Treasuring Scripture — http://thegodjourney.com/2011/07/29/treasuring-scripture/

It's now time to think outside the box of what we've always known. I myself will tend my sheep, and have them lie down, declares the sovereign lord. I think that's a profound turning point in somebody's relationship with God. And our hope in starting this was that this would become an ever-expanding conversation. Just two real guys talking about life, that's a nice tagline. I'm Wayne Jacobson. And I'm Brad Cummings. And welcome to another edition of The God Journey. Oh my goodness, not a threefer. Well, you know, sometimes don't they do like triple header baseball things? I know, but we do that and then we get email, we get blog comments, and then they're old. By the time we get back and tape a new one, it kind of destroys the conversation. Where is summer? And people understand. Have you ever gone to a triple header at their baseball park? Never heard of one. No? For double headers, but never been to a triple header. No? I would think that it's like the same guys playing back to back, back to back, back to back. That'd be too much, huh? I thought a triple header was in soccer when the ball hits off my head, your head, my head again. That's a triple header. Have you watched any of this? Have you? I have watched the women's World Cup. Are you converted? I've watched one game. Are you converted? Oh man. It's still soccer, you know. Oh, it was so awesome. Still not a real sport, but hey, they're doing well and they got one more game Sunday. Not a real sport. It's the biggest sport on the planet. It's over by now. No. By the time this airs, it's over. No. It's over, dude. I'm experiencing it. This was so glorious. We're time warping, but we apologize for those of you that are wanting to be part of this conversation and some of the comments and all, because we get kind of far between them these days. Summer schedule? Well, I won't answer email. We can be part of the conversation. Well, they could. They could. I'm going on vacation. You going on vacation? Grabbing a little family time? Yeah. I hear they're in there squeezing a little work. Me too. Little family, little work, little family. Little family, little work. That's how it works. Go watch your boys play their video games, or do you restrict them when you're on vacation? Don't need to. Don't need to. Why? They give it up? Are you taking to a place that doesn't have it? No. They have it. They'll do it. But I think the really cool thing is they, as a family, we love doing stuff. And I think Taylor's probably the biggest orchestrator. She just wants everybody together doing something. And whatever it is, we have a blast doing it together, which is neat. And I think the kids have a sense of, hey, life at home can have its own rhythms and its own demands and everyone kind of is in their own little world and we connect dinner when we go someplace. You actually have dad around, huh? Yeah. We actually connect with each other. Cool. And that's really cool. We love that. I mean, we actually spent, last weekend, doing rake and pie needles. That is fun. That's one of the most exciting things. There's nothing fun about it. But I was, I was... Except the people you're with. Exactly. What I was actually blown away with is my boys didn't have this inward groan. They just did it. They didn't complain. I sat there going like, okay, somebody's taking a picture. This is a moment of glorious something that just needs to be recorded. Wow. Somethings sucky we're doing together, having fun. Having fun. Yeah, that's good. They were playing. There was just a sense of, hey, she's just part of, we're doing it together. And I just went, you know, that was such a cool gift that, you know, whether they knowingly or unknowingly, I received a great gift out of it. That's one of the biggest downsides to the whole emptiness thing is you don't have labor hanging around the house to scurry up to various activities during the day. That's the only thing. The rest of it's all good. Okay, Julie and Andy, I apologize. Our guest is still full and we're having a blast. Well, I got this email. It's not one of my favorite emails. It's the kind of email that just ticks me off. Oh, you got to tick me off email. Yeah, and it's not even about me. So what's cool? I'm not ragging on me. They're ragging on something I love. So this is Colt from San Diego. He wrote this, you guys have helped me so much to become free of religion and church. Okay. Don't become free of church. Church is a great thing. I'm getting freer and freer every day, especially since I got out of the Marine Corps. That would help. I've joined some 12 step groups as well and they've helped me become free of addictions and to find God. God is little by little over time becoming real to me. To be honest though, I'm just waiting for you guys to come out of the closet, if you will, in parentheses, with the Bible. And finally just say, this thing is too complicated and man's messed with it way too much. Give up on the Bible already is the conversation, give up on the Bible already is the conversation that goes on in my head. I've stopped reading the Bible ever since my shak reading days in 2008 and it has been glorious. I never want to touch that thing again. I just want to talk with people and find God in life more and more. It's still a struggle finding peace, but nothing like it used to be before. Read the Bible. Come on. That's going to mess this all up. It was one of the key contributors to my religious shackles. God is going to have to number, do a number on me to read that again. Well, I absolutely pray to God. One more sentence. Okay, sorry. The funny thing is, I just want to be done with it. The funny thing is, my friend recently turned Christian and I so badly wanted to tell her, don't go down that road. Oh, Balderdash. Yeah. I mean. Hey, go cold. Take that. I'm sorry. Well, this is the day we're not coming out of the closet. At least on that road. I don't have a closet to come out of there. I hear you. I do get that we can have such a distorted lens that has been just placed upon us, that that can be hard to get out of. But that's a mindset to get free from, not a book to ignore. There you go. I mean, I love that. In fact, that's why I did this Jesus lens thing that we're just kind of now putting out on the live stream side of, and it starts with this very thing. And I get this letter. I got it a lot more a few years ago than I get now, but people would say, you know, I've read the shack and the shack is the best story of God's love I've ever read. And I wrote every one of them back and say, no, it's not. Yeah. It's the story of a Jewish man born in the first century and even better, been a best seller for far longer. And it's not even the best seller aspect that God didn't come down as a black woman in a cabin in Oregon. That's fiction. Catch the word on the back cover fiction, but God did do was appear in a baby in Jerusalem in Bethlehem and the Nazareth and in Jerusalem. And he did make himself. That's the greatest love story ever written. Has man corrupted that twisted that into its religious shell? Yes, they have. No, they haven't corrupted it. Well, that's true. They have misinterpreted it. They have used it to keep people in bond. They've used their misinterpretation. Yeah. And I mean, they, they have wielded it, thumped it. They have, but my gosh, do not ignore it. Well, I ended up, I ended up going like, okay, I get that it can be challenging. But if you turn that beautiful book into a story that is there as a story, I mean, take out all the chapter and verse and addresses and all of this, and you read it as a story. Oh my lens. It's the best. Not even G rated. It's the best thing I read every day. So when I get things like this of people, not only I hate it, not reading it, I'm going to encourage other people not to read it. And I thought, well, this was funny because when I started the Jesus lens thing, one of the comments I got on the blog early was, what are you trying to do this for? It's a stupid book. Everybody just ought to give it up and stop reading it. You know, there's that kind of tone. And then within two or three weeks of listening to some of the Jesus lens stuff, the person's already saying, okay, I used to feel that way, but I'm not so much anymore. I'm really saying that there is a bigger reality here. And that's, that's to me why we did the whole video thing and why I went to Indianapolis is because this is a book I dearly love. But you've got to read it as a story. You cannot read it like the owner's manual to the DVR. You've got to see that there were places in the Old Testament where people misunderstood who God was. And Jesus came to make it very clear who his father was. And then if you take that back to the Old Testament, man, the grace and loving kindness and compassion and mercy of God and his gifts being given to people, it's all through the Bible, old and New Testament, one consistent view of God as he really is. Yeah. And I mean, the fact that people can twist it to their own ends. I don't know a single thing that you can't do that with. If that is your desired thing, I'm going to use it or twist it. It's like, well, that's not the problem of it. That's the problem in the heart that's seeking to do that. Yeah. And the, you know, I look at, I look at the value of scripture and it's like, you know, do I like to check? Absolutely. Would I recommend everyone read it? Absolutely. And if I had to choose between it and the Bible, there's not even a contest. I don't even lose a gulp of, I wonder what. I mean, you know, I end up going like, I'm glad that helps people. But if there's any help, it's truth that came from the foundation. The Bible, to me, that's so glorious is here you have all these different books. And yet when you bring them together, they're not a contradictory mess. They give a full, complete picture. Even if you were to take out some books and say, you just didn't have it, you would still get a glorious picture that you're just going like, oh, my lands. Jesus, God, the fullness of the Father, the Godhead of that dramatic story. That is the most amazing thing ever. That's what I look at when I read the Bible. Is that what I got when I was growing up and I had to? No. No, when you put the religious performance of, well, if you're a good Christian, you will do this, boom, boom, boom, boom. It's like, I never got any life out of that. Even in Sunday school, weren't we taught the Old Testament stories where morality plays? If you do good, then God will send, give you a boat when he gets everybody else a flood. You know, if you do good, you'll get good stuff. I mean, you do bad stuff, you get bad stuff. And it's all taught in this whole religious treadmill thing and put little stars on the chart. Yeah, we get all that. And yeah, back to the discussion last week about Rome, when you've got to defend this whole thing, you've got to take Matthew 16 and say, upon this rock, I will build my church as saying that he was the first pope and all the popes have derived from Peter. And honest reading of history won't get you to that. It just won't. And he wasn't a pope and it wasn't a pope for hundreds of years later. But they kind of, you know, played this little game. Everybody kind of, you know, winking a nod. Yeah, we know it's not really true. But it is true. It was all based on this because now they, you know, St. Peter's altar sits right above Peter's tomb. That's that's the other one. It's built on that. It's not what Jesus was talking about at all. No. And when you twist the scriptures to make them holy, unholy, I do understand people who take a break from scripture because every time they read it, a religious voice just beats them up. I get that. Yes, stop reading it for a while. But then stop listening to that voice and find a find some way to see it afresh, hear it afresh. Right. Just but just because it's been beat, it's been used to beat you up, doesn't mean there's a beauty hundreds of years of God's unfolding revelation in the course of human history. And here I think the Bible is the most unique book in a story like The Shack and most stories humans write are this way. You've got a flawed character who goes through some really rough stuff and through that makes discoveries and becomes a better person. That's mostly, you know, whether it's gladiator movies or brave art. It's all the same stuff, conflict, you know, here's what I think happens in scripture. It's not that God grows up in scripture. It's that the reader grows up in scripture. The reader, just like the early writers, they're misunderstanding things about God. And if you go back to Job and you quote some stuff, Job says in the early part of the book about God succeed. That's the way God is. You're going to get ignored the back half of that where God said, no, that's not I'm not like that. And you spoke out of your ignorance. Well, Jesus comes and says that about much of what the Old Testament conclusions were about God. But Jesus comes back to say, but no, this book's about me and he can take the Emmaus guys all the way through the whole Old Testament, watching how God, the God of love and affection, the Abba is unpacked in that story. And that's what I see when I read it. And I'm afraid people miss that. Yeah. And I think I would largely agree with that. But I don't want to assume that we're saying the exact same thing. I look at I look at the Old Testament and I go, I don't think the Old Testament got it wrong. I think we can read some of that wrong. I I still look when Jesus says, hey, that was written down for your instruction upon whom the ends of the age has come that all scripture is God breathed in. I mean, he is making a statement about the validation and validity of what that is. But can it be twisted? Can it be misunderstood? Yeah. Did they get it wrong? Well, I don't know which of the Old Testament writers got it wrong. I'm just thinking it's all interpreted through our very subjective lens of the way we're trying to grasp something that is not something I will completely master. Right. But I think it's also partly through their subjective lens. I don't think God used Isaiah or Moses to dictate them what he wanted them to write. I think they wrote out of their revelation. And so when Isaiah talks about God saying, I need to send a deceiving spirit out, I think I'm pretty clear from the New Testament. God's not a deceiver. He doesn't need to send a deceiving spirit out. I think Isaiah misunderstood what he was seeing, but he's writing down what he's seeing. And I think like when you get to the New Testament and James says stuff like every good gift and every perfect gift come down from the Father of God. Don't say when you're being tempted, you're being tempted by God. When you look at the Old Testament, you look at it does appear at times like people think they're being tempted by God or that God's done some horrible thing to them that may not have been God's doing. I think those are the kinds of things where you go back through Jesus and you say, yeah, maybe you misunderstood that, which would lead people to conclusions like the disciples with the blind man. Well, did his parents sin or did he sin that he'd be born blind? And you say, no, no, no, you're missing the point. And I think that the Old Testament, because it's people who are growing in the revelation of God that doesn't culminate till the sun comes. I do think they make observations and tell stories that weren't meant to be our examples that, yeah, that's what we should believe and that's how we should act. And so I do think there's we probably see that a bit differently, but that's why I took, you know, there's eight hours of this on livestream.org. You want to listen to the Jesus lens, how to work through the scriptures in a way that leads to one coherent story of unpacking the God of Scripture, who is both a lover and both and also deadly serious about the sin that destroys the people he loves. God's both of those. Yeah. And I think the scripture unveils that in a wonderful way. But you've got to read it differently than we've been taught to. And I think the thing that I would add is it's not like, well, gee, you know, I just disagree. It's like, no, we may have nuances of difference. But the reality is, is I think there's an unfolding revelation of God coming and meeting a people and they are by no means mature and perfect in their understanding. And he is taking them on a journey. If you don't read that story in its full journey, you are going to mistake some of the pieces to be things that they're not set in the context of that full journey. Yeah, that's what I agree wholeheartedly. And I think we I think proof texting does that a lot. Yeah. And they quote a scripture from somewhere. And the Bible says, yeah. And it's like, no way, dude. Yeah. You know, it's like, I know enough of the scriptures to just go like, I mean, I would struggle to say, well, you know, I think Isaiah got that wrong. I'm going to say, I don't know if he got that wrong. That has not been revealed to me that, oh, Isaiah, you got that wrong. But do I completely understand it? I'm going to just raise my hand and say, no, I'm not on the front of the class on that one in terms of how did how did that work and what's going on there? And just going, ah, guess what? I do get the fact that God is not a man that he can lie. So God is not a deceiver. He is a trustworthy God that in whom truth rely. And so in terms of the conclusion you arrive at, I'm at that same conclusion with verses that are going like, hey, put this whole thing in context. Is God out there to be sort of some maniacal? You can't figure me out, God. No, he's trying to unveil and reveal himself. And he does it in an unfolding way. Do we get it all right? No. Does it seem like there's there's passages of the Old Testament that it's like, wow, that comes off incredibly harsh. And I'm not going to. Well, well, what he really meant, no, don't do that. There is incredible harshness in those moments. If I don't understand the full story, I am very much going to misunderstand that. Yeah, but a harsh moment doesn't define someone's character. And I think that's true even in human relationships. You can see like my dad was a very gentle, loving father, but it didn't mean there weren't moments when in the extremity of a situation and needing to intrude for the protection of his kids or whatever, that he couldn't be a very harsh person at a time like that. So I do think we find we definitely find those harsh moments. But what religion has done is it's to find God by the harsh moments. See, he's a terrifying, fearful judge for the purpose of manipulating people's behavior. I'm going to give you a little salted with fear and mystery. And you're going like, OK, I'm pretty sure that's not what God was after. Yeah. You know, and so you look at that and it's like, I, you know, would people have that kind of response? I'm sympathetic because you end up going like, gosh, if you took a baseball bat and the baseball bat was, you know, upon which everything beautiful was written, but you kept hitting me on the head with the baseball bat, I would not understand the words that were on that bat because of the way it was used by the hand in whom it was wielded. And you're just going like, OK, I get that. But OK, take a break, take your vacation, but come back and find the hands in whom that really was pinned on the hearts that heard. And did they get it all right? I don't know. I mean, there's moments like in first Corinthians where Paul says, you know, on this issue, I do not have a command from the Lord. Well, OK, seminary really had a hard time. You know, it was sort of like a coughed at that moment because it didn't know what to conclude. Because is it perfect in all the manuscripts? I like, no, the next verse we have right there is one of those. Guess what? That one is not the very words of God, because the verse right before it said, what follows is my opinion. Yeah. And so I look at that and it's like, golly, what, you know, why do we need? And when does that stop at the next chapter break or verse break? Well, no, but that's where it's like, why do we need to make statements about scripture that scripture does not make about itself so as to most of the time it's because someone's using a false quick shortcut to authority to try to trump somebody else. Yeah, I don't think we were ever meant to read it without him. And I think for many people in the last 2000 years, now we have scripture, we don't need Jesus. It just kind of supplanted him, but we get him. And if people are going to restart scripture again, I here's where I encourage people, why don't you take two or three years and just spend in the Gospels? Just get to know the Jesus that God sent into the world because that's that begins to help everything else take shape. But so many people were aware of Paul's writings and what he says about what we should do about this or that. But we didn't get acquainted with Jesus first, who he is, how he treated people, how he walked in the world. Get to know the Jesus of scripture. And then when you get into accent and Romans and the other and you get into the Old Testament, now all of a sudden it begins to take on definition because of who he is. And that that's the important bit that we've missed. And when you when you know that Hebrew says that, hey, you want to understand who God is? Boom, Jesus is the exact representation of his nature. You don't get a better picture of who God is. Then as you look back on the Old Testament, well, read it through that Jesus lens. And there you have a far better opportunity to go, Oh, if I know he is this, then when I see that and I'm looking through that lens, I'm not doing a PR spin for God. Right. I'm looking through a correct lens as opposed to the not whole of my misunderstanding. And I'm going, Oh, I see that different. And it can be fine to say, I don't understand that passage. I think the I don't know podcast me a couple of weeks ago. We're afraid to say, I don't know about this one. God is, I don't know. I know that Bible is not the same as the Jesus I know in the gospel. So what is that an extreme moment? God had to do something. It could be, did they maybe misunderstand something? They thought they heard God say to them, maybe I don't know. I don't have to know what I love about the here. Here's a book that was written by so many different people over so many years without necessarily when these things are being written, people are thinking, I'm going to add this to the script. They're not codifying it as we go. They didn't have a three ring binder and hold it. Well, here's the next installment. But the things that you see that bleed through with consistency are like David in Psalm 23 saying, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. You've got Ezekiel 34 and Ezekiel saying, you know, the worthless shepherds have ravaged my sheep and haven't sought out the strays and haven't wanted. They just sucked up for their own needs. So I'm going to come and shepherd my own people. And he's, he's affirming what David is saying. And then John 10, Jesus talks about, I'm the good shepherd, lays down his life for the sheep. All who've come before me are imposters and failures. And then you've got Hebrew saying that God, you don't have the need of someone to teach you for all will know me from the least to the grace of them, which Hebrews is quoting from Jeremiah. And you look through the whole of scripture and you have this incredible invitation inside a relationship, not to be married to the legalities of a book, but so much of religion. You can't sustain religion inside the freedom of a relationship. You have to sustain it by someone making the rules and appealing to whatever is a law book and making people follow the rules that you've written from a book that aren't really there. I look at how Jesus rebuked the Pharisees and he says, you know, you guys search the scriptures because you think that in them, you're going to find life, but you refuse to come to me. Yep. And it's like, so you can be relating to the dead letter. And if so, then I totally get what Colt is saying. If this is just ink on paper and a bunch of religious rules and that's all you have. And you don't have a stepping stone to a conversation with the author. If the Holy Spirit's nowhere to be found, so as to help me understand, hey, in my life today, what in the volume of what's written, what would you feed me today that is my sustenance and spiritual food that will help me make sense of the road that's in front of me? Yeah, help me know you, help me engage you, not just be the replacement for you. Yeah, I've memorized all of this. It's like, well, star on your chart. Great. I'm not thinking that's the import. Or having Jesus now, I don't need that, which I think is just as crazy. I get an email from Sarah about something going on in our life when I'm traveling around the world. I don't go, I say, I know Sarah, I don't need to read what she writes. I want to read what she writes. I want to know her in every way that she makes herself known to me. And this is a way that God made himself known in the world. It's through the revelation that these men and maybe women had in writing this book and causing it to come together in a way and then have it stand the test of time. That's, was it put together through weird church councils and popes that probably weren't even the greatest people in the world? I just read that history. Yes, it's very suspicious. And you can use that as a tool to reject it. And many do, but I come to the point of saying, you know what, those books came together and have a remarkable consistency, even though Martin Luther threw out the book of James and one other one because he didn't like it. But I think they have a remarkable consistency. They have stood the test of time and no other book, whether the Gospel of Thomas has ever emerged where people go home, you know what? That rings with the same authenticity. It doesn't, it's a, it's a fabulous read. And I think those who just say, I don't need it. I don't not, I don't want to do it anymore. I think you throw out one of the best tools that can help you live this journey. I think when that's the case, clearly that's a heart that is in reaction. Yep. And I don't know about you, but my life history would tell me that the decisions I make in reaction are not always, not always the best enduring ones for me. So, but do I understand the reaction? Absolutely. Yeah, and I see that all the time. I get letters like this from Cody and people don't know is two years from now, Cody wrote me a very different letter and it was just a phase of his journey. And he's fallen in love with some things in the scriptures that God's invited him into. And I know that changes for people, but it seems that the people that are reacting are always the loudest voices on blogs and websites and everything else. And then everybody gets all nervous going, and I know people who actually actively advocating once you know Jesus, you don't ever need to read the scriptures again. And I totally don't understand that. Yeah, because, you know, I look at the value of the scriptures much like a tuning fork for tuning a piano. It's kind of like, you know what? Does your life get out of tune? I don't know about you, but my strings go everywhere. That's the one place that is a little more objective than much of my subjective life where I can anchor and get rooted back into, now, what do you like? How did, I mean, to read the scriptures like you would a fascinating novel, any fascinating novel draws me in and I almost feel like somehow I'm sitting on somebody's shoulder. I'm watching this thing, I'm there. If it's well written, I'm like somehow finding my way to crawl into the story and I'm really enjoying it. If you read the Bible like a textbook that you're, you know, what's on the test, it's kind of a dead letter. And I'm going like, yeah, I did that for many years. But when I finally was able to sort of climb in and go like, what did that taste like? What did they see? I mean, one of the prayers I kind of was, hey God, looks to me like they saw something, they touched something, they did something. I was like, Lord, I bet if you let me see what they saw, I could do what they did, I'm sure of it. Because the book reveals them to be just as normal as the rest of us when it says Elijah, like a man like us. Why was it given that version of Elijah? I was given the, oh, fire and, you know, they say, well, he's a person like me with insecurities. That was a really neat verse to stumble upon and go like, oh, you mean not put them up as heroes on some pedestal that we're not to emulate and have a life with, that Abraham isn't the only friend that God has ever had, that, you know, maybe there's a place for me in that. That's where this thing becomes profoundly alive. And the, you know, I think of all the things that I share with my kids is wisdom. 95% of the time, it really is attached to some wonderful truth that I did learn and it became alive and real out of the scriptures. So what my kids would end up saying is, that you always have a Bible first. It's like, well, guys, I'm just giving credit from where it's like your dad might be smart, but guess what? The wisdom came from this thing over here and it's a lifelong pursuit of saying, Lord, help me understand you. Not like I'm gonna be an expert in this. Yeah, and I find very, often on days, very specific phrases out of a passage of scripture make sense of something else going on in my life that may not even be directly attached. Like I was dealing a couple of months ago with some very complicated relationships that was involved and it's confirmed why it wasn't working smoothly. And I'm reading Ecclesiastes, which is not a book where necessarily there's a lot of spiritual meat in there at times, but I'm reading the book and just why this thing is not working well. And I come across this verse and it was Eugene Peterson's translation. The phrase, the verse we're probably all familiar with is how can two walk together unless they agree. But what Eugene Peterson said is how can two people walk hand in hand if they're not going to the same destination? And it just, I mean, when I read that, I just stopped and went, that's the situation I'm involved in. I'm hand in hand with somebody. It's not going the same place I'm going. Doesn't mean he's going to a bad place or I'm going to a bad place. It just means with different callings in our life, different things God's asking of us and trying to make it work was just not helpful. And I even find those kinds of wisdom more times than not come out of my engagements with Scripture. And it's just things I've been praying about and ruminating on, all of a sudden I just read a phrase or something and it clarifies somebody. I go, yeah, no, that's what God's been saying. And I don't do the, you know, pick a page and point your finger and then do whatever it says. No, Bible Relate. You don't do that wrong. I don't do Bible Relate ever. Everything on number three. But I do end up some days just amazed. Why would I read that chapter today? Then a book that I started reading a while back and really kind of chose on a whim from the book I just finished. Where do I go next? Ended up here. And on this particular day, this answer to my prayer is in this very, and I just, I'm amazed that God does that kind of stuff. I love it when God whispers some direction, some insight, some understanding into your heart. I gotta tell you though that the ones that I have really built my life on are the ones that almost always seem to be tied more to a scripture as opposed to just a phrase that I got. Because when I see that there's something rooted in the historical record of what he has said to his people, somehow that ends up with more weight that I can lean on that I feel more comfortable with than when it's just my little phrase that I heard that I'm going like, well, I don't know where that came from and I don't know if that's really true. I agree with that. Absolutely. So I look at that and it's like, okay, why would I want to throw that away? When I go like, gosh, when God breathes a scripture verse and I'm not walking around like, all right, so what's my Bible verse for this and what's my Bible verse for that? It's more like when I'm going like, Lord, I don't know what to do. And repeatedly, without my saying, I would like you to speak with me from this frequency or from that source. It's more like the fact that more often than not, he is breathing a Bible verse afresh. I end up going like, I'm really thankful that that's part of the repertoire out of which he can speak that I can rely on. Yeah, and I would agree that there's not anything that I believe or teach that I can't take back to scripture and not just a proof text somewhere. I mean the sense, the consistency, the whole of a scriptural argument or a scriptural revelation. There's not anything, I don't teach stuff because I just woke up and had something on my heart and so I thought I would throw it out there. It really does. My life, and I hope the shaping of my character, I've been reading Proverbs again and I go through Proverbs and I don't see Proverbs as a rule book now that I'm supposed to follow. But I do see Proverbs describing the kind of character in whom God gets to make himself known in the world and the kind of character that's very destructive to itself and to others. You're just simple things of finance and dealing with money and dealing in honesty with people, all those kinds of things. Proverbs is a great read to just kinda, okay, is my life finding definition in the kinds of things that God desires or am I self justifying behaviors because they're expedient to my own needs? Scriptures do that. Once you free it from being the rule book, you have to obey to make God happy and now it's the way God's made himself and his ways known so that I can live in him more fully, then it becomes a book that you can love and enjoy and encourage others to be part of instead of hate it so deeply because religion beat you over the head with it. How many years have you been reading the Bible? I'm 58, so I would even ate at nine as I say 50 years plus reading it with some seriousness. 50 years, reading the same book. Yeah, it's a good thing it's a long one. Don't you? But I'm leading you to it. I'm gonna give you a leading question. I sensed it coming. Aren't you amazed that there's still things that you discovered that you didn't see before? Yeah, I mean. That does amaze me. You look at 50 years going like, it's not as if you haven't read it. Right. And it's not as if you haven't read it several times over. Yeah. Okay, so you go through the same stuff. And with my ridicule. And over and over. I mean, it's like I haven't gone through the Bible while I'd read it once. You know, when the sequel comes out, we'll read that too. Plus with my memory, the hardest thing I fight is when I opened to Matthew 6, I can almost quote the entire verse, I can almost do the chapter to you. I tell you, it goes from this argument to this argument, the Lord's Prayer, do, do, do, do. And I go, okay, I have to read this? Like I've never read it before. And I really work at that. But yeah, I do find that. I look at going like when you have a document, a text, something that has been penned for 50 years, you're gonna camp in that document. I would think somewhere around 25 years, you've exhausted it. Like there ain't no fresh stuff you're gonna, but the reality is there's not a person I haven't asked that has been a wonderful student of the Bible that doesn't have that same amazing reality going like, I still find stuff I've never seen before. Like you're going like, where in the world did that verse ever? I did not know it was in there because now all of it has been quickened with life and insight and understanding and application in a way I never experienced before. Because I think the reader is growing up. So when you're reading it now, the wane of today that reads scripture is very different from the wane of 16 or 10 who read the scriptures, very different. So I'm gonna naturally see things that are go, wow. The other thing I thought of when you were talking about that is how often would you read a love letter that your wife wrote to you on the day you married her? We just, I read it, I read it 25 years ago. Just wants to throw it away. Or would you have it in a file somewhere and with some regularity pull it out and let it refresh your love for the woman you married and what you felt on that day? I think to me that's what the Bible is. It is that, that every time I'm in it, it doesn't always happen every day. Sometimes I read it and go, gosh, I'm not getting anything out of this. So I'll be honest about that. Most days though, I come away going, gosh, I really love this God, I really do. And that's renewed by reading about Him. Even some things that are familiar. Do you actually have one of those letters from Sarah? Not written on that day, but I have old love letters from her, yeah. You ever pulled it out when you've been in a fight with her? Yeah, I've done things like that, yeah. What did that do to you? It, when you're ready to stop fighting is when you pull it out. When you're still angry, you're not gonna pull it out because I don't want all that tenderness. I think it restores tenderness in your heart. See, that's one of the, I think the wonderful things of the scriptures in terms of it is that love letter. Now, if you've read it as just that baseball bat that you've been hit with, I'm not sure that that's gonna be all that helpful, but when you've encountered it as- I'm really sure it's not. As that love letter, then on the times where you're just going like, wow, God, where are you? Help me, I got lost. I took a left turn. Guaranteed, he's still there, but that is a wonderful place to let the Bible become like a mirror to me, where I gotta go like, oh, I can find myself again, and I can see him again. And that's why it's like, I would never undergird the conclusion that they call it. When are you gonna come out of the closet and be done? No, never, because- It's not gonna happen. I absolutely treasure the revelation of him that's in this book that I get to go back to, and I can turn to for comfort, direction, and guidance when my other little faculties of navigation are struggling. I go like, oh, my lens, this is amazing. I have an anchor for my soul that when my sails get confused, or my compass is like, ah, I have something to ground me. And that's why it's like, nah, it's a powerful book. And that's life-changing. And I think there are times when you feel like, gosh, there's something God has shown me, and I go to the scriptures and start reading and going, hold it a minute. What I thought God has shown me is entirely out of sync with that. And to have something objective to come back and hold to the light, say, does this thing bear weight in this? And you go, no, it doesn't. Then for me, it's a very easy choice to make. I would much rather trust the revelation of God through time and history than I would my own whim after having pizza, or whatever. Yeah, careful of that pizza. So it's something to treasure, not something to hate, and I hope you come to discover that someday again, Cody. Sweet. Thank you for traveling with us on The God Journey. 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