1: The Bible Is Biased…and That’s a Good Thing.

(00:03) Stephanie: Alright, Season 4, episode 1. We’re back and in a new little format here because we can meet with you even from on the trail. If you’re watching, you will see we have a new look. If you’re listening, hopefully things won’t be too different for you. But welcome back. We’re happy to be here.

And hey, before I forget, I just wanna jump in and encourage you. Now that we’re in a new routine where season four is launched, again, would you double check that you’ve subscribed to the podcast, and that will give you a notification when each new episode releases.

And while you’re double checking it, don’t forget to like and share a comment. That not only encourages us, but even more importantly, it teaches the algorithms, hey, this podcast is something people like and care about, and it will show it to more people, and that would be amazing.

So with that said, hello Father!

(01:00) Marcus: Hello, Daughter. What do you know? We’re back at it again. We just finished an in-person event last weekend. So it’s like we’re on a roll here.

(01:11) Stephanie: Oh, I’m still filled with the joy of that. That was our first, the Deeper Walk experience, and we were in Franklin, Tennessee. That was amazing. Oh man. And hey, if people were sad to have missed out, you can come to join us for the next one in October in Chicago. So there, wink, wink.

(01:32) Marcus: Absolutely. The best part about conferences is all the people you see. It’s great.

(01:36) Stephanie: Yeah, no, it’s like my favorite thing ever, just getting to see, putting names to faces and continuing relationships with people. We’ve got a really good tribe.

Well, I hope that our listeners have been enjoying the summer study. I’m sorry that we went away for a couple weeks there on the trail, but I received a really lovely testimony that I wanted to share with everybody about the Deeper Walk summer study that we did. So I’m just going to open us up here with reading this if that’s okay.

All right. This is a testimony from a listener in South Africa. She writes, “Hi Stephanie, I just wanted to give a testimony of what the Lord has done because I am so grateful that you have shared this on YouTube and made this available for free. I have been working my way through your “A Deeper Walk” study based off of the YouTube videos.

And for years from childhood, and I am now 52, I have believed the lie that I am a burden to others. After going through session 3, I got together with Jesus and Holy Spirit, and we dealt with the wounds, lies, vows, and strongholds, and God has set me free of that. He has given me a new statement to replace that, which is, ‘I am a delight.”

Now there’s a further story behind that too. When I was in my 20s, someone gave me a Scripture, Isaiah 62:4, which says that I will be called Hephzibah. At the time, the translation I had said it meant the beloved of the Lord. I had held onto that name, but with little real understanding.

This morning, however, was a different story. I read from my current Amplified Study Bible, which says, “But you will be called Hephzibah (My delight is in her)!!!” How amazing is that? God is so good and kind and compassionate. Thank you for facilitating this. I look forward to continuing my healing journey with Deeper Walk.”

(03:44) Stephanie: Isn’t that beautiful?

(03:46) Marcus: That really is. Yeah, no, it really is beautiful. And it reminds me of so many of the stories that we heard over the weekend. And it is a delight to hear when people have that kind of a breakthrough where they realize, oh, what I’ve wanted to be true really is true. And that’s a wonderful story.

(04:08) Stephanie: Jesus is the wonderful counselor, and he knows just how to tell us the truth and oh my goodness, I love it. Well, I wanted to read this to honor and share the testimony and hey, that free resource is still available so if you missed the summer study, you can go back through it. It was going through heart-focused discipleship, freedom in Christ, identity in Christ, Spirit in Scripture, heart-focused community, and of course, mission, fish-and-go-fish as we like to say.

And this new season On the Trail, we are going to be digging into the Bible for our first series, which is going to fall under Spirit and Scripture. So Father, would you cast a vision for Bible study within the context of F.I.S.H.?

(04:59 Marcus: Yeah, you know, F.I.S.H. starts with the idea of freedom, identity, spirit, a heart-focused community that gets us off on mission. And the S part we often say has got two sides to it. And that is it’s Spirit and Scripture. In fact, that’s like a one-two punch to teach us what wisdom is — you’ve got to have both.

And so I’ll also use the idea of a lantern. And the idea is that the frame of the lantern is the Scripture. It doesn’t change. It’s always the same. But inside is the Holy Spirit. He’s the light, you know, that’s shining. And when we have the Holy Spirit and the Scripture working together, then that gives us the most solid foundation for our walk with God that we can get in terms of wisdom.

(05:42) Stephanie: Mm-hmm. I’m looking forward to this. So, let’s pull it out broadly. You know, you and I, we both went to school for studying the Bible, and we clearly like it a lot, but there’s hope for people who are like, hey, “What does Bible study have to do with me? I don’t, you know — can I read a chapter, go to bed?” Hey, I do that sometimes, so that’s totally fine. “But like, why study? I’m not a teacher, I’m not a Bible scholar. Like, why is Bible study important for me?”

(06:16) Marcus: Well, the Bible is pretty clear that meditating on God’s Word is the key to anchoring our lives deeply and in setting ourselves up for success. And so God says the righteous, his eyes are on the righteous, and you know that it is through Biblical meditation that we get that anchor for our lives.

And so I look at it, there’s multiple different ways of studying the Bible, and it might be good just to review some of those up front because everybody goes on a little bit different journey of the Bible. And my journey started with, well, let’s just read it devotionally. And as we read it devotionally, what I’m doing is I just want to get something out of it today. Is there anything in here that’s encouraging to me, anything in here that I can dwell on? So that’s devotional reading.

And then there is kind of the history approach. And that is, well, this is telling a story. What if I do a little background work here and find out what’s going on behind the scenes and figure out the original setting of this story? And so I know for me, one of my favorite courses that I did take in college was biblical backgrounds and trying to get an understanding of all of that.

Then there’s the theology, and that is I want to follow the themes of Scripture and see how these themes weave together and tie together. And then there’s the exegetical. I want to do word studies. I want to parse the verbs. I want to see how the words relate to each other. And then finally, the one we’re actually going to be focusing on the most is like a literary approach to Scripture.

And that is what were the schemes and the strategies that the author uses to guide us someplace? And what I found is because there are so many different ways of approaching Scripture, it’s one of the reasons why you never run out of ways to approach the text. Like it’s going to bring you something new every time that you come and dive into it. And so wherever you’re at, you can start where you’re at and get something out of your Bible study.

(08:26) Stephanie: Yeah. On that note, would you just touch on the Holy Spirit’s role with Bible study?

(08:32) Marcus: So the Bible, one of the ways that the Holy Spirit works is very much in the background, and that background is he just kind of brings you across things that are going to help you with your Bible study. And so we pay attention to those things. But there’s also a more forward, you know, active way in which he does that. And I think the most obvious one is when things just jump off the page at you.

It’s like you’re reading and all of sudden something just stands out like, ah that’s for me. God wants me to look at that. And so now that becomes something I can talk to God about, like, why did that jump off the page at me? What are you trying to say?

We can also, when we’re trying to understand the Scripture, like I don’t understand this at all, God, would you begin giving me wisdom, giving me insight? Sometimes that’s study, and sometimes that’s prayer. And like God, would you just give me some insight into this that comes from your Spirit? So there’s always that connection and then obviously at the application level the Holy Spirit really comes to the forefront.

(09:38) Stephanie: Yeah, yeah, he’s the author of the Scripture and as we’re going to get into it in a little bit, we want to know the author’s intended message. So that’s a really important thing.

As you were talking, I also was just remembering some testimonies I heard even just this weekend of when people got free from their bondage and their baggage that all of a sudden, all of this Bible work that they had been doing just came to life in a whole new way because of the freedom they were experiencing. All of a sudden, Holy Spirit was just bringing things up and they could see the connections, and they had that solid foundation, biblical foundation.

(10:17) Marcus: Yeah, that’s not uncommon. Sometimes when people first get saved, they just can’t get enough of the Bible. And that’s a Holy Spirit thing in their life. And it’s also true when people experience freedom, all of a sudden they want to get back into the Word. That’s one of the signs that the Holy Spirit is working in your life is that you just have a love for God’s Word.

(10:37) Stephanie: Yeah, well, and just to amplify that, one of the reasons that Bible study is so important, I think, is that it informs our worldview. The more saturated we are in Biblical meditation, the more saturated we are in understanding the story of the reality we fit into, of God’s reality, the better we’re going to see the world, the better we’re going to interact with reality as it truly is. And Holy Spirit can bring things up to you that you didn’t even know. Even in your classic slow story that you talk about when you were first learning, seeking and listening and obeying and watching and walking in the Spirit, the Holy Spirit brought up Bible references that you had memorized years ago, right? And they were still in there, and God brought them up.

And so, anyway, Bible memory is just so multifaceted, and it has so many applications. And I think sometimes, especially when we grow up in church or are just constantly in church things, we can almost get desensitized to it. Like, oh it’s just Bible study or, I better get my devotional done. And I just really hope that as we get into this, we can rediscover a love of the Bible and that we would really see how living and active it is.

Yeah, I also love, when you talk about the 321 Bible Study method, you use two things, or actually three things I love. You talk about being a Bible study mechanic, being a Bible study detective, and being a Bible study editor. I’m sure, like a video editor. So we’ll get through all of that. That last one probably needs more unpacking; it sounds weird. But we’ll get there, we’ll get there.

On that note, I wanna pull us around to talking about bias. A lot of times we hear that word and we think, ooh, that’s bad, like, bias is bad and we don’t want, you know, a biased news article or we don’t want a biased you know, whatever.

But bias — one, everything is biased. You can work to try to be objective on things, but you are always going to have a bias just from what you include or don’t include at the bare minimum. So there will always be a bias. So the Bible is biased, and that’s a good thing. Would you unpack that for us?

(13:08) Marcus: Yeah, people are like, what do you mean the Bible’s biased? And I’m like, well, think about it. We want God’s perspective on things, don’t we? We want to know from your perspective, from where you stand, what’s good, what’s bad, what’s going on. I want to know what your bias is. I want to know what you think about this.

So, you know, we get kind of tired of it in media and other things like, oh, this is such biased reporting. But there is a time and a place where you want to know this perspective, and it comes with what is God’s perspective. We want to know what his bias is on this.

So you can use a different word if you want, but the idea is we don’t just want a neutral presentation of the facts. We want to know God’s opinion and perspective on these things. And it’s one of the things we’re looking for in Scripture when we study.

(13:57) Stephanie: So would it be the opening of a series if we didn’t have a nice little acrostic? And tell us, Father, about taking A.I.M. on the text.

(14:11) Marcus: Yeah, so I actually have two getting started acrostics I’m sure we’ll get to when it comes to Bible study, and the first one is the word A.I.M. I want to take A.I.M. on the text, and the word A.I.M. means author’s intended message.

And the idea is there is an author, there is an intent, right, that he’s trying to communicate. There’s a message that the author intends for you to get. So our goal in study is the author’s intended message. Now, you might think that’s obvious, but it’s not. In today’s world, what most people want is what does this mean to me?

I frankly don’t care what this means to me. I want to know what it meant to the author. What was the author trying to say — the author’s intended message. And so how do you get there? And I think one of the things that’s discouraging about Bible study, especially for people who are just getting started, is that there are so many opinions to sift through.

It’s like people say so many different things like, well, this is what the Bible’s all about. But what if there is a way, right? What if there is a way to study the Bible that if you follow these principles, it’s going to, in a fairly reliable way, take you to the intended message that the author had? That’s what we’re after. How do I get there?

(15:31) Stephanie: So, you know, maybe — my brain is going like three different ways. You talked earlier about this being a literary approach. And I just remember being in a literature class in college, and one of the approaches we had was not looking for the author’s intended message but looking for the reader’s inferred message, right? What does this text mean to me? Would you continue to unpack that a little bit. What’s the difference and also is there a time and a place for both?

(16:05) Marcus: Yeah, right. There is a time and a place for what does this mean to me? And it usually is in art. And the idea is like, if I create a piece of art, it may evoke very different emotions to different people. And those are all legitimate, right? The thing that it attracts, I’m not as interested in, it’s not as important what the author intended for it to do. That’s nice to know, but really I’m there for the personal experience that I’m having.

There’s some element of that in the Bible, especially when I’m doing devotional studies, and that is, what this meant to me on this occasion, what God was saying to me right now, this is the main thing. There’s a place for that. That’s in the devotional reading of the text. But when you’re getting into the study of the text as opposed to just the devotional reading of the text that’s where you know, what does it mean to me is perhaps appropriate and devotional.

But when I am studying what I am looking for is what are the clues that lead me, like the breadcrumbs on the trail. There you go, I got it in there: “On the trail.” So with the breadcrumbs on the trail that if I follow these clues, they’re going to lead me to the destination that the author intended me to get to. And that is to find his intended message.

(17:23) Stephanie: Yeah, that’s good. Well, would you give us a — obviously, we’re gonna dig into the different parts of the framework, but would you cast an overview vision of, if people are like, okay, I’m ready, I’m gonna go pick up my Bible. What are my first steps to be a Bible study detective? What would you recommend people do?

(17:42) Marcus: Yeah. So let me give the imagery. Like you alluded to, I use a couple of different images on this. One of them is you want to become a Bible detective, and that is you’re looking for the clues that are going to lead you to the conclusion. What is the correct conclusion to the author’s intended meaning? What are the clues that are going to lead me there? So what we want to do in this series — we’re going to unpack a lot of the things, the areas in which you need to learn how to look for clues.

What are the things you need to look at? So for example, my acrostic number two is G.A.S. I tell people it takes gas to get started in looking for the author’s intended message. So where do I start? Let’s start with a little gas, right? So G is genre. And that is you need to be aware of what genre you’re reading.

For example, you read a narrative like a story about Jesus or a story about Joseph or Moses very differently than you read a poem, very differently than you read an epistle, differently than you read apocalyptic literature like the book of Revelation or some of the things we see in Daniel and Ezekiel. And so you’ve got to be aware of what kind of genre of literature am I looking at here because it’s going to change a little bit of the way that I approach this.

(19:01) Stephanie: And you showed us a little bit right there, but could you tell us, which is usually not what we’re asking for — we want show, not tell. What is genre? What do you mean by genre?

(19:10) Marcus: Genre is a type of literature. What type of literature am I looking at? And so I can’t treat everything exactly the same. And I’ve got to know.

(19:18) Stephanie: So is it dialogue? Is it poetry? Is it prose? Is it just like a narrative?

(19:24) Marcus: If I’m reading a genealogy, I read it differently than if I’m reading a dialogue. If I’m reading a narrative I read it differently than if I’m reading an epistle. There are some things that stand out. For example, in poetry I’m going to look for parallelism. I’m going to look for imagery. I’m going to look for things that — and even within poetry I’m going to find out what kind of poem this is. Is it a lament? Is it a wisdom poem? What’s going on here?

And so that may seem like a hard place to start, but there’s some basics that we can just be obvious with like, okay I’m reading a genealogy right now. This is probably going to be different than a poem or something else. So recognizing that there are differences in types of literature is the first step of literature. What is the genre?

The second one is arrangement. And that has to do with whenever an author sits down to write anything, they’ve got a blank piece of paper in front of them. They’ve got two decisions they’ve got to make, right? And first they’ve got to know what it is they’re trying to say. They’ve got an intended message they’re trying to get across.

To do that, they’ve got to — they always have to leave out more than they can possibly include. You know, it’s like there’s way more information out there in the world. As John says in his Gospel, if we wrote down everything there is to know about Jesus, it would fill up the whole world.

(20:45) Marcus: We’ve always got to leave out more. So that’s the idea of selection. So I have to select what I’m going to include and what I’m going to leave out. And then I have to arrange it. And arrangement has to do with, well, where am I going to put it? Where am I going to take this and put it next to this? And why? Why am I going to take this and put it next to that?

And so once you get the genre figured out, the next two are arrangement and selection. And that is what has the author chosen to include? What has he chosen to leave out? And how has he arranged it? So let me give you one classic example just to bring this together to help people understand.

One of my favorites, and it’s right in Genesis 1. So there’s a lot of questions that we have about Genesis 1 that are primarily about the history of how did this actually take place historically. And what we find is that the author leaves out most of that information. It’s almost like he doesn’t care. So you’re like, well, if he left out all the things I’m curious about, why did he put in the stuff that he did put in here?

Why select to include this and why leave this other stuff out? That’s an interpretive question. So I start there. That’s the selection question. Why include this? Why leave other stuff out? Second question, why arrange it this way? Well, what the author of Genesis did is he clearly arranges the material as a redemption story, where you go from a world that is dark, it’s full of chaos, it’s underwater. You know, it’s the Hebrew Tohuvabohu. It is formless and empty.

And then in six days, he has formed what was formless and he fills what was empty. And God does, God forms what was formless, and he fills what was empty. And so you get a very clear arrangement here, right? Day one, there’s light. Well, the parallel of that is day four where he now fills the sky with light. So there’s a forming and then there’s a filling: day one, day four.

Day two, he forms sky and sea to give shape to these things. And then he fills those with the birds of the air and the fish and creatures of the sea. Then day three, the land comes out. So it’s more forming, and then he fills the land with things. And so once you become aware of this, you can see that the author also begins at the end of this to introduce words to us like God blessed it, and God said it was good.

And there was rest. So by the time we’re done with this story, we’ve gone from dark and we’ve gone from formless and empty and we’ve gone from chaos to a world that’s good, a world that’s blessed, a world that is at rest.

And I think there all of sudden you get a really clear understanding that the author is leading us on a journey to see that this is what God wants to do with your life. Are you in darkness and chaos and whatever? He wants to bring form to your life. He wants to bring fullness and fill your life, and he wants to bring you to a place of goodness and blessing and rest.

And that’s the journey of the Bible right in a nutshell right there in Genesis 1. And so that’s just an example of how understanding the genre, the arrangement, and the selection can lead you to an author’s intended message.

(23:57) Stephanie: I love it. I have tears in my eyes. I remember the first time I heard you explain Genesis 1 like that and I just, my mind was blown. It’s so epic. Yeah. All right.

Well, a word for our listeners. If this episode has encouraged you, imagine the impact it could have on someone halfway around the world. We’re passionate about creating free resources that help believers experience freedom, healing and kingdom impact, and we’re able to do that because of generous listeners like you.

If you’d like to pay it forward and help us reach even more people in over a hundred countries, visit deeperwalk.com. It really is so epic. I keep thinking about even that testimony from the beginning. I love it. Every time, or even just meeting people and hearing so many testimonies at the Deeper Walk Experience this weekend.

I’m still full and delighted, and it’s amazing and epic and awesome. So yeah, on that note, Father, any final thoughts for this episode?

(25:08) Marcus: Yeah, I think one of the great joys in Bible study are those aha moments that you get where you’re like, oh, the light comes on and you see something you’ve never seen before. And I do remember the first time I saw this pattern in Genesis 1/ I’m like, this is so obvious. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it, right? It’s clearly there.

And I remember I was on a radio program with Susie Larson one time. She asked me, what’s your favorite passage on emotional healing? And I said, Genesis one. And she was like, what? And I had a chance to unpack this a little bit and it was like, yeah, no, that’s beautiful.

God wants to take people whose lives are formless and empty and bring them to a place of blessing and rest. And I love those aha moments that we get along the way where it feels like God wants us specifically to pick this up because it’s just for us and he’s got something he wants to do with it in our lives.

(25:39) Stephanie: Huzzah! Thanks for joining us on the trail today. Did you like this episode? Would you like more people to see it? This is the part where I ask you to like, comment, subscribe, share with a friend. And do you love this channel? One of the best ways that you can support us is by becoming a Deeper Walk Trailblazer. Thanks again. We’ll see you back on the trail next week.