Equipping Eve: Stickers in My Bible

Is the church today doing everything it can to provide women a firm foundation of truth in Christ Jesus? Well, it's true there's no shortage of candy-coated Bible studies, potluck fellowships available to ladies.

But beyond Sunday morning, are Christian women being properly equipped to stand against the same deceptions that even enticed Eve in the garden? In an attempt to address the need for trustworthy, biblical resources for women, No Compromise Radio is happy to introduce Equipping Eve, a ladies-only radio show that seeks to equip women with fruits of truth in an age that's ripe with deception.

My name is Mike Ebendroth, and I'm pleased to introduce your host, Erin Benzinger, a friend of No Compromise Radio and a woman who wants to see other women equipped with a love for and a knowledge of the truth of God's Word.

The Need to Equip Women with Truth in a Deceptive Age

Well, hello, ladies, and welcome to Equipping Eve, the show that seeks to equip you with fruits of truth from God's Word so that we can stand strong and firm on that Word in an age of deception. Deception that we find not just in the world, a world that tells us there is no God and we can do whatever we want to do, a world that nowadays tells us you can be whatever you feel like you are.

You may look like a woman and have been born genetically like a woman, however, if you feel like a man, go ahead and be a man. Whatever you self-identify with is A-OK with today's world. You know, what are we going to do when someone self-identifies as a stapler?

That is going to be awkward, but anyway, we also need to be prepared to stand even more so firmly against the deceptions that are within the visible church, and this is not just those obvious false teachers.

You know, we mock and use as learning examples crazy teachers like Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, T .D. Jakes, people like that who are so blatantly false, it's comical, actually, at this point, and they provide good teaching opportunities, but there are more subtle deceptions in the church.

Even within strong, solid, doctrinally sound churches, you may find some deceptions. You may find a slightly watered-down gospel that might not even be the intent of the church, but it might just come across that the gospel is presented without reference to your sin.

Man's sin, the condition of man, that he is dead in his sin and completely unable to save himself. That's right. Salvation is all of God. God does the saving, not you. You don't wake up one day and decide, oh, I'm going to be a Christian today.

I'm going to choose Jesus. No, that's not how that works, because if that was how it works, then you would be patting yourself on the back and congratulating yourself for your own salvation. You would not be praying to God and thanking him for saving you or saving your parents or your sister or your child.

You'd be thanking yourself, and you'd be thanking them. Well, that's completely backward, isn't it? We don't get saved and then say, oh, thank you, Aaron, for choosing Jesus. No, no, no, no, no, no. We get saved, and we thank the Lord for bringing us to repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and his work for us.

His work in his perfect life, living the life that we cannot live, because he who transgresses just one point of the law is disobedient to the entire law and guilty of disobedience toward the entire law.

And so we cannot keep the law, but Christ kept the law perfectly in his life. And then he died as a substitutionary, atoning sacrifice, bearing the wrath of God, the punishment that we deserve. He bore that on the cross, died a perfect, spotless, blemish-free sacrifice, the spotless lamb of God offered himself so that when we are brought to repentance and faith, we are imputed with his righteousness and not our own.

So you see, it is not our righteousness that saves us. It is not our works that saves us. It is not anything that we muster up on our own. It is all of God. God brings us to repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we are saved by his good, gracious kindness.

The Gospel, Christ, and the Sufficiency of Scripture

Well, there's your gospel for the day. I think we can just hang it up now, right? Because is there anything better to talk about than the gospel? There isn't. There isn't. There's nothing better than Jesus.

There's nothing better than Christ. There's nothing better than the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And there's nothing better than God's word, wherein we find that Christ revealed to us from start to finish.

Jesus is not just present in the New Testament. He is present in the Old Testament as well. The entirety of the word of God, all 66 books of the Bible point to Christ. Christ is revealed in those books.

And that, my friends, is why the word of God is so precious. It is not that we sit and worship a book. No, no, no, no. But this book is inspired. It is infallible. It is inerrant. It is the very inspired word of God.

And that is how we come to know our God, his character, and his nature. That is where his son, the means of salvation, the only means of salvation, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me, said Jesus in John 14, 6.

And that is where we come to know him is through the word of God, the Bible. And so if you toss the Bible aside, or if you try to add to the Bible, or if you try to say, well, the Bible is nice, but then my friend, you have a problem, a huge, huge problem.

Scripture is sufficient. Let's turn instead of to some craziness, like we so often do. Instead, let's turn to some good teaching here very quickly on the sufficiency of scripture from Charles Spurgeon.

Spurgeon writes, as for us, we cast anchor in the haven of the word of God. Here is our peace, our strength, our life, our motive, our hope, our happiness. God's word is our ultimatum. Here we have it.

Our understanding cries, I have found it. Our conscience asserts that here is the truth, and our heart finds here a support to which all her affections can claim, and hence we rest content. If the revelation of God were not enough for our faith, what could we add to it?

Who can answer this question? What would any man propose to add to the sacred word? A moment's thought would lead us to scout with derision the most attractive words of men, if it were proposed to add them to the word of God.

The fabric would not be at peace. Would you add rags to a royal vestment? The scriptures in their own sphere, writes Spurgeon, are like God in the universe, all sufficient. In them is revealed all the light and power the mind of man can need in spiritual things.

We hear of other motive, power beyond that which lies in scriptures, but we believe such a force to be a pretentious nothing. A train is off the lines or otherwise unable to proceed, and a breakdown gang has arrived.

Engines are brought to move the great impediment. At first, there seems to be no stir. The engine power is not enough. Harken, a small boy has it. He cries, Father, if they have not power enough, I will lend them my rocking horse to help them.

We have had the offer of a considerable number of rocking horses of late. They have not accomplished much that I can see, but they promised fair. I fear their effect has been for evil rather than good.

They have moved the people to derision and have driven them out of the places of worship, which once they were glad to crowd. The new toys have been exhibited and the people, after seeing them for a little, have moved on to other toy shops.

These fine new nothings have done no good, and they never will do any good while the world standeth. The word of God is quite sufficient to interest and bless the souls of men throughout all time. But novelties soon fail.

Think on that, ladies. Let's think on that. Novelties soon fail. We jump from toy shop to toy shop. Well, there is a new toy shop in town. It's been around here for, I don't know, several months, maybe a year at this point.

And we've actually touched on this topic before, talked a little bit about it. And that is Bible art journaling. Journaling, coloring, reverting to your childhood. I don't understand. But Bible art journaling specifically, ladies, this is a thing.

This is a big thing in the evangelical world. You can go to any quote unquote Christian Bible bookstore, and all you see are these journaling Bibles and journaling supplies. If you go to familychristian .com, one of the big banners you can click on as of today, as I tape this, is for Bible art journaling.

Journal the Bible. And you click on this, and it gives you this huge page of journaling Bibles and Bible journaling accessories. And, you know, when this trend first came out, I thought, oh, this must be something that goes along with the Message Bible, which is just disastrous.

And it's not a Bible at all. No, what's interesting is mostly legitimate translations are being used for this. The NKJV, the NIV, which of course, you know, can go here or there. The NLT, eh, okay. If that were the only translation being used for this, I'd say, well, you know.

Okay. But we're looking at KJV. We're looking at the ESV Journaling Bible, which was originally created with little lines on the side, wider margins, so that you could take sermon notes or journal your thoughts or whatever.

And everybody loves the ESV. Oh, it's the most conservative translation. It's wonderful. Blah, blah, blah. It's great. Listen, I like the ESV. I used the ESV for a very long period of time. I have nothing at all against the translation itself.

So I want to make that very, very clear. I think it's a wonderful translation. It's one of only two, really, that I'd recommend. The translation I currently use is the NASV, and so I much prefer that.

But where my problem lies is not in the ESV translation, but in Crossway and their publication of this journaling Bible, because they sold out to this Bible art journaling trend, and they're now marketing this Bible with the wide margins to women, especially, specifically, so that they can doodle and draw all over their Bible.

They've given in to the gimmick. And that is very sad to me, because I do think the translation is a worthy, wonderful translation. And so I find that sad that the publishers have sold out in such a manner.

But going back to this Family Christian Store website, you start looking at the Bible art journaling accessories, and you have stamps, you have cardstock stickers, you have tape, you have acrylic paint.

Oh, here's some stickers that are rain and rainbows, fruit and floral. Let's see what's on page two. Hang on. There's more paint, more stickers. There's more stamps. Washi tape. Washi tape. Yes. That's like tape with little pictures and designs on it.

Okay. The Illustrated Faith Praise Book. I don't know what that is. That sounds awful. The KJV My Creative Bible in Pink Leather Soft. That makes it more girly. Oh, My Creative Bible in Silky Floral. Hey, now.

So there's all these Bibles out there. And here's what happened. Family Christian Store, which is Christian in name only, apparently, they offered, I don't know, sometime in the summer here of 2016, maybe it was in July or so, a Bible art journaling workshop.

It was free. And you just had to contact your local store and you could attend this workshop. And so, well, that's a bad idea to send that to me because what else would I do on a Saturday morning besides attend a Bible art journaling workshop?

So that's what I did. And I felt a little sorry for the woman because I put her on the spot and didn't intend to make her flustered at all. I had nothing against her personally. This was, she herself was new to journaling and this Bible art journaling thing and clearly was nervous.

And so I hope I was kind in my questions because I wanted to challenge the ladies there and I wanted to challenge her, especially when she said she was new to it. I thought, well, here's a chance to consider what you're doing.

Why Bible Art Journaling Fails to Study the Word of God

So I go to this workshop and there's all these different Bibles out on the table to look at as examples. There's all these supplies, these accessory things. And the woman starts to teach us about Bible art journaling.

She uses words such as, this is a trend. She says things like, we should have some fun with the Bible journaling. She says there are four things to remember that you should pray first, read, read, read the Bible.

Well, hey, I can't argue with that. Either one of those points. Then ask. Ask what stands out and what speaks to you. Now I've got a problem. Because this is something for you. I have written down in my notes, you're adding flair.

Thinking, adding flair to the word of God? Do I need to add flair to the word of God? Because I don't think so. You know, the first century Christians, did they sit around and think, oh, I wish we had some washi tape to put on these scrolls.

That would make it more interesting. No, no, no. So you pray, read, ask what stands out and what speaks to you. And then you respond by coloring in your Bible. And so that was basically the extent of the instruction.

And then the rest of it was a big commercial for all of the accessories and Bibles, of course. And so she starts describing all of these things that are on the table. And you pick up these Bibles and they either have these wide margins so you can doodle and draw.

And many of them have pictures already drawn in them. And those are meant to inspire you. That's how that works. And I find it rather distracting, which is why I wouldn't draw my Bible in the first place.

You know, it's funny. I was reading in Ephesians yesterday and at my church we recently, we, the pastor recently preached through Ephesians. And so I have some things underlined and circled and some notes on the side.

And I found it really distracting when I went back to just read the text and I thought, wow, I've really changed. I used to write all over my Bible, not doodle and draw with pictures, but, you know, I would take notes on the side and underline and circle.

And, and, um, I've since moved to a new Bible. And so I don't have those old notes anymore. I don't read that same Bible. And so now I'm flipping back to something that, you know, was just from a few months ago, a year ago, and it's very distracting.

And I'm thinking, oh, I wish I hadn't done that. I take notes in a separate notebook, but sometimes I always think, well, I'd like to have that right there next to the text. And now I'm not so sure because the word of God stands alone on its own, doesn't it?

And the Holy Spirit illuminates that for us. And if we do take notes in a notebook, you know what, mark it with a Sharpie, what it is, so you can figure out later what you're doing. So anyway, back to this Bible art journaling, it seems rather distracting.

Um, but they gave us some examples, some samples, sample journaling Bibles. So they're little, you know, tiny, um, samples with Bible pages and some of the pictures in them. And then this one sample gives you some tips for Bible art journaling.

It says you need to use the right pen so that you minimize bleed through and tears. You should practice on scrap paper first, and then you can start with the back pages of your Bible. And then it gives you this tip, integrate washi tape, just a little tape under favorite verses and around the edge adds a lot of interest to the pages because that word of God on its own is not so interesting, apparently.

So if I put this washi tape, which has these little designs and pictures on it, and I underline a verse with that, what the verse doesn't end at the end of a line, it keeps going. And now I can't read the rest of it because I have a piece of tape on there.

That's dumb. I don't understand why no one else thinks that's dumb. It's not silly. It's not foolish. It's just dumb. Another tip is peel and stick. You name it, there is a sticker for it. From letters and pictures to shapes, ribbons and designs, you don't have to be an accomplished artist to brighten your pages with stickers.

And stencil and stamp, appreciate the translucency of your paper, get inspired, and don't stress about mistakes. Those are the tips for Bible art journaling. And so as I'm sitting in this workshop, I raised my hand and started causing trouble unintentionally, but asked the question, how does this help you to actually study the word of God?

I said, I'm seeing that we're supposed to see what speaks to us, which makes no sense because the Bible has one meaning and it says the same thing to everybody. Now, there might be certain verses that stand out to you at a certain period in your life.

I understand that. That's why I might have this verse underlined and you don't. But to pull a verse out of context because it gives me a warm fuzzy is a foolish way to study the Bible. That's not how that works.

And so I said, how does this help me know what the word of God is saying better? How does this practice help me understand the nature and character of God that is revealed in scripture? And the woman had no answer for me.

And the other women there who were very much into this had no answer. Instead, I get things like, well, there's no right or wrong thing to do. Just do whatever speaks to you. And then you grab these stickers that are pictures of animals.

It looks like something children would play with. It looks like something children would play with. So keep that in your mind. Now, I ran across an article recently on biblebuyingguide .com, which disappointed me, and the article's entitled, Art Journaling Joshua 1 -9 Strong and Courageous.

The author, I don't know who the author is. It was a woman. Surprise. She says, I thought joining a Bible art challenge would be a great way to hear how God has spoken to others through their journaling.

So she's in her journaling Bible and sees that the Bible already has an illustration for this Joshua 1 -9 verse. A beautiful promise, the Lord, your God is with you wherever you go. But this was not the part of the verse that was speaking to me, she says.

So there was my answer to color the illustration and do a tip-in to go along with it, and then she describes and shows pictures of how she drew this picture of a lion for the part of the verse that says, be strong, not discouraged, and she put it on a note card and then taped it in her Bible on top of the text.

Now, I'll put a link to this article on equippingeve .com. If you go to the blog there, you'll see this. I mean, there's a note card taped on top of her Bible. So when she flips to this page in Joshua, she sees her drawing instead of the word of God, I do not understand why you would do this.

I don't understand. I don't, I don't, I don't understand. As far as I can tell, Bible art journaling points to you. Hey, look what I did. There was a woman at that workshop who has been journaling for some time, apparently, and so she showed us her Bible and she actually was quite talented.

I have nothing against that, but it was so distracting. I open a page and all I see is her picture of a cross dripping with blood. Well, that's not the word of God. It's just not. In fact, if you read the accounts of the crucifixion, it doesn't actually focus on the physical aspects of the crucifixion.

And so as far as I can tell, this Bible art journaling is just one more way that we are pointing to ourselves. Hey, look at me. This speaks to me. Look at what I did. And so we're pulling out stickers.

We're pulling out crayons and paint and colored pencils, and we're coloring and doodling all over the word of God, basically saying that it's not sufficient. We're engaging in this novelty, fad, trend, whatever you want to call it.

Exactly as Spurgeon said, this too will fade away someday. Some, a bunch of women are going to have Bibles with all these doodles in them, and they're going to be useless because you can't read the part that matters.

And that is the word of God. And so I got to thinking what, what could possibly be the reason behind this? And it started to occur to me that things like this Bible art journaling and this, I think it goes hand in hand, this coloring trend, you know, there's all these adult coloring books around and they're supposed to send you into mindlessness and blah, blah, blah.

We're coloring books. We're coloring in our Bibles. I am seeing this dumbing down of society that evangelicalism has just bought into hook, line, and sinker. And that's funny. I actually found some secular articles that kind of talk about that.

And one is called adult coloring books test grownups ability to stay inside the lines and someone notes there in that article, there's a risk that this fad will abruptly burn out. But, you know, these people are still going to buy into it and make their, their coloring products and market them to adults and to women.

Ladies, do you see that? The stuff like this is appealing to us because we not only love to think with our emotions, we, you know, we are so stressed out and, and this and that, and now we're reverting to our childhood in foolish ways.

One article says why jaded adults are buying stacks of coloring books. And the author says, curiously, the growth and therapizing everything has occurred just as our lives have become markedly easier.

Just think air conditioning, penicillin and washing machines. Yet our psychological disorders have markedly increased. She says this startling reality provides something to ponder as we sit down with our colored pencils at the end of a busy day or week, why do we feel a need to flee adult life for the comfort of child's play?

Are we trying to escape our lives? And if so, why humans throughout history have developed coping mechanisms to get through life. But there is also a difference between drugging oneself, whether through coloring or martinis or anything else, and actually dealing with the issues at play.

And I think she makes an interesting point. Now, ultimately the author of this article says, Hey, it's okay. Just go ahead and color. And you know, if you want to grab a coloring book of Mickey mouse and color it, whatever, that's fine.

And the coloring trend is really a whole separate episode that we have discussed. Previously here on equipping you, but I think there's a similarity that we're just, you know, we're, we're taping stickers in our Bibles and that means that we are reverting to this immature childishness of mindlessness and just, Oh, look at the pretty picture.

You know, when you think about all the quote unquote relaxing activities that we've, we've got nowadays, we've got the coloring, we've got, we've got men playing grown men playing video games. We've got Legos that are so complex and designed so that adults think they're cool.

I get the Lego catalog and I see this Lego set for the bat cave from the original TV show, and I'm thinking that is amazing. I want that because I remember the television show reruns just to be clear.

And it takes you back to your childhood and now we're coloring. So we're not just defeating our emotions. We're encouraged to revert to our childhood. And in the meantime, in the meantime, ladies, we see children taking over.

I watch parents today. I watch neighbors. I watch in the stores. I watch places. I watch the parents and I see that the children are running their lives. I see parents just following the children all around, even as the children walk into the street.

I see parents letting their children throw tantrums in stores and never punishing them. I see parents who let the child decide the schedule. I once knew a parent who said, Oh yeah, my son, you know, he's in karate and they offer classes such and such days a week.

And so we just let him decide which nights he feels like going. And then that's when we go, it's right around the corner. So it's real easy for us to, you know, if he decides he wants to do karate, he does karate that night, then that's where we go.

And I'm thinking, wait a minute. You're the parent. You make the schedule. You're the parent. You don't wait till the child's in the street and then get upset and run after him, you grab him and discipline him as he's walking toward the street and ignoring your warnings.

That's what you do. But I see children's taking over, parents following kids, lives being run by children. And I want you to consider this as you think on that, ladies. I want you to consider Isaiah. Turn to Isaiah with me.

Children, Maturity, and the Call to Grow Up in Christ

Isaiah chapter three. These verses pop in my mind every time I see a very obvious example of children running, ruling over the parents. Isaiah three one says, behold, the Lord God of hosts is going to remove from Jerusalem and Judah both supply and support the whole supply of bread and the whole supply of water.

Now I understand this isn't, I understand the context is not exactly 100 what we're looking at here. But I want you to, I just want you to think about this in the latter days, ladies, the mighty man and the warrior, the judge and the prophet, the diviner and the elder, the captain of 50 and the honorable man, the counselor and the expert artisan and skillful enchanter.

Verse four, and I will make mere lads their princes and capricious children will rule over them. And the footnote there for capricious actually says literally arbitrary power will rule and the people will be oppressed each one by another and each one by his neighbor.

The youth will storm against the elder and the inferior against the honorable. And we see so much of that already. We just see children, their demeanor and their attitude toward adults is just astonishingly awful.

And I think, ladies, we are the mature ones. We are the adults. And yet we are giving into these trends that encourage us to act like children. I think we need to be really careful about what we're doing here.

We are called in our faith to be mature, to grow, to grow spiritually. And aren't we doing that? If we're simply coloring in our Bibles, Hebrews five, Hebrews five, verse 11 concerning him, we have much to say in it.

It's hard to explain since you've become dull of hearing. He's talking about Melchizedek. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God.

And you've come to need milk and not solid food for everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness for he is an infant, but solid food is for the mature who, because of practice, have their senses trained to discern good and evil.

In Ephesians four, speaking of Ephesians, Ephesians four, verse 13, and I'll go back to verse 11. And he gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints, for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature, which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

As a result, we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming, or perhaps even by novelties.

But speaking the truth of love, we are to grow up in all aspects and to him who is the head, even Christ. We are to be mature ladies. And again, I'm not saying it's a sin to sit down with your coloring book in color, but consider this Bible art journaling, consider how putting stickers in your Bible, what really does that say to your children?

Does it teach them the reverence, respect, and awe that should be given toward the word of God? Does it teach them how important the word of God is, or does it teach them that they can just draw on their Bibles and pick verses out of context and go with whatever speaks to them in the moment?

Is that truly a good way to teach your children? They talk about how these journal Bibles would be good to leave for your kids someday. I don't think so. I think they are a bad example for your children.

I think they demonstrate immaturity. I think they demonstrate an irreverence for the word of God. I think they demonstrate an underlying problem that says that the word of God is not sufficient when we know.

If we have been saved, we know that the word of God is sufficient. It is all we need. Ladies, do you love the word, the pure unadulterated word of God? I hope you do. Ladies, thanks for listening a little bit to my recounting of the Bible art journaling workshop.

And I hope you'll consider that if you've pondered that fad at all. I hope you'll consider what we've talked about today. And I understand a lot of its opinion. So I encourage you to go to the word of God.

I encourage you to go to the word of God and see for yourself how wonderful and sufficient that beautiful word is all on its own, without stickers, without paint, just the word of God. Okay, ladies, until next time, get in your Bibles and get on your knees and get equipped.

Thanks for listening.

You've been listening to equipping Eve, a no compromise radio production. If you'd like to get ahold of Erin, you can reach her at equipping Eve at gmail .com, or you can check out one of our two websites.

Do not be surprised .com or equipping Eve .org. Thanks for listening.