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Conversations around theology and the Bible. Pastor Cameron and Pastor Luke of Conduit Ministries share their reflections on theology and the teachings of Conduit Ministries.
We're so back. So back. You hear us? Podcast listeners, we are so back. These are uncut again, kind of.
Luke:Kind of.
Cameron:But, we're here to discuss, to talk about some of the information, or some of the stuff that we wish we could have said, or wish we had more time for in our current sermon series on theology, which is a walk through of our doctrinal statement. Yep. Which is not something that we've done here before.
Luke:Really?
Cameron:Nope. Not not in my memory.
Luke:Okay. Definitely not in mine, but I wasn't sure.
Cameron:Yep. No, not in my memory, But I I think it's it's important. It you you shared the quote the first week that you preached that what we believe about God Yes. Is the most important thing Important thing about us. About us.
Cameron:Yes. And, so here we are. We wanted to we're not saying we're not re saying everything that we said and the messages that we've preached. We're mainly maybe maybe talking about some of the sections that we wish we had more time to talk on. Yeah.
Cameron:So, this section is talking about the scriptures. Yeah. Which didn't get to talk about at all. Yeah. You know.
Cameron:Which is still important. Super important. It's obviously still in our doctrinal statement, but in our our doctrinal statement, on the scriptures, we say that we believe in the holy that the holy scriptures consisting of the Old and New Testaments, are the inspired, infallible, and inerrant word of God. They are the supreme and final authority in all matters of faith, conduct, and doctrine. The Bible is sufficient for life and godliness, and is to be diligently studied, faithfully preached, and joyfully obeyed.
Cameron:Mhmm. And, of course, if you look at that doctrinal statement online, you can see the references that we include in that. But where do you wanna start with this one, Pastor Luke?
Luke:Yeah. I guess, like, maybe we should just do like I don't know, like a quick, like, what is the Bible? Like, I don't know. Is that too basic?
Cameron:I don't know. I don't think so. I mean, because there's probably a lot of assumptions Yeah. About what the Bible is. Right.
Cameron:I was talking with a gentleman this afternoon, or this morning, and talking about as you approach the Bible to read it Mhmm. How should you read it? Because in most of our books that we have, you start at the beginning, and you end at the end, and you read a book straight through. And the question is, is the Bible like other books? Yeah.
Cameron:That you should read like that? Now, there's nothing wrong with reading it straight through, but the the main question is, like, is the Bible like other books? And the answer is no. No. It's not, both from a just the way it's composed Mhmm.
Cameron:And put together, but also what it actually means
Luke:Yes.
Cameron:And what it actually is, and what it's not.
Luke:Yeah. Because a lot of times, our first exposure to the Bible, at least mine was, was like a kid's story Bible.
Cameron:And
Luke:that kind of did read like a story. You could start at the beginning, and you would read through it, and you'd get through this whole narrative a little bit. But if you read a real Bible, you read it all the way through, you're going to encounter a lot of stuff that's just either weird, weird's maybe not even the right it's hard to understand because you don't have the context for it, or it's out of order, which is something a lot of people don't realize. If you're doing one of our through the Bible reading plans that we have scattered around the church, where you go through the Bible in a year, you'll notice that you read the first couple chapters of Genesis, and then you immediately skip forward a significant portion, and you read the book of Job. And you're like, why am I reading the book of Job that's halfway through the Old Testament?
Luke:Well, Job's probably one of the oldest stories in the Bible.
Cameron:Yep.
Luke:So yeah, reading the Bible is kind of like it's a little confusing, and also, it's technically a compilation?
Cameron:No. It's yeah. Not yeah. It's very it's 66 books Yeah. Crammed into one book Right.
Cameron:Or just put together to make one book. Yep. And we call them books, but most of them aren't books. Yeah. Most of them, even like Psalms, is a compilation of small writings, and poems, and songs.
Cameron:Most
Luke:of the New Testaments are letters.
Cameron:Letters, or just autobiographies, biographical accounts. And yeah, I think probably one of the more confusing aspects of the Bible is that it's generally not broken up chronologically. Yeah. That it's broken up generally by genre, and that if you don't understand that, and you try and start in Genesis and read through, by the time you get to Psalms, Proverbs, stuff like that, you're like, this isn't why is this like this? I mean, like Why are why are we doing this?
Luke:Why are we doing this? Yes. I'm like, you know, I think most people begin to ask that question when you get into Leviticus and Numbers.
Cameron:It's true.
Luke:You start reading genealogies, and you're like, Why is this sacred book that I'm supposed to read have genealogies in it?
Cameron:So maybe what would be a good example is let's do a two minute flyby Alright. Of the sections of the genres. Okay. Okay? So the beginning, you have five books.
Luke:Yes.
Cameron:Right? Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Classically called the Pentateuch. The Pentateuch. Five.
Cameron:Pentateuch five. Or you might hear people call it the Torah. Mhmm. Same thing. Yeah.
Cameron:Kind of different meaning, but same same thing. And those were the foundational books of the Jewish people. Yes. The Israelites.
Luke:Anytime they to the law.
Cameron:They're referring to the five books. Correct. What you'll see in there is the story of creation. Mhmm. The story of the patriarchs, those who were who came before the formation.
Cameron:Abraham,
Luke:Joseph
Cameron:Yep. Jacob. Mhmm. Correct. All all of those, like, patriarchal figures that led up to the the lineage of then you're at then you're at Abraham.
Cameron:Yep. And Abraham begins the run through of the Jewish people, or the Israelite people. And so there's historical stories in there. Yep. So it recounts the history, but it also recounts the giving and receiving of the law.
Cameron:And God's covenant with the people to be their God as they obey him.
Luke:Yes. Alright. That's the climax of the story of Exodus. Correct.
Cameron:After you get out of the Pentateuch, or those first five books, you get into historical books.
Luke:Yes.
Cameron:So those are books like first and second Chronicles.
Luke:Yep. Joshua.
Cameron:Joshua. Judges. Judges. First and second Kings. First and second Samuel.
Cameron:Ezra. Nehemiah. Yeah. Ruth.
Luke:Yep. First and second Chronicles. Yeah. Those all give an account of the kingdom, or the history of the Jewish people inside of the land of Israel.
Cameron:Yes. Told When God, hey, we want a king, like all the nations around us. Yep. They got a king. The first king Saul did not go well.
Luke:No. David went much better.
Cameron:David went much better, had his own So complicated. Yep. Solomon.
Luke:We start the
Cameron:We start the gradual descent. Yep.
Luke:Post Solomon, the kingdom splits into two. Correct. Yeah. And then it's just chaos from then on, with moments of return. You know, the people continually turn astray to false idols.
Luke:Things do not go well. Yep. A prophet comes. A leader comes, turns them back to God for a generation or two
Cameron:Mhmm.
Luke:And then things go badly again.
Cameron:Yeah. And how did God usually tell the people, hey, this isn't going well, so this is what happens? Prophet. A prophet, yeah. So, someone would be raised up.
Cameron:Mhmm. They would speak to the people about their wickedness, and about their sin, and about their need to turn back from God, and if you don't, there will be judgment. Mhmm. And, in some cases, there will be exile Mhmm. From the promise that you received in the original covenant.
Cameron:Yes. And in most of the so when you get to the latter part of the Old Testament, the end part of the Old Testament, you have the major prophets, and you have the minor prophets, and that's really just about the length of the books. Yeah.
Luke:It's misnomer.
Cameron:Yeah.
Luke:A major prophet means there's a big book.
Cameron:Longer prophets.
Luke:Yeah. Longer prophet and shorter prophet is the better
Cameron:way to say it. And, I think, I honestly think this is my contention, that the moving of those prophetic books to the end of the Old Testament is the most confusing part of the Old Testament. Yeah. Because if you picked them up, each one individually, and you laid them like a transparency over the places in the historical books, where they actually were functioning, it would make it make so much more sense.
Luke:Yeah, it's kind of like you were talking about those first five books, and then there's, after those first five books, things kind of branch. There's kind of like if you picture a timeline that's going, there's a branch that goes up and a branch that goes down. One of those branches you could visualize as like the histories for II Samuel, Chronicles, Kings, those give you a historical account, sometimes mentioning certain prophets and things like that. You could then, on the second branch, you could take all of those prophetic books that are at the end, and you could lay those out on a separate timeline underneath that matches up with certain moments in those history accounts.
Cameron:Yes. And so you see who God raises up. He raises up Hezekiah. He raises up Amos. He raises up Obadiah, and Joel, and Haggai, and all of those names we don't know how to pronounce.
Cameron:Right?
Luke:Jonah and Isaiah.
Cameron:Yeah. Just awesome, awesome stories though. Like, fantastic stories. Yep. Bring such richness, and like, oh, God is constantly calling His people back to faithfulness, back to obedience, back to obedience, back to the covenant, and they continue to be like, no, no, no, no, no.
Cameron:There's really two significant periods of time Yep. In the history of the Israelite people, where God sends basically an invading empire. Takes them away. Yeah. Mhmm.
Cameron:That removes them from the promised land, the Assyrians and the Babylonians.
Luke:First, the Northern Kingdom, and then the Southern Kingdom after And
Cameron:and so the people are almost always in this not almost always, but for long periods of time, even back into the Exodus, under slavery to foreign kingdoms Yep. And crying out to the Lord for a savior, and out of those cries comes God's promise through the prophets of a Messiah, a savior.
Luke:Yep. And there's the that covers that, and then there's a handful of books that are exile books. Daniel, which is kind of a prophetic book, has some prophecy in it, but also has a little bit of the story of the exile. There's the book of Nehemiah. The people actually leave exile, go and somewhat build a successfully.
Luke:And then there's the story of Esther, which takes place during exile. So those are kind of unique.
Cameron:The only book in the Bible does not mention God.
Luke:Right? Esther. Mhmm. So those are kind of like history, prophetic Yep. In their own right, kind of holding this very unique there's one other minor prophet I am forgetting about that I think happens in the in the exile, who laments the the the state of the rebuilt temple.
Luke:Mhmm. Like, they they they remember what the temple used to have been like
Cameron:Mhmm.
Luke:Or what it was supposed to have been like, and it's and it's
Cameron:Well, then and then alongside those exilic those exilic books Yes. Is a little section in the middle where we're like Psalms Psalms. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations. Oh, and Song of Songs. And Song of Songs.
Cameron:Yes. Yes. Or Song of Solomon. Yeah. Which don't read like other books.
Cameron:There's no like narrative flow. Yeah. It's like little tidbits Mhmm. Songs, poems, pithy statements.
Luke:Yep. Philosophy, reflection on life, meaning.
Cameron:Mhmm. They exist within a historical context. Not out of they're not just plucked out of nowhere.
Luke:Yeah. Well, Psalms is an interesting one. If you read Psalms at the beginning of most not every Psalm, but the beginning of most Psalms, there's a little inscription that says of or who wrote it.
Cameron:A
Luke:lot of them written by David. Sometimes it says what David was going through when he wrote it.
Cameron:And
Luke:if you read the book of Psalms, this is like next level stuff, but if you read the book of Psalms, you'll notice that the book of Psalms is divided up into different books itself, and each of those books can align with a different segment of Israel's wrestling with God throughout their history. You know, the last part really wrestling with exile and with wanting to come back into the land. Proverbs is kind of that, Proverbs, wise sayings that don't really tell a coherent story. Yeah. Ecclesiastes is a reflection on the meaning of life, most likely written by Solomon or around that time period.
Luke:Song of Songs, Cameron, what's that one?
Cameron:Well, that's clearly a picture of the relationship between Jesus and the church.
Luke:Oh, you don't say.
Cameron:Song of Songs is or Song of Solomon is a is an interesting book. Read it, and tell us what you think it's about.
Luke:Don't read it to your kids, though.
Cameron:Yeah. Very sexual in nature. Yeah. I'm not saying erotic in nature, but very intimate.
Luke:Yes.
Cameron:And, and we said let's do a two minute flyby of the whole Bible Yeah. And we just did a ten minute flyby of the Old Testament.
Luke:Old Testament, yeah.
Cameron:But then we get into the New Testament. Yep. And we start out by having four books that look like, sound like, act like themselves, like each other. Yeah. In in in for the most part, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the Gospels, which are biographies of the life and ministry of Jesus from four different perspectives.
Cameron:And Matthew is a Jew, so he wrote from a really Jewish perspective. You see a lot of references to the Old Testament because he was most familiar with Mark, the shortest of the Gospels, classically seen as the earliest Gospel Yep. That was written, and the source for Matthew and Luke, specifically. Luke was Greek, and his syntax, his writing, and kind of like the narrative focus of his Gospel kind of lends you to believe that even further. John wrote in kind of a completely different form than the other three writers.
Luke:Talks about things that they didn't talk about entirely, omits things that they talked about. It's the most unique of the four.
Cameron:Yeah, and just has a different way of talking about Yes,
Luke:very theological.
Cameron:Yes, very deeply theological, and he tell he's one of the only ones that tells you why he's writing his Gospel. Yep. And he he kind of ends with it. I have wrote I have written this Yes. So that you would believe.
Luke:Yep.
Cameron:And after after the gospels, you have probably the what I would call the history book of the New Testament in the book of Acts.
Luke:Which is technically Luke point two.
Cameron:The go Yes. The gospel the writer of the gospel of Luke is classically believed to have written the book of Acts as well. Mhmm. And it runs through the really, defining moments in the development of the early church, both in to the Jews and to the Gentiles Yep. With the inclusion of Paul's ministry, starting in Acts chapter nine in his conversion.
Cameron:Out of that, you kind of see springs forth these epistles
Luke:Right.
Cameron:Or these letters that are
Luke:This is this is another place where you have kind of two branches of the timeline. You can read the book of Acts, and you'll see Paul going to these towns, these places, starting churches, having interactions, being in prison, being kicked out of town, and then you can later, as you read the rest of the New Testament, you'll see, oh, Corinthians. Paul was in Corinthians at this point in the book of Acts.
Cameron:Or Rome, or Thessalonica, or Colossi, or Ephesus. Ephesus.
Luke:So those letters that come after the books after the book of Acts are mostly, not entirely, but mostly written by Paul. Mhmm. He's writing to those churches he started in the book of Acts, and giving them further instructions.
Cameron:Mhmm.
Luke:And that makes up a significant portion of our theology as Christians.
Cameron:Yes. Yeah. And Paul writes most of those letters. You have some letter, you have one I think you have, I would say, one book in the New Testament whose authorship is disputed, but I use that term loosely, the book of Hebrews.
Luke:Right. It's mostly unknown. People have tons of arguments. Some think it's Apollo, some think it's Luke, some think it's Paul, even though it's definitely not Paul.
Cameron:Pastor Luke has his opinion.
Luke:I have my opinions. But that's the one that's kind of unknown. Then you have Jude,
Cameron:Yep. Which is technically called Judas, but
Luke:we call it Jude because Judas is kind of a taboo name.
Cameron:It's got some baggage. It's got some baggage.
Luke:It's different Judas. Jude, there's James, the half brother of Jesus. There is
Cameron:First, second, and third John.
Luke:First, second, third John, late letters of John. Then
Cameron:First and second Peter.
Luke:Yep. Yep. Peter wrote
Cameron:those Yeah. And then Revelation.
Luke:Yep. Which was another John.
Cameron:Another John. Yep.
Luke:Same John, but another book by John.
Cameron:Yes. Which is apocalyptic in nature. Yes. And
Luke:That's kind of like the prophecy book of the New Testament. Correct. It's poetic and prophetic. Right.
Cameron:And so that really kind of runs the gamut in terms of genre there. When you break it down like that, it may be I
Luke:hope that's helpful. Yeah. Oh, I think that gives an overview if you're just like, what is this that I'm reading, and why is it sometimes easier to read? That even informs, like, if you pick up a book and you know it's a mystery thriller versus a biography, you're going to read those two books different. And so when you pick up the Bible and you flip to Psalms versus when you're reading the Gospel versus when you're reading Revelation, you're going to read all three of those books a little bit different, because you know the genre is a little bit Yeah.
Luke:So that's kind of like the contents of the book. It was written over thousands of years in three different language by people who never got met.
Cameron:The
Luke:church and Christians have recognized that this is the book, this is God's book, that he played a part in writing. So let's talk about the theology of it
Cameron:a Yeah. Little We talked about the three I's. The Okay. Inspiration, infallibility, inerrancy. Right?
Cameron:And that's what we have, like, we've indicated in our doctrinal statement. Sometimes those words are used interchangeably.
Luke:Yes. They are hard to keep straight.
Cameron:They are. They can be hard to keep straight. I I don't wanna over, like, maybe an oversimplification, but I think we can do, like, when we say that the that Bible is inspired Yes. What do we mean by that? When we say it's infallible, or inerrant, what do we mean by Inspired.
Luke:This is Inspired is always an interesting It's a hard word for us to get to use in English, because when we think of inspired, we think of the muses and an artist, Oh, I was inspired by the sunset, and I drew this very impressionistic abstract painting that looks nothing like a sunset.
Cameron:Really,
Luke:the phrase behind the word inspired in the Bible is God breathed. Yeah. Meaning, when we say the Bible's inspired, we mean it comes from God. Yeah. That God is the source of it.
Luke:Yeah. So flipping your Bible.
Cameron:Yeah, of course. Like, when you talk about inspiration, there's one major verse that we think of, you know, in second Timothy, Paul. Paul wrote in second Timothy chapter three. Mhmm. He is writing to Timothy, his protege, and he says, but as for you, continue in what you have learned and be and have become convinced of because you know those from whom you learned it and how from infancy you have known the holy scriptures, which you are able to make which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
Cameron:All scripture is God breathed. There's that phrase there. Yeah. We believe it's inspired by God. Like, its life comes from God.
Cameron:Yes. That's what we mean when we say it is inspired. All scripture is God breathed, is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the person of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. And so to say that God inspired something is not the same thing as to say, God wrote it in His own hand, and then sent a carrier pigeon into the world, and it just poofed on the scene. Mhmm.
Cameron:But that in the physical writing of the documents that we now have is scripture, that God was breathing life into that writing. Mhmm. And that it comes as the in the power and the authority of his spirit. Yep. Meaning, it is not the work of man that sought to communicate their own agenda, opinion, or preference, but that we believe that God's spirit has breathed life into, and inspired the actual writing of the book.
Cameron:Yep. Books.
Luke:Yep. It's it's both a divine and human book.
Cameron:Correct. And then you have infallible and inerrant, which are two words that we get, like
Luke:I I I'll be honest. I have a hard time keeping them. Okay. So let me see if I can get it right.
Cameron:Okay.
Luke:Infallible means anything that it says, any promise that it makes, or any prophecy it has will come to pass, or it will not fail. That's how I always remind myself.
Cameron:Infallible means that the Bible will not fail. Or that it can be like, that it is it is true to itself in the sense of like, it is not look if you're talking about it as like a personality, that it is not it it it is not unfaithful. Yeah. So, when you say like, that the Bible is infallible, it would it would be like saying that it is it will fulfill itself, like
Luke:Mhmm.
Cameron:The word of God will not come back void. Right. Right? And that it can be the way that I have always understood it, that it can be trusted. Yes.
Cameron:Yep. That we can trust it. It is useful Mhmm. For teaching, correcting, rebuking, and training in righteousness, and it contains all that is needed for life and godliness. Yep.
Cameron:Inerrancy is maybe a little bit different than that.
Luke:A little bit different.
Cameron:A little bit different. But, it's probably the one that people have more issue with, or at least in my experience have more issue with. Yes. Because inerrancy, in this most technical way, say it is without error. Yeah.
Cameron:So, when the scripture says that Jesus fed 5,000 people.
Luke:Means he fed 5,000 people.
Cameron:On the dot. On the dot. Right? Yeah. And you can really take that to the nth degree like that.
Cameron:Yes. But, I think that the thrust of inerrancy is that it's not meaning to deceive.
Luke:Right, it's
Cameron:truthful. It's truthful. Yeah.
Luke:And that's the thing, so one of the classical examples is some people will argue, they're like, Well, you can't believe that the Bible is true because the Bible says that the sun rises in the Psalm. And the sun does not technically rise, Cameron. We revolve around the sun. But you're reading a psalm, which we just talked about as poetic language. Yeah.
Luke:And so, the Bible does not literally mean to communicate a scientific understanding that the sun rises and is revolving around the earth. Yeah. It's communicating a poetic thing. Right. Same thing when we come to the interpretation question of how many people exactly did Jesus feed?
Luke:Yeah. Did the back then, like, now, we have people who, like, we digitally count. We have cameras at venues and things. Like, when we say x amount of people, we're livestreaming an event, we literally mean that amount of people. Yeah.
Luke:But in the ancient world, they didn't use numbers like that, and so what the Bible meant to communicate, it did so honestly and truthfully. Correct. With the level of accuracy it meant to communicate it with
Cameron:as Yes. That's a great way to put it. Yeah. So we have those three I's, which are from a theological standpoint, they speak a lot about it, especially inspiration. Yep.
Cameron:But then, it's purpose. Yes. What is like, it's actual spiritual purpose? The holy scriptures is the supreme and final authority in all matters of faith, conduct, and doctrine. It is sufficient for life and godliness, and is to be diligently studied, faithfully preached, and joyfully obeyed.
Cameron:So let's talk about these ideas of it being the supreme and final authority in all matters of faith, conduct, and doctrine, and is sufficient for life and godliness.
Luke:Yeah. So supreme and final authority. I think this is really important. The fancy way of saying this is we believe in sola scriptura,
Cameron:which
Luke:means Scripture is our highest authority. But what it doesn't say is it's our only authority. Okay. Right?
Cameron:At least that's Yeah, no say more.
Luke:So that would be solo, Scriptura.
Cameron:And
Luke:maybe I'm kind of getting ahead of myself by caveating what it means, but the Bible is our highest authority. So anything that the Bible speaks on, it speaks authoritatively on, to the highest degree. Things it doesn't speak on, like the nature of a molecule, or the boiling point of water. Right. It's not the final authority on what the boiling point of water is, because it doesn't
Cameron:Speak on.
Luke:It doesn't speak on it.
Cameron:Yeah.
Luke:It doesn't talk about it. And so, one of the things that gets a little tricky with this doctrine that it is very honorable, and we absolutely should always hold the Scripture as our highest authority, 100%. That can get a little tricky when we forget that there are other things that have authority as well, they're just a lesser authority, or that the Bible's not an authority on all things. And so we don't wanna get into a place where we're just like that's kind of like there are certain denominations that say, well, you can't have guitars and drums and electronics. You have to do it like with an organ for some reason, or you have to do it completely acapella when you do worship.
Luke:Mhmm. And they would say, well, because that's what you see in the Bible.
Cameron:Mhmm. And we're
Luke:like, well, the Bible doesn't does the Bible
Cameron:As they tweet that.
Luke:Right. As they tweet
Cameron:that. And
Luke:what does the Bible well, the Bible, yes, speaks about how we should worship, but it doesn't necessarily speak about all the details of that, or doesn't necessarily prohibit all of this. And so we get to have a dialogue where we say, Scripture is our highest authority, we should seek to align our worship with it, but we need to also understand that the Bible doesn't necessarily speak about every single detail.
Cameron:Right. Of life. Of life. But everything that it speaks on,
Luke:Right.
Cameron:It is true and the highest authority.
Luke:So, the nature of God. Yes. The nature of humanity.
Cameron:Mhmm.
Luke:Who Christ is. What salvation is. What the gospel is. Yes. These things it speaks on with utmost authority.
Cameron:Right. And then it's completely sufficient for life and godliness. Yeah, how would you describe that? What I would say on that is like, in a similar way to like, everything that it speaks on, it speaks on from a place of authority, is that there is nothing that I There is is nothing that I can that I can gain from another source in the world that will make me flourish Mhmm. Spiritually, as I'm created to be, and form me more completely into the image and likeness of Jesus, more than God's word.
Cameron:Yeah. Meaning, I don't need the Bible and. It doesn't mean the ands can't be helpful, in the similar way that we just talked about.
Luke:Right.
Cameron:Authority. Other things have authority. It's like, I just need the Bible. I don't need community. Right?
Cameron:You'll hear people say things like, don't need the church, I just stay home and read my Bible. Yeah. Except that the Bible commands community.
Luke:To be in community. To be part of the church. Right.
Cameron:And so, it contains everything that I need for life and godliness. Everything that I need to flourish in who God has called me to be Mhmm. Created me to be, wants me to be in Jesus Christ, I can find it in Scripture. There's no Scripture and in order to make me more like Jesus. Yeah.
Cameron:And then, it is to be diligently studied, faithfully preached, and joyfully obeyed.
Luke:Yeah. Which is why we preach out of it. It's why we teach out of it. Right. Know, we do like a bunch of different types of way of preaching at Conduit.
Luke:Sometimes we'll take a topic, which is kind of what we're doing now, even though it's a little bit less of a don't know, it's more of a scripturally based topic, like theology. We're taking a topic of theology each week, and then we seek to base what we say out of scripture. Not to say something and find how we can make scripture support it, but always draw what we say out of. And then other ways we preach, we just take a whole book of the Bible, or a whole section of the Bible, and we just preach through it. Seek to explain what it says, and apply what it says to our Yeah.
Cameron:If I had a final thing to say about the Bible, think I would say it from a devotional standpoint, is one of the things that I see a lot is the I see actually a lot of guilt and shame wrapped up in relationship, in a believer's relationship to scripture. Mhmm. And them them feeling really, really bad, to the point of feeling guilt and shame Yep. That they don't read the Bible enough Mhmm. And that God is punishing them, or is mad at them be because they don't read it enough.
Cameron:Yeah. And I would say a few things to that. Number one, you're right. You probably don't read it enough. I don't read it enough.
Cameron:Right. Right. I I need to read my Bible more, but I don't need to read my Bible more, because God has a word count He wants me to hit, or a chapter amount, or a number of times that I read the Bible in a year. I need to read my Bible more, because the scripture is an invitation into relationship and into intimacy with God. Yeah.
Cameron:It deepens our reading the Bible deepens our love for God. Mhmm. It can deepen our hunger for more of the Bible. Mhmm. It protects our heart from sin, you know, like Psalm one nineteen eleven, I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
Cameron:Yep. And so, and so, the approach to scripture reading and devotional reading of the scripture is not like a you better do this, God demands it. It is less that, and it is more God invites you to know Him deeper, to grow in your capacity to love him and to love others Mhmm. To understand yourself more fully. How confused is this culture about who, about who they, about who we are as Oh
Luke:my gosh.
Cameron:So it is an invitation to full life flourishing. Yep. And if I wanted to say anything to anyone about reading the Bible, it's like, get yourself out from underneath guilt and shame, and receive the invitation Yeah. To grow in intimacy, and to flourish according to God's word.
Luke:Yep. I think that's a great word. It's not just a rule book. It's not just a thing that, do this and don't do this. Yeah.
Luke:It's God's invitation to relationship.
Cameron:Yeah. Okay. Well, we hope you liked this next little section on the scripture. We've covered a lot of ground there. Yep.
Cameron:There is, of course, more, and more, and more resources that you can hit. I think we shared a few of them. Reading the Bible for all it's worth, or Scripture for all it's worth is a really good one. I have a really good book by Bruce Metzger on my desk right now on the Canon and the Development of the New Testament. Yep.
Cameron:Excellent, excellent book. And if you're really interested on the way that the New Testament in particular was formed and built.
Luke:Yep. Really recommend the resources thebibleproject.com. They have summary videos of each book of the Bible, so if you're getting ready to read a book of the Bible, you could go there, look up their summary video, and that will help you significantly in understanding the book you're about to read.
Cameron:I hope you enjoyed it, and we'll see you back for our next talk on humanity and sin. Yes.