The Bible 101: Getting to Know God

0:00 A better title for the Western world is the story of God. A better title for the Eastern world is the story of God. The better title of space is the story of God. Okay, we get the point. It's the story of God. All right. Come on. Let me be eloquent. It's not eloquent, Judah. It's a conversation. Here on In Good Faith, we reference the Bible a lot. As Christians, the Bible is our roadmap. It offers so much insight about life, love, and of course, our beautiful God. Yeah, but it can also feel big and complicated and daunting, especially if you didn't grow up with its teachings. We've studied the Bible for years, and the truth is we still often find it confusing. Yeah, so today we're going to give you an introduction to the Bible. I know it's almost overwhelming, but this is Bible 101, if you will. Talking about our personal journeys with the text, must-have tools for interpreting it, and what to do if you don't know where to start.

0:55 It's not the easiest book you'll ever read, but it's worth it. Stay tuned. This is In Good Faith. I grew up obviously going to church and Sunday school, hearing beautiful stories about Noah and the ark and King David and Jesus and the angels. And I truly loved the Bible growing up. It seemed like a really, I just, I love the story about it in Jesus. And so when I was 18, I decided I would read the Bible. I did the Bible in a year program, but I will never forget when I came across the story of Jephthah. I'm an 18 year old. I'd heard a lot about the Bible, but I had never heard this story.

1:49 He was a judge appointed by God. And he says, if I, if I win this battle that I'm about to fight, I will sacrifice the first thing that comes out of my door to greet me. So sure enough, he wins the battle, goes home. And what is the first thing that comes out of the door to greet him? Do you remember? His daughter, his only daughter. She comes out and is just celebrating her dad. And as it turns out, according to the stories told in the Bible, he sacrifices her and kills her as a way to quote unquote, honor God. And I remember I'm reading that and probably a month and a half into my one year Bible reading program is an 18 year old just in a panic. Like, I never heard this story before. Or what's up with this? God says not to murder and not to kill people. And just my world suddenly opened to a new layer of the Bible that I hadn't heard and known before, which leads us to the conversation we want to have today, which is really around the Bible and how do you and I approach it.

2:46 So often in this podcast, in Good Faith, we talk about the Bible and reference it as a source of strength and authority for our life. we believe it's a supernatural book, but yet there are these aspects of the Bible that can seem conflicting or also just wanting to talk about what is the Bible and how do we approach it? And for somebody who's never really read it before and has maybe only heard unique things, like I just said about the Bible. Yeah, I think that is our desire. It's like, if we're going to use this ancient book as an authority in our life personally, or in any way to our listeners refer to this book as an authority that they might consider as an authority in their journey and their human experience. It's like, well, let's talk about its essence. Let's talk about what the message is. And I think to your point about Jephthah's daughter, I cannot believe you just shared that. That's one of my least favorite stories in all of the Bible is, hey, let's not get caught up in the subplot.

3:41 What is the plot? Who's the main character? What is the overwhelming message? What is the theme? What's the focal point? And that's a big deal to you and me. And I think in the technological age, a lot of conjecture. And now you can Google all the hard questions of the Bible. Does the Bible contradict itself? Is the Hebrew scripture simply metaphor? Was there actual, you know, a walking through the Red Sea? You know, et cetera, et cetera. It goes on and on. And so let's talk about that a little bit. And this by no means, please, for everyone listening, this is not an exhaustive episode, nor can it be treated as such. for in 30 minutes or 40 minutes, it is impossible to give an exhaustive overview of what is historically a supernatural book. And for you and I in our lives, a supernatural book. We really, first and foremost, we do believe the Bible is the story of God. We believe it's the word of God. There's one scripture in the Bible that says that the word of God, the Bible is God breathed.

4:38 In other words, we believe different than Shakespeare, different than the constitution of the United States of America, that there is something supernatural about the Bible, that there was an influence of God in the writings of scripture. The Bible is a supernatural book. What do you mean when you say that? Oh, there are so many definitions. I don't know if I have time to go into all of it in Bible 101. But first of all, I believe that even though it was written by probably 44 different authors, that ultimately there's one author behind it, and that is God. It's incredible that 44 different people throughout the context of over a thousand years could come together to say primarily the same thing about God, that there is a congruency to the story that's unlike anything else that has been written. Unprecedented. Unprecedented. I mean, could you imagine a book that was written in 500 CE lining up with what we're saying now in 2022? There's that supernatural element to that book.

5:38 There's also the supernatural element to the fact that four to 600 years before Jesus was born, there was prophecies about him. There was foretellings about his life, hundreds and hundreds of them. And the fact that he actually lived all of them out. There's just this supernatural element to this book that's beyond human understanding. And the last thing I would say about it being supernatural is that we believe that God wrote this book in conjunction with humans, as I mentioned. but that author, God, is still alive today. And he's still alongside of us when we read it. He's still reading it alongside of us. And so it's not just like reading a book. It's like reading a book with the author of that book right there who can nudge you in certain ways or help you to see certain things about it. Supernatural preservation. It has been attempted to be eradicated and eliminated and completely removed from ever being on earth by emperors and presidents and dictators and leaders.

6:34 and yet it has supernaturally been preserved almost inexplicably historically. Which is what makes the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls. I think they were found in 1949, that when those were found, these ancient scrolls that were written thousands of years ago are actually so similar to the current text we still have today. So even though it's been translated and rewritten and copied without computers and copy machines and all of our modern technology, that even still the language of it was preserved is so supernatural. Supernatural. But that God used everyday men and women, flawed humans to write his story is first and foremost, I feel like, really remarkable and says so much about the God who would put himself in that position. And I think it speaks to a lot of the point of the book, doesn't it? And that is connection and relationship with God, the divine. And that even in the writing process, he partnered with humans to reveal to us the point of the book. And by the way, there is much debate and much question over original language.

7:36 The majority of the scripture is written in Hebrew and Greek and a little bit of Aramaic, Greek and Aramaic in the New Testament, which is why we call the Old Testament, probably more accurately, the Hebrew scriptures, which really outlines for us this country that God created and invented, Israel, God's people, that he made a country that he would demonstrate his character to. He would demonstrate his goodness, his majesty, his magnitude, his beauty. And so there's just so much to say. I'm overwhelmed. But I like what you said at the beginning of our approach is starting with the big and then working our way down. You know, anytime you go to a movie or a book, you want to know, okay, what's the purpose of this? We just started the show Severance. And if I wouldn't have known a little bit about what it was about, I never would have gone through the first episode because it started off super slow. Right. But knowing that it had an interesting plot helped me to watch the rest of the show, or at least we waited through the first episode at least. And so I think there's something about knowing the main plot of the Bible that can be so helpful in approaching it. So you know how a book has the back cover that gives you a synopsis of this is what this book is about. That's what we're doing in this episode. Well, at least for right now, what would you say is the back cover synopsis of the Bible? Well, probably a better title for the Bible is the story of God. In fact, a better title for life is the story of God, meaning he's the main character. And when that gets lost, the Bible gets very, very difficult to understand. So it is imperative that you don't get hung up on Jephthah, Joshua, Esther, Naomi, you know, on and on and on that you recognize it's all God revealing himself to his creation. And this is one of the primary ways God has sought to reveal himself. So I would say this on the back cover, herein lies the story of God. The wise reader will look for him almost exclusively. Please enjoy. And then I would add a paragraph.

9:38 That was fun. I like that. You liked writing a back cover for the Bible. Let's talk about the opening line of the Bible, which is in Hebrew. It's what we now call Genesis, which means beginnings. And it says, in the beginning, God. And this is really important to note. If you're going to approach scripture, understand this is a revelation, not an explanation. So it's interesting because the Bible is not God going, I'm going to prove to you that I'm real. It's actually, I'm going to show you who I am. And I think that gets a little lost in translation. People like in the beginning, God, wait a minute.

10:31 I don't even know if I believe in God. Well, this assumes that you do. And so God is revealing himself more than explaining himself. And I think sometimes in today's culture and society and technological age, we always want an explanation for God. But would God be God if he felt like he needed to explain himself? I think partly what makes God God is that he's supreme and he's sovereign and he seeks to reveal himself for the purpose of revelation rather than seeking to explain himself for the purpose of validation. Validation and knowledge. God doesn't want us to know about him. God wants us to know him. Him. Yes. Because it's not the story of an explanation of God. It is a love story between God and humanity. Agree? Yes. And so in that, though, comes a very confusing part of the Bible, the Old Testament and the New Testament. Because so often we can look and the God in the Old Testament seems very mean and very angry and like he has a standard for people that nobody can uphold.

11:31 And he's just sitting there to call out all the wrongs that anybody ever did. And then all of a sudden we get to the New Testament and Jesus comes to the scene and he's loving and healing and taking care of people and turning water into wine. And it can seem like these two very different stories. So how would you describe the Old Testament and the New Testament and at times the seeming contradiction that they have? Yeah. The entire endeavor of what is the ancient scripture is this wooing. It is this revealing of the content of God's character. The Hebrew scripture defines that as glory. Glory is the essence of God. By the way, Moses, one of the most formidable figures in the Hebrew scripture said, show me your glory. And the response of the divine or God was, I'll let all my goodness pass before you. So it's important to know that God to his core is good. Not as we define good. Good is like opening doors for senior citizens and paying your taxes. That's wonderful. But God is transcendently good. He's good to his core. He is good through and through. So this is his revelation. It's the revelation of God's goodness. Now, I think what's imperative for us to understand that in revealing his goodness, there has to be a revealing of the depravity of our planet and the interruption of God's divine plan because of free will. So God has clearly given us a free will. Now there is sovereignty, which is God is totally sovereign and everything is according to his plan. Well, the Bible reveals that God actually allows free will to an extent, so much so that he'll take what is actually falling apart, put it back together and renew it and restore it. And so we see that over and over, almost like a cycle in scripture, which is again, revealing how God is a restorer and a repairer because our free will keeps destroying things and we keep destroying each other. Yeah. And free will is necessary because this is a love story.

13:28 And so we see the story of God in the Bible that he created mankind with a free will, even knowing that that free will would bring about damage, destruction, murder, disease, all of these negative effects of free will. But because it's a love story, first and foremost, God allowed free will to enter so that there could be true and genuine love. And so in the Old Testament, we see that God set up a standard of relating to humanity through a system called the law, which was given to Moses, which was rules. And he basically said, hey, if you want to see me and know me and relate to me, you need to follow all of these rules. And he made a nation called Israel, who he specifically gave those rules to. And he said, this is the nation that is going to demonstrate my rules. But he did that knowing that all of us in our humanity can't ever 100% follow all of the rules.

14:26 And so we see that cycle that you were talking about in the Old Testament of people trying to keep the rules and then breaking them and then trying to keep the rules and then breaking them and then trying to keep the rules until breaking them. Until finally it ended up at a point where the nation of Israel was no longer. They had been conquered by the Babylonians. And then there was silence for 400 years until Jesus came. And at the coming of Jesus is the start of the New Testament, which is a new covenant. A new covenant. And I would say to understand the Hebrew scripture or the Greek scripture or the new scripture, one is let's relate to God by rules. And the other is let's relate to God by righteousness or relationship. And I'll explain that in a moment. It is important to understand that we talk about these 10 rules, the 10 commandments. Those were a summary of over 600 rules and laws. Well said, yeah. So those 10, I love people who are like, we need the 10 commandments. Well, if you're into the Ten Commandments, you got to be into the over 600 other rules and commandments because the 10 are simply a summary of the 600 plus. The point is actually not adhering to the Ten Commandments because you can't.

15:27 By the time we get to the New Testament, 400 years of silence, if you were, from the divine, here comes the revelation of the promised Messiah, which was prophesied thousands of years before, hundreds of different ways that there would come a deliverer. Let's call him what he is, a superhero. Why was he a superhero? He did for us what we could not do for ourselves. To have a relationship with God, you had to keep every rule. Jesus came, kept every rule, became our sacrifice, became the man in our stead. He was perfect. So he who knew no sin became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God. So now we go from trying to keep the rules to a position gifted to us through the perfect work of Jesus on the cross. And I will say for you and I, we are very passionate about protecting the historical fact of the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. Much has been made of the Hebrew scripture, the stories such as Jephthah, you know, did that really happen? Oh my gosh.

16:32 Well, we certainly believe that it did, but if it didn't, if it actually is just metaphor, our belief system actually hinges on the revelation of Jesus and the fact that he was a historical person. And so the overwhelming emphasis of our lifestyle now is the New Testament. And the Old Testament serves us as it points us to our need for Jesus and he has come. Yeah. And so that's why it seems like God was so loving and kind in the New Testament is because Jesus not only lived a perfect life, but he also died, which was taking the consequences of all of the wrongs. And so the scripture, one of the verses says that all of the anger of God was actually extinguished, Exhausted. Exhausted in the person of Jesus. That's right. So because Jesus, who was the son of God, died. He took all the righteous anger of God.

17:25 All of the sadness of God over the free will choice that humanity made to reject his ways. That's right. All of that was put on to Jesus so that we can now relate to God in a new way. And so that's why there's the old covenant and the new covenant. And so for us, when talking to somebody who is wondering, where do I start with the Bible? What's the best place to start? Do I, because if you just go to Genesis, you're going to get lost really quick when you get to all the rules that don't even apply anymore. Actually, I recommend starting in the new covenant, starting probably with Mark or with John, one of the gospels, which really are the books that tell the story of the life of Jesus and going from there. Yeah. And I would take it even a step further to say, you can download the Bible app and you can listen to the audio version, which we're doing right now with our kids in the new Testament. And so I would urge somebody to start with the book of John or the book of Mark and see the beauty of Jesus. What oftentimes gets lost in translation is we take the teachings of Jesus as a coach. We make Jesus the proverbial Western high school football coach, that all of his teachings are to help us try harder and do better and improve. When in reality, the essence of Jesus teaching, not too dissimilar to the Hebrew scriptures, is to bring man, man or woman to the end of themselves where they realize I can't keep the rules. I can't do it all right.

18:44 I'm actually a nightmare. I wake up selfish. I have a problem. I'm broken. God help me. And that's where Jesus does his best work. And so whether it's the Sermon on the Mount, arguably the most famous sermon in history, Jesus is constantly bringing us to a point where like, I can't do that. For instance, Jesus says, it's been said in the scriptures, the Hebrew Bible, the rules say you can't have sex with someone you're not married to. But I say, Jesus says, if you look at a woman and you have sex with her in your mind, if you did it mentally, it's as if you did it. Well, I mean, who? Then we're all adulterers. Then we have all cheated on our marriages, right? It's to bring us to the end of ourselves. And that's why the teachings of Jesus are transitionary. They're actually to bring us from the old covenant to the new covenant. Or if we've never lived in the old covenant, it's to bring us from relying on ourselves to relying on Jesus. Because even if you've never tried to live under the Mosaic law of the Old Testament. We've all tried to do good in and of ourselves. We've all thought that I can just do better. I can just work harder. I can save myself.

19:49 I can make myself better. And that's where the teachings of Jesus aren't necessarily for us to live today. They are to bring us to the end of ourselves. So really, if you want to dive in and say, okay, so where do we live now? And what do we believe now? I wouldn't go to the teachings of Jesus. I would recommend going to Romans. Just listen to that to say, what is actually our theology? What do we actually believe about God now in terms of a new covenant? I would start with Romans. I want to be very, very careful. Chelsea just said something that will literally get us canceled faster by Christians than anything else. She just said, I wouldn't go to the teachings of Jesus. Let me be abundantly clear. This is in context for all those listening. Don't you dare catch a clip of this and put it out there in the universe and pretend like Judah and Chelsea aren't for the teachings of Jesus. The point is that the teachings of Jesus are transitionary. They're getting us to live a new way in relationship to God. And the teachings of Jesus are imperative. They should be studied. They should be followed. But again, the point of those teachings are to bring man to the point of saying, I can't do this. Who can do this? This is impossible. And that's where Jesus says, I'm going to help you. I can do it. I can make up the difference. And then it ushers you into these pastoral letters and these circular letters, like Romans, for instance, which begin to outline for us this supernatural life of walking with Jesus and having a relationship with God. But I will say, and you can tell in my voice, I'm so passionate about this because this is my passion in life, is that the message of Christianity is not do good, get good. It's not do better, try harder. It's the opposite of that. It's give up. It's surrender. It's are you weary?

21:27 Are you weak? Are you tired? Have you finally realized your middle name is nightmare? Have you finally realize that it's not them and they, it's you. You are the bad guy. You are selfish. You are self-serving. You are manipulative. You do lie. You do cheat. You do think about bad stuff and you want to do it and you like it and you're drawn to it. That's the point of Christianity to the point where we come and we go, well, if there's a God, would he still love me? And the overwhelming, resounding answer from eternity, from the throne of God himself is yes, I accept you. Jesus paid the price already in all of your brokenness and fragility and your finite and selfish and self-serving ways. I love you. I accept you. And so that's why we see repeatedly, whether it's a woman caught in a sex act with a man that's not her husband, whether it's marginalized, overlooked people, or even religious people, Jesus seems to be welcoming, inviting, loving. The only people he seems to resist are people who are propagating do good, get good, try harder, do better. Jesus is opposed to that because he's welcoming into this life of freedom, which is where you get to be truly you, which is I have so many problems.

22:40 And Jesus is like, I know, and I love you just the way you are. And to you and Mitchell, I think that's why it's like, why aren't there more people all over the world going, nothing's better than accepting Jesus in his way. I'm like, amen. You got very preachy in this episode. I know I just I was like so excited I go back to my 18-year-old self who read that story of Jephthah. I'm always a bit more of a critical thinker. And looking back, it didn't rattle me as an 18-year-old. It didn't rattle my faith. It didn't shake me up. But the reason it didn't was because I'd already met that Jesus. I already knew him in a real and a personal and an authentic way.

23:39 As you were talking about at the beginning, the Bible isn't about just having a knowledge of God. It's actually knowing him. And by that point, I'd already knew God. And so those things about the Bible that didn't necessarily make sense, that may have been contradictory, were okay with me. They didn't shake me. They didn't rattle me because I knew him. I knew God already. I had an experience with him. But yet we're living in a world where so many people don't grow up getting to know God first and then kind of hearing about maybe the dark side of the Bible, if that makes sense. You can go to college and you hear about the dark side of the Bible far before you're ever in a place where you actually get to know the God of the Bible. I think back to the other part of me is I experienced the miraculous of God. I was about to die at six weeks old, I had spinal meningitis and there was nothing the doctors could do for me. I had a hundred and three hundred and four degree fever for days. And my parents literally were saying goodbye to me and somebody came in and prayed for me and I was healed instantly and lived.

24:43 The doctor said, if I did live, I would be deaf, have brain damage. So many things. I think my mom wondered for about a year whether or not I was cognitively functional. I've never wondered. I want you to know that. Obviously I don't remember that, but then I look about my years growing up and there's times I remember just encountering the supernatural of God. So reading about the miracles of Jesus, hearing about him opening blind eyes or opening deaf ears, it didn't seem far-fetched to me because I had experienced that for myself. But somebody who just comes to this book with all of it at the same time, how do you begin to grasp it and understand it? Can I start by saying, do you remember as a kid ever being in the living room and like an uncle, aunt, grandma, grandpa, mom, dad is watching the news. And it seemed like another language. It was English, but it was a high level of English. And you're eight, nine, 10, you're sitting next to dad or whatever. And you're just going, wow, people are so smart and so powerful and so strong and so beyond me. I may never understand. And that is exactly how most people I think feel about the Bible. And you know what?

25:49 I'm sick and tired of it. I love all the professors. God bless you. I love all the preachers, I am you, we're in this together. But we have done humanity a disservice by making this romance book into something that is only to be understood by the elite, institutionalized, bright, enlightened minds of the professors and theologians and scholars of the ages. And I'm over it. Because actually, this book was written for the common man, the broken man. In common language. the common language. And so I want to say to everyone out there, this book is for you. And you're going to understand it. And God's going to give you insight. And if God is God, then let God be God. And I'm sick and tired of people being scared of the Bible. I'm tired of people feeling like they'll never understand it. It's too wonderful. It's too big. I remember a friend of mine recently, not sure if he believes in Jesus. He's like, I know you're a holy man. And so you'll be able to explain the Bible to me. And I'm like, you know, it's like the old days when the Bible was chained to the pulpit.

26:47 People don't know that. It was literally in some traditions, the Bible was chained to the pulpit and it was said that the common man could not read it nor understand it. And so it needed to only be interpreted by the few. Now, though the Bible, you need help to understand the original language and that sort of thing, it's a supernatural book. And what we mean by that is that you could encounter Jesus without the assistance of an interpreter or a scholar. And I believe when you look for Jesus, he will reveal himself to you. So I would say first and foremost, go to the book for what it is and look for him and expect to encounter him. Yeah, I'd say go into it with faith because if it is a supernatural book, if it is God inspired, and if there was the spirit of God who enabled these common men and common women to write the original manuscript, then guess what? If he was there to write it, then he's still there with me now to help me understand it. But I will say this to this day, I've read through the Bible most years since I've been 18.

27:46 So let's do the math. That's like 27 times that I've read through. I'd say once a week while I'm reading through my Bible, I put a question mark by something. There's something I don't understand about the Bible. There's something that doesn't necessarily make sense. There's something that's maybe incongruent with a God that I know, but then there's this teaching or this. And I just put a question mark by it and just say, hey, God, if you want to talk to me about that, explain that to me. great. If you don't, I'm fine because I know who you are in the big picture of the book. And I'm not going to get tripped up on this little verse or this little story of Jephthah that doesn't really seem to make sense to me. And I don't know why it's there, but I'm okay with it. Does that make me foolish that I can fully embrace something and use it as an authority, even though there's still parts of it I don't understand? No, I think that's called real life. I think that's pretty much everything we relate to. I'm looking at this painting I bought at our local farmer's market.

28:45 And do I understand everything about this painting? I think it was inspired by like Southwest architecture, but I don't know the whole story. I don't know how she painted it. I don't exactly know the process, but I love it. I see it. It inspires me. It's important. And so I think that's a big part of everyday life. And so it is with the ancient Holy scriptures. It's like, I'm not going to understand it all, but I'm going to understand some. And more importantly, I'm going to meet with him. Yeah. I mean, you're using a painting as an example, but I think about how much about you, I still don't understand. All the question marks. You probably get a question mark from me at least once a week. Like, huh, that's weird you did that. Our whole 22 years of marriage, you just got this question mark over my head. Like, what do I do with this man? But I know who you are and I know who you are at your core and I know who you are, your essence. And I, I know you, even though I don't understand and know everything about you. And I think it's the same with the Bible, just to come with it, that I know the big picture of God. I know that he, you know, go back to John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, Jesus, so that whoever should believe with him will not perish and have everlasting life.

29:52 That I know. Jephthah, I don't understand. I actually wrote a whole paper on it for school and I still don't understand. But here's what I find interesting too. The whole history of Christianity that's been in existence for about 2,000 years, there has been debate about how to interpret certain sections of the Bible, of the Old Testament. What's allegorical? What's literal? This isn't a modern thing that we are facing with the Bible. It's a question that's never been solved. Even the world's greatest theologians in the beginning days, they did not agree on how to interpret many sections of the Bible, especially the Old Testament, and what was allegorical, and what was literal and what was historical and what wasn't. So you and I don't have to agree on that, to agree on Jesus, life, death, burial, resurrection. It's okay. Yeah, and don't you think it points to the purpose of the book? We'll quote Jesus here.

30:44 He said to the synagogue teachers and the synagogue preachers, i.e. the church leaders of the time, he said, you think, speaking of the Old Testament, that your knowledge of the Hebrew scriptures is the point. but you miss the forest for the trees. The point is me. I am the fullness of the revelation of God in front of you. And your Bible knowledge is keeping you from knowing me. So it's imperative for us to understand that the goal of the Bible is not just to know the Bible. You only are to know the Bible so that you can know him. And guess what the divine will always be to the finite? Mysterious. There are things about God we will never fully know. And so part of what makes the ancient scripture profound is that it is mysterious, just like he is. And it's pointing us to a knowledge of him, to a relationship to him.

31:46 He is the goal. Ladies and gentlemen, you are listening to a seventh generation preacher who's been in more Bible contest, preaching contest, Bible drills, they call them, sword drills, where you got to find the book of the Bible, the fastest reference to scripture. No, like I, come on. The goal is not who knows the Bible the most. The goal is who knows God. And this book serves that purpose. And it can be a supernatural catalyst for knowing God because it is the number one way that he chose to reveal himself to us. That's right. No matter how much of it we understand or don't understand, we do have to take it at face value. And that is that that is how he chose to reveal himself to us. And so we get to come to it from a place of humility to say, God, if this is how you want to reveal yourself to us, can you use this book to show yourself to me?

32:43 And so for a toolkit today, for somebody who has taken this very- I got one, I got one. Oh, you do. Okay, I have one too. Okay. People get toolkits today. One from you, one from me. You go first. Mine's very simple. Okay. It is, if God is God, and if this is God's book, then talk to him before you read it and tell him how you feel about it. I'm scared. This seems too wonderful, too big, too profound, too smart, and it's kind of dusty, and I see it in hotel rooms everywhere. I don't know about this book. I don't know about you. So when I crack it and I open it, meet me. If you're God, let God be God. Meet me here. I am reminded of so many stories and I won't get into all of them, but there are parts of the world where the Bible is in fact illegal still today. And there are pages, just single pages that people have and stories we've actually heard where just one page of the Bible becomes the breeding ground and a platform for the human to connect with the divine. And God has met people there.

33:42 Ask him for a meeting as you open the book. Ooh, our toolkits are going to go together so well. Ooh, exciting. Because I'd say very practically, if you know where to start, download the Bible app, click onto Message Translation, and literally just listen to or read whatever works best with your learning style, the books of John, Acts, and Romans. They're back to back. Just read through or listen through those three and just see what happens. And just see if you feel like you get to know God a little bit better, if he's revealed himself to you a little bit more. I love how you said that, a little. Like, let's not get carried away here. I know we all want to be a superhero faith person, but I think the goal is just a little. And so I want to encourage you to just listen a little, grow a little. Yeah. It's okay to not know a lot of things about the Bible. It was a book that was written a lot of years ago in a different culture, in a different world with a lot of context that we don't have to this day.

34:43 and as much that you know they're talking about the metaverse and the new facebook i don't have a clue what that is but you know what i'm still on there trying to figure out how to do the vr game you know i can use the vr game even though i don't understand the whole metaverse it's okay to not know a lot about it and it's still supernatural and it can still reveal god to us thanks for this episode this was your idea this has been one of the more exciting episodes for me this is such a passion of ours and for people to get a little bit of an overview and a fly over and glimpse and catch the heart behind this most famous book ever written, hands down, bar none. It's supernatural. Yeah, it is. Let me pray. God, we thank you for your book. We thank you for your Bible, that it is the way that you have chosen to reveal yourself to humanity. And Lord, I pray for me, for Judah, for every person who was listening, that we would approach this book and use it in a way for you to reveal yourself to us. God, we want to know you in a fresh way. We want to know you the way that you want to be known.

35:43 So God, I pray for everybody listening as they approach the Bible in a new and a fresh way that you would come and you would show yourself to us. Lord, that you would reveal yourself like you said you would, that it would be a supernatural book and that you would show up in a supernatural way. In Jesus' name, amen. This has been a presentation of OBB Sound, SB Projects, and Cadence 13. Executive produced by Chelsea Smith, Judah Smith, Michael D. Ratner, Scott Ratner, Elias Tanner, Scooter Braun, Scott Manson, James Shin, and Chris Corcoran. Produced by Caitlin Plummer and Eve Bishop of OBB Sound and Kyle Vanuja of SB Projects. Produced by Lauren LaGrasso and Serena Regan of Cadence 13. Edited, mixed, and mastered by Daniel Chavez Crook. With editing support from Caitlin Plummer and Eve Bishop.

36:39 Original composition by Colin Gileard. Production support from Kristen Crosby and Dylan Martyr. OBB Sound is an OBB Media Company. Cadence 13 is an Odyssey Company.