Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:20 Hey friends, welcome back to unfeigned Christianity, where we seek to reconcile human experiences with God and his word so that we can love from a pure heart, a good conscience and sincere faith. As you probably know, if you've been listening, we are in the middle of a four-part mini series on how to read the Bible. If you missed any of the episodes, please do go back and catch up on them. The series is an introduction of our flagship course called finding my place in God's story. The last time we responded to the question of whether or not we have to read the Bible every day in order to be a good Christian for that, we looked at why the Bible is so hard to get into in some of the problematic approaches that we tend to bring when coming to the Bible. And then the episode before that, we, we saw how the word of God is a message.
Speaker 1 00:01:16 It's not the Bible. When we think word of God, we should think of message. The whole message of the gospel. And the Bible is the collection of writings that are organized in such a way to tell a story that communicates that message. The Bible is not a reference book. It's a story. And when we approach it like a reference book, we are susceptible to missing the story and the deeper truth and wisdom and insight for our lives that are found in the story. In this episode, we're diving in to see how to read the Bible so we can get to know God and fully grasp his message and be transformed by the Bible is a story it's not a theological dictionary, moral handbook or devotional grab bag. So what does it look like to read a story? That's what we're going to get into here before we do that.
Speaker 1 00:02:10 However, as always, I would highly recommend that you subscribe, if you don't want to miss any future episodes, subscribe to the podcast on apple or Spotify or however you're listening, but also subscribe on YouTube. We did video versions of these episodes and on YouTube, subscribe to our email list, to stay afloat with articles and resources that are, that are being made available on faith. Christianity is made possible through our paid subscribers on Patrion paid subscribers are able to receive expanded versions of all our interviews. So just to clue you in here, and I think it's next week, I've got an episode with a former prophet of mine. We talked about how to read the old Testament. And then there were two nuggets. How to read old Testament law, how to read old Testament, prophecy or biblical prophecy in general, those two nuggets took like 40 minutes beyond our hour.
Speaker 1 00:03:06 So just regular listeners to the free version of unfeigned Christianity. We'll hear how to read the old Testament and how it's connected to the new Testament, but paid subscribers will receive the expanded version, which includes how to read old Testament law, how to read biblical prophecy. Another thing paid subscribers get is deep dive essays into the different experiences that we're dealing with. Um, one is going to be, uh, how to become a people who don't, aren't consumed by pornography. Um, we're going to deconstruct deconstruction. We're going to look at the implications of reading Genesis as metaphor. We're going to, there's a whole bunch of stuff that we're going to be getting into. Those will be paid subscriber, only essays to become a member visit www.asherwhitmer.com forward slash member. And now let's get going on today's episode.
Speaker 1 00:04:23 The question is, does it matter how we read the Bible? Absolutely. It's a story. It's not a reference book. So reading the Bible as a story means that we understand that the whole thing is telling one specific plot. There's, there's a message it's communicating and it's all going in one direction. It's pointing to Jesus, but not only that, there are many subplots within the story. There are other characters that may not necessarily be the protagonist. There are villains. There are antagonists. There are people who are kind of in movie terms would be stand-ins or fill-ins and, and, and yet they're all playing a role in communicating the wisdom that we need for life and, and to be transformed into the image of Jesus. And it's all communicated in story form. It's organized in a story form to communicate the message of the gospel, reading the Bible as story doesn't solve challenging interpretive questions.
Speaker 1 00:05:26 I want to be clear about that. I'm not sure if I've been very clear about that. Learning how to read the Bible just helps us know how to come to it and how to make sure that we're hearing it as the biblical authors intended us to hear it. It does not solve knowing what they mean. And as you probably, if you've had some experience with the Bible, you've probably seen this already, but you will see it. If you continue through this course with us, the Bible itself gives examples of people who weren't quite sure what to make of what they just heard. How do we interpret that? So it doesn't solve challenging interpretive questions. It does help us know which way to come to the Bible. As we seek to solve those interpretive questions. The Bible is expertly crafted to tell one cohesive message from beginning to end, just like we wouldn't open Pilgrim's progress and jumped to random parts of the book to try to understand, Hey, what's going on.
Speaker 1 00:06:22 I mean, maybe you do that. If you don't really enjoy a good long read, you might jump from chapter to chapter to try to get the gist of it. But it's hard to be able to then turn and tell like, Hey, this is the story of Pilgrim's progress. And somebody who's actually read the whole thing is going to be listening in. And they're going to be like, Hey, Hey, you missed this section. Or like, no, actually they didn't go up the mountain. Then it was, it was came at a later time or whatever in the same way, the Bible is meant to be read from beginning to end, not just randomly like road signs, trying to figure out, you know, where to go. The whole story of the Bible points to in culminates in Jesus, even the old Testament, some of us may feel like the old Testament is kind of irrelevant, but that is a crucial part of the story.
Speaker 1 00:07:13 It's not the only part. It's not even necessarily the main part, but it's crucial. We can't just neglect it. I would say it's foundational, actually not just crucial foundational Jesus appeals to the Torah and to old Testament prophecies for his authority as being the son of God. The Bible is a unified story about how God appoints humanity as his partners to oversee his amazing creation, how humans ruined that partnership and how God is restoring us and our world through Jesus. It's not a surprise that many missed the larger story. There's a lot going on. Like I said, distinct plots characters, literary styles spread out across the different books of the Bible. But once you see how every book has a careful literary design, you'll be able to see how they fit into the overall storyline. I want to tell you about two real quick for me, that that were interesting and intriguing.
Speaker 1 00:08:13 One is the book of judges. The book of judges is full of a bunch of captivating little stories, and we all know them, right? We know the story of Sampson. We know the story of maybe Deborah, that, that lady judge, there's the story of Jeff that I think it was who, who ends up needing to. He told God that he would sacrifice whatever, walked out his door and his daughter walked out the door. So there's all these stories. And we get so focused on that. At least I did that. I missed what this whole book was doing as a part of the larger story. And when you step back and you look at judges in light of the whole story, you realize it's serving a bit as a bit like Davidic propaganda, maybe propaganda. Does it sound like a very good word, but it's, it's framing the reader to think fondly of David of the tribe of Judah, and to think negatively of the tribe of Benjamin.
Speaker 1 00:09:16 Uh, another example would be Chronicles. Chronicles gives a drastically different perspective of some Kings than the book of Kings does. Uh, I think of Manasseh who's considered the most wicked king in all of Israel is in the book of Chronicles is painted as a positive king. Why? Like, if we're, if we call reading the Bible, literally as just like taking it, what it says in English and, and not dissecting, not trying to understand what the authors are trying to communicate. We're going to miss this. We're going to bump into these questions, like what is going on? When we step back, we see that the book of Kings, the, the author of king seems to be evaluating throughout all the Kings of Israel, evaluating how faithful the Kings are to the Torah. And Manasseh is very unfaithful. So he's painted as a bad king. He is not faithful to the Torah.
Speaker 1 00:10:12 The chronicler, however, has a different perspective. The chronicler is demonstrating how God resists those who reject him. And he accepts those. He has compassion on those who turn to him in repentance. And there's this moment in Manasseh, his life, where he is confronted and he repents. And so he's painted in the book of Chronicles as a good king because he had this moment of repentance and turning to Yahweh as God. And so it's demonstrating that the book of Chronicles is being used to push forward the narrative that if we resist God, he's gonna resist us. If we reject God, he resists us. If we repent and turn to God, he accepts us throughout the Bible. There are important repeated themes that we've through the entire biblical story that help us make sense of the bigger narrative along the way. You'll find strange words in the Bible that we don't use in the lane in our normal language today.
Speaker 1 00:11:20 But when we take time to understand them to word studies and look into the way that Hebrews would have used certain words or Greeks would have used particular words, we can discover profound ideas that contribute to the overall story. This takes work. It takes work to know how to read the different types of literature in the Bible. But the Bible is a book meant for a lifetime of reading and study rich with details. Once we've learned to see them, I think, I think we've made that point several times. You'll discover that the Bible is a work of literary genius that can transform your life and how you live and how you think about everything. So yes, it matters how we read the Bible. The Bible is a story. Another reason why it matters, how we read the Bible is that the Bible is a collection of writings.
Speaker 1 00:12:12 These writings are organized in such a way to tell a story that communicates the whole message of the gospel. These writings involve many different types of genre, historical narrative, prophecy, poetry, first century letters. These writings were written over a span of 1300 years. A lot of things change a lot of your references and the way you think about things, even worldviews change in 1300 years, they deal with specific audiences and unique situations. They faced. They were written in languages, other than English with idioms and metaphors that were not necessarily familiar with each collection of writing has its own structure, theme, and plot, but it fits together with all the other writings to communicate the story God has written, which points to Jesus. As we study scripture, we should always study small passages in connection with the larger work they come from. So for example, if you're going to study the verse that says, I can do all things through Christ, which strengthens me, I believe that's found in Philippians four.
Speaker 1 00:13:18 So don't just study the verse, look at the whole chapter of Philippians, but don't just study the chapter of Philippians. If you're going to try to tell somebody, if you're going to talk about what this means to me or whatever, like before you just spout it out, read the verse, read the whole book of Philippians. And before just spouting that out, although you'll be able to get a lot more from that, but to fully understand and fully grasp how this verse is thrusting forward, the biblical narrative study Philippians four in concert with a continuous study of the whole of scripture, particularly the new Testament. That's how we begin to see that, oh, you know what? Paul is not just saying when I failed to study for my test, because I hate studying. And instead I watched a movie with some friends and now I'm sitting down and I have this test and I'm just, I I'm panicking, but I'm resetting to myself.
Speaker 1 00:14:25 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Like that's not what Paul is talking about. Paul is talking about in the midst of suffering in the midst of working for the gospel with other people and facing a persecution from the outside. And we can do this work through Christ who strengthens us another reason why it matters, how we study the Bible is that the Bible has many authors. The Bible is both divine and human. Have you ever thought about how, or have you ever noticed how the other than the first pages of the Bible, where the spirit of God is hovering over and moves across the, the darkness, the chaos that exists before God begins to speak things into being other than that place, every time, the spirit, every time God does work through the spirit in creation, it manifests in human form.
Speaker 1 00:15:22 If you come at the Bible with the impression that it is divine in the sense of there's no, like it's just mysterious. There's no historical origin necessarily. It's just this divine work that maybe people don't the spirit of God just kind of put its authors into trance. And then they woke up and they had this big, long letter written. Then you're always going to be looking for how it's divined. And you're going to spend your, your time and energy interacting with the Bible, trying to find proofs of that divinity. And when you bump into its humanity, because, because it's full of humanity, it's going to feel wrong. It's going to feel messy and probably throw you for a loop. I have grown up really familiar with the Bible. I think I shared about this earlier. I was not always aware of the human elements of the Bible.
Speaker 1 00:16:17 Like the idea that Moses probably didn't necessarily hand-write all the Torah. There were probably scribes that he had and he oversaw it all. He oversaw the collecting of it all and making sure that it's consistent with the thrust of the message. So that was new for me to learn about some of that learning about the human elements of the Bible can be disturbing if you haven't considered it before. I remember processing that a little bit at first. And, and I just sat in that, like my, my Bible college profs kind of made us, or let us just kind of sit in that for a little bit. But for me, the more I learned about the human elements while also discovering its overarching message, the more its divinity just seemed remarkably evident. And an example of this is that Genesis, the story of Genesis has a lot of comparisons with other ancient near Eastern epics of origin, but it tells a radically non-human story, right?
Speaker 1 00:17:28 Like instead of the gods, getting things to people to serve them, this God in Genesis comes down and gives them his life gives them his image and the stoves on them, his likeness, and he bends himself. And in a way serves creation, not just having creation, serve him. So that's like, I'm not sure humans would have thought to tell that kind of story because all these other stories, paint God's is rather self-centered Yahweh has revealed in Genesis is not self-centered. There are complex elements to the writings of scripture. But like I said about Genesis, the story is so distinctly divine. So distinctly non-human knowing it was written by humans actually has to me made it feel more like this is a work of divine holiness it's yes, it's literature. It's, it's, it's written in particular styles and there's different genres and it's written by many different authors, but it's telling this message that is so counter intuitive through these human words that we are interacting with in the biblical text, we can encounter the divine.
Speaker 1 00:18:52 There's something holy and beautiful that we experienced as we come to know the story of the Bible at deeper and deeper levels. The divinity of it is that there is an agency and an agenda trying to move you toward a very specific view of humanity and creation or reality. It is through people that the divine speaks to us. Think of second Timothy three, where it says all scripture is inspired by God and profitable. So all of the scripture, even though it's written by many different authors, many different settings over a span of 1300 years, it is all inspired spirited. God-breathed I think, uh, may actually be the literal translation. Jesus is an example of how God shows up honors in creation in human form. Jesus is God in human form, Emmanuel God with us, understanding this for me at least has, has freed me to appreciate the Bible as literary art as well.
Speaker 1 00:20:04 It's not to talk about the Bible being literary art doesn't seem to make it less divine. Like I just said it, it actually shows it being more divine. The fact that there are human elements to it, but the messages is distinctly different. Distinctly nonhuman. We can spend time to take notice of repeated words, structures, and themes. It's a work of art that invites us to read it meditatively and in doing so, be shaped by the ethics and morals of its message. Lastly, it matters how we read the Bible because the Bible is meant to be read and studied in community. Don't try figuring things out on your own. I think we talked about this before in a previous episode, but engage other Christians around you both present they Christians and past or ancient Christians read, read commentaries, read older books from Bible scholars. Again, the Bible project videos are a great resource for understanding how to read the Bible, listen to podcasts, participate in small group Bible studies.
Speaker 1 00:21:15 Obviously you can fall in the trap of just kind of sitting down and being like read a passage is, oh, what do you think this means? This means to me. And that's not, that's not good Bible study methods. We need to learn how to approach the Bible, but let's learn together as a group, as brothers and sisters go to Bible college, learn what people from around the world think about particular passages. That's been a crucial one for me is learning to see the Bible through the lens of my Indian and my tie brothers and sisters, or my Spanish brothers and sisters, and not just my own American. So I'd like to take a little bit here and respond to some of objections that maybe I know I have had it at different times. As I learn more about approaching the Bible, at least little insecurities or uncertainties, and I'll just give some responses to them.
Speaker 1 00:22:13 Uh, some of these are things that other people have responded to me. And so there are four specific ones. Actually, there are five, uh, I'd like to kind of respond to the two of them, kind of run together a little bit. But the first one is that I think, I think there can be a fear, especially if you're used to kind of coming to the Bible as this is a resource. This is a roadmap for life. This is I have questions I can, I can find answers for them. If you're used to approaching the Bible that way there might be this fear or uncertainty that wait a second, is this just an excuse to introduce new morals that are more socially acceptable? I can, I can shape things so that when I bump into hard things that are hard for me to obey today, I can just find a new way around it.
Speaker 1 00:23:05 The commands within scriptures become fluid in a sense. And I don't, I don't need to just submit to them if, because if it, if it is indeed a rule book, then, then clearly, right, like certain things we gotta submit to, we gotta respond, um, to, we can't just go murdering people. I think, I think murder is a, is a really, really good example of a rule. And we're going to get into that in just a moment. Um, and kind of with that question is this another way of introducing new morals is a question that if the Bible isn't a rule book, people will just make up whatever rules they want. And next thing we know we'll be living in debauchery and perhaps a classic one. I'm guessing most of you watching this now or listening to this. Now one that is a top of your mind is what we do with same-sex marriage.
Speaker 1 00:24:01 Like, is this understanding of the Bible? Is story? Is it going to make me like somehow come to the conclusion that I should accept same-sex marriage? And my response to that, let, let me see if I can make it concise. Um, first of all, I can understand why that worry or that insecurity is there. Um, I have had that myself and I would just gently suggest that when we look at the story of scripture, we are confronted with the fact that God, there's a lot of messy people that God accepts that God even calls righteous. And so something other than just like perfect behavior is God's determination of righteousness. And I can think of several things. So, uh, brokenness is if someone is broken and surrendered to God, someone is, um, they are actually treating each other with dignity as being made in the image of God.
Speaker 1 00:25:02 So it's one thing. If I have personal piety and my own sexual morality is figured out if I'm not treating the poor and the orphan and the widow with, with care and, and, and compassion that I'm, I'm not righteous. That that's one of the things we're going to see as we, as we see the story of scripture. However, there are like, if you're hearing me in this series, you're hearing me say that like, oh, there's not hard commands. There's not hard rules. There's not ethics that we have to follow then. Um, either you're hearing me wrong or I am miscommunicating because that is not at all. What I'm trying to say. There are, there is an ethical end. There is a theological immoral end that scripture is trying to move that God is trying to conform in us through the story of scripture. The pushing back on approaching scripture as a reference book simply has to do with how God does that about.
Speaker 1 00:26:04 And I think a good example of this would be, have you ever read, uh, some, some good novels? I think of like Randy Alcorn's book, um, safely home. I think, I think it's the one about heaven. Like just remarkable book about faithfulness and being faithful to God, to the very end. Um, I think of Ted Dekker's circle trilogy. These are so some of my favorite authors in my youth growing up and in the narrative form, Ted Decker circle truly G especially has some extremely vivid examples of what it, of what the new birth is like. Essentially like people become sick and in order to become healed, they have to go into this lake and drowned. And you think like, you feel you're like you're dying and you leave. And, and when you let go and you let yourself down, then you actually go, you experienced new life.
Speaker 1 00:27:01 And, and there's this picture of like crossing through kind of a vortex or just popping back out this new person. And in the narrative form, I have understood salvation. I've understood now sanctification and regeneration at a deeper level than I ever did, reading the Bible. And I would suggest that's because Ted Decker, Randy Alcorn, different novelists are putting truth, biblical truth in narrative form. And I know, I know to come at it as a narrative, I did not know before to come at the Bible as a narrative, as a story. Now it's not, it's not a fairy tale. It's not a made up story, but it's in the work of narrative and plot in subplot and protagonist, antagonist, and all the moving elements of story that as we read it and we absorb it, we begin to see in our minds and our hearts, new, new elements in our imagination, the way we look at the world and the way we understand right and wrong, just to touch on the whole murder.
Speaker 1 00:28:08 There's, there's a law about murder, but think of what Jesus does with those laws, with the law of murder, like he says, you have heard it said, and he quotes the old Testament law, but then he takes it and he takes it even further. He says, even if you're angry at your brother and you speak evil things against him, you're guilty of committing murder. And what he's doing is he's demonstrating that that was a law, but it wasn't to be taken as like a rule book like, oh, you know, if, um, Jesus says that if you mock your brother, it's the same. It's the equivalent of killing your brother. There's no verse that says, do not mock your brother, or you will be guilty of whatever.
Speaker 1 00:28:58 But what Jesus is saying is that that law about murder was intended to communicate something deeper, something even more dynamic than just the act of killing your brother. What about the way, how you handle his spirit? Getting angry at him, mocking him is a form of murder, a form of murdering your brother. And so that's an example of how Jesus himself understood these laws, these things to be guiding us for ethics, for morality as a compass, but there's something deeper than just the reference of the rule. Just the reference murder. Does that make sense? If, if you still have questions about that, feel free to reach out. I don't, I don't want you to be come away struggling with more confusion, just uncertainty. I'd love to have engagement on this and other questions. How can we know which way the authors meant the Bible to be taken?
Speaker 1 00:30:00 That's a, it's a fair question. Like they were so long ago. How can we know that? And my response would be that, um, first of all, the, the place to start is observing in the Bible itself. How other, how did the prophets use the Torah? How do the new Testament authors use the old Testament prophecies? How do they use the Torah? How does Jesus handle scriptures? Hey, Peter acknowledges Paul to be writing scripture. When we look at the Bible itself and we see what the authors themselves are doing with it, we can, we can get a better handle on how we maybe should be approaching it, but there's also been a ton of historical and archeological work to give us insight, to know like, what were the cultural dynamics? Oh, what? Oh, that was an idiom for that day. And we're reading it as literal or even some of the historical work.
Speaker 1 00:30:56 We, we have the word Jehovah. How did you Hova become in our, in Christian lingo? It's not even a word. It's not even a Hebrew word. We didn't know that until like some historical and archeological work was done. And so there's, there's a lot of resources made available to us that we can begin studying. W what, what was the culture like? What was the context of this author was writing in and what, what would it likely have meant to its original audiences? Obviously we won't necessarily know it perfectly, which is why I would suggest that a prerequisite to studying scripture is tremendous, tremendous humility. I'm not going to try to tell you what the Bible says and be like, you got to believe me now in all my writing and all my work, I'm going to do it local studies. And I'm going to present biblical cases for the reasons why I see certain things, certain ways.
Speaker 1 00:32:04 And I'm going to ask that you, rather than just pushing back on the idea that ocean, that you don't like interact with the biblical text, is this not consistent with the biblical narrative, but ultimately I recognize that there, there is such a big difference between me and the original audience of its day. And so I want to constantly be learning and listening to other people, listening together with those people, to the guidance of the holy spirit, and then constantly sitting and observing the tax. What does the text actually say? Another objection could be that, um, there can be several ways of interpreting the Bible. It's God's divine word. It can speak to us wherever, whatever stage of life we were at. You know, one passage might mean something to me when I'm a young person, that same passage might mean something different when I'm an adult.
Speaker 1 00:33:01 And I have kids and kind of with that is the same thing that like 10 people can study the same passage and come to 10 different conclusions, 10 different interpretations. And my response to that is that yes, God's word is divine, but just because it's divine doesn't mean that he doesn't have a particular message he's trying to communicate. And just because we receive something from the text at a certain moment in time doesn't mean, and, and just because that actually does something for our wellbeing, like it helps us, it makes us feel closer to God. It, it something it's a ha ha moment. Something clicks. It makes sense just because it does, that doesn't mean that we're actually grasping the full scope of that passage. And so I don't think these, these things are exclusive that like, just, just because there is an intention, there is an intended way for the Bible to be approached, to be interpreted.
Speaker 1 00:34:11 Doesn't mean that when you receive something from a passage, and now I'm saying you telling you that that passage actually means something else. Like God was still speaking to you in that moment. And now God is speaking to you, helping you see that passage more fully. Does that make sense? Not just because it's me, but as, as we're studying in concert with each other, and I would also say that it's actually not true that 10 people study the same passage and come to 10 different conclusions on that is a statement thrown out. Based on that, what I just said, like the Bible is divinely inspired. We all come to different conclusions that happens when 10 people look at a passage and say what it means to them, but that's not studying the passage when you actually study, Hey, what, what is the biblical author trying to communicate in this book?
Speaker 1 00:35:01 How does it fit in with the overarching message when you actually dig deep and you read commentaries and scholars? Yes. 10 people will come to probably four different conclusions, but then you'll know like, oh, we're, we're taking this word to mean in this way. And so then that shifts like how we interpret the rest of this passage. And so we come to a completely different category and the others will look at it and say, okay, I see why you, why you've done that. But I disagree. I think that's the wrong way to understand that word. I think we should understand that word this way. And, and it leads down another line and it, and then you have a completely different line of thought, but it's not that there's just a never ending realm of conclusions to come to. The really complex passages may have four different conclusions, but have you ever stopped to think about how, like the Bible's really, really old and yet there's rarely more than like four or five debated interpretations of all the millions of people that have read it that have spent their life studying it, there's only like four or five, even, even if you expand like Eastern Orthodox and the other kind of non Western Protestant approaches to scripture, maybe at best, we have five, six different ways of viewing some of the most complex passages.
Speaker 1 00:36:27 I'm thinking of stuff in first Corinthians, one of the most complex books, the new Testament to interpret. And, and the reality is there's, there's so much of the Bible that is not that complex. It's not that difficult. The reality is 10 people. Most of the Bible, 10 people will sit down and study and come to two, maybe even one conclusion. We shouldn't make it more difficult than it really is. That the challenge though, is that, are we in it? Are we getting to know the story? Are we spending time in it? Yes. The Bible is a work of literary genius and there's many moving parts to it. It takes some effort on our end to understand it well and wants to shape our view of reality. It wants to guide our moral compass. It wants to transform us into better images of God. It wants to fill us with wisdom for all of life's situations. It does take work to discover that story.
Speaker 1 00:37:31 That's what has led us to creating the course, finding my place in God's story. As we've talked about throughout this series, while the Bible is one cohesive message, it's also quite complex and it can be difficult to know how we fit into it. All. We tend to default to using the Bible as a reference book, to solve issues of life rather than meditation literature. That fills us with wisdom for life. Because quite frankly, there's, there's a lot of issues that I face every day and aren't addressed specifically in scripture. And yet I can lose interest if I'm supposed to just sit in this and I've got an issue, an issue on my mind that I've got to solve, then I lose interest in the Bible if it's not addressing, but it's intended to be meditated on it can feel overwhelming to try to understand the deeper truth God has for us in his message.
Speaker 1 00:38:28 But it is so important. God wants you to know him. He wants us to know him. You wants you to be caught up in the beauty of the story that he is writing after all he wrote you into the story. Don't you want to know why finding my place in God's story is a five module course that walks through the biblical story and discovering how your life fits into it. We are about to open enrollment for it, but because we want to be able to walk the journey together as a collective group, enrollment is only going to be open for a week. If you are interested at all in this course, whether it's for you, your own journey, your own processing, or whether it's for helping others stay tuned, we'll be sending more information about it shortly until then. I loved you. Your feedback. Leave the comments in the thread below and let me know what questions you have, but what has stood out to you and would hopefully save you. Let's see, I'll see you next time. Recent piece
Speaker 1 00:40:23 Unfeigned. Christianity is brought to you by our members at Patriot. If you would like to receive in-depth essays into various issues that Christians face and how to sort through them in a way that helps us love God and others with a pure heart, good conscience and sincere faith, then consider becoming a member of patron. Along with these deep dive essays, you will receive expanded versions of our podcasts. Interviews still are more about becoming a paid subscriber to unpaid Christianity, visit www.asherwhitmer.com forward slash member. And if you'd like to learn more about me, maybe you're not very familiar with who I am and what I do. Just go ahead and visit my website, Asher widmer.com. That has everything that has my book that has a blog articles, various other resources available to check out as well, including two networks. I am currently a part of the first is called the restorative faith collective, where we have conversations around race perspectives and relationships in an Anabaptist context at restorative faith, collective.org, as well as the kingdom outpost, where we look at, how do we live as Jesus's nation in the world today, visit
Speaker 2 00:41:32 Www dot kingdom, outpost.org. Thanks for listening.
