To the We Are More Pod cast. My name

is Alyssa. And my name is Bree. We're two sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism. We believe

that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach his word. And apparently, that's controversial. Get comfy.

Hello. Hello.

I need you to know that that hello was so much more motivation than we feel.

Yeah. I'm projecting energy.

Is it working? Internally or externally? Either way. No.

So we're recording and I am fresh off of, a forty two year long shift at And Alyssa is also passing on and also off of a forty seven and a half year long shift at work. Sounds right. So we're sipping on iced coffee in the middle of the night.

And it's going really well.

Oh, yeah. I just wanna also say, I've introduced several people at work to instant espresso. Right? Yes. And there's, like, such a vibe with it.

Did you ever see the show You on Netflix?

The one where he's a serial killer?

Yeah. That's the kind of coffee that he drinks

on the show. Comforting. Good.

So I think he had really good taste. That's not what you wanted to say.

It just always shocks me where these segments go. I mean, no way to know. Have

not a thought in my

head before we start recording this. And then here we are. Every time we start, I'm like, I should think of something. Like, I should have a topic in my head so that we're not just going off to random places and fairy tales. Never do it.

It never happens.

But that's what's endearing about us and natural. And people feel like they're part of the club. And they're just sitting down with their sisters at an olive garden. And we've all had maybe two glasses of wine at this point. Is that how you feel?

Audience,

is that how you feel? Do you wanna weigh in? Anybody? Anybody? Crickets.

Rude. Really rude, actually. We've been talking to you for 77 episodes now. Literally days and days. We've been just yapping.

Just really think that through.

Mhmm.

I've for almost three full days, people could just listen to us back to back. Oh. And if they did,

they would have to probably, like, go

to the ER. Yeah. It wouldn't be good for them.

But they'd have to be in a straight jacket in a padded room, and they'd be yapping too.

Now imagine being us.

We do this all the time. It's amazing how our brains work. And almost exactly the same. That should frighten the world. Mhmm.

The fact

that there's not one but two of us. I I blame it on obsessing over the Gilmore girls. That Specifically? At a particular age. Yeah.

Alright. Just because, like, their brains in that show. It's like firing off different quotes and different references and nonsense. And now that's who we are. That is who we are.

Except in real life, not Different nonsense.

They're a lot more adventurous than we were. We are than we are. We're not adventurous people.

We like to adventure to a different farmer's market. That we do. Or maybe a new coffee shop.

Well, even that's a little iffy. We have not done well with

that in the past. And sometimes we stay up past eleven.

Sometimes we do. And then in the morning, we thoroughly regret it. Yep. So today on the episode I'm just very proud of us, though, because we have a plan. I need you guys to know we have, like, a four week plan of episodes.

Mhmm. Are you impressed? We're we're pulling it together Crunk. Despite the fact that I've been sick for the last seventeen and a half years.

Alyssa has the plague. I do have the plague. I think there's an episode called that. There is. It's one of our early ones.

Well, it's happening again.

But we still have plans, and I'm proud. But today,

we are continuing a topic that we basically talked too much about last week and ran out of time.

We yapped for too long.

Now if we were your pastors at your church, we would have just kept yapping and kept you there for an extra hour while your stomach gurgled and you got really hangry.

You're hangry. The air conditioning's on just a little bit too much, and you didn't bring the appropriate jacket. And you're in, like, ballet flats, so your feet are cold, and your kids are sitting in the kids' area, and they're like, where are my parents? You're searching through your purse for, like, a mint or something just to tide you over. Something.

And you're writing notes back and forth to the person next to you on your church program, like, what is he wearing?

We're painting a lot of scenes today. That leads well. Sure. We we're leading. Okay?

Mhmm. We're leading into idols that Christians have. Mhmm. And not the ones that you hear about in church, not like

social media is an idol, which it might be.

These things can be idols, but we're we're gonna go more painful.

We're gonna push what you feel is an idol. We're gonna we're gonna make you uncomfortable for a minute. And you're gonna have to deal with us for about another fifty minutes. About

that. Yeah. So we're gonna talk about the bible being an idol today. Mhmm. And we actually both did a ton of research and haven't really shared all

of that research with each other. So we're gonna surprise each other,

which is always a good time. Yeah. But I think first, let's talk about what an idol is. And I think we talked about this last week as well.

But You're right. It's a Kelly Clarkson. It's a Fantasia, which we now know is an American Idol. True. True.

And that one guy. Ruben. And Clay Aiken. And Clay Aiken.

Did he win?

No. But Ruben won. But Clay Aiken is the American Idol of our hearts. True.

We have oh, his Christmas album, man.

I don't really know much else of what he did, but the Christmas album is where it's at. It's anyway.

So the definition of an idol is anything that we place over and above God. Even if it's something good, even if it's something that's been a positive in our lives or something, if we make it more important than God, then that makes it into an idol. And we see examples of that in the Bible when the Israelites created a golden calf to pray to. So that was like a physical, like, real idol that they were praying to. But then we can see it in our own lives in things like we talked about last week, marriage, Christian nationalism, the right to bear arms.

Mhmm.

And really anything. Anything in your life that you place above God.

Yeah. I think another one you could throw into the mix is church. Mhmm. Are you putting the actual physicalness of you being in church and the ritual of you being in church above your relationship with God?

Another episode. We

probably have talked about that many I'm sure.

We've talked about all this many times. They're still here. Hello. So what are some ways that we can turn the Bible into an idol? Because I think that's this is like a weird one to say.

The other ones, I think, made like, were kinda logical what that we talked about last week.

Mhmm.

Easy things that you can say like, oh, yeah. I idolize that above God. But how do you idolize the word of God, which we kind of think of as an extension of God himself

Mhmm.

Above God.

Mhmm. I think I picture it like a lot of people will say, well, what does God say about that? What does God say about that? Let's open up our Bibles. And yes, we believe that that is the word of God or God's inspired words.

But I also feel like it might be very limiting to a God that's all knowing, all powerful, all everything Yeah. To confine what he's able to say to you to 800,000 words Mhmm. In 66 books.

It really 800,000 words?

I feel like that's what I read in the article. I haven't cross checked that. Seems like a good amount. That's a lot of words. That's a lot of words.

If some if the 800,000 word article came across my desk Mhmm. I'd be mad. It's a lot

of words, but still limiting Yeah. To an all powerful god.

Right. So some of the ways that you can use the Bible as an idol is to use it literally without context. Mhmm. I thought this was really good. So when you take the Bible as literal, like, this word means this, and this word means this, and this verse means this.

But then you don't take into account the historical context or the context of the other verses around it or things like that. You And just kind

of throw all that to the

side and say, the Bible said it, so I believe it.

Mhmm.

That's using the Bible as an idol because you've made it a static object and not let God's word speak.

I have a good example of that, actually, which I looked into earlier this week. I saw someone post about abortion specifically. And they were like, you wanna know what the Bible says about abortion? It actually tells you how to do it. And here's the verse.

And if you don't know the historical context, it gets confusing. But it was actually when women didn't have a lot of rights back then. So men, at any point in time, if they felt like taking their wives to the tabernacle and say, I feel like she's been unfaithful to me, Or wanted to get out of their marriage or whatever it was. They would take the wives to the tabernacle. And the priests would take some dust from the ground and mix it with water, and they would call it, like, this bitter water.

Mhmm. And have the woman drink it. And if her belly swelled, then I believe she was found, like, guilty. But if it didn't, which it wouldn't because it's just dust and water, then she was blameless. And he had to leave like, the husband had to leave her be.

Mhmm. But a lot of people right now are like, here, it tells you how to do an abortion. But it actually doesn't. Mhmm. I've heard that.

I actually heard it in church one time.

Yeah. I think that section is really interesting. I and we won't have time to go into this, but that's in particular, like, God protecting women. Mhmm. Because prior to that, men were just, like, tossing their wives aside and Yeah.

Whatever. You know? Just live your life except that women had no rights. So once they were tossed to the side, they were kinda screwed. Yeah.

And they're like, here. Let's leave it up

to god. Let's give her dust and water. Mhmm. Right. Another way to that Brie talked about already to turn the Bible into an idol is to weaponize scripture.

Mhmm.

To instead of use scripture in love, as Jesus showed us time and time again, to instead use it to hurt somebody else?

Historically, the Bible has been used to hurt people. Right. And you can find a verse to justify anything you believe, really. They would use verses to justify slavery. Mhmm.

But they also use verses to justify freeing the slaves. Mhmm. They people can find verses to justify saying that homosexuality is a sin. Other people can find verses that say, no, it's not. So anytime, I think, you're finding a specific verse to hate on

someone Mhmm. To judge someone, that's wrong because that's not what Jesus did. Right. There's been signs up in our area lately for this church that's doing, I don't know, some kind of event. And on all the signs, it says Christian crusade.

And I know that's a word that we see a lot used in churches. And I drove past it the other day, and I was like, do we think they know what the Crusades were? Because the Crusades were a great example of weaponizing scripture. Mhmm. Of taking your belief of the Bible and using it to destroy other people.

Let's tell the people what the crusades are.

The crusades were a religious war, a holy war

Mhmm.

That they took the bible and they said, alright. We're gonna violently force the rest of the world to believe the bible. History repeats itself. And, essentially, the bible was simply being used as an excuse. We can all see that now.

Be able see it again in twenty years, maybe.

Maybe less. Maybe less. Maybe today. But that's

what the crusades were. And we, time and time again, use scripture to hate on people. Mhmm. And that's not what Jesus was doing.

And I think we talked about this on the last episode too. But if Jesus wanted to, he could have come down as a political leader. Mhmm. He could have come down as a warrior, but he didn't. He came as a carpenter, became a rabbi.

Was very peaceful. He wasn't looking for ultimate power. Mhmm. But the church so often is.

Mhmm. And that's why we use scripture out of context. The next one is replacing your relationship with God with using the Bible as a rule book instead.

Mhmm.

So we're taught you know, and I know, again, we said this last episode too. When Jesus came back to Earth after he had been crucified, he went back to up to heaven telling his disciples, I leave you with my spirit. Mhmm. Not I leave you with these 66 rule books, you know, or however many books they had at that point. And so your relationship with God is the most important thing

Mhmm.

Over and above the Bible. And so the moment that you start replacing that still small voice, as they say in church, of the Holy Spirit with the Bible, when you start ignoring what God is telling you to do as a person and instead looking for justification or looking for rules or looking for whatever within the Bible Mhmm. Suddenly, you've definitely elevated those words on the page above God's will for you.

Because I think so often, people just want black and white. Right. They want right and wrong. They want things very laid out clear. Mhmm.

So if you look at the Bible as a rule book, that kinda makes things easier Mhmm. In a way. If I just follow these rules, I can get to heaven, when Jesus is just saying, love me, trust me, and I'll get you to heaven. Hold my hand.

And then the last really main point and we have many other things that we're gonna go into. But the last kind of main one of how we're utilizing this is to worship the book itself instead of the god that it points you to.

Mhmm.

So when we do things like the bible has to be put up on the high shelf and it can't we can never throw a bible away, even if it's torn to shreds. So this weekend, we were at our parents' house, we

were going through boxes of things that we've left at mom and dad's So many boxes. Basement. So many memory boxes, so many, like, stuffed animals that I just couldn't let go. But one of the things that I pulled out of a box was a Bible. Uh-huh.

And the cover's coming off. I don't have any special notes in there. I think I wrote my name a couple times in various places, but I threw it away. And my mom was like What am I talking about? Sorry to anyone who is listening in headphones.

Sorry, mom. But it does feel funny because it does feel disrespectful in some way because you're like, this is the word of God. Right. But it's not God. Right.

It's ink and paper.

Mhmm. God is in my heart.

And this book is falling apart. So I'm gonna go ahead and throw it away.

Yep. But you can see it. Just the way that we handle it, the way that we behave towards it. You've gotta have a Bible case, you know? Things like that.

You've gotta have your name in gold on the cover.

Or even, like, highlighting and underlining or doing anything to it is kind of, like, taboo for a while. Now it's more normal. Yeah. And there's special Bibles too that have, like, areas for note taking in them. But I remember growing up, the pages are so thin and delicate and nice.

So, like, highlighting it was like, woah.

It seeps through four pages deep.

Mhmm.

Some interesting stats that have to do with this are both from 2025. So LifeWay Research did a survey, and they showed that 49% of Americans say the Bible is a 100% accurate in everything it teaches. Now these aren't just Christians. These are people across the board.

Mhmm.

However, a Gallup poll showed that 20% of people still believe the Bible is the literal word of God. So breathed from the mouth of God, essentially. 49% would say inspired, but not literal. And 29% would see it as an ancient moral text. So those are just, like, interesting.

Here's how people are seeing things.

Mhmm.

Here's how this looks. And I think part of that too is the Bible translations. So this is something that we talk about a lot on this podcast of the translations of the Bible. Mhmm.

And if you're not in the Christian world and you don't kinda understand that, think about when you go to college and you have a textbook. And then they're like, oh, just kidding. We have an updated version. And it's gonna be point two. Yeah.

200. So and we're only gonna be teaching out of this new version. And then another update comes. Or when you got get an update on your phone and you wanna die. That's what a new translation is.

Pretty much. It's an update.

But we think of the Bible as perfect and inerrant, so having no errors.

Mhmm.

And that's a big belief in Christian society is biblical inerrancy. The Bible has no errors. It has no flaws. It is the breathed word of God. Mhmm.

And if you believe that, then it is really easy to say, well, I can't make the Bible into an idol because it is the actual words that came out of God's mouth.

Mhmm.

So it can't go above God. It just is God. Right? But there's a problem with that. So we wanna believe that the Bible has no flaws because it makes it easier.

Because if it has no flaws, then it's perfect, and I just have to follow, like you said, x y z. But it has to have flaws because the versions disagree with each other. Mhmm. So for through the timeline, there's the King James version, which we are not big fans of as a rule primarily because it's really old. It's from 1611, and it was commissioned because at the time the Geneva bible was really popular.

And it was kind of like anti monarchy. Some of the subnotes and stuff in the Geneva bible were seen as anti monarchy. And so king James said, that's not working for me. I need some pro monarchy stuff. And so he had the king James version written, which was political control.

Mhmm. So the King James version was written with that in mind.

I find the King James version very interesting because a lot of very conservative Christians would believe that that is the only text that you can read from. But it's very hard to understand. There's because it's it was written in 1611. Mhmm. And we are now in 2025.

Yeah. So there's lots of old English. There's lots of these, thys, begottons. And I think it really limits, again, your relationship with God Mhmm. Because you're having a hard time understanding what the heck he said.

Mhmm. And then

the next one is the RSV. So that's the revised standard version, I believe. And that one came from 1952. Not that there were no versions in between. These are just the ones I'm highlighting.

And when that one was written, it was written for academic accuracy. So they were trying to go back and say, like, okay. We're gonna use different source texts than the King James.

Mhmm.

So it was written a little bit differently, and then it got criticized for being too liberal. So there was a lot of controversy with that one. Then the next one that came up was the NIV, and that was in 1978. So this one was written kind of with the purpose of utilizing gender inclusive language. Mhmm.

Because they were essentially stating that the original text may have used a masculine pronoun, but often the masculine pronouns were used just for people. You know? Kinda like

we would say guys.

Yeah. We don't just mean men. We just mean folks.

Mhmm.

And so it was written with that in mind. But it got a bunch of backlash. So then in response to that, we have the ESV, which came out in 02/2001. And it was considered a conservative correction to the NIV because they said the NIV sanitized the Bible and was politically correct and used gender inclusive language and shouldn't have. And so it was written with that in mind.

And so you can see all of these different bibles were written with a purpose. Not the inherent unending word of god, but a point. Some of them were a political point. Some of them were a social point. Some of them were an academic point, but they all had a reason to be written that was not, we wanna further the accuracy of god's word.

Mhmm. And if that's the case, then the Bible really can't be inerrant.

Mhmm. Yeah. If you wanna make an argument to me that the very original texts, like the scrolls

Mhmm.

Dug out of the cave were inerrant. Okay. But anytime you get humans involved, there is human error. Think about any time you've had an error on something to do with, like, your medical insurance, or any time you went into the doctor's office. Did someone say they were gonna send you an email and forgot?

Or typed in the wrong numbers somewhere. It happens all the time. And you're telling me there is none. None. Zero.

Throughout all of these translations, throughout all these different cultures that people were part of.

I think people are scared to say that. They're scared to say, okay. The Bible might have errors. Because what happens then? If the Bible has errors or flaws or wasn't put together exactly right because we didn't have a text that had all 66 books together.

We just sort of decided that they went together.

We decided that those ones went together, but we also decided, like, these chunk of verses need a title. So we're gonna make up a title to go with Right.

Exactly. And so if all of that isn't perfect and isn't accurate, then what? Then what does that do to our faith?

Does your faith survive without the Bible? Mhmm. Think about that. That's hard to chew on. Yeah.

Because, yes, the Bible is the Word of God. But the Holy Spirit is in your heart and will guide you. And the one thing that we know was without error, one without flaw is Jesus. Mhmm. Right?

So how did Jesus live his life? Outrageous amounts of love. Just outrageous amounts of love. Never shaming people. Yeah, he got angry sometimes, but he had righteous anger.

And then he died for us. Mhmm. Would you die for someone else? Would you live for someone else? Would you love someone else?

Even if they didn't look like you or they didn't believe the same things as you. Mhmm. That's what you should be doing.

Mhmm. If you study the Bible with the purpose of understanding the character of God, understanding the character of Jesus. Who are they? Mhmm. What is the example that they set?

As opposed to studying the Bible with the idea of like, okay. And here's a rule book for me. And let me make notes, and I gotta follow this, this, and this. But instead you follow the character of God, the character of Jesus, who they showed you that they were. Even if the Bible disappears tomorrow and you have never have access to it again, you don't remember any of the Bible verses, but you knew the character of God Mhmm.

And you move forward with that, then you're going to be fulfilling God's will for your life.

And live your life in relationship with God.

Mhmm.

Constantly be in communication with God. When you're doing your makeup in the morning, if you're not doing your makeup, when you're in the shower, like, when you're taking a walk. But also taking action. Mhmm. Being like Jesus was.

He was feeding the thousands, you know? How can we also do little miracles in our lives for people?

I would like to get a magic wand.

You have one downstairs.

All right. I will go get my magic wand. I feel like I need to explain that. That sounds weird, especially because of some of the songs that

have come out. So

on Timu no. It wasn't Timu. On TikTok shop, that's even sadder. I bought these floating candles for Halloween, like a Halloween decoration, and they came with a magic wand. And you just, like, click the button, and they all turn on.

That's why I have a magic wand. Okay?

Melissa's really into Harry Potter. And she went to Universal Studios, and she bought all of the magic wands, and she has them on display. That's just not true. Sometimes I'm a liar.

Sometimes. Often. Oftentimes, Brianna's a liar.

What's the rule in our house, Brianna? Brianna always lies.

Even my children know that one. We found this really amazing article. And frankly, I could have done absolutely no other research. Just none. And just read this article and been fine.

I did do other research. Yeah. You're welcome. But I wouldn't have had to. It's by John Pavlovitz.

I definitely butchered his last name. Sorry, John. And it's called Have We Made the Bible Into an Idol? Now it was originally posted on his blog, but then it went to Relevant, which is a website. Apparently, a I think a Christian website.

And I took a lot of notes, an awful lot of notes. So I'll try not to read them all because you'll get bored. But I would recommend looking this article up. It is so good.

I will go on to our social medias and share it.

Okay. But what he starts off by saying is kind of the attitude of the church. The Bible says it. I believe it, and that settles it. Not that he's saying this is his opinion, but that that's what the church often says.

He then goes on to talk about how we want a bible that's easy. Something that we can pick little snippets out of and quote them at people. And then it's just perfect, you know, whatever. Or in a wanna. And we just learn these individual verses, and that's all we need.

We don't need context. We don't need anything. It's just there it is.

Mhmm.

But that's not what we have. It's not what we were given. Instead, we were given a book that can't be used like that. A book that needs historical context, that needs broader context. And yet we have this all or nothing kind of attitude with it.

Either it's all true or none of it's true. Mhmm. You can't be in the middle. You can't say, well, it's true, but also you need to look at at this side of things. Yeah.

He actually calls the bible the fourth edition to the trinity. And both Brie and I, we read that. We were like, oh. That hurts. Because we do think of it like that, like, as though this is just as much god.

Mhmm. So one of the quotes from it that both of us also thought hit really hard, he says, in other words, by elevating the bible to the same level as god and by leaning on our own understanding of its 66 books, we've created a divine being who, upon closer inspection, seems to think a lot like we do, vote like we do, hate who we hate, and bless what we bless. So you know without any question that when the bible starts to speak just like you speak Mhmm. Not because you've been diving into it and, like

And now you're speaking like the bible. No. It's the opposite. Exactly.

And that's everywhere right now.

Mhmm.

Again, anytime you're using it to justify hate, it's not gonna work out. It's not right. Right. He talks about how the only way that the Bible should be elevated to the level that we've elevated it is if we believe god is dead. Mhmm.

I thought that was so powerful. He said, if god is alive, then this is just something that he gave us, but it's not all of who he is.

Mhmm.

Part of him, sure, but not everything. It's it would be like if I wrote a book. Part of me is in that book. Right? Whether it's fiction or nonfiction, part of me is in that book, but it's not everything that I am.

There's so much more to me. And I would never want you to look at that singular piece and assume that's everything. That's all

she's Like we said at the beginning, it's very limiting to think that those are the only words of God that we get. And if you go back through the Bible, God speaks to people in so many different ways. Mhmm. And I can give you verse references, but that would be a lot. But like, in actual audible voice, through a burning bush, on a mountain, and a little whisper, in people's dreams and visions, through angels, through clouds and fire, through thunder, through mediators.

We want some mediums. And through Jesus. But for some reason, we think that he stopped doing that. Right. God can speak to us in so many different ways still.

But are we opening our hearts to that, or are we limiting it to a physical book? Mhmm.

And so we have to believe that God is alive and changing. Right? Mhmm. That god is alive and existing in our world and seeing what's going on in our world and that what's in our world is different than what was two thousand years ago.

Mhmm.

This actually is very funny. So depending on where you are in the world, you may or may not have heard this. But the there was some pastor that was like, alright. The tribulation is gonna be October 1.

I don't know if that was the day. Recently.

Yeah. Super recently. He was like, it's absolutely gonna be this day. I've read bible. And this is you may not be able to know the hour, but you can know the day.

And it was just so silly. But then it didn't, of course, happen that day.

Unless we got left behind. Hey. Are you guys still out there? I'm still wearing clothes.

So then when it didn't happen, he goes, okay. I messed it up. Hold on. Hold on. Let me reread some passages.

No. No. No. It's gonna be, I think, like, October 6 or something like that. And the reasoning behind the change was, oh, god didn't realize we weren't still on this calendar.

God thought we were still on this old calendar that they used to use.

Obviously, god made a mistake.

I'm sorry. God is aware. Just like like, that's so silly. It's so stupid. And yet, we're all doing the same thing.

Yeah.

We think that God isn't aware that our world is different than the world of Jesus. Mhmm. Jesus' surroundings were different than the surroundings that are happening now. And therefore, the will of God is going to morph and change and work around the way that the world is now. Mhmm.

Because otherwise, it none of it makes sense. Like, if God can't work with the world we have, then God's not all that great. We're all powerful. Mhmm.

We're God's timeline is not our timeline. Mhmm. Because God is God. And it's incomprehensible to us. Mhmm.

But he is living in the future, past, the beginning, the now, all of it. He's all encompassing all the time. How limiting to say like, No, no, no. He has to follow my timeline.

And he has to

follow this rulebook. Yeah, he has to follow this rulebook that was specifically designed back in the year that the Bible was written. I think it was across quite a timeline. Yeah. And he's never ever gonna change anything for thousands and thousands of years.

Oh, so this is another great quote that came from that article. He said, the bible commands us not to add to the scriptures, but that doesn't mean that god can't. I that, like, blew my mind because that gets thrown at me all the time. Well, you can't add to scripture. You can't add to scripture.

Okay. I hear you. And and, absolutely, the bible does say that we should not be doing that. But god can. Mhmm.

Because they're God's words.

Mhmm.

And so if the Holy Spirit is speaking to me, and I know that it's the Holy Spirit and not just me wanting to do what I wanna do Mhmm. Then that can change things. Because I was told to follow the Holy Spirit. I was not told follow these translated upon translated upon translated words without ever thinking about it.

Mhmm.

I just thought that was, like, so good. I'm trying to

read. There's It's mic dropping. Should we just send it there? Yeah. Let's just we'll just give up now.

Okay. Be quiet. Be quiet. Be quiet. We gotta trick them.

Moment of silence. Do you think they believed us? Are you still here?

Do you think they're tired of us whispering yet? Yep. Probably.

Okay. Alright.

So then the last quote I wanna read from this and I again, guys, I really encourage you to read it, and I'm gonna read some responses to it as well. But the last quote I wanna read from it is, the more honest option when coming to difficult parts of the scripture might be for us to say, the Bible appears to say that in this particular passage. I think I believe that interpretation, and now let's talk about it. Because there are so many different ways to read and interpret scripture. Mhmm.

So instead of saying this callback to his to the beginning where it says, the bible says it. I believe it, and that settles it. To say, I think this is what it says. But let's have a conversation. And it's okay if I believe that this is what it says and that you look at it and that you think that's probably not what it says.

Because there's very few parts of scripture that are absolutely you must believe this way. Mhmm. And it's pretty much, God loved you. Jesus died for your sins and rose again. Love God.

Love others. That's basically it. It's pretty small. And so if the rest of it we disagree on, then that's okay. Mhmm.

Now the responses to this so John, the author, is a former Methodist megachurch pastor. And now he is a vocal advocate for justice, equality, and diverse diversity. He also I'm not sure about at the time of writing, but at one point considered himself a Unitarian Universalist, which is not a group I'm the most familiar with. I know they kind of believe that all beliefs can get you to heaven.

Mhmm.

So that's just an interesting little tidbit. But I do think regardless of whether I agree with him on that stance or not, I do think he has some great things to say. Mhmm. He's also if you look him up, he apparently is quite provocative. He's very political because he's for social justice and equality, and that's kind of what you have to be in this era.

Be comfortable being uncomfortable. Right.

But some of the responses to this article show us just how much people do idolize the Bible. Mhmm. In a Twitter thread, Jonathan Lehman, who is the editorial director for Nine Marks, which is basically like a pastoral resources kinda thing, he gave several comments. And one of them was, I have literally never met someone who worships the bible or makes it an idol. Sincerely, I'm not sure what it means to worship the bible.

So he apparently just didn't read the article.

You failed. Title, and I felt like I needed to comment.

I was offended. Sorry, Jonathan. Try again. He then continued on by saying, suppose my wife texts me and asks me to pick up milk on the way home. I then walk into the house empty handed and say, I didn't wanna risk worshiping your words.

It's you I love, not your words. She would say, If you love me, listen to my words. Now I just wanna make this point. So what he's saying basically is, like, your words are the point, I guess. Like, your words are what you meant.

Mhmm. But let's say she did tell him to get milk. Does that mean that every time he goes to the store until he dies, he has to get milk?

Yes. That's hilarious. That's a hilarious point.

Like, her words meant that this time.

But she has more words. Yeah. They can change. It can be different next time. Next time, it could be bread and eggs even.

Jonathan, that was a stupid point.

You made a stupid point. And then blogger Samuel Say then tweeted the article, and his comment was, if Satan wrote an article about the Bible, it would look just like this. You have to be able to take some to take a hard look at your own faith.

Mhmm.

You have to be able to dig really deep because I truly believe that the only people whose faith can stand against criticism are the people who have ripped it to shreds. Mhmm. The people who have pulled it all apart and said, this hurts so bad, but I don't think I believe the same way that I was taught to believe. Mhmm. Samuel is not doing that.

Samuel has also failed me. Samuel and Jonathan are not doing great today. So that's that article. And again, like, I would super recommend reading it and just, I don't know, living with that for a little bit.

I like to picture it like clay. If you're a potter, you know, that when you're building up like a vessel, you build it up at first, and then you push it back down. And then you build it back up, and then you push it back down. And then that's how you make your clay stronger. That's also our faith.

You build it up a little bit, and then you question some things. But you have to bring it back down to bring it back up again.

I was literally talking to our mom about this today in the car as I was picking my daughter up from school.

You were talking about pottery?

Not that. I'm not a potter. I don't know these things. I'm really not either. Brie took about five pottery classes without ever getting on the wheel.

That's not true. I got on the wheel in ninth grade.

Anyway and so I was talking to our mom today, and I was talking about how many of the people that are in our circle would consider themselves really strong Christians.

Mhmm.

Because they can quote the Bible at you like you wouldn't believe. Right? Mhmm.

They spend an hour a

day reading the Bible. They've read the Bible several times. Sure. Yep. We check all the little boxes off the list.

And yet, if you haven't challenged your own faith and let's say okay. Let's say, for instance, you have the belief that the bible is fully inerrant. No errors. Exactly perfect. Exactly what it meant to be.

And then someone comes at you with irrefutable proof that that's not true. Because maybe they take two translations, and they're like, hey. Look. These say different things.

Mhmm.

Or whatever it is. That can crumble your entire faith.

Mhmm.

If you haven't taken little pieces of your faith and examined them and ripped them apart and said, this is not right. This doesn't work. This is not what the Holy Spirit is telling me. If you haven't done those things, it takes very little to blow you over. Mhmm.

I used a house made of sticks. I used this example with my mom. And let's say you know all these verses because you went to Owana. And so so you know all these little individual verses. And you've got all these bricks.

Right? Each verse is a brick. And you got a pile of bricks. You can't build the house with the bricks until you get the mortar to put between the bricks. You need the stuff that holds it together.

Yeah. If you don't have that, your house doesn't work.

Yeah. Your house is just still a pile of bricks.

I mean, I'm not a builder.

Listen. So far, we've got pottery from not a potter and architecture from a writer.

We're doing good today. We're doing great. Yeah. But it makes sense. I'm pretty positive.

It makes sense. Or cookies. Should we do another metaphor? You can have all the ingredients. But if you don't mix them together and shove them in an oven, you got just ingredients.

There you go.

Well, yeah. Yep. Yep. And neither of us is bakers either. But however, based on my sound bites, all of your ears just exploded.

Yeah. You're welcome.

Yeah. I think the church focuses so much on the checkboxes.

Mhmm.

Read the Bible one hour every day. Memorize these verses. Read through the Bible in a year. And yet, so often, listening to the Holy Spirit and working that muscle because it is a little bit of a muscle to say, like, okay. What is god trying to tell me?

Mhmm. To take that quiet step back and not not I'm gonna read the bible and search for what god's trying to tell me, but just listening. Just sitting back and listening. We don't work that muscle. We don't try to do that.

And I think you're right. It it gets stronger the more

that you do it. I often find Jesus in the shower.

Oh, I'm so uncomfortable now. One

But liked just like quiet times where you're by yourself and meditating on his word

Mhmm.

But also meditating on his what He's saying to

you.

Mhmm. But also then you have to take a step Mhmm. And take a little bit of action. And trust that God will nudge you in another direction if that step was maybe wrong.

Mhmm. And if all you're doing is reading the bible, reading the bible, reading the bible, reading the bible, the bible doesn't actually give you day to day instructions. We wanna think that it does. Mhmm. That it is like, okay.

Wake up in the morning at 07:00. Read your bible. Do this. Like, it but it doesn't give you that. But you wanna know what can give you that?

The holy spirit.

Mhmm.

If you are looking for a personalized faith, I'm not saying throw the bible out. The bible is still God's word and has many good things. And if you're using the Bible, like I said, to seek out who God is Mhmm. If you're digging through the historical context, if you're saying, okay. Well, this you know, this is because they were in this time, and this makes sense because this was Roman law and etcetera, etcetera.

That's great. Utilize the Bible for that. Don't throw it out. Mhmm. It's not useless.

It's still great. It still has great things in it. God gave it to us for a reason. But if you want a personal faith, if you want a relationship with God, that relationship doesn't start and end in the Bible. It starts and ends with who God is, who Jesus is, and who the Holy Spirit

is. Mhmm.

And when you let them lead you, that's a personalized faith. Otherwise, you've got, like, a cookie cutter came out of the Christian press's faith.

Mhmm. The early church didn't worship the scrolls. They worshiped the one the scrolls revealed. So I think that's the point we're trying to get across is the Bible is not an idol. Even good things can be idols.

And the Bible is a good thing. But take it one step further. Learn about the different translations. Learn about historical context. Know that Ephesians was a letter to the Ephesians, and maybe not to Michiganders.

But to the Ohioans. Yes. Yes. We got hyper specific there. Yes.

Or trust other people who have studied this for forever. Mhmm. People like Beth Allison Barr. She's literally a scholar on this stuff. She can tell you the historical context about most of the Bible.

Mhmm.

I think that's all we have to say about that. I feel like we hit our points pretty well. Good for us. Huzzah. Yes.

Were we coherent for the last hour? I may have blacked out. Yep. Okay. Brie.

Yep. What? Brie is fully broken now. Brie hasn't been drinking her coffee. That's why.

I've been taking sips. Her 8PM coffee.

Everybody loves an 8PM coffee. Actually, most of what I've had today has been coffee.

That's good. That's healthy for you. Yeah. I heard nine out of 10 doctors recommend just a coffee diet. Just a coffee diet?

Yep. It's one of those new fangled trends. Like the egg diet or the carnivore diet. Okay. So next week, we're gonna talk about something more like current events, Because I would lately and I don't know if you follow us on TikTok, maybe you have.

But lately, there's been some men getting in trouble.

What? That never happens. What are you talking about?

Specifically, like, religious men.

But that never happens.

I know. So I think the title of next week's episode should be Another One. Really? So we're just gonna talk about some some current events. The idea of, like, not all men are bad, but here's some that are.

Well, liked we were talking about it earlier. And the you see this phrase a lot on social media of, not all men. Because men are trying to say, well, not all of us are bad. Mhmm. And that's a valid point.

Mhmm.

No one's trying to say all men are bad. However, because of the amount of men that are bad, women often have to treat all situations with men like they could be threatening.

Like gun safety laws. Mhmm. The first thing that they teach you is treat every weapon like it's a loaded weapon. Mhmm. And unfortunately, specifically to women, men have become a weapon.

So now we have to treat every single man as if they're a threat. Right.

And that's what we're gonna dive into. So nice and light next week.

Nice and light. A little bit of rage.

That never happens either.

No. It's rare for

us. But then the next two weeks are gonna be kind of fun and light. Mhmm. So we're gonna talk about because we're leading into spooky. We're leading to Halloween.

Mhmm. Very excited about that. Last year, we got to have an episode on Halloween, which was fun.

It was so fun. We did it on the Salem witch trials.

But this year, we do not have that. Cool to look back though and be like, this is what we did a year ago. Mhmm. So the following week, so in two weeks, we're gonna talk about Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Mhmm.

And the concept of monsters and creating monsters and women and getting credit taken from them and all that fun stuff. Mhmm. And then the following week, the day before Halloween, we have an episode that comes out. And we're gonna do it on haunted houses. And Brie and I are each going to come up with different rooms of haunted houses that relate to, like, Christian feminism.

If we could create our own haunted house, what would be in

each room? And we're not gonna share them with each other until the episode. We're So gonna be just as surprised as you are.

Let me spitball some ideas. Oh, dear. One room full of wet socks. Nobody likes that.

I didn't think that's quite the direction we were headed, but sure. Sure.

Yeah. Just Brianna's pet peeves.

That'll be a fun episode for you all. So look forward to that content calendar that we now have. We have a calendar.

Yes. You're welcome.

Also, make sure to follow us on TikTok and Instagram. You can look us up at the hashtag we are more, and you'll find us there, or

you can just try to Google us, see what happens. I don't know. Apparently, I don't know what will happen. It's really hard to Alright.

Well, we'll see you next week. Love you. Bye. Love you. Bye.