SPEAKER_01 0:02

You can't do it now. You can't do the intro after I made fun of you.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Oh, it's so true. Hey guys, welcome to Crash Course. This is okay. So I'm sitting across from Madison. He was on our last episode, and he actually began by doing an impression of me saying the thing I say. Every episode of Crash Course, I say essentially the same thing. Hey, if case is your first time listening, blah blah blah. And now that you're sitting in front of me, I'm like super aware of how I always say it, and I'm trying to think of a new way. Well, this was like in now I can't in middle school and high school.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

You broke my brain. I've you were my youth pastor for so long that you would say the same stories, and so I would go over the same stories, like I would tell them to you like I was you. And then you're like, I can never tell that story anymore. I did feel that way. I know, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

That's just me being mean. You know, I'm sure you're aware of the show, but you probably didn't watch it. Boy Meets World? What did I say? Boy Meets Girl. It's Boy Meets World. Yeah. Now there's a show called Girl Meets World. Girl Meets World. And I just blended them in my brain. Um, so you broke my brain. I'm sorry. So there was a teacher named Mr. Feeney, and he was like their teacher. I know. Did you say have you seen the show? Hannah loves the show. Oh. Okay. I guess when you guys were really young, it was probably like one of those shows that was on all the time. All the time.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Not targeted at yeah. Right. So Mr. Feeney is an elementary school teacher when the show begins, and it follows this same boy all through his school years, and then he ends up being like his college professor. I remember being like, what degree do you get that allows you to be an elementary school teacher in a school teacher, college high school teacher, because he was all the way, and oh yeah, now I'm your college. And and I always felt bad because for your like specifically your age group here at our church, I was like your Mr. Feeney. Yeah. That right when you graduated high school, I went from being the pastor to the lead pastor, and you're like, Can I have someone other than him teach me and tell me things? But no, that's not your That's why the internet exists with lots of awesome resources.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Oh, you go to you go to I go to other teachers. You've been cheat, you've been cheating on me. With other and this is all gonna stay in the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

We haven't even done the intro yet. No, no, no intro needed this time around. So last time Madison was on, the last episode we talked about reading the Bible. Madison recently, last few years, just developed a real passion for studying the word, studying scripture. Um does a great job teaching our kids that here at his hands. Um I want to talk for a minute, kind of, I mean, really just an extension of that conversation. How do you interpret the Bible correctly? That's the the topic for for this episode, because the Bible is is powerful. You even if you don't believe in the Bible, as far as it being authoritative, as far as it being from God, you can't deny its power because it has been used to like shape history. Sure. And in some situations, it's been misused to shape history. Yes. So the its power is, I mean, it is undeniable because it has been a powerful force over the course of centuries. Um and a lot of people will have this attitude, I think, now, because they've seen so many different people use the Bible to basically make completely different and polarizing points, like, but still using scripture, that there's this idea of like, well, how do I know I'm I'm interpreting the Bible correctly? How do I know I'm applying it? Um I think that becomes especially important when we butt into values in the in scripture that are completely different than the values of our culture today. And so is it like, oh, is that part of the Bible no longer accurate? Right. Is that so? I just wanted to talk for a little bit about how we uh accurately interpret scripture. What what like if some kid comes to you, you're you're a youth pastor, so you got a high school kid, he starts to read the Bible, he reads something, he's like, this does I don't agree with this at all. What would you what would you say to him on that topic?

SPEAKER_01 3:40

The first filter, I mean, there's three filters, but there's actually the fourth filter, the first one, is reading it humbly. So like saying, like, I know I'm not God, and if God really has like inspired this, if God really has had his hand in revealing himself through this, then I'm gonna surrender to maybe like wrestling with things, but saying, like, God, I really want to know what you actually say about this. Okay. Because a lot of uh teenagers they'll say, like, yeah, I follow Jesus, but not even know what Jesus actually did.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Oh well, uh a lot of people do. So as someone I don't I've seen no difference in Sure.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

And and some of the things Jesus says and does are are frankly shocking. And you're like, wow, I don't understand.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Some of them were intended to be shocking. Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Like we're we're talking about it tonight with the youth group, why Jesus says, eat my flesh and drink my blood. It's a very intense thing to say. Um but you have to understand that you have to be humble when you're reading it and not say, like, I dictate the rules and I'm gonna put these rules on top of the Bible.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Yeah, I'm glad you say that because um now now obviously you know we're we're we're targeting this podcast to people who have decided they believe in Jesus. Or maybe you're you're new in that.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

It starts with the relationship with Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Right. But but even if even if you're someone who is sort of seeking and wrestling, and by the way, God gives us the green light to wrestle with him, and and and what that means is quite literally in some cases. Yeah, in the Bible, there's actually a story of yeah, of Jacob. But um but that means that we we have the freedom with God to question him. We have the freedom with God to go, I don't get this, this doesn't make sense to me. But I you you what you said I think is so important because there are a lot of people who and it is pride. Yeah. It is pride that the second the second that they uh that they read something in the Bible that doesn't agree with their own perspective, the instant assumption is that the Bible is wrong. Yep and I would say the humble thing is even if you're just checking this out, even if you haven't maybe decided exactly where you stand with God and on certain issues and scripture or whatever, just just ask yourself this question. Could it be that maybe my perspective is off? Right. And even if you can just humbly go, yeah, it it could be possible that what I something that I strongly hold on to, right? I've been misled, I've been mistaken, um it's possible like entire generations have been mistaken on some pretty big issues in history. Uh so when you read it and and you say, Okay, I'm probably gonna encounter something that challenges me in the way I think, before I just reject this and go, well, I don't like this, right? Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I need to have my perspective challenged. And I think if you have that humble attitude, like you said, just being open to that. Just being open to that, you're in you're in a good spot.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Yep. And then so the second filter would be the context in which the piece was written. So like who wrote it and who did they write it for, and what is the purpose of that in that historical context? Because there's a lot of situations where the people that are reading this are pretty barbaric people, and like Israel is supposed to be set apart from these pretty barbaric people. And so understanding that the the culture of the time dictates a world that looks completely different from ours, yeah, and it's asking for behaviors that are going to be completely different from that culture.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

Absolutely. I was I was listening to a podcast, it was one that you you turned me on to, um, and he was talking about in Ephesians when Paul mentions slavery, and he mentions it kind of passively, like, oh, by the way, those of you who are slaves, because in in Roman culture, slaves made up a massive percentage of the population. And and it almost seems if you read it in a certain light, it almost seems like Paul doesn't have a doesn't have a problem with slavery. Right. Right. But the point that that you know the the person in the podcast made, uh Tim Mackey, um Exploring My Strange Bible Podcast, I think I mentioned it the last episode, is that we're we're reading that through the lens of our experience thousands of years later. Well, and and through the lens of a of a generation that has witnessed a previous generation that had the opportunity to change it. In in like in Rome, if Paul had said, okay, guys, the slavery thing has to go, so Christians, I want you to go protest, like Christians wouldn't be around anymore. No, like they would have just killed There was no mechanism, there was no mechanism in Roman culture to defy the emperor and the way of things. So Paul in in his con in the context of what he was writing to, these were not people that have it was an imperial rule. There was no, you know, I think we're gonna change some things.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

Like Paul was talking about there's no such thing as civil protests. Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

So his context was not changing the the the culture, the culture at large as far as politically. His context was hey, those of you in this culture, yeah, let's talk about how to live rightly and live well and with love in the context of our situation.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Yeah, and there's I mean, talking about the slavery thing, just to finish that point, the the book of Philemon is all about forgiveness and letting a slave go. And it's towards someone specifically that has a slave. So we also see Paul pretty like directly negate, like, hey, let him go. He's he's a Christian, and you guys are supposed to be equals in this. And so that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

And that's a slave who had stolen from him. Right. And run away. And run away. Yeah. So yeah, no, absolutely. So context, right? You need to understand the context. And and and by the way, there's a lot of great tools out there to help you with that. Finding a person who's really knowledgeable. Yep. Okay, so that's so filter one is is humility, filter two is context.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Context, and then the whole of scripture, so like the entire book of the Bible, which is is a lot to say because uh you wouldn't pick up like I don't know, a Charles Dickens book and just open to the middle and start reading and expect to know what has happened before and what will happen at the end. Right. But we've actually been given a lot of resources to to know, like, oh, where does the book of Exodus fit into the story that the Bible is trying to tell you? Where does the book of Galatians fit into the story? Because those are vastly different times in history, written for vastly different people. So understanding uh where the book falls in the entire like story of us and God and Jesus and having that understanding.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Well, I think it's really important too, because a lot of times what people will do is you, like you said, you'll you'll open it up to a section, maybe it's the middle, maybe it's you know, the third end, whatever, and you'll read something, and it's something that maybe God is even doing, yeah, and you're like, whoa, right, I don't like that, you know, and and we've kind of talked about that. But if you don't know why God is doing it, it won't make any sense. I like an example for my life is yeah, I grew up playing sports, and so um, you know, if if you walked into my varsity high school basketball practice on like day two, our coach, this was like conditioning time, yeah, right? Yeah, our coach isn't even letting us use a basketball yet, right? Right? Just running, running us till like we're puking. Yeah, yeah. And you would look at that guy and go, he is cruel and harsh, and this is horrible. But if you would have asked any of us, we would have been like, no, he's a good coach. Um, but but if that was your if that was your entry point and you didn't know why he was doing it and what was coming up next, that he needs us to be really well conditioned. And but if you would have come to a practice, you know, uh toward the end of the season, you would have been like, wow, these guys are just crazy fast and athletic, and like you wouldn't have even seen all that he had to do to get us to that point. The point being, sometimes we we do that with God where we we don't understand the whole of scripture. We take one thing from one spot and we make a snap judgment, but we don't understand what has happened before and where it's going after, right? And the the idea that God is always doing something because he's moving things to a certain place. And if you don't get that, then it you won't understand, you'll you'll you'll misjudge God, you'll misjudge what's happening.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

Yeah, and uh I guess that the third filter kind of folds right into understanding the like whole of scripture and where that falls in is the person of Jesus. So is that filter three or four? Filter four, I guess. If humble is I feel like humble is like you just kind of live your life like that. No, let's let's do that. I like that.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

I like that filter. So humble?

SPEAKER_01 11:36

Yeah, so so humble, humble the whole, yep, and now the person of Jesus. Because everything in the Old Testament is leading up to and pointing toward Jesus, it's like forecasting Jesus. Tomorrow is a cloudy day with a chance of Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

Yeah, no, you're well, Jesus himself said to the Pharisees, you search the scriptures because you think they'll bring you eternal life, but the scriptures point to me. Yeah. And when you actually see Jesus for who he is, you have it's this strange thing. It's like it's like watching a movie like the sixth sense, when you know what the the twist ending is. Yeah, like once you know what the twist ending is. The clues are so obvious. You watch it again and it's like, oh, oh, oh, but you never you wouldn't have missed it. Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

And then everything that happens in Jesus' life, it's like that's the pinnacle, and then everything afterwards in the New Testament is extending from the life and acts of Jesus through his Holy Spirit and as a consequence of what Jesus did for us. So um the person of Jesus, that's the fourth and final filter.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Okay, so um fourth filter, so filters, read it humbly, right? Assume that maybe there's things that you believe that are off, and God maybe wants to challenge those. Right. Number two, uh, the context. Number three would be the whole of scripture, and just to kind of add on to that, I a lot of times people like, especially people that are being critical of the Bible. There's plenty of those people out there. Um, and fine, the Bible has held up for all these years because if we believe it's true, it should stand up to criticism. We say in his hands all the time that anything that is is good should stand up to scrutiny. And the Bible has been scrutinized unlike anything else, and it has stood up. But like people will take one thing from the New Testament, one thing from the Old Testament, and go, like, see, clearly contradiction doesn't match. But like I could tell you, okay, I live in the United States of America, and uh let let's let's say that I let's say that that you know today, today here in Georgia it's pretty cold actually. Um but somewhere else in the United States, like Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, maybe it's a really warm day. And so someone could go, not the same country. Yeah, that country like a total contradiction. You say you live in the US and it's cold, you say you live in the US and it's warm. It's like, well, yeah, we live in different places. Right. There's a lot of space in between Los Angeles and Georgia. Well, there's a lot of space between Exodus and and like you know, Paul's letter to the the early churches. Right. So if you don't know all the in-between, it it doesn't it doesn't line up. So yeah, so there, and then the fourth filter being the person of Jesus, you know, the Bible says in the book of Hebrews that Jesus is the exact representation of God. That's a verse we use a lot here at his hands. It just basically says that Jesus gives us a clear picture of God. And when you look at any scripture through those filters, you can interpret it, in our opinion, really accurately. And and I'll give you one like one way that we we do that kind of practically, an example, okay. Um, and this is kind of a controversial example. Well, it shouldn't be, but it has been throughout history, is is the role of women in church. Okay. Um so we have a woman on our teaching team, Elon. Um she speaks, she's speaking this Sunday, actually.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

And you know, 50 years ago, the traditional church culture would say that is irresponsible at best, and it's like downright blasphemous at worst.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

And they'd say that because they'd reference scripture. Uh Paul wrote to the church in Corinth that women should be silent in the church. Okay, so we have a woman on our teaching team, Megan, my wife, is a pastor and she um teaches often on you know events and other things like that. Well, okay, it seems like we're doing something that's contradictory to scripture. Right. And I've had people ask about that, by the way. I've had people that have emailed me and said, you know, they're mad about it, whatever. But then you have other people who are like, I think women should should teach in in church, you know, but it's more because that lines up with today's cultural values.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

It's a response to and it's popular in culture.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

And then and and hey, cool, but that's there are a lot of things our culture values that don't line up with scripture, and I'm not just gonna be a I don't it wouldn't be good to be a follower of Jesus who's just licking your finger and seeing which way the wind is blowing, and that's how you're yeah. So how do we justify that? And it really is the filters you've talked about, especially the the last three. So when it comes to the the context, okay. The context of Paul's writing was he's writing to the church in Corinth. Corinth was an extremely interesting place. Um the main worship in Corinth up to that point had been worshiping at the temple of Aphrodite, that's where the temple of Aphrodite was. Um, women ran the Temple of Aphrodite, and the women who ran the Temple of Aphrodite were temple prostitutes, and the way you would worship at the Temple of Aphrodite is you would go and you would pay money, and then you would sleep with these temple prostitutes, and they they kind of ran the show. And so now you have this context where you're Paul, these people are all becoming Christians, right? They're professing a faith in Jesus. Some of the temple prostitutes who would have been called priestesses, right, by the way, not prostitutes, these temple priestesses, they are also converting, they're now in the church, they're used to being the ones running the show.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

So it's a weird mix of cultures.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

And it's like there's that, there's the fact that in that world, and it's it's sad but true, but in that world, women were not educated, right? Um, and education is valuable because the more you know, hopefully, the less susceptible you are to being kind of misled by out of ignorance. So there's all these cultural things going on, and in that context, it made sense for Paul to say what he said. Okay, but let's look at the whole of Scripture, right? That's that's the context. Well, number one, Paul said in Ephesians, now because of Jesus, there's neither slave nor free, there's neither Jew nor Gentile, there's neither male nor female. In other words, he's saying there's no longer a division of importance. Right. So we're equal. In the whole of scripture, we have situations where women were in complete leadership roles. Right. God used, it was Esther that God put in place to save his people. Yeah. I mean, literally, this woman was placed by God in a very difficult situation, um, or God rescued her from that situation, however you want to have a look at it. Judges of Israel have them. Deborah was a judge of Israel, and that was before Israel had a king, so the judge was the person in charge of the nation. That's old Old Testament. So in the whole of Scripture, we have women who are in leadership roles. Okay. And honestly, in a time when that wouldn't have been a good idea. That would have made sense early. Any other culture would have been like, no. So God was way ahead of that one on the. And then you look at the person of Jesus, and I think this is where it becomes the most clear. So on the specific subject of like, should women be able to preach in church? All right. If you boil down preaching in church to its core, it means you are giving the gospel, which is the message of Jesus. If you boil the gospel down to its core, that is the proclamation that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead, that he is the Messiah. The very first person that Jesus asked to give that message was a woman. Yep. So the women visited the tomb, and you might say, Oh, well, that's that was an accident. No, okay. I think Jesus was pretty picky with how he did things. And even still, the men were afraid to leave their locked room. The women were like, we don't care. We're gonna go. Jesus shows up in there and freaks him out. So Jesus shows up, he's risen from the dead, and he tells Mary, this woman who followed him, he said, Go back and tell my disciples what you have seen that I have risen from the dead. So the very first eyewitness to the resurrection of Jesus was a woman, and the very first person to ever be entrusted with the news that he was risen was a woman. If you're playing a game of telephone, the first person's pretty important. Right. Because if they mess it up, there's no chance. Right. If Jesus Christ, the founder of our faith, could entrust a woman to deliver the most important message in the history of our faith, the very first person to deliver that news, I think it's okay. Yeah. Right? And so, but but here, that's not just us saying something willy-nilly like just because we want it. Because we want it because it fits with culture, it's palatable.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Because otherwise, I don't want to hurt someone's feelings or I don't want to be.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

I don't want to seem I don't seem like we're old time, like we're not with the times. It's it's looking at the Bible with the right filters in mind. And and in those filters, we are totally comfortable with women speaking in church. If if it's the right person and they know their stuff and they're gifted, and we and we have a ton of that. In fact, there's more female pastors, people there's more females in pastoral roles that we have, or at least as many as the men. Right. So that is but that's us interpreting scripture. And I think that when you run into something difficult and hard, and and especially stuff that doesn't line up with our cultural values, ask yourself okay, I'm I'm gonna go through those filters. I'm gonna be humble. I'm going to I'm gonna look at this. And it takes a little bit of work. Like that's what's hard about it. In discussion, yeah. This isn't something you just like snap your. There's not like a uh an app that you just put an issue in and it's like and everyone agrees, yeah. And these are filters, by the way, that we've sort of developed over time. We feel really confident about them. Maybe you've got different filters, but these for us seem to really hold up. Yeah. Um, and so you know, there's a lot of other issues, there's a lot of controversial issues that we as a church, like we don't agree with culture on. Right. And it's because it doesn't fit, it doesn't make it through those filters. Yeah. And so we go, okay, well, this is where we stand on this, and it may not be a popular belief, but these are the filters that we go by, and yeah, we think that this is what what scripture points to.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

So and that's all about that humble of like, are you willing to sacrifice your own comfort for the sake of truth? Are you willing to sacrifice your own ideas for the sake of God's ideas? And so I think that's what it most of it boils down to that, and then understanding the history, Jesus, and the the whole scripture is good.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Cool. All right. Well, that's gonna do it for this episode of Crash Course. Thank you guys for listening. I think this was like a super helpful thing to talk about. Yeah. Um, so you know, think through those filters and and you know, if there's other filters that you've learned or or someone's given you, then then that's fine. I I I just think that it's gotta go with context, it's gotta go with the whole of scripture, it's gotta fit the person of Jesus because he is the he is like the the the hinge that everything swings on. And if you have that humble spirit, that humble attitude, um, then you're teachable. So cool. Thanks, Madison, for being here. Thank you guys for listening. We will see you soon.