Podcasts about nrsv

Rev. Todd Nelson preaches from  2 Corinthians 13:11-13, NRSV. Sermon notes can be found here. For more information about the Downtown Community of First UMC |Lexington, KY, please visit our website: https://umclex.org/downtown/

Rev. Todd Nelson preaches from  Acts 2:1-11, NRSV. Sermon notes can be found here. For more information about the Downtown Community of First UMC |Lexington, KY, please visit our website: https://umclex.org/downtown/

Rev. Carol Cooper preaches from Philippians 1:3-11, NRSV. Sermon notes can be found here. For more information about the Downtown Community of First UMC |Lexington, KY, please visit our website: https://umclex.org/downtown/

Send us Fan Mail“For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love” (Galatians 5:6 NRSV). Freshly written and sent out immediately "morning by morning" from the morning prayer time of Tommy Hays each day.God bless you and you have a great day!—Tommy Hays | Messiah Ministrieshttp://messiah-ministries.org

Rev. Todd Nelson preaches from 1 John 3:16, NRSV. Sermon notes can be found here. For more information about the Downtown Community of First UMC |Lexington, KY, please visit our website: https://umclex.org/downtown/

A sermon preached by Rev. Jonathan Brown with Foundry UMC, April 26, 2026. If there is one truth I want us to carry today, it is this: God's presence in suffering is our courage, but it is never an excuse to accept suffering as normal. That is the tension these texts hold. Psalm 23 gives us one of the most beloved images in all of scripture: the Lord as shepherd. First Peter gives us Christ as the shepherd and guardian of our souls. Both texts offer comfort. Both texts speak to people who know pain. But neither text tells us to make peace with injustice. Neither text tells us to baptize suffering. Instead, these texts tell the truth. There are green pastures and still waters and restoration, yes. But there are also dark valleys, enemies, unjust suffering, and wounds. And in the middle of that truth, scripture makes a defiant claim: we are not alone. Psalm 23 is so familiar that we can miss how honest it really is. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” can sound soft in our ears, but this is not a psalm written from a safe and easy life. It is the prayer of someone who knows danger, fear, and threat. It is the testimony of someone who knows what it means to walk through what the NRSV calls the darkest valley. And that matters, because Psalm 23 is not beautiful because it denies suffering. It is beautiful because it refuses to let suffering speak the final word. “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me.” And it is worth pausing to say a brief word about the psalm itself. The superscription says, “A Psalm of David,” and for generations that has connected the psalm to David the shepherd-king. But most modern scholars are cautious about treating that as proof that David personally wrote it. Like many psalms, Psalm 23 is difficult to date with precision. It does not give us firm historical markers. So it is often understood as part of Israel's worship tradition, preserved and prayed over time, shaped by a people who had learned to trust God through danger, worship, memory, and hope. That deepens the psalm for me. It means these words endured not because they belonged only to one famous person, but because generations of God's people found them true. Notice what the psalm does not say. It does not say, “I will never enter the valley.” It does not say, “If my faith is strong enough, I can avoid the valley.” It does not say, “The valley is secretly good.” It says, even there, even in the darkness, even in the fear, even in the threat: you are with me. That is the center of it. The courage of the psalm is not that life is easy. The courage of the psalm is not that the valley disappears. The courage of the psalm is the presence of God in the valley. That distinction matters, because Christians have not always handled suffering well. Too often, people have taken texts about endurance and presence and turned them into permission slips for oppression. Too often, religion has told people to quietly bear what should have been confronted. Too often, the suffering have been told to be patient while the powerful remain comfortable. Too often, faith has been used not to heal wounds but to explain them away. But Psalm 23 does not glorify the valley. It does not bless the darkness. It does not say that enemies are acceptable because God can still set a table. It says that God remains God even there, and that the Shepherd does not abandon the flock even there. And that shepherd image matters more than we sometimes realize. A shepherd is not just a sweet religious metaphor. A shepherd protects. A shepherd guides. A shepherd goes looking. A shepherd defends the vulnerable. A shepherd takes responsibility for lives that can be easily harmed. That is why the psalm says, “Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” Those are not decorative objects. The rod is for protection. The staff is for guidance and rescue. So the comfort here is not vague spirituality. The comfort is active care. The comfort is the nearness of a God who is not detached from danger and not indifferent to fear. Then the psalm says something almost startling: “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” Not after the enemies are gone. Not once the danger has passed. Not once everything is tidy and resolved. In the presence of my enemies. In other words, God does not wait for perfect conditions to sustain life. God nourishes in hostile places. God restores in wounded places. God anoints in threatened places. But let us be clear: that is not the same thing as saying hostile conditions are acceptable. God's presence in suffering is not God's approval of suffering. And that is where First Peter needs careful handling. “If, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly…” Those words have too often been used badly. They have been used to tell people to remain in abuse, to stay silent under domination, to take the hit and call it holiness. But that is not good news, and that is not what this text should mean for the church. First Peter is speaking to vulnerable communities under pressure. It is trying to encourage people already suffering because the world is not arranged according to the justice of God. It is not praising the injustice. It is not calling suffering good. It is speaking to wounded people about how not to lose their souls in a wounded world. And then it points to Jesus: “When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.” That is not weakness. That is not surrender to evil. It is Jesus refusing to become what the world is. He refuses to let violence dictate the shape of his spirit. He refuses to answer domination with domination. But hear this clearly: the suffering of Jesus is not God saying suffering is good. The cross is not heaven's endorsement of violence. The cross reveals what human sin does when confronted with divine love. And the resurrection is God's refusal to let that violence be final. So when First Peter says Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, it does not mean Christians should seek pain. It does not mean people should stay in dangerous situations for the sake of appearing faithful. It means that when righteousness is costly, Christ has already gone ahead of us. It means that when suffering comes, we do not meet it alone. It means the Shepherd knows the valley from the inside. That is where these two readings reach toward one another in a powerful way. Psalm 23 says, “The Lord is my shepherd.” First Peter says we have now returned “to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.” The Shepherd of Psalm 23 is not far away. The Shepherd of Psalm 23 is not abstract. In the light of Christ, the Shepherd has scars. The Shepherd has known abuse. The Shepherd has known grief. The Shepherd has known the machinery of injustice. So when we say God is with us in suffering, we do not mean that in some thin, sentimental way. We mean that in Jesus Christ, God has entered the full reality of human pain. God knows what it is to be wounded. God knows what it is to be abandoned. God knows what it is to be crushed by the powers of this world. God knows. So yes, there is courage here. Real courage. Because some people in this room know what it is to walk through the valley. Some are carrying grief. Some are carrying fear. Some are exhausted. Some are dealing with illness. Some are trying to keep going under burdens no one else can quite see. Some are watching the pain of the world pile up and wondering how much more human hearts are supposed to bear. And the good news is not that none of it is real. The good news is that none of it is faced alone. But now let me say the other half of what must be said. God's presence in suffering must never be turned into permission to tolerate suffering. It must never become an excuse for passivity. It must never become a way of spiritualizing injustice. It must never become a reason to tell the suffering to stay quiet. There is a scene in Ted Lasso where Ted Lasso, the coach of AFC Richmond, is being underestimated during a game of darts. He recalls a line he says he once saw painted on a wall while driving his son to school: “Be curious, not judgmental.” In the scene he attributes the line to Walt Whitman. Whether or not Whitman actually said it, the point lands. Ted realizes that the people who dismissed him never asked real questions. They assumed they already knew who he was, and so they judged him instead of trying to understand him. The church has too often done the same thing with suffering. We have judged where we should have listened. We have explained pain where we should have shown up. We have sometimes treated suffering like a spiritual test instead of a human crisis. But the Shepherd of Psalm 23 does not stand at a distance judging the sheep in the valley. The Shepherd enters the valley. Because if God is with the suffering, then suffering should matter to us. Human suffering anywhere should trouble the conscience of the church. Poverty should trouble us. War should trouble us. Racism should trouble us. Displacement should trouble us. Abuse should trouble us. Systems that crush people while blessing the already secure should trouble us. The church cannot say, “Well, God is with them,” as a substitute for justice. Yes, God is with them. And that is exactly why suffering can never be treated as normal, holy, or acceptable. And when Psalm 23 says, “I shall not want,” that is not a promise of luxury. It is trust that the Shepherd will sustain. Trust that what is necessary for life with God will not be withheld. Trust that the valley does not cancel the care of God. And when First Peter says, “By his wounds you have been healed,” that is not cheap denial either. It does not mean every hurt is instantly repaired. It means that Christ's love breaks open the power of sin and violence. It means there is healing deeper than domination. It means restoration is possible even in a world that knows how to harm. So what do we do with all of this? We take courage, and we tell the truth. We take courage because we are not alone, because the Shepherd is in the valley, because Christ is not a distant savior offering advice from safety, because goodness and mercy are still moving even when the road is hard. And we tell the truth that suffering is real, that injustice is real, and that pain should never be romanticized. It is never God's plan for people to suffer. It is God's will that people be comforted and protected in suffering. That is what the Shepherd does. The Shepherd leads, guards, restores, and stays near. So let me leave you here. If you are in the valley, hear this: the Shepherd is with you now. If you are wounded, hear this: Christ knows woundedness from the inside. If you are weary, hear this: goodness and mercy are still on the move. And if these texts teach us anything about the Richmond way in the valley, it may be this: be curious, not judgmental. Be curious enough to listen to pain instead of explaining it away. Curious enough to see suffering instead of spiritualizing it. Curious enough to trust that it is never God's plan for people to suffer, but always God's will to meet people with comfort, protection, and mercy in the midst of it. Because the Shepherd does not abandon the valley. The Shepherd enters it, stays with us there, and leads us toward life. Amen.

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is in vain and your faith is in vain...  If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died... What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Look, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15, NRSV.)

Rev. Todd Nelson preaches from Ezekiel 36:24-28, NRSV. Sermon notes can be found here. For more information about the Downtown Community of First UMC |Lexington, KY, please visit our website: https://umclex.org/downtown/

Rev. Todd Nelson preaches from 1 Peter 2:9-10, NRSV. Sermon notes can be found here. For more information about the Downtown Community of First UMC |Lexington, KY, please visit our website: https://umclex.org/downtown/

We're so glad you are here! Thanks for checking out Sunday's message!-- SUNDAY'S NOTES --Title: A Kingdom of Freedom Last week: Ron said you have to pick a kingdom.Colossians 1:13–14 (NIV)13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.John 8:31–32 (NIV)31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Easter is not just an event we celebrate once a year — it is the hinge of history upon which every day of our lives is meant to swing. The cross purchased our freedom. The empty tomb confirmed it. The question is: are we actually living free?Romans 6:4 (NIV)We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.Jesus was risen and we need live like it.Galatians 5:1 (NIV)It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.Christ has set us free — that's the act. Stand firm — that's our response.Freedom is given, but it must also be chosen, walked in, and maintained. When Jesus died, veil of the Temple — the massive curtain separating the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place — was torn from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51). This was not incidental. It was bold statement written by the hand of God. The veil was a physical declaration: you cannot come in. Your sin disqualifies you. When it tore, God was saying: that system is over, Sins power to separate you from me has been cancelled.Colossians 2:13-14 (NIV)When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.Many of us are like prisoners who have been released but are still sitting in the cell. The door is open. The warden handed you the paperwork. But you have not stood up yet. Romans 8:1 (NIV)Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV)Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here! The resurrection did not just forgive us — it re-created us.  Not only am I forgiven, but re created into something new.So how does this become my reality?1 Samuel 30:6 (NRSV)6 David was in great danger; for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in spirit for their sons and daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones"Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? ... You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: 'Hope thou in God'—instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way."We can't just be spectator to our own emotions, instead we must become a preacher to our own soul.ANTs automatic negative thoughtsRomans 6:11 (NIV)In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Romans 8:11 (NIV)And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you. Galatians 5:25 (NIV)Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 2 Peter 1:3–4 (NIV)3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.My problems don't define Me, my failures don't define me. I am forgiven. I am a new creation. The Spirit who raised Jesus lives in me. My future is secured. I do not have to live the way I used to live. God has given me everything I need to live the life he has called me too. John 11:43-44 (NIV)Jesus called in a loud voice, 'Lazarus, come out!' The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, 'Take off the grave clothes and let him go.Freedom needs a family.  -------------------------------------------------Download the 828 Church app!To view our latest e-newsletter, the Midweek Momentum, and subscribe to our weekly updates, go here! https://linktr.ee/828church

Village Church RolesvilleSunday Message, April 26, 2026Pastor Tyler WilliamsLuke 23:42-43;John 14:1-4 (NRSV);Romans. 8:37-39 Philippians. 1:20-23

Episode Summary: Are you weary from constantly striving, juggling endless responsibilities, and living at a pace that leaves you burned out and exhausted? You’re not alone. In this episode of Your Hope-Filled Perspective, I’m joined by Dr. Portia Preston, a public health expert, two-time TEDx speaker, and author of Hustle, Flow, or Let It Go? Her compassionate, shame-free approach to wellness helps us release hustle culture and create sustainable wellness so we can live with greater balance, peace, and joy. Quotables from the episode: This chronic stress is when I lose connection with myself. That's really the best way I know. Where am I in relation to myself and the things that I value most? If I am being irritable in my relationships, something's off. Because these are people that I love. If you had asked me a decade ago about my experience with burnout, I would have pointed directly to my career. And always feeling like it was on me to provide because who else would do it? But it's only been in recent years when I've found that burnout extends to all facets of my life. Surrender isn't about what you can do. The to-do list narrows our perspective. It's asking us to show up as the person who does these things. So immediately we are taken out of connection with our reality and our capacity. And we've been conditioned to say, well, that's the way that it should be. So, if what I have today doesn't measure up to that, then I'm the problem. And I'm not saying the list is bad. There is a saying that says that we are human beings, not human doings. You were born with worth. That it was a part of you. And it's not something that can be taken away from you. God never designed us to go full speed all the time. And recognizing the rhythm of the seasons frees us to honor time of work and time of rest. Scripture References: Isaiah 30:15 (NLT) “This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: ‘Only in returning to me and resting in me will you be saved. In quietness and confidence is your strength.’” Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NRSV) “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” Recommended Resources: Hustle, Flow, or Let It Go? A Guide to Shame-Free Wellness That Honors Your Reality and Gives You Life by Portia Preston, DrPH Sacred Scars: Resting in God’s Promise That Your Past Is Not Wasted by Dr. Michelle Bengtson The Hem of His Garment: Reaching Out To God When Pain Overwhelms by Dr. Michelle Bengtson Today is Going to be a Good Day: 90 Promises from God to Start Your Day Off Right by Dr. Michelle Bengtson Breaking Anxiety’s Grip: How to Reclaim the Peace God Promises by Dr. Michelle Bengtson Breaking Anxiety’s Grip Free Study Guide Free PDF Resource: How to Fight Fearful/Anxious Thoughts and Win Hope Prevails: Insights from a Doctor’s Personal Journey Through Depression by Dr. Michelle Bengtson Hope Prevails Bible Study by Dr. Michelle Bengtson Free Webinar: Help for When You’re Feeling Blue Social Media Links for Host and Guest: Connect with Dr. Portia Preston: Website / Instagram Connect with Dr. Bengtson: Order Book Sacred Scars / Order Book The Hem of His Garment / Order Book Today is Going to be a Good Day / Order Book Breaking Anxiety’s Grip / Order Book Hope Prevails / Website / Blog / Facebook / Twitter (@DrMBengtson) / LinkedIn / Instagram / Pinterest / YouTube / Podcast on Apple Guest: Dr. Portia Preston is a public health expert, two-time TEDx speaker, and founder of Empowered to Exhale. She holds degrees from Stanford, the University of Michigan, and UCLA, and currently serves as a faculty member at California State University, Fullerton. Through her groundbreaking work, Dr. Preston helps individuals and organizations create a culture of sustainable wellness and performance. Her new book, Hustle, Flow, or Let It Go?, offers a compassionate, shame-free roadmap to releasing hustle culture and embracing wellness that truly honors our unique realities. Hosted By: Dr. Michelle Bengtson Audio Technical Support: Ashton Bengtson Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Rev. Todd Nelson preaches from  Psalm 37:1-11, NRSV. Sermon notes can be found here. For more information about the Downtown Community of First UMC |Lexington, KY, please visit our website: https://umclex.org/downtown/

Two of the shortest verses in the Bible are 1 Thess. 5:16 and 17: "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing" (NRSV). Dr. Jeff Peterson argues that that these verses are directed to leaders of the Thessalonian church, along with all of vv. 14-22, and he zeroes in on the Greek adverb translated "without ceasing." Concretely, what was Paul asking the recipients of his letter to do? Dr. Jeff Peterson is Professor of New Testament at Harding School of Theology, Harding University. His publications include (co-editor), Marcan Priority Without Q: Explorations in the Farrer Hypothesis. Check out related programs at Wheaton College: B.A. in Classical Languages (Greek, Latin, Hebrew): https://bit.ly/3NUCXJ0  M.A. in Biblical Exegesis: https://bit.ly/4diWywK 

Rev. Carol Cooper preaches from  John 20:19-31, NRSV. Sermon notes can be found here.   For more information about the Downtown Community of First UMC |Lexington, KY, please visit our website: https://umclex.org/downtown/

God's Word is packed full of power … power unlimited … to transform your life. But one of the biggest problems people have with the Bible is understanding it. Making sense of it. Knowing where it comes from, and where what they're reading today fits into the big picture. Well, I think it's time we did something about that.   About the Bible – Old and New We've all heard of those word association tests that psychologists use. You know, they say 'black', you say 'white'; they say 'rabbit' and you say 'carrot'; day/night; God/mmm love; devil/mmm evil; Bible/hmm … Bible? How do you respond to that? Stuffy, old, irrelevant? Well, different people will have some different views but actually in Australia where I live, the Bible is one of the least trusted of all historical documents. Over the last week and a bit on the program we've been talking about the incredible power that we unlock, when we read the Bible. But this thing that we call "the Bible", it's a big book, it's massive and it can be daunting. So today I thought it might be useful just to have a look to see what this Bible is exactly. I want to share with you a secret, it's sad but true. I never read a book cover to cover until I was in my early twenties. I managed to get through school and university and did pretty well I might add, without ever reading a book from beginning to end. I remember at university, in first year English, we studied the book Wuthering Heights which absolutely bored me to tears, I'm sorry and I never opened the book once. There are companies that publish crib notes, you know the summary of the book and a summary of what's in it and a summary of what some of the critics say, so I just quickly read those, crib notes, wrote essays and did, by and large, reasonably well. And I never, ever liked libraries either. You know how libraries have this kind of dusty, dank smell; all of them are the same. Every library on the planet has the same smell. I thought about it for a while, I thought 'Berni, why don't you like libraries? Why did it take you so long to read books?' The answer I guess has two parts. Firstly, libraries for me always felt really big and inaccessible. They have tens of thousands of books and in the old days when I was at university, they had card systems for accessing, for finding things, I mean these days they have computers. The old card systems had what they call the Dewey Classification system and finding anything just took so incredibly long. And secondly, when you did find the stuff, there was always so much of it, there was so much time involved to, I don't know, look through all those books and research them. I mean, some people are natural book worms, well I'm not. I still frankly don't like libraries. I'm sorry if you're a librarian, I just don't like libraries. I haven't darkened the doorstep of one since I finished my last degree quite a few years ago now. You know something; I think for a lot of people the Bible is exactly like that. It feels big and inaccessible. There are many, many people who wouldn't mind having a read but, for goodness sakes, where do you start? Well today let's break it down a bit, let's make it a bit more accessible. I remember when I started Bible College only a few months after becoming a Christian, everyone took for granted that we knew about the Bible. The reality was, I didn't and my hunch is, I wasn't alone. Let's unpack it a bit, let's demystify it a bit. All of a sudden you know it becomes a whole bunch more accessible. The thing that we call the Bible is made up of 66 different books written by different people over somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 years. That's the kind of period over which the Bible was written. And it wasn't just written by different people but at different times and the last book was written, well almost 2,000 years ago. There are essentially two parts to the Bible, this was complete news to me when I first opened it, the Old Testament and the New Testament, and when I started at Bible College I didn't know which one was which. The Old Testament, well the Old Testament is God's story and the story of how He interacted with and engaged with His chosen people, the Israelites. The Old Testament is written completely B.C., before Christ, before Jesus came to be on earth with us here. What Christians call the Old Testament is in fact exactly the same as the Jewish Hebrew scriptures, Jews still use those same scriptures today, Christians call it the Old Testament. It's written mostly in the original language of Hebrew, the language of the Jews. Now there's small parts of books like Daniel which is written in a language called Aramaic which is the language that Jesus actually spoke but by and large, the Old Testament was originally written in the language of Hebrew. And what we have today, the thing that we call the Old Testament is an English translation of that. Now there are lots of funny name books, Deuteronomy and Judges and Chronicles and there's Ezekiel, there are 39 separate books and there are kind of 4 main parts of the Old Testament. The first 5 books, Genesis to Deuteronomy, are the Jewish or Hebrew Law, the Torah. And then you go Joshua through Ezra and Nehemiah and that's kind of the history of what God did and how His people responded. And then after that are the wisdom books, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon and Lamentations. And the rest of the books in the Old Testament are written by men called Prophets. Men whom God called to call His people back to Him. That's the Old Testament, it's a story of God engaging with Gods people. And the New Testament is 27 books. Now, it was mostly written in the language of Greek. The first 4 books, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are gospel accounts, they're the historical account of Jesus' life and His ministry. And the next book, the book of Acts is the story of the first 20 or so years of the Church after Jesus rose again to be with His Father. Then there's a whole bunch of letters called Epistles from people like Peter and John and Paul, written to Churches that they were involved in or in some cases, to individuals. This may be old hat to some, but I know to many, just a simple understanding of the basic structure of the Bible is going to be a real help. I know that when I was a new Christian, no one ever bothered to explain it to me – I wish they had. Now some people might be saying to themselves, that's all well and good, but how accurate is the Bible. Because before the printing press was ever invented by Gutenberg in 1450, the Bible – there's this massive thing, the Old Testament and New Testament – was transcribed over and over by hand by people called Scribes who copied them by hand. It's hard to imagine. But these days, there's a science called Textual Criticism. It studies whether any errors crept into the Bible as it was copied through all these generations manuscripts. And what it tells us, is that having studied thousands of manuscripts, the levels of accuracy are remarkable. I mean it's a science, people have done it. There are very, very few words or sentences where there is any doubt what was originally written. And blessedly these days, this thing called the Bible has been translated into easy to read, contemporary versions. No more thee's and thou's – great, modern day, accurate, easy to understand translations. And did you know that in the Bible, over half of the 66 books, over half, you can read in half and hour or less. Now look, in a few minutes we can't hope to do anything but scrape the surface. Today we've just talked about some basic factual stuff. No-one really taught me this stuff. I remember becoming a Christian and going and sitting in a Church and people just teach from the Bible which is wonderful but no-one ever explained to me that it was 66 books written by a whole bunch of people over different periods of time. That some of it was stories and history and some of it was letters and some of it was poetry. But when you simplify and demystify all that stuff, it turns out that it's just a wonderful book. And with the many contemporary translations, it's much, much easier to read than I ever thought. As I started to read the Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the New Testament, I was completely blown away by this amazing Jesus. Who would have thought … the Bible.   Getting Practical – Useful Resources I have to tell you, that thing they call the Bible was a real problem for me. I mean, first coming to grips with the fact that it is what it says that it is, the Word of God but then, just getting into it. It's made up of 66 separate books written over about 1,500 years in different times, in different places and different cultures. So there are words and names and places and concepts and ways of thinking … well, we're not always familiar with them. We're continuing in our series 'Power Unlimited' – because that's what Go's Word brings into our lives so today, we're going to get down and really practical on just how to get into the Bible because unless we do, we're going to miss out on much of the power that God wants to pour into our lives. Over the years I've discovered a few very simple helps or resources that have made such a difference in making sense of God's Word. You see, it turns out there's a whole bunch of people much smarter than me who have done some great research and put the information together in such easy usable ways and all their work makes getting into God's Word, the Bible, so much easier for the likes of you and me. Today I just want to share some of those resources with you. I remember twenty or so years ago, just after I became a Christian, I started attending a tiny little Baptist Church in the southern suburbs of Sydney. A little place called Oyster Bay. Our pastor, Phil, was a passionate and gifted Bible teacher and that man has had a huge impact on my life. Now as well as Sunday services, the Church used to have these little home Bible studies and we'd meet one night a week in someone's house. In our small group, five of us would gather together. And at the time, the particular little home fellowship that I'd joined, was studying the Old Testament book of Hosea. So we'd lob in there each Wednesday evening, we'd have a cup of tea and some fellowship and then we'd sit down and do a Bible study together. And right through that book, over and over and over again, Hosea talks about Ephraim – that word is mentioned 29 times by Hosea. So I remember asking these people, most of them had been Christians for a good many years, "Okay, who or what is this Ephraim thing?" I mean, Hosea kept talking about it and so it seemed to be quite central to what he was saying. But you know something, no-one could tell me who or what Ephraim was. Now it turns out the Ephraim was one of the tribes of Israel, Ephraim was one of Joseph's sons and there's a whole history around this tribe and how they rebelled against God, but we didn't know that in that Bible study so a lot of what God was saying to us, through this amazing, powerful book of Hosea, well it was frankly lost on us. And that sort of thing happens a lot more than you might think. Consider the story of the Good Samaritan. It loses its whole meaning if we don't understand the Samaritans and who they were and what the Jews thought of them. Now when Jesus told that story to the assembled masses they all knew the Samaritan story but we don't, it's not natural to us. And there are names and places and concepts and ways of thinking in the Bible that are foreign to us, because we're separated from them by time and culture. It might have made sense to the people back then but not to us now. And unless we understand those things, we miss out on the richness, on the gravity, on the power of what God is trying to say to us. I remember coming to grips with the Jewish system of blood sacrifice in the Old Testament. Now I kind of think about blood sacrifice and it's pretty ghastly to me here and now, but it's something I really had to understand to understand what Jesus did for me on the Cross. So I decided I was going to find out, not just skim the surface, not read through a story and have them talk about Ephraim or Samaria or all these other things I didn't know about and miss out on what God was trying to say to me through the story. Now these accounts were written such a long time ago and God has preserved them and kept them accurate for us here and now but there is indeed a gap of culture and time in history that we have to bridge to understand completely what's happening in what's been written. I mean after all if the Bible is God's Word and if God is speaking to us through it, I decided I needed to know what He was saying. And surprisingly, that's not as difficult as I thought it would be. Right now, I'm going to talk about a handful of really simple resources that made absolutely the world of difference. The first one was my Bible, a simple English translation, not the King James with the 'thees' and 'thou arts', there are so many good contemporary language translations available to you and me today. The New International Version or the NIV as it's called, is really popular. I happen to use the New Revised Standard Version (the NRSV). There's a translation called The Message which is really in here and now language. The Contemporary English Version (CEV). The New English Translation (NET). Which one is the best one? The one you're going to read. You can get a thing called A Study Bible, it's got not just the words of the Bible, but it's also got a huge amount of resources packed into it. It explains the meanings of different words, there are notes and maps and cross references. They're really good, they don't cost a whole bunch more than a Bible with just the Bible words. So if you want to do more than just skim across the surface, it's really good to have one of those – a Study Bible. Check them out. One of the most helpful features in a Study Bible is a summary of each book: who wrote it, when, to whom and why because context is so important isn't it? Before I read Ephesians I read four or five paragraphs in my Study Bible which explain the context and all of a sudden the book of Ephesians made a whole bunch more sense to me. A Study Bible is a really worthwhile investment and it's not much more than an ordinary Bible. You can get one from a Christian bookshop or you can buy one online. I happen to have an electronic one these days on my tablet device. The second resource is my Bible dictionary. Now I happen to purchase a Bible dictionary called the Holman Bible Dictionary, years ago – it's just one, single volume. You can get Bible dictionaries that are 25 volumes, mine is just one volume and it has pictures. So when I was reading and it talked about the Temple in the Bible, I could go to my Bible dictionary and look at it and see a picture and plans and explaining the different parts. So I'm able to read a few paragraphs in just a few minutes, and I'm there, I understand what the writers saying about the Temple, about the Holy of Holies, wow! When the Bible talks about Ephraim I look it up, half a column, three minutes, I know who or what Ephraim is. The story of the Good Samaritan; who were the Samaritans? What was their relationship to the Jews? Ah! That's what Jesus meant by the story of the Good Samaritan. And lastly, the third resource was a Bible timeline. It's one of these things you can fold out and it's about four pages wide that show the chronology of the Bible. You read about King David, when was he king? Who was King before him? Who was King after him? What else was going on? Which prophets were writing when David was alive? And all of a sudden you put the whole Bible thing in time sequence, that's huge. And just to top things off, let me tell you about two stunning websites. The first is biblegateway.com where you can compare different Bible translations. The second is studylight.org, it has Bible dictionaries online, the meanings of Greek and Hebrew words, and so many more great resources. All free. So let me ask you? Do you take Jesus seriously? If you do then we need to take the Bible seriously. And for just a small investment on your part in just a few simple resources, they pay such huge dividends in hearing and understanding what God is saying to us today through His Word.   Listen and Learn If you spend anytime with me here on the program one of the things you will know is that I'm really passionate about God and what He has to say. Not in a religious sort of a way but in a Jesus sort of way. The thing that really strikes me about Jesus when you read about Him, is how plain and matter of fact He was about sharing with people who God is and what His plans are. Over these last couple of weeks on the program we've been looking at what it means to lay hold of God's power unlimited, God's resurrection power that's available to you, as you open His Word the Bible and listen to what He has to say. The Bible is God speaking to us and He means to challenge us and stretch us and encourage us and bless us through His Word. One of the ways that many people get God's Word into them is by listening to people speak. Radio programs like this or on television and of course, if you attend a Church. But how can preaching and teaching be a part of really getting God's Word into us? Over these last twenty years or so, the time that I've been a Christian, I've seen two things. On the one hand I have been so blessed by some really good teaching and on the other hand I've seen some pretty bad stuff too. In my very first Church, a little Baptist Church, our pastor's name was Phil Littlejohn. Now Phil was a gifted teacher, he just had this ability to open God's Word and speak God stuff into my heart. I learned later this is a real gifting, different people have different gifts and abilities given to them by God and teaching is one of them. Jesus had that, I mean time and time again when He opened His mouth people were amazed because He spoke with a plainness and a power and an authority that they hadn't heard before. And you know something, He didn't always tell them things they wanted to hear. "Love your enemy." "Take up your cross and follow me." "Lose your life for my sake and you'll gain your life." It's not exactly good marketing, I mean the spin merchants would not have let Him get up and speak like that today. I've spent quite a bit of time looking at how Jesus preached. It's real, it's powerful. It's balanced on the one hand and radical on the other and it sort of, well, it cuts through all the selfish rubbish we go on with, right to the heart of what God wants to talk about. And my prayer is that when I discharge my gifting to teach in my own way, I'll always try to teach like He did. But you know I've also sat in Churches over the years and listened to preachers drone on with dry and theoretical, completely cerebral stuff, that's not relevant to my life. On more than one occasion I've walked out after church and two hours later I ask myself "Do I remember what he talked about?" And the answer is, "No, not really." Or you listen to other speakers and there are lots of words and they're very entertaining and they make people laugh and they tickle their ears with great stories and things they want to hear and they yell and people slap them on the back afterwards, 'praise the Lord' but I've been to some of those too and well, I felt like I'd been at the Lord's table to be fed but I left hungry and empty. The flip side of that is that with some other preachers, I can remember years later what they were talking about, years later in difficult circumstances God seems to bring into my heart the words they spoke to me. Preaching and teaching is one of the ways that God gets His Word into us. You see it right through the Bible; He uses men and women to speak to others, to teach them. I mean the Samaritan woman at the well; she went and told people about Jesus. Paul and Peter and all the other guys that went out preaching. The question is, how do you get the most out of that? How does preaching and teaching play a part in us reading our Bible and unlocking the power unlimited that God has for us? Well, here are just some of my observations. I see people come into a Church on a Sunday and listen to the preacher and they don't take any notes and they don't bring their Bible and they don't follow what the preacher's saying in their Bible. I take my Bible with me, I open my Bible and I read what the preacher is talking about. People can speak all the words that they like, everything that they say, they can crack jokes and have great stories – the most important thing is God's Word, the most important thing is what God is saying. And secondly I take some notes. I mean you can't even get through kindergarten on a half an hour a week without taking notes. You know, if we take God seriously, if we want to follow Jesus and really take that seriously, you know something, we've got to take learning seriously. Do you know what a disciple is? A disciple is literally "a learner", that's what the word disciple means, to be a learner. And thirdly, the thing I do when I've listened to some really good preaching, is I spend some time afterwards in God's Word reading it for myself. Sometimes it's not until you get home and you pray it through and you spend some time in that passage and maybe looking at some other related ones, that God really drops it into your spirit. I mean, years ago I heard a preacher teaching on a profound passage: 1 Peter 5:6,7: Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God so that He may exalt you in due time. Cast all your cares on Him because He cares for you. Now I've learnt so much from what God taught me through that preacher in this passage but I've learned just as much and maybe even more from pondering and praying over this scripture and looking at other related passages. Learning in my heart – that's when I humble myself, when I get off my little tin pot throne and just walk each day faithfully with God. He's the one who later opens the doors; He's the one that's got an eternity ready for me. I've looked at this whole thing of preaching, and listened to some incredibly sermons and some dreadful ones too, I've come to the conclusion that there are two types of preaching; dead and alive. Dead preaching is full of words, it's boring and dry or maybe it's hyped up and frothy and bubbly but at the end of the day, there's no eternal food there because God's Word is not being preached in the power of the Holy Spirit. It's only God's Word by the power of the Spirit that can change us. I can't change you, I can't say things in my own strength that will change your life, but if I'm speaking God's stuff, if the Holy Spirit somehow takes God's stuff and puts it into your heart, that's when change happens and only God can do that. This is how the Apostle Paul put it: 1 Cor 2:1-5: When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God Can I encourage you to be discerning as to what you listen to? Go and listen to the preachers who are proclaiming God's Word in the power of the Holy Spirit.. Go and have a read about how Jesus preached in the Gospels Matthew or Mark or Luke or John, the first four books of the New Testament. It's edgy and profound and real and dealing with the hard issues, and find yourself some preachers like that. Not ones that just entertain and tickle your ears with things you want to hear. The ones that open up God's Word and say, 'Well, what's God saying to us today?' and then take what they said home, open your Bible there where they left off and go and lay hold of God's power unlimited for you, for your life.

Rev. Todd Nelson preaches from  Matthew 28:1-10, NRSV. Sermon notes can be found here. For more information about the Downtown Community of First UMC |Lexington, KY, please visit our website: https://umclex.org/downtown/

Rev. Todd Nelson preaches from  Matthew 21:1-11, NRSV. Sermon notes can be found here.   For more information about the Downtown Community of First UMC |Lexington, KY, please visit our website: https://umclex.org/downtown/

Rev. Todd Nelson preaches from  Luke 23:44-49, NRSV. Sermon notes can be found here. For more information about the Downtown Community of First UMC |Lexington, KY, please visit our website: https://umclex.org/downtown/

Message from Joe Ryan on March 22, 2026

A @Christadelphians Video: [Inspiring]Have you ever wondered why there are so many different English versions of the Bible? This insightful and thought-provoking presentation is the second part of our series exploring this very question. We delve into the fascinating world of translation philosophy, revealing why having multiple translations is not a problem, but a wonderful tool for deeper understanding.In this outstanding exposition, we explain that translation is far more complicated than it first appears. We explore the spectrum of translation philosophies, from formal equivalence (literal, word-for-word) to functional equivalence (dynamic, thought-for-thought). Discover why a version like the King James was designed to sound beautiful for public reading, while others are crafted for personal study or for specific audiences like children.We'll clarify the difference between a true translation and a paraphrase, using helpful examples like the Living Bible. You'll gain a revealing look into the prefaces of major translations like the ESV and King James, where the translators themselves explain their goals and methodologies. By the end, you'll see how literal versions can preserve important idioms and connections (like the Exodus imagery in 1 Peter), while dynamic versions help unlock the core meaning, making the text clear and accessible.The key takeaway is wonderfully simple: we need both! Each version has its unique purpose, and by using multiple translations, we gain a richer, more complete picture of God's Word. Join us as we learn to appreciate the incredible depth and beauty of Scripture through the lens of those who translate it.**Chapters:**00:00 - Introduction: The Complicated Task of Translation01:43 - What is Translation Philosophy? Goals and Audience05:36 - Formal vs. Functional Equivalence: The Spectrum of Bibles08:59 - Paraphrase vs. Translation: A Crucial Distinction11:38 - Key Translator Decisions: Word Choice, Gender, and Quotations13:41 - Reading the Preface: What Translators Say About Their Work18:41 - Practical Examples: "Brethren" and the Word "Flesh" (Sarks)22:37 - Why You Need Both: Idioms, Meaning, and Depth (1 Samuel, Esther, 1 Peter)28:13 - Looking Ahead: The Challenge of Translator Bias29:22 - Conclusion: Embrace Multiple Versions for a Richer Faith**Bible Verses Mentioned:**

Tom Clark discusses Proverbs 18:2, NRSV—“A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing personal opinion.”

Rev. Carol Cooper preaches from  John 19:28-30, NRSV. Sermon notes can be found here. For more information about the Downtown Community of First UMC |Lexington, KY, please visit our website: https://umclex.org/downtown/

What if Joseph's reunion with his brothers was a carefully designed repentance audit? Professor Stephen Smoot explores the literary brilliance, Egyptian context, and Christ-centered symbolism in Genesis 42-45, showing God can transform betrayal into redemption.YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/iisYV2s8Wm0ALL EPISODES/SHOW NOTESfollowHIM website: https://www.followHIM.coFREE PDF DOWNLOADS OF followHIM QUOTE BOOKSNew Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastNTBookOld Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastOTBookBook of Mormon: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastBMBook  WEEKLY NEWSLETTER https://tinyurl.com/followHIMnewsletter  SOCIAL MEDIA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/followHIMpodcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastTIMECODE:00:00 Part 1 - Professor Stephen Smoot02:25 Episode teaser05:35 Bio07:14 Informed Saints08:38 Why study Ancient Egypt?11:28 Come, Follow Me Manual12:46 Literary shape of these chapters17:02 Joseph has become “Egyptianized”19:33 Using the NRSV 22:32 Test 125:01 Scripture as art27:45 Reuben has been thinking about Joseph30:22 Motif of younger brother favored33:50 Joseph tests his brothers36:45 Benjamin receives favoritism from Joseph39:57 Silver divining cup41:40 Physical items for revelation46:04 Judah steps in to save Benjamin49:01 Joseph weeps again54:04 Value of stories about conflict59:01 What is forgiveness?1:01:20 End of Part 1 - Professor Stephen SmootThanks to the followHIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Cofounder, Executive Producer, SponsorDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: Marketing, SponsorLisa Spice: Client Relations, Editor, Show NotesWill Stoughton: Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Translation Team, English & French Transcripts, WebsiteAriel Cuadra: Spanish TranscriptsAmelia Kabwika: Portuguese TranscriptsHeather Barlow: Communications DirectorSydney Smith: Social Media, Graphic Design "Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com

Rev. Todd Nelson preaches from Matthew 27:45–49, NRSV. Sermon notes can be found here. For more information about the Downtown Community of First UMC |Lexington, KY, please visit our website: https://umclex.org/downtown/

Rev. Todd Nelson preaches from John 19:25-27, NRSV. Sermon notes can be found here.   For more information about the Downtown Community of First UMC |Lexington, KY, please visit our website: https://umclex.org/downtown/

Rev. Todd Nelson preaches from  Luke 23:39-43, NRSV. Sermon notes can be found here. For more information about the Downtown Community of First UMC |Lexington, KY, please visit our website: https://umclex.org/downtown/

The writings of the Apostle John gives prominence to the idea of overcoming the devil and world system and the old human nature termed our flesh. We are engaged in a spiritual war consisting of many battles. We can overcome the world, the flesh and the devil in union with our Lord Jesus. We conqueror only because Jesus overcame and our faith is in him. However we cannot be passive in this battle. Our faith must be active in the war. The Lord has gifted us with necessary actions that equip us and build us up. These consist of reading the Bible for understanding of the writer's thoughts, praying which is talking to God as expression of our relationship to him and other believers. A major means is attendance and active involvement in the corporate worship of our God and Savior plus active fellowship with our spiritual family, fellow believers. 1 John 5:3-5 For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers (overcomes) the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it who conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? NRSV

Rev. Carol Cooper preaches from 2 Peter 1:16-21, NRSV. Sermon notes can be found here. For more information about the Downtown Community of First UMC |Lexington, KY, please visit our website: https://umclex.org/downtown/

Rev. Todd Nelson preaches from 1 Corinthians 2:1-16, NRSV. Sermon notes can be found here. For more information about the Downtown Community of First UMC |Lexington, KY, please visit our website: https://umclex.org/downtown/

Rev. Todd Nelson preaches from 1 Corinthians 1:18-31, NRSV. Sermon notes can be found here. For more information about the Downtown Community of First UMC |Lexington, KY, please visit our website: https://umclex.org/downtown/

Rev. Todd Nelson preaches from 1 Corinthians 1:1–9, NRSV. Sermon notes can be found here. For more information about the Downtown Community of First UMC |Lexington, KY, please visit our website: https://umclex.org/downtown/

If we could learn one thing from John the Baptist, it ought to be that being a disciple means pointing others toward Jesus ... with our actions, with our words, and with the way we treat others. It's not about drawing the attention of others toward us. In this episode of Coffee to Go, hosts Karin Peter and Blake Smith focus on how John points toward Jesus ... the one who takes away the sin of the world ... the one of whom John said, “after me comas a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” (John 1:30, NRSV). Who is it that you can point to that shines a light on Christ with their life?  Listen to more episodes in the Coffee to Go series. Download the Transcript. Thanks for listening to Faith Unfiltered!Follow us on Facebook and Instagram!Intro and Outro music used with permission: “For Everyone Born,” Community of Christ Sings #285. Music © 2006 Brian Mann, admin. General Board of Global Ministries t/a GBGMusik, 458 Ponce de Leon Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30308. copyright@umcmission.org “The Trees of the Field,” Community of Christ Sings # 645, Music © 1975 Stuart Dauerman, Lillenas Publishing Company (admin. Music Services). All music for this episode was performed by Dr. Jan Kraybill, and produced by Chad Godfrey. NOTE: The series that make up Faith Unfiltered explore the unique spiritual and theological gifts Community of Christ offers for today's world. Although Faith Unfiltered is a Ministry of Community of Christ. The views and opinions expressed in this episode are those speaking and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Community of Christ.

Followers of Jesus, 1 Peter says, rejoice "even if now for a little while [we] have had to suffer various trials" (1:6). It's a teaching shared across the writings of the New Testament: the kingdom of God has come already in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the church but has not yet come in its fullness. We are born to a "living hope" as we await "a salvation... to be revealed in the last time" (1:3,5). And while we wait, we suffer-- a word used twenty times in 1 Peter in the NRSV.  Join us as we consider suffering in 1 Peter in the context of the kingdom come and coming and how we might suffer "mindful of God" (2:19) "entrusting [our] souls to a faithful Creator" (4:19)- Series Description -  In this series we will explore 1 and 2 Peter, the Apostle Peter's two letters to the scattered first-century church in Asia Minor, who, though distant in time and place from ourselves, nonetheless share many of the very challenges that we do. We will consider what it means to be “third-culture people” who are chosen by God and called for his sake to live both fruitfully and prophetically in a land not our own 

In this episode, Diana's special guest Jake Doberenz, founder of Theophany Media and host of the Creatively Christian podcast, shares his expertise on effective Bible study. The discussion covers essential principles of biblical interpretation, the importance of studying scripture in community, and approaches to understanding difficult passages. Listeners are also guided on selecting appropriate Bible translations and utilizing various online resources, ensuring a comprehensive and balanced approach to scripture study. The episode concludes with a prayer for listeners' spiritual journey and their engagement with the scriptures. Bio: Jake Doberenz isn't one thing. He identifies as a polymath, a Renaissance man, or a multipotentialite–one interest or specialty can't contain him. But enough of the third-person. I am a writer, speaker, minister, and creative thinker living in Oklahoma City, OK with my wife Samantha. My most significant role is the founder and president of Theophany Media, a Christian education company dedicated to helping Christians engage with culture through new media. I have earned my Master of Theological Studies at Oklahoma Christian University, the same place I earned my Bachelor's degree in Bible with a minor in Communication Studies. I also worked at my alma mater as a Resident Director and Bible TA. I write fiction and nonfiction in a variety of mediums, including poetry, short stories, books, stage plays, academic essays, and devotionals. I also venture out into other mediums, like podcasts and video. My favorite topics of choice to discuss and write about (though always changing) include: creating Christian art, helping people understand the Bible better, Christian identity, theology of social media, use of humor in faith messages, superheroes and theology, and a Christian response to culture. If you want to see his progress, achievements, and appearances sign up for the newsletter so you'll never miss an update! website: Home – Jake Doberenz 00:00 Introduction and Sponsor Message 00:47 Welcome to the Podcast 01:44 Introducing the Guest: Jake Doberenz 02:43 Jake's Background and Interests 05:56 Jake's Teaching Journey 10:46 Bible Study for Abuse Survivors 13:25 Choosing the Right Bible Translation 18:42 Understanding the Bible Without Knowing Greek or Hebrew 21:34 Basic Rules of Bible Interpretation 25:43 Embracing Uncomfortable Bible Stories 26:47 Using Jesus as a Lens for Interpretation 30:54 The Importance of Community in Bible Study 34:14 Red Flags in Spiritual Leadership 37:02 Recommended Bible Study Resources 41:33 Exploring Different Perspectives 44:58 Connecting with the Speaker 46:29 Closing Prayer and Final Thoughts   Website: https://dswministries.org Subscribe to the podcast: https://dswministries.org/subscribe-to-podcast/ Social media links: Join our Private Wounds of the Faithful FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1603903730020136 Twitter: https://twitter.com/DswMinistries YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxgIpWVQCmjqog0PMK4khDw/playlists Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dswministries/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DSW-Ministries-230135337033879 Keep in touch with me! Email subscribe to get my handpicked list of the best resources for abuse survivors! https://thoughtful-composer-4268.ck.page #abuse #trauma Affiliate links: Our Sponsor: 753 Academy: https://www.753academy.com/ Can't travel to The Holy Land right now? The next best thing is Walking The Bible Lands! Get a free video sample of the Bible lands here! https://www.walkingthebiblelands.com/a/18410/hN8u6LQP An easy way to help my ministry: https://dswministries.org/product/buy-me-a-cup-of-tea/ A donation link: https://dswministries.org/donate/ Jake Doberenz [00:00:00] Special thanks to 7 5 3 Academy for sponsoring this episode. No matter where you are in your fitness and health journey, they've got you covered. They specialize in helping you exceed your health and fitness goals, whether that is losing body fat, gaining muscle, or nutritional coaching to match your fitness levels. They do it all with a written guarantee for results so you don't waste time and money on a program that doesn't exceed your goals. There are martial arts programs. Specialize in anti-bullying programs for kids to combat proven Filipino martial arts. They take a holistic, fun, and innovative approach that simply works. Sign up for your free class now. It's 7 5 3 academy.com. Find the link in the show notes. Welcome to the Wounds of the Faithful Podcast, brought to you by DSW Ministries. Your host is singer songwriter, speaker and domestic violence advocate, [00:01:00] Diana . She is passionate about helping survivors in the church heal from domestic violence and abuse and trauma. This podcast is not a substitute for professional counseling or qualified medical help. Now here is Diana. Hey there, everybody. Come on in, set for a spell. How are you guys doing? I appreciate your support in listening to the podcast, and I hope that you are enjoying some really encouraging words and practical things for you to do your own Bible study and read the word of God for yourself. We have a new guest on the show now I'm very familiar with his podcast, creatively Christian. I've been on his podcast. His show has a few different interviewers. And so [00:02:00] Andrea Sandifer, who you guys know that was on the show, she interviewed me on her show. And our guest today, Jake Doberenz, the man behind that podcast, he is a funny guy. He likes to bring humor from the Bible. And I've been reading his blog and following his newsletters. And his Facebook group. So I thought he would be a great addition to the podcast , and I think you're gonna love him. I'm gonna tell you a little bit about him. He has a lot of interest here, so here we go. Jake, Doberenz isn't one thing. He identifies as a polymath, a renaissance man or a multipotentialite. One interest or specialty, can't contain him. So he [00:03:00] says of himself, but enough of the third person. I'm a writer, speaker, minister, and creative thinker, living in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. My most significant role is the founder and president of Theophany Media. A Christian education company dedicated to helping Christians engage with culture through new media. I have earned my Master of Theological studies at Oklahoma Christian University, the same place I earned my bachelor's degree in Bible with a minor in communication studies. I also worked at my alma matter as a resident director and bible ta. I write fiction and nonfiction in a variety of mediums, including poetry, short stories, books, stage plays, academic essays, and [00:04:00] devotionals. I also venture out into other mediums like podcasts and video, my favorite topics of choice to discuss and write about. Although always changing, include creating Christian art, helping people understand the Bible better. Christian identity, theology of social media, use of humor in faith messages, super heroes and theology, any Christian response to culture. So this is gonna be awesome. So I hope that you enjoy my conversation with Jake Doberenz. Please welcome to the show, Jake Doberenz. Thanks for coming on today. Sure thing, anytime. I'm glad to be here. I really enjoyed being on your [00:05:00] podcast, A creatively Christian, and Andrea interviewed me and then she was on my podcast and I follow your Facebook group and get your. Very humorous email newsletter. And so I thought you were the perfect fit to come on to the podcast. And you're a bible geek like me, and you have a different perspective on life. In the Bible, you find humor in the Bible, which a lot of people don't find the Bible very funny. So welcome to the show. Yeah, I'm glad to be here providing some humor and quite possibly even some wisdom and intelligent comments. We'll see if we get to that part. So you haven't been on the podcast before, so. Tell the folks a little bit about yourself and your family. Okay? Yeah. Always a fun question because where do you [00:06:00] start? Where do you end? But yeah. I am in Oklahoma City right now. I'm an Oregon native and got stuck in Oklahoma. Stuck sounds too negative, but I got planted here. That sounds better. I got my bachelor's degree in biblical studies with a minor in communication studies. I have a Master's of Theological studies and for a while I was kind of going down the Bible professor route. That was gonna be my thing. And it's not like completely off the table right now, but it is not my chief kind of path anymore because there are not a lot of jobs in that area and there's a lot of different things there that make it quite challenging. A lot of schooling, a lot of debt for maybe not so much reward, but we'll see what the future brings. I am still flexing my desires to write and teach. That has always been what I wanted to do, even when the subject changed, even when it [00:07:00] was cat psychology or whatever, I always wanted to write and teach and so I'm still doing that in in different ways. I'm certainly still using my degrees, even though I'll be going into teaching middle school geography this year. Ooh, kind of a new adventure. Add some more skills and weird things on my resume. That's kind of how I do it. So geography. Cool. I think that's me. Yeah. Yeah. That's very brave. Middle school, that particular age, did you pick the age group you were teaching or did they just kind of throw you in there? I applied to high school and middle school. I wasn't going to do anybody under middle school and the high school jobs never called me back. And the, I got some different offerings on the middle school side of thing, so I said, okay, that's what you want me to do. God, I will walk into this wilderness. And then they gave me some kind of choices between, and I chose sixth grade specifically, so I'll be with, with sixth graders. [00:08:00] They, uh, we still have some childlike heart and wonder. They're not so jaded like they get when they're a little older, but they're just mature enough where you can start to get a little more serious. So good age. Hmm. I liked sixth grade. It was a good year. We'll be praying for you either way, because that's a lot of work and mm-hmm. But geography's cool. I like Bible geography. Ever since I went to Israel in 2019. How different reading the Bible is when you've been to those places. Have you been to Israel? I haven't. No, I haven't. Yeah. If you're into geography, you would really love going to Israel for obvious reasons, of course, but geography, it just makes the Bible come alive when you've been to the place where Jesus put legion into the herd of pigs and over the cliff. Sure. And I've been to that cliff, and so you can see it now in your head. It's awesome. Or you've been on the Sea of [00:09:00] Galilee and you can actually imagine Jesus walking on the water and because been in the boat. So, yeah, I'm just getting into being interested in geography right now. There you go. Yeah. Cool. What would you say is your particular specialty as far as Bible goes? Yeah. I did my master's thesis on Paul's view of spiritual formation, specifically from one Corinthians chapter three, verse three. Four, just around there. So that's a very specific kind of thing. Most of my training has actually been more on the New Testament side. Specifically Paul, I've done a lot of more academic work with the use of children as a metaphor in the Bible. I've done work with that in both Paul and the Gospels. Sexuality in the New Testament has been something I've kind of explored. [00:10:00] Nowadays though, I have more of theological interests and I'm asking some different kinds of questions. You don't divorce theology from the Bible, but they're just different kinds of questions and different kinds of, and ways and sources for that. But in terms of Bible, yeah, a lot of studying Paul and a lot of thinking about sort of how he makes arguments and specifically like in that thesis, it was all about how he used this metaphor about. Being an infant in Christ, what does all that mean? And how does that reflect how we grow as people? And so I've gone down those kind of rabbit trails a lot my my day. That's really interesting. A Paul's usually a favorite Bible character. Most people, though you can, you never go wrong with the Apostle Paul now. So today we're talking about Bible study for abuse survivors. And reason why we're doing this is because when we've gone through abuse, usually there's some spiritual [00:11:00] abuse involved and we want to distance ourself from God because we've experienced that spiritual abuse and that affects our relationship with God. And a lot of people once they leave or get out of the abuse. Then they're like, okay, I don't wanna read the Bible, I don't wanna pray, and I don't wanna go to church anymore. I don't trust anybody. But I'm trying to encourage on this podcast to come and if you have questions, let's talk about the questions. So, so I've kind of answered my own question, why should we study the Bible for ourselves? But what would you say to that or add to that? Yeah, I think what I would add to that is that, um, one thing that our teachers or pastors or scholars don't have is that they're not you. You are yourself and you come with your experiences and you come [00:12:00] with your own personality and identity, and you are gonna often pick up things that other people might miss, or you're gonna just sort of focus on things more realize as a thread of a theme or something like that. We, we shouldn't come to the Bible biased necessarily, or with too many preconceived notions. 'cause then the text starts to say what we want it to say. That's not what I'm saying. But we do bring ourselves to the text and we have to admit that like, I'm not reading this in a vacuum. I'm reading this because of who I am and what I've experienced and all these things like that. And I think that's really powerful. And I think the Bible is, it's strong enough to take it. Like it's not about pulling whatever meaning you want from it, like I said, but it is about seeing things that are hidden in this multi-layered onion like text here that has so much stuff in it that we can't expect. Even a really smart [00:13:00] guy to just know everything. So yeah, we gotta study the Bible for ourselves. We gotta do our own digging and our own reading. See what we can find. Yeah, I like that answer. Bringing yourself to the table that's. Different than what somebody else would bring to the table. So let's start with something everybody asks about. When it comes to Bible study, you go to the bookstore and you're trying to pick out a Bible, and there's a gazillion different Bible versions out there, and too many versions, in my opinion. Which one do I pick? Does it matter? At the end of the day, it probably doesn't matter. There are those that are better than others, and I'm the term better here. You can use that in different ways. I'm using the term better as in. More accurate to the text, although, hey, we are translating language here. [00:14:00] Translation is an art, not a science, which makes us a little uncomfortable. We can still get that meaning across. You're a, you're an artist and you're a creative. You can still communicate accurately and faithfully even through a song or something like that. And so in the same way, translation is a little bit of an art form and there are people that have to choose certain words, and I think this means that. So yeah, there are some that are more quote unquote scholarly and others that are more paraphrased, like the message, or it's something like the amplified Bible that is just trying to sort of squeeze some more possible meaning out there by becoming like glorified the Sorut. So you got some different options. Most readings are probably not gonna hurt you, at least. As long as you understand like kind of what's going on here. I know in the past the King James has had the word unicorns in it and that that threw some people off and then later we're like, actually we should have translated that. Like Gazelle was not supposed to be translated unicorn. So [00:15:00] okay, we can get some things here that might throw some people off, but as long as we kind of give some grace to the translators, something like the King James is older and we have some different data. We have some older manuscripts that we're pulling from now. So yeah, it's gonna be a little bit more closer to what the originals were saying kind of thing. So yeah, there are those considerations, but I don't think you're gonna make or break your faith if you read the ESV over the NRSV or something like that. Yeah, well I came from a camp that, uh, they were very definitive in what Bible you should read and which ones you should not read and Sure. And they were very dogmatic in that I've changed my stance since then. Because I've actually dug into that sort of thing that okay, you, so you're saying that most of the mainline translations out there, we will still get the main [00:16:00] point of what Bio was trying to say. Right. Yeah, I don't know any that are too left field and crazy or something like that. There are versions, like, I could be wrong about this, but I think the Jehovah's Witness has versions of the Bible that seem to play a little fast and loose with some things and have cut out some different stuff. So obviously I wouldn't necessarily recommend that for Christians. The only other thing I would say is make sure a bunch of different people were involved. Most translations are. Large groups of people. And then you have things like I mentioned the message that Eugene Peterson did, it was just him, but he wasn't necessarily trying to make a definitive thing. That's more of a paraphrase translation, which is like a devotional rather than something to study. So there are just different uses for all these different things. There are, I could go into the weeds. My dad used to own a Christian bookstore. Oh. And so you have your thought for thought translations and then you have your word for word. And [00:17:00] some people think word for word is better because it's more accurate. But the thing, the problem is the Bible might literally say X, but when we translate that word to today, it makes no sense because language is weird like that. And then so the thought for thought is going to be more of an interpretation, but they're trying to say, okay, but what this is trying to say is this and, and here's a thought that you can digest and that makes sense to you. So it's just kind of what you want, but thanks to the internet. In fact, on another screen here, I have pulled up Bible gateway.com. That's what I use a lot. You can look through all sorts of different translations and compare and contrast. If I really wanted to study with more than one, it's legal in most states, so go for it. It's funny you mentioned the message because that was my first Bible when I got saved. My okay friend that I met in high school, I told her I had gotten saved and I didn't have a Bible, and she gave me the message, which [00:18:00] was her Bible, and I loved it. Oh yeah. I highlighted that thing and Oh yeah. And I just tore it up with underlining and I couldn't wait to read it. And then of course you get to Bible college and they tear it out of your hands, so yeah. But yeah, I like the ESV today. I have. A really nice archeology study Bible I bought and I've, I've read the King James most of my Christian life. And switching to another translation was really eye-opening. All this different stuff that I hadn't seen before just popped out, like I didn't know the Bible said that. Wow. It's pretty neat. So along the same lines, do we have to be a Greek and Hebrew scholar to understand the Bible? I hope not because I struggled through Greek and barely made that alive, and so languages are not my strong [00:19:00] suit. Uh, but I think the answer is of course, no. You don't have to be. It depends on what kind of study you're doing, and I probably should have mentioned that earlier, but there's a way to look at the Bible in an academic, scholarly way, and there are some Christians that. Think that's wrong or bad? I don't think it's bad. It's just one way to look at it. When I am in scholarship, when I'm writing this college paper, I am, I have to kind of slice and dice it and I'm doing a work that an atheist could do. It's that kind of work. But then there's another way to look at the Bible that is much more pastorally or for spiritual formation, the kind of thing that treats the text as sacred that an atheist can't do. So if you're doing the academic work, it really helps to know the words because you're trying to get as precise as possible and getting into there. But luckily for us, other people have done the work for us and we have these English translations, so woo. You don't need to know Hebrew and Coin a Greek and [00:20:00] a little bit of Aramic and like Daniel or whatever. Like we don't have to know that because somebody else has done the work for us. And I mentioned already like. There's a lot of people involved in a Bible translation, not just one guy. It's, a lot of people have done this work and they've argued and yelled at each other and come to some conclusions to say, this is the best we can do right now. This is what we got. So, yeah, we don't have to, we don't have to be language PS so, woo. Lucky. Yes. Yeah. I mean, I'm a language geek. I love languages. Personally, I speak two languages besides English, but I haven't taken any Greek or, or Hebrew, maybe someday, but they didn't cover that in my Bible college. But it's good that we already have the tools online that, hey, this is a translation for that word in. There's really no, no real argument about it is there along mainline denominations. Yeah. Most people probably aren't gonna tell you. You have to know all those languages unless somebody there. There are groups of people that would say [00:21:00] the only inspired text of the Bible is the actual original Greek and Hebrew. And so our English translations are not inspired. But that's a minority view. That's not super common. Yeah. Yeah. The most people can understand. The inspiration still comes through, even when it's translating different languages. The word of gods for the whole world, not just those that can speak actually dead languages that nobody speaks today like Latin. Yeah. So now we're gonna get into the nitty gritty here. Okay. When we are sitting down with our Bible and we're deciding to. Study a passage of scripture or maybe a book. What are some basic rules of interpretation? Now we use the fancy big word hermeneutics, but like the basic ones that you really shouldn't ignore in order to. Do a proper Bible study. This is one that gets definitely drilled [00:22:00] into in Bible school and in other contexts, but it's that actual, it's a word context like context is key. Context is king, and one of the best things we can do is zoom out. So if we're looking at a particular scripture. Like one verse, we zoom out to the chapter. Those headings or whatever aren't like God inspired or whatever, but they're helpful to kind of see what the flow of things are. Then we can zoom out to the book level and sometimes zoom out to the biblical level and things like that. But that is always key. Sometimes we get into trouble thinking that the Bible is just like, the whole thing is like Proverbs, where everything's just disconnected and you got these good one-liners and they're fun and they're good zingers, but most of it is some kind of story or, and Paul, I mentioned that being some of my background, Paul's letters are arguments they build on top of each other, and so you can see if we're trying to look at something wild like. One [00:23:00] Corinthians 14 or something, we can understand it because by just kind of going a little backwards and Oh, okay. So that's always really important. And a lot of times authors in the Bible will also tell us kind of their themes and tell us what they really want us to get across. The gospel of John, for instance, is written so that we may believe Luke talks about writing in a, an orderly account of things. So we have some of these statements that if we zoom out a little bit, oh, okay, we can make sense of this in light of that. And so different things like that. But we could go all day into the hermeneutics and then the other fancy word, X of Jesus and that kind of stuff. But at the end of the day, a tool anybody can use is something I learned in elementary school when there was a hard word. It was called rat read around the text. Read around the text. Ooh, that's the acronym there. And that just helps us understand, wait, what is going on? What does Paul mean when he says this? Why is [00:24:00] this guy saying this in judges? Let's take a look. What else is going on here? So it's just a great tool that anybody can use be if they can just zoom out a little bit and read the rest of the Bible and the rest of the passage. Everybody gives a different answer to that question. Now, obviously when we read the Bible, we come upon these passages or some of the stories that are either difficult to understand or it's a topic that we don't wanna deal with. It's really hard to swallow. Like a lot of times it's the genocide passages, of course. Mm-hmm. And or similar things like that. What do we do when we encounter those passages? Yeah. There are also passages that are sometimes called, and the genocide fits into this, but passages called texts of terror. A lot of passages about different abuse situation, and [00:25:00] I won't go into all of those, but I'm sure a lot of us can come up with some things that mm-hmm. Can be triggering in the Bible that seem just really messed up and stuff like that. So I think what's important, first of all is we recognize the, the gut feeling, the awkwardness talk to the beginning about how I see humor in the Bible and I do, I think there are some things in the Bible that we should laugh at. It's actually hilarious. Tell us about what Jonah gets swallowed by a big fish. That's funny. You should be laughing. And it's hilarious that he wants this city destroyed and he's supposed to be a prophet of God and he's not doing his job description and stuff like that. So like. When it's funny, we should laugh and when it's not funny, when it's uncomfortable, we should be okay being uncomfortable. I, I remember when I did college ministry for a time, we talked about the story of, oh man, I can't remember if it's Eli, I think it's Elijah. [00:26:00] And when they make fun of him for being bald and he calls these, she bears to attack these 40 youths, and he, this kid would kid could not get over it. He's like, why is this in the Bible? This is ridiculous. And I just tried to help him. Yeah, let's feel that first. Let's feel that, oh boy, we got some emotions here. So step one, I think it's totally okay to feel those things and then we can do some digging. Again, it's that zooming out. Let's look at the context here. Let's look what's going on there. A lot of times I think some of these texts of terror or uncomfortable texts, um. Sometimes they're not as bad when we look at it through maybe a historical lens or something, but sometimes we can't just justify them really nice and neatly, like some of the stuff about genocide. So ultimately, I have to go back to Jesus because. Jesus is the ultimate expression of God. It is the best [00:27:00] lens into the divine that we've ever seen. It's through this person of Jesus. And so sometimes we got to use our Jesus magnifying glass and look over the scripture and say, that's awkward. I don't like that very much. This makes me, this triggers me. This is, uh, but we put Jesus over and say, but through Christ, we don't have to live like that. We can recognize that there. There are plenty of examples of what not to do in the Bible. Jesus calls us to a different way and Jesus shows us that some things that maybe people thought were really godly and divine at certain points were not. So at the end of the day when things make us uncomfortable, I say feel it. But then ultimately, let's just go back. What does Jesus say? And if Jesus words are kind of. Don't seem to jive with this other crazy stuff going on here. Let's just, let's follow Jesus over some of this, [00:28:00] this other uncomfortable things. Hmm. So it's probably not a satisfying answer, but that's kind of like the point, like we try too hard sometimes to wrap everything in a pretty bow, but sometimes we just can't. With the Bible, the Bible is complicated and that's what makes it powerful. It's not always so neat and tidy and doesn't always make you feel good. It is a like Christ. It is both human, fully human and fully divine. And in that there's some awkward tension. There are some, there are human emotions and human things that that bleed through the divine pages of scripture. I appreciate the honest answer and yeah, I think that was a great answer. It was just reading through the patriarchs and wow, you just wrap your head around how much they messed up. And that's not how God wanted us to live. That's just an example of God just lets [00:29:00] everybody see how these people messed up. But still, God used them in a mighty way. God still gave them grace and forgiveness and love and mercy. I was just on Twitter and that's a dangerous place is Christian Twitter. Oh my goodness. And there was a big thread about some people, they didn't believe that Jesus was the same God as the God of the Old Testament. They cut the line because they thought Jesus over here in the New Testament, his attribute seems so different than. The God of the Old Testament. I don't necessarily agree with that, but that was an interesting concept. That's how they dealt with those horrible stories. I'm just gonna just trust in Jesus and just believe in Jesus and throw everything else away. Yeah. That's a heresy in the second century that, um, yeah. You know, unfortunately haven't quite gotten rid of completely, but is that's what that's called still alive and, [00:30:00] yeah. Oh, that's what you call it. Okay. There's your little fun little historical theology trivia, but yeah, there's probably a word for it. But that goes into my next question is how do you study the Bible and read it and make sure that you're not slipping into some heretical teaching, because I personally know some people that they believe some stuff that's way off base that nobody else. And mainline Christianity believes in, but they're like quoting Bible verses and taking them outta context. How do we avoid going down that path? Yeah, yeah. I had a youth minister who used to joke that if you wanted to, he could justify kicking babies across the room from scripture. Like that was just his wild example because yeah, people can kind of justify the whole gambit of things. So I think now we talked about why it's important to study the Bible for yourself. [00:31:00] At the same time though, I think this living, breathing scripture. Is something that we must read through community. You can do your own work, do your own prep, but ultimately the Bible belongs to all of us. And so we need to read in community. And that can mean your pastors and teachers and your scholars. It can also mean your neighbor and your friend and your kids and your mom and your cousin from a couple states away. But it can also mean dead people, not like seance or whatever, but like, um-ing, you know, read these old preachers and read the church fathers and the church mothers and like, we got 2000 years of Christian history here. There's some wild stuff, but there's some good stuff too. So I say we read scripture in community and you come to your own conclusions. Don't just copy paste whatever Mr. X, Y, Z says, but. What do they [00:32:00] think? And when we start looking at, oh, Christians have kind of seemed to think this for a long time, probably a direction we should lean in. I don't know. I guess people could be wrong, but the way the spirit works I think is a lot of times through community. And it's a way to check, it's a checks and balance for ourselves. So I think that sometimes we can get a little, a little wild with our own interpretations, but we bring in other people. What do you think? Did you see this too? Is this accurate? Is this, does this fit in with historical context of first century Palestine? Or whatever kind of questions you want to ask community. So that's flesh and blood people, but that's also books and podcasts and all sorts of things. I just think we're made to be together. And honestly, when I studied Paul's view of spiritual formation for my thesis, I didn't get to dive into it too much, but what I kept coming across is spiritual formation is not a. You on your own [00:33:00] kind of thing. It is something that happens with people who are this great cloud of witnesses that is cheering you on and it's helping you out. So I think that's a great way to kind of check, check ourselves, and then of course, use your brain. Let's be logical here that scripture probably not actually talking about America because it was written 3000 years ago. I don't know. Thank you. Um, so, so stuff like that, we gotta use our brains. Yeah. I like when you talk about community, because I think, and I've seen this before people go off the rails, is that they're isolating themselves. Mm-hmm. They don't wanna go to church because they don't trust, they don't trust people that they've been hurt. But even if we can't drag ourselves to church just yet in our healing process, yeah. There are other ways to create community and checks and balances. So that's a really good point. We really don't want [00:34:00] to be that guy that started his own denomination on a couple bible verses. Yeah, we got plenty of denominations. I think we're set for a little bit, so let's just chill out for now. Yeah, that's crazy. So like if we're in a community, we're under our Bible teacher or a pastor or Sunday school class, what would be like a red flag that would put your antennas up? Hey, you may wanna check this out for this preacher teacher saying is not a good thing. Are there any like red flags that you would look for? I think arrogance is definitely a big red flag. Ooh, good one. And that is how you get into spiritual, spiritually abusive situations. Definitely. And what I mean by arrogance is people that are not willing to be corrected, not willing to admit the wrong, not willing to learn. I was privileged to have professors where I was getting my Bible degrees. People with [00:35:00] PhDs from the prestigious British universities who would listen to student comments and be like, that's really interesting. Or, heard it like that. Tell me more about that. And one of my Hebrew Bible professors spoke like nine languages. Most of those are dead ones. And still he's curious to know what these 20-year-old college students are thinking. Which is wild because he is way smarter than us. But he is. These guys were adopting this posture of, I can learn from anybody here. I want your perspective. And I could be wrong. We gotta have some things where we have a firm foundation and where we don't sway. We absolutely have to have those. There are some people these days that I think sort of lean too heavily into the wishy-washy. It depends on the day, what I'm feeling, cafeteria style Christianity. We can't do that. But we also can't go over here where it's, I figured it out when I was 30 years old, when I was 40 years old, and now I'm like, [00:36:00] done. I'm done learning. Got it right. I to be the only one to get it right. And that's how denominations start, right? Ooh, everybody else got it wrong all the time. Now I'm right. So that's dangerous. So let's learn from people who are themselves. Learners who are willing to be challenged and to ask questions and wanna know your take on things. I know from being in ministry settings that oftentimes I am the guy with the more Bible degrees than most people in the room. But then there'll be these 70-year-old church ladies who have lived this and they've been in the Bible their whole life. I can learn from them. Mm-hmm. They have something to say, even though they've never read the text in Greek. They have something to add to the conversation. Mm-hmm. So we need to be learners. I love that. That is so awesome and so very true. The Holy Spirit speaks to each of us individually and gives us different [00:37:00] lessons and we can share those lessons. Now, you as a scholarly person, you must have some favorite resources that you use to study the bible. Can you recommend some specific resources that are maybe easy to use? Yeah, there's a couple websites, Bible gateway, I mentioned that already. They have. Some free commentaries and bible encyclopedias and things kind of on the sidebar there. So as you're looking to scripture, you could glorify and study Bible or have access to chunks from different commentaries. And for a while, while I was doing some more preaching, I actually did the paid, there's a kind of a paid version that it was like five bucks a month or something really cheap like that. It just got access to more things so I can have the scripture here and then all my resources next to it. And that was handy. Bible hub.com is also another one. [00:38:00] Um, that one's especially good if you do wanna look at the language stuff, knowing that you're not a scholar, you can say, but what is that Greek word? And you can click on it and it will show you the definitions, show you other places in scripture it's used. You can kind of get a feel for that. So that's a really good one for people who are not, who don't know the languages or. Like me who always needed help with my Greek homework or something like that. So yeah, those come to mind. But man, like we are, we at our fingertips. There's a lot of good stuff out there. A lot of bad stuff, no doubt. But there are podcasts and all sorts of books and there's just, there's a lot of good stuff there. Wouldn't even know where to begin, just sort of thinking broadly. But I think Bible gateway, Bible hub, easy. Anybody can access those for free. And you don't necessarily need a giant library or really expensive commentary sets 'cause they're really expensive. Yeah. That's why my parents get me one commentary for my birthday and [00:39:00] for Christmas each year. And so in 50 years I'll have the full set or whatever. That's not true. That's, it'll actually probably be. I can't do the math however it takes to get 66 books. But anyway. Wow. All I had in bible college that we were allowed to have is Matthew Henry commentary, which is kind of on the dry side. Yeah. Most Bible professors would pass out hearing you say that. It's not bad stuff, but bad, but it's not, it's not easy to read it's thing, let's just say. Yeah. And we were allowed to read Weirs, BE'S books. It's a pretty good series about where I came from. John MacArthur's commentaries were like hearsay. Oh, okay. The Baptist didn't like the, at least the churches that I was in, they didn't like MacArthur's stuff, but, and I had the actual strong concordance. I still own that's, yeah, sure. So sort of a free way to get that, besides if you don't want to get a giant [00:40:00] volume. Yeah. I like to read the physical books too. Sure. Nothing, not knocking the physical. But yeah, if people are on a budget, yeah, people are on a budget and you can't go and buy those big, huge coffee table books. Or if you're near a Christian university, see if you can get a library card that's, they have tons of stuff. I can walk in there and there are a whole shelf of like Genesis commentaries or whatever. It could be information overload. But also I can, I'll pick up a couple different volumes of different perspectives and I'll read what they each have to say about the verse or chapter I'm dealing with and I can kind of synthesize a conclusion. And that's how you do it. Yeah. I'll also mention, I, we were allowed to. Listen on the radio, Jay Vernon McGee and yeah, he was definitely expository. He [00:41:00] would go verse by verse and go through the entire Bible verse by verse, which I thought was really good. And I don't agree with everything he said, but that's the way I learned a lot of stuff was through verse by verse radio program back in the day. Mm. I'm dating myself, aren't I? It's all good here. All good. No, we talked a lot about a bunch of different stuff. Is there anything about Bible study that we didn't talk about that you would like to mention? I know there's so much, uh, yeah, I just touched on it a little bit, but I kind of wanna bring it back. Look at different views than yours. If you are really charismatic, then look at something that's not quite charismatic, or if you are. I won't go. I'll skip all those differences. You know what? You are read some of the stuff that's a little different. Stuff that challenges you. That's how we grow. That's how we grow, [00:42:00] is to hear something a little different. And the thing is, you're not required to believe it. Right. You can just read it and at least know what they're saying. I know in my Christian upbringing, and not necessarily I was intentional, but I only knew my side of the argument. Or if I knew somebody else's argument, it was this straw man version that was just not accurate. And then I, you go to the big wide world and be like, oh wait, there are lots of different views. And those people are actually smart and they have things to say about this, but somebody else is the opposite and they're also a smart person. What's going on? It's just good to expose ourselves to different things. In most cases we could, we, you can choose your own boundaries and things like that. Mm-hmm. It doesn't mean if you're studying something in the Old Testament, you have to read the Jewish and the Muslim and the Mormon view of what. It doesn't mean you have to go there, but just check out some different things. Have your favorite commentaries. Do it, but every once in a while [00:43:00] peek into your, your local heretic and see what they have to say. I dunno, maybe not a heretic, somebody who's a little different. You, you, your istic. Yeah. Our last guest was talking about Calvinism and stuff, but yeah, doesn, excellent suggestion because I definitely was in my own camp for many years until I got out of my abusive situation and started looking into other views and I have since changed nothing major. I didn't change any major views, but I realized that okay, there are other Godly people. Now I see they can use scripture to defend their position too. And there's a little bit of wiggle room in there for sure. Sure. For different viewpoints. I went and did a study and looked at somebody else's view on a tertiary argument. Sure. Tertiary doctrine. It's not a doctrine of the faith, but [00:44:00] something that's very important and it's like, okay, I'm not gonna be judgmental. And that was hard for me to change my viewpoint. Yeah, yeah. But they gave me really great scriptural evidence. So yeah, that's kind of a sideline, but you made excellent point. But anyway, I appreciate you sharing all this valuable information and your view, viewpoint, and it's fascinating. Everybody has different answers for these questions. I've asked everybody the same questions. Right. And they're all giving me different answers, which I think that's very helpful. Oh yeah. Yeah. Very helpful. Yeah, getting people exposed to different things and again, like I am me and you are you, and we're different. And that's the point. Like we all come together with our different focuses and our different backgrounds and knowledge, and together we are the body of Christ. Amen. And that's beautiful. So tell the folks [00:45:00] how people can connect with you and you have resources and maybe if they wanna play stump the Bible teacher, they can email you. Yeah, you can find that all about me@jakedobern.com. D-O-B-E-R-E-N-Z as in zebra. And that's kind of my home base on the interwebs. If you do jake dovers.com/email, you can get on my email list that was mentioned earlier where I talk about. Funny stories from my life that have spiritual points, and I bring out spiritual points from that. And yeah, you can definitely contact me through social media or email, and that's all on my website there. So I'll let you track me down and tell me how wrong I am and all of that kind of stuff. That's fun. It comes with the territory, so totally okay with that. And then lastly, I do a bunch of work with Christian creatives, with Fiani [00:46:00] Media, and as was mentioned, I produce the Creatively Christian podcast. So I would love for you to check that out if that's kind of your thing, if that's your area. Yeah. You guys have a real great variety of guests on that show. It's not just one particular kind of art. You guys represent a lot of different ones, which is fun. Oh yeah. And we're trying to get more variety all the time. Awesome. Now. I don't usually have guests pray on the show, but would you pray for our listeners in their journey in the scriptures? Of course. Let's go ahead and pray. Heavenly God, we come to you in prayer on this podcast episode and we ask that whoever's listening now in the future, in a couple years, where wherever we are, that, that we can be receptive to how you speak to us through scripture and through our [00:47:00] communities that help us see scripture. Let the spirit guide us as we dive into this sacred but sometimes confusing and complicated documents. Lord, I ask that you give us the wisdom to be able to rightly divide your word and to remain faithful even when our own preferences might wanna lean in a different direction. Lord, thank you so much for the ministry of this podcast. We pray that people continue to have healing and continue to find themselves in a better place, both in the world and with you spiritually. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Thank you so much for coming on the show. God bless you. Sure thing. God bless you. Thank you for listening to the Wounds of the Faithful Podcast. If this episode has been helpful [00:48:00] to you, please hit the subscribe button and tell a friend. You could connect with us at DSW Ministries dot org where you'll find our blog, along with our Facebook, Twitter, and our YouTube channel links. Hope to see you next week.

Rev. Todd Nelson preaches from Acts 10:34-43, NRSV. Sermon notes can be found here. For more information about the Downtown Community of First UMC |Lexington, KY, please visit our website: https://umclex.org/downtown/

Rev. Carol Cooper preaches from  Ephesians 1:3-14, NRSV. Sermon notes can be found here.   For more information about the Downtown Community of First UMC |Lexington, KY, please visit our website: https://umclex.org/downtown/

The message is: “Entering Into Tomorrow” from Psalm 100:4-5 NRSV. Message will be bridged with Rev. Geovonnie Bates, Senior Pastor of New Beginning Worship Center, praying prior to the message from Rev. Brian C Pughsley. After the word has been spread, we will close out with a prayer from Rev. Dr. Dennis Haggray, Senior Pastor of Canaan Baptist Church-South. Get ready for praise & worship from Safe Haven Podcast Ministries. Podcast Theme: Going All The Way in 2026Sundays @ 7:30 PM CST on all Social Media Platforms, Including The Website: www.safehavenpodcast.orgSaturday Inspiration On The 2nd & 4th Saturdays @ 12:00 PM CST on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram & Safe Haven Podcast website.Donations Accepted via CashApp: $BrianPughsleySubscribe, Share & Listen

Rev. Todd Nelson preaches from Isaiah 63:7-9, NRSV. Sermon notes can be found here.   For more information about the Downtown Community of First UMC |Lexington, KY, please visit our website: https://umclex.org/downtown/

Luke 2:7-20, (NRSV)

Traditional Worship 12/21 - The Thrill of Hope- He Will Save His People from Their Sins - Rev. Laura Johnson Advent 3 -The Thrill of Hope- He Will Save His People from Their Sins Joseph was faithful. He didn't want to humiliate Mary, but then the angel came to him. And Joseph learned that this child within Mary would save his people from their sins. What a promise of hope–salvation is coming! Isaiah 7:10-16 (NRSV) and Matthew 1:18-25 (NRSV) A Thrill of Hope: There are seasons of life when hope feels hard to come by. Will it get any better? Will things ever change? The good news of Advent rushes upon us with a thrill: Yes! There is hope! Join us this season as we wait for the thrill of hope in the coming of Jesus. 

Rev. Todd Nelson preaches from Isaiah 7:10-16, NRSV. Sermon notes can be found here.   For more information about the Downtown Community of First UMC |Lexington, KY, please visit our website: https://umclex.org/downtown/

Rev. Todd Nelson preaches from  Isaiah 35:1-10, NRSV.   For more information about the Downtown Community of First UMC |Lexington, KY, please visit our website: https://umclex.org/downtown/

Rev. Todd Nelson preaches from Isaiah 11:1-10, NRSV. Sermon notes can be found here. For more information about the Downtown Community of First UMC |Lexington, KY, please visit our website: https://umclex.org/downtown/

Rev. Todd Nelson preaches from Isaiah 2:1-5, NRSV. Sermon notes can be found here. For more information about the Downtown Community of First UMC |Lexington, KY, please visit our website: https://umclex.org/downtown/

Advent—the time in between—is here. But many of us struggle to feel “Christmas-y” when life isn’t where we hoped it would be. If peace feels out of tune for you right now, this episode is for you. Join Rev. Trudy and Rev. Brittany – two of the three female pastors of First United Methodist Church of San Diego – as they discuss their Advent Mixtape, exploring how ancient and modern songs can ground us in peace in a world that never stops moving. While most Christmas songs feel light, airy, and escapist – giving the false perception that peace is only achievable in stillness and calm, David’s Psalmody, Psalm 96 – one of the “lesser-known songs of Christmas” – provides a more honest and hopeful vision of peace. In this progressive digital Bible-study conversation, explore: The meaning of Advent as a season of the in-between What “salvation” means in the Hebrew Bible and Psalms How nature participates in healing, peace, and salvation The difference between societal peace and inward peace Practices and touchstones to stay centered amid holiday chaos How music helps reset our anxiety and restore calm We invite you to keep the conversation going as you journey through Advent. Join our in-person Convergence group, visit our Patreon Channel, or gather friends and family to discuss these reflection questions: What role does music play in your wellbeing? What is the “in-between” of here and not yet that you are in right now? What role does nature play in your understanding of being made whole? Want to hear the rest of Our Advent Mixtape? Join us for Season 3, Episodes 14-16, for reflections on hope, joy, and love. New episodes drop Sunday mornings. In today’s episode, we share a selection from Psalm 96 (NRSV), and, as a bonus treat, the full psalm from The Message translation below. As you read it, consider: What tune do you think would fit this modern translation of the ancient song? Psalms 96 1-2a Sing God a brand-new song! Earth and everyone in it, sing! Sing to God—worship God! 2b-3 Shout the news of his victory from sea to sea, Take the news of his glory to the lost, News of his wonders to one and all! 4-5a For God is great, and worth a thousand Hallelujahs. His furious beauty puts the other gods to shame; Pagan gods are mere tatters and rags. 5b-6 God made the heavens— Royal splendor radiates from him, A powerful beauty sets him apart. 7Bravo, God, Bravo! Everyone join in the great shout: Encore! In awe before the beauty, in awe before the might. 8-9Bring gifts and celebrate, Bow before the beauty of God, Then to your knees—everyone worship! 10Get out the message—God Rules! He put the world on a firm foundation; He treats everyone fair and square. 11Let’s hear it from Sky, With Earth joining in, And a huge round of applause from Sea. 12Let Wilderness turn cartwheels, Animals, come dance, Put every tree of the forest in the choir— 13An extravaganza before God as he comes, As he comes to set everything right on earth, Set everything right, treat everyone fair. Scripture taken from The Message, copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Rev. Carol Cooper preaches from Luke 23:33-43, NRSV. Sermon notes can be found here. For more information about the Downtown Community of First UMC |Lexington, KY, please visit our website: https://umclex.org/downtown/

“and said, “Sir, we remember what that impostor said while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise again.'”Matthew 27:63 NRSV

Episode 2.50Who Said It? The Quotation Debate in James 2:18–19What if a single pair of quotation marks changed how you understand faith and works?In this episode of Take 2 Theology, Zach and Michael unpack one of the most overlooked translation debates in the New Testament—who's actually speaking in James 2:18–19?Since the original Greek had no quotation marks, translators must decide how long the “someone will say” quotation runs. Does it end quickly (like in the ESV)? Continue through verse 19 (NASB)? Or include both verses (NIV, NRSV)? Each choice changes how we hear James's tone—rebuke, debate, or diatribe.Covered in this episode:– How Greek manuscripts handled quotations and voices– The short, medium, and long quotation theories– Why modern Bibles make different punctuation choices– What leading commentators (Moo, Davids, Blomberg) argue– How punctuation affects tone but not theologyIn the end, James's message stands: “Faith without works is dead.”But understanding how he said it might change how we hear him.Find our videocast here: https://youtu.be/O_swkautrVsMerch here: https://take-2-podcast.printify.me/Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):⁠https://uppbeat.io/t/reakt-music/deep-stone⁠License code: 2QZOZ2YHZ5UTE7C8Find more Take 2 Theology content at http://www.take2theology.com

In the final part of the series, Thom and Jess examine four additional translations that remain popular within more specific theological, academic, or expositional contexts: New American Standard Bible (NASB), New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), Revised Standard Version (RSV), and Legacy Standard Bible (LSB). The post A Comprehensive Examination of Why the Top 10 Bible Translations Are Popular – Part 4: NASB, NRSV, RSV, LSB appeared first on Church Answers.