Should We Study the Bible?

[00:00:00] Cody: Hi, thank you for tuning in to the Logic of God podcast, I'm Cody. 


[00:00:08] Gina: I'm Gina. 


[00:00:09] Cody: And I'm Ben. If you're returning, thank you for coming back, and if you are a new guest, welcome. 


[00:00:25] Ben: Before we get into studying the Bible, we do have a lot of people that are interested Newer viewers and listeners who probably don't know anything at all about Bible studying and probably haven't even gone through the Bible once. 


[00:00:37] Gina: I was once that person. I appreciate this. 


[00:00:40] Ben: We've all been there at one time or another we were new to the Bible. 


[00:00:43] So if you're new, where exactly do you begin with just reading the Bible? 


[00:00:48] Gina: Well, you go to church on Sunday and they tell you the Bible. 


[00:00:51] Ben: Oh, thank goodness. 


[00:00:52] Cody: They interpret the Bible for you, in most churches. They don't even read the Bible to you. 


[00:00:57] Gina: Well, the message counts, okay? 


[00:00:59] Cody: But anyway, I always tell people, New Testament, we're Christians, so it's a good place to start. 


[00:01:06] I usually direct them to the Gospel of John, too. It is a good one that is all encompassing, a good gospel. 


[00:01:14] Gina: I'm reading it right now again. I would have to agree. 


[00:01:16] Ben: It is a very good gospel. 


[00:01:18] Cody: You get Christ's divinity in it. You get the more depth of love, I think. The other, the synoptic Gospels are more chronological through the ministry of Jesus, and Matthew has some genealogies, which can be a little bit harder for newer Christians to get through, and John is pretty straightforward, but also entertaining if you've never read the Bible. 


[00:01:40] Ben: And does John have the Beatitudes in it? Because I know that Matthew does. 


[00:01:43] Gina: No. I 


[00:01:44] Cody: don't think John has to be attitudes. 


[00:01:46] Gina: I just read the first 15 chapters and he's at this point going to die, so no. 


[00:01:52] Ben: Yeah, that would be the wrong time to jump back and cover the attitudes. Let's see, so yeah, I agree, I think John does cover a lot of really good stuff. 


[00:01:59] It's tough because all of the Gospels are pretty solid. For sure. And you're right, it is weird because there's a couple Gospels that have the genealogies, and those are really tough to get through, and so it's weird to just say, okay guys, read these Gospels, but just skip past this part because it's not really necessary. 


[00:02:16] I do really like Luke in addition to John. Yeah, because Luke gives a very accurate and detailed account about Jesus's life from his birth to his death And he covers a lot of details that aren't really mentioned in the other Gospels for the most part they all line up So you're going to get a pretty good picture of Jesus's life his teachings his death and his resurrection from all of the Gospels But I do absolutely agree The Gospels are definitely a must read, and you can't really go wrong with Luke or John as your first. 


[00:02:47] Gina: Okay, but I have a question, because we're the logic of God. So isn't it logical to read a book start to finish, guys? Like, you open to the first page, right? As a new believer, that's what I thought. 


[00:03:02] Ben: Well, yeah, so it's not necessarily an illogical thing to say, okay, read the book from start to finish. The trouble with the Bible is that it actually wasn't assembled in chronological order. 


[00:03:12] So there are actually people who've assembled a read the Bible in the year kind of Bible study, and they'll assemble The different parts of the Bible in actual chronological order and we'll cut chapters out and splice them in based on when they would actually have occurred in the chronology and There are some people who find that very edifying I got I got a buddy who's going through that right now and he hasn't read the Bible much So he's having a really good time with it And yeah, I would actually recommend for a lot of newer Christians who maybe don't know a ton about the Bible It is very easy Edifying, because there are even people who've been Christians for a long time, and they don't even realize that the Bible isn't fully chronological. 


[00:03:50] Right. They're like, oh, it begins in Genesis, and it ends in Revelation. Obviously, everything in between, that's the beginning and the end. And I'll be honest, like, I went to a Christian school, and I didn't even realize for a long time that it's not actually fully chronological. So, you can absolutely read it chronologically, but it's not written that way. 


[00:04:09] There's the first five books of the Bible, which is the Torah or the Pentateuch. And those do cover the beginning. But then from there, you get to Joshua, which is technically still in line. And then Judges. Ruth, I think, skips ahead a bit. It's tough to know. I can't remember exactly where Ruth is in the chronology. 


[00:04:28] But then there's 1st and 2nd Samuel, 1st and 2nd Kings, 1st and 2nd Chronicles. 


[00:04:32] Gina: Are you going 


[00:04:32] Ben: to sing the song? No, I'm not going to sing the song. It's a very catchy song, despite the fact that it doesn't rhyme. Laughter But then you get into the prophets, and then, so yeah, there's, the first several books of the Bible are more or less in chronology, with the exception of Job, where Job jumps backwards into Genesis. 


[00:04:50] And then it jumps to Esther, which is during the time of Nebuchadnezzar, or actually, sorry, it's not Nebuchadnezzar, it's Xerxes. Sorry, yeah, I was thinking of the Persians. Yeah, it's Xerxes. I'm sorry guys, sometimes I misspeak and it's horrible. So yeah, there are these different books that jump around at different points with different times, and it doesn't make it clear because These books were written for the people of their time. 


[00:05:12] The first five books supposedly were written by Moses. There are reasons for believing that. It is part of both Jewish and Christian tradition, though not everyone agrees on that. But more or less, it's accepted that it's either Moses who dictated to Joshua, or Moses actually wrote it all himself, with the exception of maybe the end. 


[00:05:29] Cody: Yeah, he couldn't have written about his own 


[00:05:31] Ben: death. A prophet can't possibly know about his own death. But no, it is a reasonable thought that he didn't write the end. Or maybe there were one or two books that he didn't write, and Joshua instead took what he learned from Moses and wrote them. 


[00:05:43] Cody: Yeah. 


[00:05:44] Ben: But, it's important to keep in mind that all of these individual books of the Bible are literally that. 


[00:05:50] They're books. They were written by different authors, often in different languages, sometimes for different audiences, all of them for more or less different purposes. Some of them are historical, some of them are moral tales, some of them are historic moral tales. Jonah is one of those, and it's a very good example. 


[00:06:09] Gina: We just studied the kids, their minds were blown at the end. 


[00:06:13] Cody: Was it a fish or a whale? That was one of the questions Mimi asked. 


[00:06:17] Ben: So yeah, in terms of whether or not it's logical. To read it in the order in which the books are presented. You can do that. 


[00:06:25] Gina: Well, I tried to do that, 


[00:06:27] Ben: but it's tough. 


[00:06:28] Gina: They lost me at Deuteronomy. 


[00:06:30] Ben: And if God help you, if you get to numbers. 


[00:06:33] Cody: And I think the studies that are out, like people who start out with the idea to read the whole Bible cover to cover, I think Leviticus is where most people fall off just cause nobody wants to read about the law. 


[00:06:46] Ben: And it's tough for a lot of people who become Christians and then they jump into the Old Testament and they read a bunch of stuff and they think, Okay, so this is talking about keeping kosher. 


[00:06:55] You can't eat pork, you can't eat bats, you can't eat 


[00:06:58] Gina: Well, and then you don't know, does this apply to me? Do I, like, am I doing it all wrong? 


[00:07:03] Ben: Mm hmm. So yeah, I would recommend, at the very least, you start with the Gospels. And then from there, it's very good to read the Book of Acts. If you want, you could even just read the first four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and then move on to Acts, and then from there you have, uh, the epistles, you have, uh, the letters that Paul wrote. 


[00:07:22] Cody: Paul's stuff can be pretty doctrinally heavy. Yeah, it can be tough, I, I don't And it 


[00:07:26] Gina: can get, like, misinterpreted. Paul, 


[00:07:28] Cody: no, never. 


[00:07:30] Ben: Yeah, um I'm just 


[00:07:31] Gina: a clanging gong. 


[00:07:32] Ben: Yeah, in one of Peter's letters, he does specifically say that Paul writes stuff that's hard for people to understand. And I can understand why there are people who say, don't start with Paul's letters. 


[00:07:44] Yeah, I would definitely recommend going through the Gospels and then going through Acts. From there, it's tough to say. It depends on the person and on how much knowledge you're bringing into this. If you are 100 percent sure, Not a clue what's going on. You've never read anything or know anything about the Bible at all. 


[00:08:00] I would still recommend going through the New Testament. I wouldn't recommend getting to Revelation for a while. Not that it's a bad book, not that you shouldn't go through it, but it does tend to scare people and it's tough for them to get through. 


[00:08:13] Cody: And that's one of the ones too, if you start looking for answers, there's just so much bad theology on Revelation. 


[00:08:19] It's, it's easy to get sidetracked and led astray on what the true meaning of it is too. 


[00:08:26] Gina: I would say if you're brand new and you've never opened the Bible before, like it's great to have a starting point, but seek wise counsel, find somebody that you can talk to about and ask questions too, because If you're just reading it and taking it without any context or historical information or like Understanding how it applies to your life. 


[00:08:45] You're doing yourself a disservice. You really do need to Study in community with other believers. 


[00:08:51] Ben: Yeah, which books would you guys say like we have just covered the Gospels and Acts and stuff But which books from both the Old and New Testament would you say are good for beginners who are just starting out in Christianity? 


[00:09:01] Cody: Beginners, the Gospels, Acts, I think is a good one. Both Peter's letters, or epistles, whatever, are pretty good, I think, to cover for beginners. As far as Old Testament goes, I think Genesis is fairly safe. You get a lot of the old, if you grew up in a church at all, you get a lot of the old, like, childhood stories. 


[00:09:22] You hear Abraham, Joseph, a lot of the early fathers of the faith. As far as that Old Testament wise, Jonah's good. 


[00:09:33] Ben: Jonah's a lot of fun. Jonah's good. I would say Proverbs is very good. 


[00:09:38] Cody: Oh yeah, no, the Proverbs is, is great. Um, great wisdom. Joshua 


[00:09:45] Ben: Well, it would be tough to read Joshua without first going through Exodus. 


[00:09:48] Cody: Yeah. 


[00:09:49] Ben: And parts of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy's a weird book because there are parts of it that are very edifying and have a lot of good info, and then there's parts of it where it's Oh, okay. This is a lot of information. I'm not sure I'm going to ever be able to retain. 


[00:10:01] Cody: Yeah. 


[00:10:02] Ben: Yeah. What do you think, Gina? 


[00:10:04] Gina: I always joke with Cody that I wish that there was like a summer camp Bible school for grownups to go and learn. 


[00:10:12] I don't know. I like what you said about Like, knowing the more, like, child friendly stories from the Bible. And maybe that's cherry picking a little bit, because you would have to jump around in various books, but I do think familiarizing yourself with the stories of, like, the main characters of the Bible could be really helpful, because then when you go to church and you hear your pastors preaching on different people, you'll be able to say, Oh, I know who that is. 


[00:10:38] And, and you'll have some confidence. in the understanding. And as far as New Testament goes, I like the four gospels. I think that's pretty much the go to solid place. I really do like John. I also, when I was a brand new Christian, really enjoyed reading through Peter for some reason. And then for Old Testament, I like the stories, I think they're great, but I really loved psalms. 


[00:11:01] I think that the biggest risk with reading the books of poetry is misinterpreting them. So if you're going to study psalms, I would just recommend that you do through kind of the lens that we're going to talk about tonight, which will help you analyze if it's to you or to a specific person. Because some of the promises that God makes and some of the things that the psalmists write. 


[00:11:21] They are very beautiful, loving things, but they may not always apply to us. I don't know if that answers your question. 


[00:11:30] Cody: It does. Good. And the only book that I think is chronologically important to leave last is Revelation. 


[00:11:36] Ben: Absolutely. 


[00:11:37] Cody: Yeah. 


[00:11:39] Ben: Yeah. And it's not because there's anything embarrassing in there. 


[00:11:42] It's not because it's a bad book. I actually think it's one of the deepest and one of the most important. And that's one of the reasons why you leave it to last, because I've known quite a few people who just get a little bit in, into it, and they were new Christians, and it terrified them. 


[00:11:57] Gina: Or it's sensationalized. 


[00:11:59] Like, people are very attracted to spiritual, supernatural, mystery, like, mysterious things. And I know, personally, like, when people have read Revelation before they're ready, It can lead to a fascination with the demonic and the end of the world and more of the like pop culture ideas about the rapture. 


[00:12:21] Ben: And the Bible interprets the Bible. And Revelation pulls a great deal from different areas in the Bible. It pulls majorly from Isaiah. And it pulls from different parts, even from, like, the Gospels, because it talks about Jesus, and it even pulls from Genesis, where there's reference to symbology with, like, the lamb, and then there's the ram, and there's the seven lampstands, which are a reference to the sevenfold Spirit of God, I believe referenced in Isaiah. 


[00:12:47] The point is, is that Revelation pulls heavily in interpretations from other parts of the Bible, and if you haven't read those, You're not going to understand what's going on, and it's going to feel very mystical. And it's going to feel very mysterious, and you're not really going to know what's going on. 


[00:13:01] Cody: For sure. Yep. 


[00:13:03] Gina: I want to point out, it makes me laugh, because I had no idea that this was an order that the Bible was read in, but alphabetically I've never heard of that in my life. I think it's really funny. 


[00:13:13] Ben: I just threw that in as a joke. There's all kinds of ways that you can read 


[00:13:16] Cody: English alphabetically or Hebrew alphabetically or Greek alphabetic. 


[00:13:22] Ben: Look, alphabetical is alphabetic. 


[00:13:23] Cody: Yeah. 


[00:13:27] Ben: So that, that does lead nicely into the next question. So there are different. Versions of the Bible and we did refer to that in our last episode specifically on scripture, but it's worth touching on here Are there any specific? Translations of the Bible that you would recommend 


[00:13:43] Gina: Yes, I just opened it so that I could tell you the different translations that I use regularly It's not on my list Now the new King James version I use sometimes, but not the old one. 


[00:13:56] I grew up in the Catholic church, like kind of part time. And KJV was what was in my bedroom from like my christening. 


[00:14:05] Cody: You didn't have the Latin wall gate. No, sir. 


[00:14:09] Gina: That sounds vulgar. Um, anyway, um, I, I liked the NIV primarily and that's the, um, So, that was the version that Cody told me to start with when he was discipling me towards Jesus. 


[00:14:22] I also like the ESV, and then when I'm explaining the Bible to my children, or if it's particularly hard to understand, I use the easy to read version. It just dumbs it way down to the point where it's a little bit more digestible. And for me, as a new Christian, that was really helpful. 


[00:14:43] Cody: Yep, I agree. 


[00:14:44] Honestly, for what translation you use, I think it is whatever gets you in the Word of God. I'm not even opposed to the message and passion translations and moderation, as long as you go in knowing those are more of a commentary than they are actual scripture. 


[00:15:01] Gina: And you can run them against each other. 


[00:15:03] Cody: Yep. 


[00:15:04] Gina: Well, not, I don't know how it would go to run the passion against the message, but. I 


[00:15:09] Cody: mean, you should, it's, you know, I think we covered it in our previous episode, the passion and message basically have one person interpreting the message. How they see fit. So it's more of a commentary than it is NIV or ESV. 


[00:15:25] They have a panel of scholars who critique the text and agree on the proper translation and sentence structure from English to Hebrew or vice versa from Hebrew to English and stuff like that. The Message and Passion doesn't really have that much detail into translations as others. So that would be my only hesitation with those. 


[00:15:46] Uh huh. 


[00:15:47] Ben: Yeah, I agree with you guys in that there are a lot of very good translations and ultimately with the exception of one or two which can be potentially iffy, for the most part, most translations will get you 99. 9 percent there and there's just a handful of difficult areas with the exception of certain translations like the version that the Jehovah's Witnesses use that was done by a guy who didn't speak Or read biblical Greek. 


[00:16:15] And he claimed that he was the only person who actually knew how to do it. I knew how to interpret it properly, and when he was questioned on it, he eventually had to admit he had no clue. That's one that's done specifically with an agenda, aside from literally just trying to interpret the Bible from one language to another as best as possible. 


[00:16:34] There are people who will say only KJV, and we touched on this briefly before. The King James Version is not a bad translation of the Bible. I think I gave the impression last time that it's a bad, it's not a bad translation. Uh, it was actually, a lot of effort went into making it a solid translation at the time that it was translated. 


[00:16:55] The trouble is that when you read it with modern eyes, it is a bit of a slog. And there is beauty in the way that it's written. I don't want to make it sound like it's not. Like, it is a very beautifully written text. And I think that there is some edification you can get from reading it. Like, a lot of edification, because it's still a Bible. 


[00:17:12] But I think, for the average common person, you're much better off reading something that you can actually read. Like the NIV. Something that's not going to be full of ists bees. 


[00:17:23] Gina: Yes. 


[00:17:24] Cody: Yeah, the English language has evolved from that being what is commonly spoken. Why not get a Bible that is easier for you to read and understand yourself? 


[00:17:35] I grew up with the KJV, so I'm familiar with it. Sometimes I do like the featheriness of it in certain aspects, but most of the time I don't want to have to interpret what I'm reading. 


[00:17:46] Ben: It does lend a certain kind of authority to what you're saying. It does sound more authoritative. 


[00:17:51] Cody: No, I think that's why people like it so much, is because it sounds fancy. 


[00:17:55] It's like when you're praying, you don't have to use big words, but 


[00:17:59] Ben: Thou hast fairly spake. 


[00:18:00] Cody: Yeah, they sound nice. It makes you sound fancy when you read it. Smarter than you actually are. 


[00:18:06] Gina: Well, I pulled up, I showed Cody when we were in our like leadership college program that we did, one of the things that they showed us was the spectrum of Bible translations and how like it's paraphrased or thought for thought or word for word. 


[00:18:23] And if you are curious on that spectrum, I would encourage that you. Look it up, because it will help you determine when you're comparing versions, which versions will compare the best against one another. 


[00:18:37] Cody: Yeah. And this is just a basic linear graph of like the NASB usually falls highly on the left side of the word for word translation. 


[00:18:48] NIV is usually in the middle of thought for thought, and then the passion version is all the way on the right for paraphrase. So, yeah, what's the, 


[00:18:57] Ben: what's the name of the resource? 


[00:18:58] Gina: It's literally just the Bible translation spectrum. Every like logo software created one, but there's a million different, it's just Google images and you'll see like a rainbow spectrum with all of the different like notable translations of the Bible for Christianity. 


[00:19:14] Ben: Yeah. And that spectrum actually is one of the big reasons why you personally as a believer should actually study the Bible and not just read it. Because it's going to show you, one, the literal translation, word for word. And then there's the different versions that will show you the thought translation. 


[00:19:32] Yeah, studying on your own, trying to collect as many of these resources for yourself. And then, depending on how deep you want to go, even learning the original language yourself, and then reading in the Biblical Greek for the New Testament. Or even the Biblical Hebrew for the Old Testament. That is going to give you an extremely different experience from where you would be if you literally just picked up the NIV and thought, I'm just going to read this and then that's it. 


[00:19:55] Cody: But why do we need to study it versus reading it? What do you think the benefit to deep dive study versus just a novel read through 


[00:20:04] Ben: is? So I've mentioned this specific B attitude before. And it's one that Jordan Peterson has referenced a few times and really likes, and it's one of the best examples I can think of. 


[00:20:18] And there are plenty, but one of the best examples of why you should study and why you should understand the context from the time that it was written. Because there's a point where Christ says in one of the Beatitudes, The meek shall inherit the earth. Modern understanding of the word meek would say, Okay, yes, you're timid, you're shy, you're not sure what you're doing, You don't have any strength of your own, and thus, the weak, essentially, will inherit the earth. 


[00:20:43] And that's not what Christ meant. The term meek, in the original Greek, was much closer to power under control. Or, as Jordan Peterson says, Someone who has a sword and is skilled in its use, but chooses to keep it sheathed. And so when you study the Bible and you learn that's what it means, then suddenly your modern understanding shifts closer to what the original intent was. 


[00:21:06] And when you understand the original intent, you see the real truth behind what is said. Now, it's not that you would have to do that in order to get the general idea of salvation and the general edification from the Bible that you would get by reading it, but you get a thousand times more when you start diving into these things and you find out the context and you find out what Jesus and the various other authors of the different portions of the Bible meant when they said things. 


[00:21:31] Cody: Yeah, and I think it's important to note that you should come at it from a top down approach. We have a tendency in our culture in the U. S. now to cherry pick verses and not look at the contextual surroundings of that. But if you start out from the top down, what I mean by that is you start out a specific book. 


[00:21:52] So if we're starting in John or Luke, you would Focus on John and Luke. Read that through. And then while you're doing your initial read through, you would have a chapter that stuck out to you, and then you would have a specific verse, and then maybe a word in that verse that you would break down like that. 


[00:22:07] Gina: Sounds like a lot of work. 


[00:22:10] Cody: Why would you think that God would want us to put all this work into studying the Bible? Why not just make it super easy and convenient and just open your eyes? Just by reading it know everything that you could possibly know 


[00:22:24] Gina: when we were dating And we were asking each other all those crazy questions out of those books It's the same content like it's the same idea to me. 


[00:22:32] He wants us to know him and like want him more than anything. And yet, we don't. Like, we pursue each other and whatever makes us happy, but we don't actually pursue Him. And the only way to really truly know Him is by studying His Word. Like, the things that He said, He's not sitting across from you talking to you, but it's the collection of everything He ever said and did. 


[00:22:59] So, if you're not investing in that study, you can't possibly truly know who God is. 


[00:23:06] Cody: And there's, uh, I can't recall where it's at. Seek and you will find. There's no seek if you instantly know everything going in. And there's no effort put in. There's no, you have no skin in the game. 


[00:23:19] Ben: So this may sound like a slight digression. 


[00:23:21] Gina: Mm hmm. 


[00:23:22] Ben: But you guys remember the story of Pinocchio that was put out by Disney. Oh yeah. Way back in the day. The, the movie. There's the part in it where Pinocchio is going off to Pleasure Island, and there's all these different attractions, and in the original version, not the more recent update, there's, uh, points where you see kids smoking, and they're drinking beer, and they're playing pool and stuff, and they're doing stuff that pretty much everyone at the time and now would consider to be horrendous and disrespectful, and all of those kids who do that turn into donkeys. 


[00:23:53] And because Pinocchio sees this happening, he realizes that it's not a good idea to be doing what they're doing. And so he doesn't, he partially turns into a donkey, but doesn't fully turn into a donkey. And then all of these kids are sold off into slavery. Now. That's awful. Yeah, it is. Now, is that a lesson? 


[00:24:11] Gina: From Disney? 


[00:24:13] Cody: They don't have any moral values. 


[00:24:16] Ben: The answer is yes, and this is another thing that Dr. Jordan Peterson has talked about. He's gone through the older Disney movies and he's pointed out the fact that these are all fairy tales. These are all moral tales that actually have an enormous amount of depth to them. 


[00:24:30] And there's a reason why all of these different stories have survived for as long as they have. It's because they have depth and these stories don't literally just come out and say, Hey, don't act like a meanie or else bad stuff will happen. That, that, that would be a very easy way to do it. 


[00:24:46] Gina: The donkey thing says a lot. 


[00:24:48] Ben: It does. It says an enormous amount. There's just, there's depth just in the kids turning into donkeys because you know what they're saying. 


[00:24:55] Gina: Yeah. 


[00:24:57] Ben: You're gonna turn into a donkey, you're gonna turn into an ass. You're making an ass of yourself. And if you live your life that way, then there are going to be consequences. 


[00:25:05] And you can't always walk those back. And if you start that way when you're young, it's gonna be much harder to turn from that, and it's almost like it's a permanent thing for you. And so you keep your kids. Trained up in the way they should be just like in Proverbs and that's one of the reasons why the Bible is written the way That it is. 


[00:25:22] It's not the only reason that the Bible is written that way but depth is one of those things that has staying power and it causes our minds to focus more and more on what we're being Told and the stories in the Bible have enormous depth much more than any Disney film or any fairy tale stories ever had And so when you really start reading these stories that depth should coax you in You should be thinking, okay, so what is this telling me? 


[00:25:44] Because there's the surface level. And that's the most incredible thing to me about biblical stories, is there's the surface level 


[00:25:50] Gina: Which is very deep as it is. 


[00:25:51] Ben: Yes. There's the surface level stuff that's being told. There's the stuff that Jesus is telling you. And then there's the second level to it, which is the explanation. 


[00:26:00] But then there's the reason why Jesus was saying it to begin with. I'll give an example. There's a point where Jesus is speaking with some Pharisees and the Pharisees have a plan they're going to trip him up. So they say, okay, Jesus, you're clearly a smart guy. Should we pay taxes to Caesar? And this was a very brilliant trap because no one wanted to pay taxes to Caesar. 


[00:26:21] Caesar was a guy who was basically enslaving the people of Israel. He was a foreign king, a foreign emperor. And if he said, yes, you should pay taxes to Caesar, He's admitting that, yeah, these people who are subjugated and are subjugated by a person with no right to the children of Israel. They should be paying money to this guy. 


[00:26:40] But if he said no, that's rebellion against the Empire. It's a no win situation. And what Jesus says is, give me a coin. They give him a coin and he looks at it and he says, whose face is on this coin? And they say, Caesars, obviously. And he said, well, give to Caesar what's Caesar's and to God what's God's. 


[00:26:56] Now there's the surface level of that, which is, okay, so he just sidestepped an enormously difficult, tense issue with literally one phrase. And he says a lot just in that phrase. Because he's saying, well, this money is Caesar's. Okay, give it back to him. But you also give to God what belongs to him. And there's a ton behind that. 


[00:27:15] There's, okay, so what do you owe God emotionally? What do you owe God spiritually? What do you owe God financially? Whatever that is, give it to him. But there's one additional level under that, that I've heard taught frequently. The follow up question. Whose image is on you? 


[00:27:30] Gina: Boom. We can, we're done, right? 


[00:27:34] Ben: Mic drop. 


[00:27:35] Jesus doesn't ask that follow up question, but it's implicit in the conversation. Whose face is on this coin? Give this coin to whose face it belongs to. You give to God what's God's, so whose face is on you? 


[00:27:48] Cody: There's 


[00:27:49] Ben: an enormous amount of depth just in that one interaction, and there's more depth even than that, that I can't even, like, you could teach an entire series just on that one interaction. 


[00:27:59] But yeah, that's the kind of depth that we're talking about is everywhere in the Bible. And you're not going to get that if you literally just read that story. Just normally. Oh, okay, there was an interaction and that's it. 


[00:28:10] Cody: Jared And on that too, like just in the naming, I think it's from, I wish I had this before starting the episode, but just the names from Adam, I think to Noah is a gospel message in itself. 


[00:28:24] If you look at the name of Adam all the way to Noah, the genealogy, which most people find boring, but if you look up the meaning of the names, it spells out a gospel message. 


[00:28:37] Gina: He is in so many unique details. Can we go over some of the common Bible reading habits of new Christians, and whether they are useful, good, or logical? 


[00:28:47] Cody: Can I ask one more question before? Is it important that we read the Bible? Can I listen to it on audio? 


[00:28:56] Gina: You're going to miss a lot. 


[00:28:58] Cody: Why? 


[00:28:59] Gina: When I, cause like I'll listen to scripture while I'm driving sometimes because I don't want to listen to music or I have a goal for the day. But when I listen to it, I always get distracted and my mind wanders. 


[00:29:13] There's something about being captive by the words on the page as opposed to having it run through another layer of what your mind is already doing. 


[00:29:23] Cody: But we live in this post literate society. One of my favorite apologists or philosophers, whatever you want to call them, John Mark Reynolds calls it the, um, we live in the, thing I'm society where we just got to have this constant hit of basically it's that he doesn't I can't remember what he calls it. 


[00:29:41] It's not dopamine, but we are lazy when it comes to reading because we have all these visual aids now and it, you know, everything's on audio. But how do you, as a new Christian, or, you know, growing up in a post literate society, get into the critical thinking mentality that you need to be to study the Bible rather than just read it? 


[00:30:04] Gina: You invest in a relationship with the Lord. Like, I don't use one form of relational activeness with you, and that's good enough. Like, if you believe in Jesus, that He died for you. He should be worth so much more than just the dopamine hit or whatever. Like, honestly, that would be, to me, an example of somebody who wants the blessing, but they don't actually want the relationship. 


[00:30:32] They don't want to make any changes. That would be the shallow, like, rocky soil Christian that goes to church because they think that it's their last option, rather than going to God because He's their first choice. Maybe that's harsh. 


[00:30:45] Cody: No, I like it. Toughen up, Buttercup. 


[00:30:48] Gina: I mean, really though, like, read a book. 


[00:30:51] Cody: But okay, going further into, now we're living in a culture of AI is becoming more prevalent and thinking for a lot of people and making us even dumber because this is being used to write papers now that even college where you should be critically thinking and processing and going through this stuff on your own, we are now even dumbing ourselves down further. 


[00:31:15] How would you just toughen up and get into it and make yourself a critical thinker? 


[00:31:21] Gina: I think You have to repent and understand that the laziness that you've had in reading the Bible and having a relationship with the triune God, like you were wrong to avoid it, to ignore it, to replace it. And if you, if you're not sorry, And you don't understand that there's something wrong, then you really can't move past step one. 


[00:31:44] I don't know, what do you think, Ben? 


[00:31:46] Ben: Well, going back to whether we should listen to the Bible or read it, I think context actually matters a whole lot there. Like, back when I was working as an industrial electrician, my father and I would be driving a lot of places. And it would be a 20 hour drive, a 17 hour drive to the next job site. 


[00:32:02] And so there were points where we would start playing the Bible on audio, and then we would stop at different points and we would talk about it. And, yeah, I technically could have taken out a Bible and read it as we were traveling, but my dad would still be listening. He literally can't read it as we're driving. 


[00:32:19] So in those instances, we got a whole lot out of the experience by listening to the Bible together, and then stopping and talking. But in those instances, we were legitimately listening to it. And we weren't literally just putting it on as white noise while we talked about other things. We were trying to edify one another as iron sharpens iron, one man sharpens another. 


[00:32:39] When it comes to if you're just sitting alone at home and you're like, Okay, so it's my devotional. I do find a lot of people are taking the convenient approach like you were talking about. They have things to do and they just want to play it in the background as they do something else. And it feels almost like it's a checklist. 


[00:32:57] It's like, okay, I owe God a certain amount of time. So, I will simultaneously give him what he's due while doing other things, and then I don't have to worry about giving him the time that's just for him. What I used to do was both read and listen to the Bible at the same time. I love 


[00:33:15] Gina: doing that. I still do that. 


[00:33:17] Ben: There, there are some people that works really well for, I found that it actually ultimately is just better for me to read it. But for some people, engaging multiple parts of your brain all at the same time is very helpful. Just listening to it in and of itself, I wouldn't say is not a good idea. I think contextually, you have to look at the situation. 


[00:33:34] Cody: Yeah. 


[00:33:35] Ben: And I'm not saying that's what you guys weren't saying. 


[00:33:36] Cody: Would you ever replace physically reading your Bible with just straight listening to it? No. Okay. 


[00:33:43] Ben: Okay. No, I agree that. There is a very important place that actually reading it comes into play. And in part, this goes back to discipline, which we talked about in prayer. 


[00:33:56] There's a certain amount of disciplined response you need to give to the Lord. There are points where you need to be disciplined about prayer, and you don't need to be insanely disciplined. You don't need to dedicate multiple hours, unless that's specifically something that you're led to do. But most people aren't led to spend three hours of their day sitting in kind of a meditative position, and then just praying. 


[00:34:20] Gina: So how much is enough? 


[00:34:22] Ben: Well, for the people who are starting, it's just like with prayer, For reading the Bible, what I would recommend is that at either in the beginning of your day or at the end of your day, I read during the end of my day, you take 15 minutes or maybe that's too much for you. Maybe that's too, too big a hurdle. 


[00:34:39] Find some amount. That you can dedicate that, you know, that, you know, you will do. Don't start with something that you think, Oh, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm all gung ho for God. I really feel this. Yeah. I, I admire that. But a lot of people Peter out very quickly when, you know, three days in, they're like, Oh great. 


[00:34:55] I have to read my Bible again. And I'm so tired and I just want to go. You don't want it to be that because the enemy is going to pounce on you very quickly. And suddenly once you break the habit, you're not going to continue starting out. It's okay. Just take five minutes. Maybe read one chapter. Yeah. 


[00:35:10] What I do is every night I read three chapters. Sometimes I read more. I very rarely read less. But you take that time and you read. Or you read and you listen. But you take that time and you be serious. You take it seriously. And you dedicate that time just to God. You don't put it in the background and go off and do something else. 


[00:35:28] This is God's time, and it's His time to talk to you. And usually, you want to pair that with prayer. So after you read the Bible, you then pair that with a certain amount of time of prayer. And typically for me, this is a half hour to an hour every night. At certain seasons of my life, it's more. And sometimes if I'm going through Psalms, it's much less, because it's, Oh, okay, three chapters and Psalms. 


[00:35:52] Well, I did that in less than three minutes. But this isn't a competition. This isn't something where I'm actively trying to punish myself. This isn't something you're supposed to suffer through. This is a time where you get to talk to the Creator of all things, who has sent you something in the form of the Bible. 


[00:36:08] And you get to read it. 


[00:36:10] Gina: So what would you say for both of you, your heart posture is when approaching scripture and studying it? 


[00:36:16] Ben: Well, there's the ideal hot posh. Hot posture. Hot pasta. There's the ideal heart posture. And then there's the heart posture that I have often that ultimately isn't helpful. So I will admit there are absolutely times where I, I approach reading the Bible and prayer as, Oh, great. 


[00:36:38] It's the end of the day. I guess I got to do this. And I have to be intentional about getting out of that mentality because we're all going to be there at one time or another. It doesn't matter how long you've been a Christian or how much do you love the Lord? Because the truth is in your own relationships with people you love, it's the same way. 


[00:36:55] Sooner or later, no matter how much you love someone or enjoy spending time with them, there's going to be a point where you're agitated with them or annoyed just because of the situations that you're in life. One of the great things about being intentional about the Bible and whatnot is that this actually gives you training for other parts of your life. 


[00:37:11] Where if you know that about yourself, and you're accustomed to having to get into that headspace, the right headspace of reading the Bible, then you can apply that to your regular relationships. But as far as what the actual right heart posture, the right headspace is, it's, okay, at any time the Lord can tell me something through this. 


[00:37:29] At any time it's, it could be something that actually changes my life. At any time, it could be something that convicts me. At any time, it could be something to encourage me. At any time, it could be something to encourage someone else. And at any time, it could just be a revelation about something that happened in the past. 


[00:37:45] Something that's amazing. Something that's edifying, even if it's not immediately obvious. And so you have to approach reading the Bible with that sense of wonder, that sense of possibility, and that sense of reverence. 


[00:37:56] Gina: What about you? 


[00:37:57] Cody: Similar, you're not always going to have that heart posture. at times, but I think the discipline and pushing through that is important because Paul talks about there's some benefit to physical training, but spiritual training is forever. 


[00:38:15] So if you go in with that mentality that Your training, your relationship and your spiritual well being is just like any other muscle in your body that you have to work on and sometimes it's going to be grueling and sometimes you're just going to hit your PRs and feel great about what you're doing. 


[00:38:33] But the discipline is what matters and that's where the growth and progress comes in. 


[00:38:39] Gina: As your wife. I've noticed that sometimes you get, like, super intense about your studies. Can you, like, speak a little bit about what's happening in your heart and in your head during those times? 


[00:38:53] Cody: Uh, I can't say it's always a healthy mental space. 


[00:38:56] Somebody will say something and you'll be like, oh, I disagree with that, and I'm gonna scour the Bible to prove that person wrong, and that's a terrible heart posture to have, using the Bible as a weapon to Tear people down in there. Theology is not a good position to take. If this was for correcting in a gentle and loving way, that would be different, but with the sole intention of proving yourself right and them wrong, that's not a good posture at all. 


[00:39:21] But then there will be times that I'm on fire for it because it's It's something new. It's like, you'll be reading something and you'll get goosebumps because it's like, Oh, I never noticed that before. Like this is awesome. How did I not see this before? And you'll just want to keep going. And then that's where I like having like Logos and some of these other just commentary sitting on the shelf and see what other scholars thought about these positions and where this scripture connects with other parts of the Bible and get into it that way too. 


[00:39:51] Gina: Sometimes when you get like that. It's like you're chugging water. 


[00:39:56] Cody: Yeah, yeah. Drinking water through a fire hose. 


[00:39:59] Gina: Yeah. It's just interesting. I wanted to ask that question because sometimes, as like a first generation, newer Christian, it was really hard for me to know what I was supposed to be feeling or thinking or what my goal was reading the Bible, so I wanted to hear your perspective because you guys have really solid spiritual disciplines, and I applaud you for that. 


[00:40:23] But I also think it can help others know, like, understand the point because it's not like checking a box. It's not a choice. It's not supposed to be a chore. Yeah. 


[00:40:32] Cody: It's going to be a chore though, like the same thing with loving anybody, you're not going to have the butterfly quote unquote honeymoon phase all the time, and you're not always going to have that relationship with God. 


[00:40:44] Gina: I would argue that being a new Christian, I didn't have the honeymoon feeling until I learned how to study my Bible, because then I was actually understanding things. 


[00:40:55] Cody: Yeah, and I get that, but there's also times and I've gone through seasons where it's like, okay, I can clearly feel God's presence. And like, I feel like I have this fire and purpose that God has given me, but then there's Times where you're like, okay, where did that go? 


[00:41:13] Why am I not waking up at 5 a. m. to read my Bible now? Like why is that? Become an issue or not something that I strive for and you feel guilty about it But you're not always gonna be there and I would say strive to get there But don't be discouraged and just completely drop it because you don't the discipline and consistency in love and in relationships is what makes the difference. 


[00:41:38] Heather 


[00:41:39] Gina: Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to our podcast today. If you liked what you heard, please feel free to subscribe and share and leave a positive review. And if you would like to connect with us on social media, you can do so on Instagram and Facebook at TheLogicofGod. You can also send us an email at main. 


[00:41:58] TheLogicofGod at gmail. com. Thanks again for listening, we hope you have a great day.