it becomes a part of a part of my prayer life.

13:48 But there are two cautions that are important to talk about as we study scripture and as we read it devotionally. The first caution is, you know, there's the temptation. There's always the temptation to open your Bible and just like open it anywhere. And here's some notes from some previous sermon, but you know, let me find a good one. Like just opening it from two Chronicles and you read, when Rehoboam arrived at Jerusalem, he assembled the house of Judah and Benjamin, 180,000 select warriors to fight against Israel and to restore the kingdom of Rehoboam. But the Lord's word came to Shemaiah, the man of God. And it goes on. Like, as you're reading that, it's like, I don't really know what's happening here. What would be a better practice is to, you know, read the entirety of this section and try to, you know, understand names and places. And so I always caution, like, you don't just want to open the scriptures up randomly.

14:44 but kind of work through it with some kind of guide that helps us understand the depth and the meaning of Scripture. The second caution is this, that, you know, sometimes we read difficult passages, and, you know, it can be challenging to understand what does that mean or how do I apply it in my lives? And whenever we come across those difficult passages, the important advice there is to read the passage in relation to the whole of Scripture. Does it speak to God's character and God's love and grace and who God says he is? And equally important, reading it in comparison to Jesus, his words, what he spoke, how he lived. And that's a way in which we can kind of read and understand the Bible in its entirety as we both study it, but also as we read it devotionally. Though I know you've mentioned Lectio Divina in your life and how you've practiced that. Yeah. What I love about Lectio Divina is there's some amazing resources out there that help guide you through that process.

15:43 One of them I use is called Lectio 365. It's actually an app that notifies me three times a day. You just download it on your phone. Yeah, download it on your phone, and it guides you through that process. And the first part of Lectio Divina is just reading a passage, but reading it slowly and just sitting with it and see maybe there's one thing that God speaks to you through a passage. Maybe you've read it a dozen times, but there could be one word or one phrase, different phrasing that might speak to you in some way, maybe not before. And then you pray through the scriptures. It's really, really great. Yeah, I have my Bible here in front of us. Each of the weeks we've brought these symbols that remind us of the practices. And, you know, I love to highlight and underline and mark and I put little notes in the margins. I'm a little bit analog in that way. I use some apps as well, but for me, you know, this Bible, I received this Bible at my ordination. And I remember my bishop telling me, you know, look to these words, read these words, study these words. And I took that really seriously as part of my ordination vow.

16:41 And so these are ways that we kind of approach and engage Scripture. Yeah, yeah. And here's the point, truly. It's just a small shift. Again, a small shift in our daily life to read scripture, spending five minutes or reading five verses. Start small. It's one of the ways that we can hear God speak to our hearts and our minds. And these words on a page can begin to form us as we follow Christ. And so reading scripture is really important. But there are two parts of this practice. One is reading and the other is living. Like living scripture, embodying the words that are on the page, especially the words that Jesus speaks, the words that Jesus invites us into. So we go from reading it to living it out. And again, Jesus helps us here, specifically his life. And so some of the most important words that we read come from the Sermon on the Mount. We find the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5, chapter 6, chapter 7, it's collected as perhaps one sermon, but Jesus might have spoken these words over different periods of time, and our gospel authors collected those into what we today call the Sermon on the Mount. And in it, Jesus tries to help us understand how to live our faith. How do we live our faith? And it's what Jesus wanted his followers to do. So the Sermon on the Mount, it begins with the Beatitudes. The word beatitude comes from the Latin beatus, which means something like happiness or blessedness. You might recognize the phrase, blessed are you. And what Jesus does is he upends, he upends what it means to make us happy.

18:23 It isn't about wealth or power or privilege, but instead Jesus says it's, blessed are you, the poor in spirit, the meek. Blessed are you who hunger or thirst, who are merciful or pure in heart. Blessed are you who are peacemakers or who are persecuted. And Jesus says this, this is what leads to happiness. This is what leads to the kingdom of God. It's really powerful. It is. It is. And Jesus, he goes on to describe what it looks like when we begin to live out our faith in a couple really brilliant ways. The first thing he says is that he challenges disciples to be the salt of the earth. And in that time, you know, we were thinking of salt. It preserved, but it also enhanced. So I think that's a great challenge for us as believers as we read scripture. What would it look like for us to be able to enhance the lives of the people around us? Then he also says that we are the light of the world. And I know, especially right now, the world can feel dark.

19:20 It can feel really dark. And then we have the amazing privilege as we read scripture and as we become more like Christ, then we can be the light to the world that so desperately needs it. And And what a privilege it is to be able to take the words that we read and then live it and bring light to the darkness. You and I were talking some time ago about what that looks like. And Karl Barth has a great quote about holding the Bible in one hand and holding the newspaper in the other hand. And of course, today in our world, as you just mentioned, there's so much going on and tension and conflict and competing ideas about how we ought to live our Christian faith in the world. The Sermon on the Mount often brings us back to the essentials of how Jesus invites us to live. And I think about people's lives who've been completely transformed when they took those words seriously. People's lives who've been changed because they read Scripture, but then also began to live it.

20:18 And as a pastor, Beau, you've seen people's lives happen. That has happened in their life. I know as a pastor, I've seen people's lives change because of that. And so we really, the shift that we want to invite you into, invite all of us into, is to think about the shift in how we read the Bible. A shift in engaging it daily, reading it, and then living it, embodying it in our world everywhere we go. And that shift leads to transformation because we look more and more like Jesus each and every day. And so we just want to invite you to consider that. might you read your Bible daily in such a way that it begins to shift your faith powerfully, transformatively. And we can even do that here and now. So I'm going to close us with the reading of Matthew 5, the Beatitudes. And I'm going to read this and then I will close us in prayer. Jesus said these words, happy are people who are hopeless because the kingdom of heaven is theirs. Happy are people who grieve because they will be made glad. Happy are people who are humble because they will inherit the earth. Happy are people who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness because they will be fed until they are full. Happy are people who show us mercy because they will receive mercy. Happy are people who have pure hearts because they will see God.

21:40 Happy are people who make peace because they will be called God's children. Happy are people whose lives are harassed because they are righteous. They are righteous because the kingdom of heaven is theirs. And happy are you when people insult you and harass you and speak all kinds of bad and false things about you, all because of me. Be full of joy and be glad, because you have a great reward in heaven. In the same way, people harass the prophets who came before you. And so let's close in prayer. God of the still small voice, today slow me down and calm my spirit so that I can hear you, calling me out of my comfort zone, prompting me to reach out to a friend, nudging me to speak up and make my voice known, convicting me to confront that which is unhealthy in my own life. And may I be more attentive today to the ways your spirit is speaking to me, and may I have the willingness to listen. Mighty God, with a word you brought the creation into being and ever since you have been speaking life into existence. Thank you for the ways that you speak to me, for moments of realization and clarity, new insights and perspective, reminders of encouragement and hope, challenges and circumstances that push me to grow or change.

23:00 Open my ears that I may hear your voice more clearly each day.