April 29, 2019 Show with Noel & Denise Enete on “How to Read the Bible So God Speaks to You”

Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania. It's iron sharpens iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us. Iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another. Matthew Henry said that in this passage We are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation To make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours. And we hope to hear from you the listener with your own questions. And now here's your host Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at iron sharpens iron radio .com. This is Chris Arnzen your host of iron sharpens iron radio wishing you all a happy Monday on this 29th day of April 2019 and I am Just getting back yesterday Last night from the Philadelphia Conference on Reform Theology as many of you have been seeing from my Facebook posts, I had a really blessed time I was able to reconnect with old friends and some of my Modern-day heroes that I have interviewed on this program in the past some of whom I've never met in person and some of whom I Haven't seen in years and there were others that I met for the first time like Kevin de Young and others Who I hope to interview in the future, but it was a really wonderful blessing and it was a blessing seeing Matt Stoll from the IRBS Theological Seminary who had a exhibitors booth right near mine and others so It is something that I'm going to be looking forward to attending Next year as well.

That's the Philadelphia Conference on Reform Theology in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and I hope To enjoy the upcoming conferences. I'm going to just as much but we'll be talking about those future conferences During our midway break here later on but once in a while a listener an avid listener faithful listener of iron sharpens iron radio who is excited about what we do here and and spreads the word about what we do here and The guests and topics that we have once in a while.

We have such a listener recommend Guests to be interviewed and today is that case we have a wonderful listener in, Texas Maggie Conley who contacted me and strongly urged me to interview her brother and sister-in-law Noel and Denise Enid and they are going to be addressing their book how to read the Bible.

So God speaks to you and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you both to orange up and Zion radio for the very first time Noel and Denise Enid. And by the way, I forgot to ask you is it Noel like the Christmas song or Noel like Noel coward.

Okay, sorry about the mispronunciation in the beginning. Well before we get into the topic of your book How to read the Bible so God speaks to you.

I.

Want as we normally do when we have first-time guests on iron trip and Zion radio I want each of you to give a summary of your salvation testimony. What kind of religious atmosphere? You you were raised in and what kind of Providential circumstances our Sovereign Lord raised up in your life that he used to draw you to himself and save you.

And I'll leave it up to you to who is going to go first. Should it be Denise or Noel?

Okay, I.

Was raised in a lukewarm kind of family rich and go to church from time to time, but There was no real power there. I made a profession of faith in second grade very young. Then when I was off in college at Cal Poly, I had a campus minister from meet with me several times and he really shared the idea of what God's grace was all about and it's at that time that I Rededicated my life got involved in that church off campus and.

One day when I was singing in the church Denise and her two roommates came in the back of the church and Sat over on the left side of the church and and you know the whole service there was this glow coming from.

I.

Couldn't keep my eyes off of that that illuminated part of the building and At the end of the service the pastor said if anyone has Recently made a decision for Christ and would like to make it public Come on down to the front and you know, this girl came down to the front one of those three and it was Denise and You know, I was looking at her there and I don't know what but said to do follow.

He did but I was raised in a Home where it was we went to a really liberal church, so it never really Got to me. I never really heard the gospel. So but I was so glad I went to Cal Poly and San Luis Obispo.

I was really glad not to go to church for a while and for the first two years. I didn't go. But the good thing about being raised in a home where you do go to church you start to sort of miss that. So that's sort of a good thing.

So when I was coming back for my third year At Cal Poly. I didn't notice campus crusades for Christ and I was curious and I thought okay, let me go see what this is about and after a series of interviews with them, I Accepted Christ as my Savior and they were the ones that told me I need to get involved in the church, too.

So I started. That was the first Sunday I went after my Acceptance of the Lord as my Savior and so I went to this church and he said to come forward if you want to make it public and that's how. No, he was good at follow-up.

So you basically stalked her after you saw her go for an altar call.

So.

Yeah, go ahead. I was just gonna say how long after your first meeting. Did you two start? To court one another and. Eventually, how soon did you get married?

Well, it was it was quite a long evangelistic meeting in this church. So he took me every night to the Evangelistic meeting so that was sort of You know jump through the cannon really fast but we didn't kiss or anything for that whole week and.

Then we just started dating, right? Yeah, then it was three months until we got engaged. Yeah, and a total of seven months till we got married.

Pretty fast praise God. And may I ask where the both of you attend church now?

We.

Attend a church in Irvine, California called Terra Nova. It's the combining of two and they came up with the name come close together and make a third. Brighter start. So that's the and it may have something to do with the glow that was coming off of your Someday-to-be wife that you met.

That glow has followed for years.

Well I'm sorry. Go ahead.

No felt called to teach the Bible. So we ended up. Getting married after our third year and then transferring to a Bible College. We didn't finish up at Cal Poly. We we went to a Bible College in Pennsylvania by the way.

Where is that?

Baptist Bible College in Clark Summit. Okay. Yes. I've heard of it.

Yeah, it's called Clark Summit University now, but then we went to Dallas Theological Seminary. I got a THM there for her master's there and then delivered twins and. After the kids got old enough she did.

Oh Wow and.

Are you still doing that today Denise? Or is that something that when we moved from Seal Beach?

I had a private practice there for years. But then we moved and so I closed my practice because it was too far away so ever since then we've combined our ministries and We our focus is how to help people have a Good quiet time with God.

I'll be able to feed themselves from the Bible and Desire God not. It's quite time our Bible study tends to be a problem for a lot of people. It's hard to make it work either motivation wise or skill wise and so we have Combined our ministry.

I love to do the motivation piece. And Noel typically does the skill piece. What do you do? when you study the Bible, but We've noticed more Bible study times bite the dust because of motivation. Because most anyone can pick up daily bread or do something, you know if they want to.

But if they're having trouble with their motivation It tends to go awry. And so that's The part I work on I I help them find their first love I.

I when I.

Ironically enough when I went to Baptist Bible College I took methodical Bible study as one of the classes to graduate and by the end of that class I hated Bible study. Wow. It did not work for me. It was dry and you know, it just graphs and charts and I Floundered I have been doing when I was a new Christian.

You know daily bread and I was growing. But once I learned how to do all of this more complicated Bible study I felt like I couldn't go back to daily bread. And so I just floundered and I didn't do anything and until we delivered our first daughter and Then I thought I don't want to be the kind of mother that never cracks the Bible for herself and just goes to church so I had to Deal with that.

I had to address it and What I noticed in the Bible was, you know, like first Peter to to like a newborn baby. Desire that sincere milk of the word and I thought you know You do not have to teach a newborn baby to want milk if they're healthy.

They just it's a God-given desire. They want it and I noticed David in Psalm 42. He says there's a deer pants For water so my soul pants for you and I was like wow, you know I would love to feel that way and and then I noticed in Revelation 2 for God says I have this against you you have left your first love and.

So.

That's when I Made a determination that that's what I need to find again because I used to be drawn. I wanted To read the Bible, you know, and I thought that's what I need to do. So I Spent some time.

And we help people do that finding their first love. I have some questions you ask yourself and that kind of thing and I Waited until it wasn't like this in You know huge fire flame of desire. It was a little burn a Little desire it was what I wanted and that's what I help other people find their first Love.

It never died. It just gets carried up covered over, you know with the cares of the world and What we hope and want for people is that they lead with their first love and instead of leading with discipline.

Because typically you lose, you know. It gets covered over and you get buffeted by life and then you come back and you say oh, wow I haven't read my Bible in a while. I need to get more disciplined and.

In one.

Stroke. You replace what you used to have your first love with discipline and. It's a sort of a you you you need discipline, you know. But you need to lead with your first love instead of leading with discipline.

This isn't is real good for smoothing out the bumps in a road.

And yeah, so we try to help people, you know, it can work discipline can work. You can keep showing up and fall in love with God and get to know when you find your first love, but the danger is You keep showing up you keep being good you're faithful.

You're good and the focus is on your Yourself and you can go your whole life being good and being faithful and you don't really need God. And so you just check it off and that's the danger. So I think that's Why it's so important to have the relationship.

Put back in Center and then you you guard that with some discipline anyway, that's that's sort of our Emphasis and don't talk about the skill part of what he does.

Yeah I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Well, I was just going to ask you but you could you could continue with your thought and then I'll ask you what I was. Going to ask you after I finish.

Okay yes, our we're trying to have help people have a meaningful Bible reading time and The first thing we address is motivation that most people don't address it and if they do they just say and What we've found is if if people can can identify their first love How strong it is and design their Bible reading time wrong?

Then they'll grow they'll meet each other that they'll meet God where they're at on the skill part. We have some very simple four steps, it's a variation of inductive Bible study observation interpretation application at the name and Simplified the Objective it's not aimed at The Bible scholar it's aimed at anybody that wants to be a self feeder.

The names instead of observe a challenges turned us into a challenges and response end up we finally went went along with it and it is is a Simple way to remember the steps the facts, you know, you just say what's there the lessons you?

What can you learn from the passage? The challenges. You turn each lesson into a question for for example if I was studying The Genesis chapter 12 the calling of Abraham, but he didn't tell him where to go.

What lesson could I learn. I could learn a lesson that sometimes God wants us to take action before we know. Everything we need to know. Okay, so there's a lesson that's something I can learn and then the challenge is really interesting.

The challenge is Taking that lesson and turning it into a question. The lesson God wants us to take action before we have all the facts. So turn that into a question. Would I be willing to take action if God asked me to do so before I had all the facts?

So once you do those the last step is response and that's a simple two or three sentence prayer. We write these things down, but you don't have to and in the prayer, you're simply listening to and then Responding to him.

Sometimes that response is real easy. He's asking you to do something that you want to do and you know. You you just you know, tell him that you know, you're going to get on that. And just respond truthfully, but since truthfulness is so important the problem comes when you guys asking you to do something you really don't want to do at all and for that.

You know put training wheels on your response and and say something like God. I know this is your heart. I know this is what you want. I know that this would be better for me help me want to. I know it's on your heart.

We teach and we we have an app that we have a tool in the app. Integrated in the Bible that for each of those steps to fill in your lesson. No.

What I was going to ask before is I Heard earlier Denise basically talking about how difficult it was at one time for her to study the Bible and and How did obviously you're you're writing this book? came out of disappointment with other ways in which people were instructing you or suggesting that you Study the Bible.

And how did this come? About to a full-blown book where it started from just Disappointment and how did you develop? Something that Appears to have borne fruit in your lives and that you feel so strongly about it or believe so strongly about it I should say because we Christians should be less and less concerned with feelings and what we believe and think.

But but How did the How did this come about? You know, were you being encouraged by your pastors other members of the church? Tell us how this went from Disappointment in what existed to a full-blown book and an app.

Well, I I started wrestling with the idea of finding my first love and I just I spent like five minutes a day. Just considering things like do I want to know God and how do I want my life to be, you know I'll just one-dimensional or do I want it to be have a spiritual aspect and do I want to know his will?

And do I want to please God, you know all those kind of questions I would take five minutes a day and think about it until I started Healing them. I desire for God's purpose and then I thought okay. How do what do I want to do with Bible study and and I'm sort of you know simple straightforward kind of person and I thought I want to get to know God and so I just started reading in Genesis and I said I'm just going to read for one thing.

I'm going to read until I learn something about God what he values what he reacts to. What he cares about what makes him upset what makes him happy. And I'm just going to read until I something hits me about who he is.

And so some days I would just read two verses and I'd say oh wow He really cares about family or you know He's really into details and then other times I might have to read two or three chapters. Before something that hit me, but I was reading for one thing and it was what can I learn about God?

And what he cares about and so I went through the whole Bible that way it took a couple years but that's what I did and Some women came to me and they asked me if I would mentor them. It was sort of like out of the blue and I thought oh.

Okay I.

Could do that. I can share with them What's been helpful to me? And so that was the start of? This mentoring and so no one I were sort of like. And then no one I were teaching. We started teaching a Bible study.

And so we started writing this book and Passing out the next bit of chapter, you know each. Each time we met each week, you know. So that's sort of how it it got started the book.

Anyway, each each chapter of the book is basically one session with the group and it's divided in half half of it to need to addresses about motivation how to find it out of how to how to guard and once you find it and And and the other half of the chat what to do when you actually sit down with the Bible somebody at the same time.

Hire to watch. Finding something that'll work.

Well, we have to go to our first station break right now if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question for Noel and Denise e net our email address is Chris Arnzen at gmail .com Chris a RNZ and at gmail .com.

We're discussing how to read the Bible. So God speaks to you and we'll be right back after these messages. So don't go away. Chris Arnzen host of iron sharpens iron radio. Announcing a new website with an exciting offer from world magazine by trusted source for news from a Christian perspective.

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The Purpose of the Book and the Meaning of “God Speaks to You”

Welcome back. This is chris arnzen. If you just tuned us in our two guests today our husband and wife. Uh, noel and denise enet and they are discussing their book how to read the bible so god speaks to you and also their app wave parallel bible.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own our email address is chris arnzen at gmail .com. C-h-r-i-s-a-r-n-z-e-n at gmail .com. As always, please, uh, please give us your first name.

Your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside the usa. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Uh, let's uh. Say a few words of clarification if you will on the title of your book how to read the bible so god speaks to you and We were chatting before the show a little bit.

And uh, just to let you know that the majority Of my listeners, I I believe judging from those who write in questions and respond to me by email and facebook and so on. I believe they are Theologically reformed cessationists and do not believe in extra biblical revelation as some of our charismatic and pentecostal friends do.

So this might put a chill up the spine of some when they read the phrase So god speaks to you you're not. You're not talking about hearing voices from god or hearing some unique special Extra biblical revelation that's meant only for you that comes from heaven or anything like that.

No, no, nothing like that. That's the downside of that title. Uh, no, what we're talking about is the opposite of reading a page in the bible turning the page and not knowing. Anything of what you just read talking about when you when you read the bible, uh, it actually you and you can Connect with what god is trying to tell you through this.

We're trying to say.

And the.

I'll give you an example. We have uh in the word of god. Uh, we have in isaiah chapter 55 11. Uh, so will so will my word Be which goes forth from my mouth. It will not return to me empty Without accomplishing what I desire and without succeeding in the manner for which I sent it.

So we know this to be a truth a god-breathed truth of the scriptures that the word will never return void so. How would what you are teaching? christians to do.

Uh.

Be different from what god has promised will always happen.

Well, uh, I guess sometimes uh God's word doesn't go out from the you read it and it never connects to anything in your head. You know goes when one one here and out the other we we're in a very fast-paced society and we uh, we'll do anything for uh convenience and to read, uh, and actually.

Uh sit with it long enough. To have it actually go out from the page part of you that responds to it.

We do have a question for you both, uh from susan margaret in delphin county, pennsylvania. She says I don't know if this would be a person to person kind of a question where. The answer would vary greatly depending upon the individual.

But as far as what you know from your experience and what you recommend.

How.

Great or large of a passage of scripture should one read and meditate on before stopping. In other words some people might be So enthusiastic about what they're reading. They'll read an entire gospel or several chapters of a book of the bible.

Uh, but then some might be reading too long and not even remembering what they have just read which is something that you just said.

No.

Uh, so what is your answer. And I know as I just said in the beginning of my question. This may vary from person to person.

Uh, sure. Yeah, um, I I think the biggest um,.

Uh.

Variable. That affects. The answer to that question is how good a reader you are. If you take five people you'll find that their uh reading skills vary, you know. Tremendously. Some people if you say read luke's gospel, they'll say okay.

No problem I'll read that and i'll understand that either. Either were are more scientific oriented or weren't good in school. Or don't feel like they're uh, very uh, they'll have a hard time with one verse uh, so.

Um.

I I think people in general tend to be overly ambitious About what to read when they when they take on something. Um, for example, uh in the Bible reading programs for read through the bible in a year or read through Uh new new testament in a year recommended to our folks is um Is to learn how you say you have to read lightly through the passage until you find something that you want to Uh sink your teeth into for what to read.

Uh, and when you do that you get a sense, um, you're looking for something that uh hits you.

Um.

I I've never uh ceased to be amazed when we teach this and uh in person we can have one passage and I know that one. That a passage has a single interpretation and many applications. But when I stop at the end and I say, you know You will find Such a variety.

Everybody's at a different place and God is trying to reach them. When I spoke not your children to wrath. Uh when I read that and I was 18 years old and it had all to do with what my dad shouldn't tell me to do.

But when I was a parent and uh Raising a child then it hits me as something different. What hits me is. Oh, I I need to be really, uh Reasonable. I need to tune into Uh, what is uh frustrating my child and not uh go beyond that.

A single answer I would say Uh is a single answer. If you're not a good reader I wouldn't feel bad at all about uh getting something like a daily bread and find their passage and then just stick with that one one verse.

And try and surface. We have arnie in perry county, pennsylvania.

Who says. I think there has been a danger in the church, especially in fundamentalist circles where they think that commentaries are not necessary and in fact.

Are.

Unwanted and People are not encouraged to read them. But I think that it can be very arrogant to approach the bible as if you need no other guidance and no greater minds than your own who have exhaustively studied the scriptures.

And who have really become brilliant minds who could far better understand things knowing the original languages. Do you think that? Every believer should at least from time to time Refer to a commentary on the scriptures or books By great authors of the faith who know the scriptures far better than we can.