Episode 100: Loving the Bible More in 2025

Rural Church Podcast 2.0

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Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast. This is my beloved son, with whom

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I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas?

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You see that one in Pechote, Mexico? Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it.

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The church is not a democracy. It's a monarchy. Christ is king. You can't be

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Christian without a local church. You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible -believing church, and spend your life serving

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Jesus in a local, visible congregation. Well, Christmas is over, Edward. Is it really?

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In podcast time, not in real time. Podcast time, right. Right now, we're still in the middle of the NFR. Thank you.

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Everyone tuning in to this podcast would like an update on the NFR. So my guy is not doing well.

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I'm pulling for Coleman Proctor to win the all -around, and it's not went well the last couple of rounds, so.

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Is that Rodeo? Yeah, it's Rodeo. The National Finals Rodeo. Our last guest didn't know what the

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NFR was either. Well, I somewhat know. It is the

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Rule Jerk podcast. By the acronym, I know. I had a friend in high school that was

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PBR. Is that what it is? Yeah, yeah. That's bull riding. Yeah, yeah.

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Well, actually, PBR and NFR are two different things. Yeah, they are two different things. Go ahead. Related.

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Anyway, real time, it's early December, but in the time people are going to hear this, yeah, it's.

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Post -December. That's the most boring introduction we've ever given, Eddie. Okay, I'm going to switch gears then.

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We have apparently one of the most famous guys we get on this podcast because every time we have him on, it's like one of the most popular episodes that people listen to.

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Well, you just say that because it's always something controversial, and I'm no one, so no one can argue with me, so that's why you have me to do it.

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Well, we have a great brother, friend, the one and only Jonathan Murdock.

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I think I've said this before, but let's see. We've met. Wow, brother, we're closing in.

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I mean, by the time this podcast comes out, we're talking about it would be almost three years ago. Wow.

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From because we met early 2022, and we're closing in on 2025, but it's great.

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Was it April? Yeah, April 2025. So, I mean 2022 is when we first met.

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Great to have Pastor Jonathan Murdock with us. He's the pastor of Trinity Bible Church in Port Arthur, Texas, a

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Reformed Baptist pastor. Trinity Baptist Church. Oh, I'm sorry, Trinity Baptist Church. I was thinking of Trinity Bible Chapel in Jacob Realm.

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Sorry, brother. Trinity Baptist Church, amen, in Port Arthur, Texas, and a

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Reformed Baptist congregation holding to the 1689 Second Lenten Baptist Confession, and also a bilingual congregation.

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And Pastor Jonathan preaches in English and Spanish. And just, I'm grateful for you, brother.

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I didn't have to, you know, I think you know that, but I just want to say that publicly. And brother, I love you, man.

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Thanks. I wish we had more time together. It's always that way, right? Amen, amen. And Eddie, you're okay too, man.

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No, Eddie. Thanks. What we want to talk about today, so this is coming out on a

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Monday because the first is on a Wednesday. Normally, these come out on a Wednesday, but this one will come out on a

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Monday. And there's a couple reasons for that. Number one, the first is on a Wednesday. But secondly, we want to give you a couple days before to think about this podcast, if you have opportunity to listen before the first.

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And we really want to encourage you about your Bible reading habits. This coming year.

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It's always a great time to think about your Bible reading habits, right? But naturally, this time of year, as we transition out of one year, we go into another year.

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Look, I don't care if you like resolutions, if you don't, whatever, but there is a

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Christian principle to assess where you're at and your walk with the Lord and to seek to grow in that.

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And this is just a natural time of year to do that. And the scriptures are the way to do that. Amen. Yeah.

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Well, we say we, as particular Baptists, we are

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Catechism. The only rule of faith and practice, right? Our confession says that the only rule of faith and practice is the

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Word of God. And the question is, what is the Word of God? It's the scriptures of the Old and New Testament and the only rule of faith and obedience,

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I think it says. And so, if you seek to glorify God, if you want to honor

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Him, the way we do that is through the standard of the scriptures and you must know the scriptures. Amen.

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So, Sunday night, we're going through Psalm 119. And I mentioned this

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Sunday night at our church, but Psalm 119, 167,

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I think, where he talks about how he's in awe of God's words. Yeah. And we're really not in our culture today in awe of the words of God.

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And here's some just basic things I think everybody should agree with. I'll throw this out there to you guys just to kind of get us started.

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But we live in unprecedented times in Christianity for these reasons,

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I'm going to say. First of all, and I'm speaking of our nation in America, we are basically completely literate.

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We can read as a nation. I mean, I know that there are people who can't read, but our literacy rates historically are off the charts.

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We can read. Number two, we have the Bible in our language.

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Number three, we have basically unhindered access to the scriptures.

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And if you put those three things together, we can read as a culture. We have the

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Bible in our language. And thirdly, we have unrestricted access. You can look at the

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Bible for free online. Like, I don't have a Bible. You can pretty much get one at places for free or whatever.

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But even if that, you can for sure get on the internet for free. You combine those three things, and I don't know where you guys would put us, but that puts us in a very, very, very, very tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of people in the history of Christianity.

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We can read, we've got the Bible, and we've got unrestricted access.

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Thoughts on that as we get started? First, you said you're going through Psalm 119. Are you using

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Thomas Manton? I have consulted Manton some, but yeah.

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So Thomas Manton has his works that are 22 volumes, and volumes 6, 7, 8, and 9 are on Psalm 119 because he preached 176 sermons to Psalm 119.

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Amen. See, I don't have his works, so that's my problem. So when Banner first came out with them, they sold them to pastors for 150 bucks, and I got 22 volumes.

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And so I got them, but great. He's great, but not very helpful if you're preaching through Psalm 119, unless you're going to preach one sermon on each verse, like he did.

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But no, you know, people make excuses, right?

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So, you know, you talk about us having the access to the Scriptures, and people say, well,

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I don't have time, right? We probably live—if we say that we live in a time that's unprecedented, in that in the history of Christianity, we have more access to the

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Scriptures than anyone else has ever had, right? Amen. We also have more filling in our life than probably any

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Christian has ever had, and lack of discipline. And they want to use those things to say, well,

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I can't read because of this. And the Scriptures warn us, redeem the time for the days are evil, right?

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And the problem isn't that we don't have the Scriptures, is that we have no concern for them.

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Yeah, yeah. I think, yeah, that would be another thing I'd add to this unprecedented historical moment.

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And that is, we're not eking out sustenance by waking up before daylight, working all day, going to bed, sleeping for four hours, waking up and do it again, just so we can survive as a family.

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No, no, no. Now, there may be, I doubt if someone's living that way, you're not, then you would even be listening to this podcast.

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There may be someone out there, you know, some sort of weird exception, but for the most part, you know, so we have the time.

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We would say if you're listening to this podcast and you don't have time to read the Scriptures, turn the podcast on.

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Exactly, exactly. Amen. Let me read from our confession. Listen to how the confession describes the

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Scriptures. It says this in Chapter 1, Paragraph 5. I love how it says that the

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Scriptures contain incomparable excellencies of God.

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But the point is that people have allowed themselves to be wooed and to be awed by so many lesser things that they yawn at the glory of God.

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You know, they're so awed by Facebook and the arguments online and whatever it is, life in general, you know, watching the next thing on the television show or whatever they're going to do.

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They're so wooed by those things that the excellencies of God are boring to them.

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Yeah, wow. Well, that's all kind of introductory. That's what we're wanting to get into today in this episode.

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We want you to think about the Scriptures. We want you to think about your habits with the Scriptures. We want to speak later, probably more toward the end, about a pastor's habit with the

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Scriptures. But let's just, and you kind of touched it by reading, and by the way, we just make this clear, when

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Jonathan says our confession, he's talking about the second London Baptist confession, and the

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R does apply to myself and to Jonathan. And Eddie appreciates the confession, for sure.

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I appreciate it, but it bears no authority. Yeah, yeah. Eddie's not a confessional, so just to clear up.

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Well, I have a confession. Yeah, well, not holding the same. Are you guys the abstract principle?

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Abstract, yeah. So anyway— It was, speaking of the abstract, there was a storm that came up yesterday about the

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Southwestern and the abstract principles. Interesting, it was Tom Hicks. Was it Southwestern or Southern? I thought it was

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Southern. Southern, sorry. It's Southern, not Southwestern, yeah. Interesting. Tom Hicks, who has also been on the

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Rural Church podcast. The Rural Church. Yeah. So let's get into this. When we talk about the

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Bible, we're going to start from the beginning here. Jonathan and Eddie, obviously you can always weigh in on this, too.

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But when we talk about the Bible, what are we talking about? What is the

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Bible? How would you give your— I mean, I know you could give a theological discussion on this that would take hours, but just your summary.

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Someone's listening to this. Just give me your two -minute summary, like, what is the Bible? The Word of God contained in 66 books of the

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Old and New Testament and the only rule of faith and obedience. When you say the

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Word of God, flesh that out for me a little bit. It was written by men.

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Right, over 45 authors, right? Over 45 authors through 4 ,500 years?

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Yeah, well, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, 1 ,500 years, right? From Moses all the way through John, right?

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And so what is it, roughly 4 ,500 years? Well— Less than that.

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Yeah, yeah. The time amount that it was written. It covers more time period than that, but Moses' writing is like 14 -something

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B .C., his time period. Lots of people, lots of time. Yeah, people, time, all expressing the

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Word of God, what he desired for us to know, and all about Christ.

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So all the scriptures, all about Christ expressed, the Word of God expressed through men as they were carried along, as Peter says, by the

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Holy Spirit. Yeah, amen. So what about the thing is like, well, you know, it was written by men.

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So there's going to be some problems sometimes, you know, there'll be some, maybe there'll be some contradictions, there'll be some errors.

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What do we say to that? Infallible. Scriptures are infallible without the mixture of errors.

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The—once again, the confession, I think, speaks really well here. And actually, the Second Lenten Confession starts differently than the

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Westminster. And that first line of difference is very, I think, very important.

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So the Holy Scriptures is the only sufficient and certain and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience.

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Although the light of nature and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God as to leave men inexcusable, yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and his will which is necessary unto salvation.

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And so a man can walk outside and see a tree and say

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God is. However, the rule or the light of nature, general revelation, insufficient to reveal unto man what is necessary for salvation, what

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God requires. Amen. So just laying some groundwork. And we don't say these things a lot because they're really assumed and most of our listeners are on board with this, but it's good to revisit these things.

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When we talk about the Scriptures, we're talking about men writing, as has been said, under the divine inspiration of the

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Holy Spirit in such a way. It's really a mystery. Inspiration is a beautiful, glorious mystery where Peter is writing exactly what he wants to write.

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And at the same time, the Holy Spirit is moving in him in such a way that every jot and tittle that he writes, every syllable, every word, not just the ideas, not the thoughts, not even just the sentence structure, but even down to the very words he's writing, are what the

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Holy Spirit is working through him to write, whereby when we open up the Scriptures, we say we have the very word of God.

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Now, what should we say? Again, we're just kind of waiting in here. What should we say, guys, about the fact that we have—

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Okay, but we're reading it in English, or if you're Pastor Jonathan, you'll be reading it and preaching it in English and in Spanish.

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So we have in English, we have— It's actually a blessing and a frustration sometimes in English because we have so many translations.

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So anything that you guys want to say about translations. Let me go back to something real quick.

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Sure. When we speak of the Scriptures and the writing of the

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Scriptures, I think it's important to note these men were written— They wrote them carried along by the

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Holy Spirit, and they wrote in their own style and own words, right?

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So you look at Paul. Paul used his words throughout, you know, specific words throughout.

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So God uses the men. However, I want to make the point, this might be controversial, sorry if it is, but they didn't write ignorantly.

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So they knew what they were writing. And Peter makes this clear in Acts 2 when he's speaking about the resurrection of Christ.

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And he says that David, being a prophet, he says, foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of Christ.

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And when he uses the word foresaw in the Greek there, it is pro -orao. And, you know, it's the word for see, orao.

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But it's not like seeing with your eyes. It's seeing and understanding. And so David wrote about the resurrection of Christ, seeing it and understanding it because it was given to him by the

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Holy Spirit. And so I think there's a point where people think these men ignorantly wrote.

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No, no, there was an enlightening of the mind through the Holy Spirit in their writing of the

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Scriptures. And I think that's just an important point to make. Well, when, you know, it's important at the end of 2

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Peter, Peter talks about, he's talking about Paul, and he talks about that he equates

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Scripture with Paul's writing. Yeah, just like the other Scriptures. Yeah, he twists Paul's writing like they do the other

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Scriptures. And he says he wrote to you some hard things. Yeah, yeah. And it's interesting.

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This is just a side point. This is free this morning. But there's four letters written to those same people, 1 and 2

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Peter, James, and Hebrews. And so Peter says, Paul wrote to you some hard things.

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And so we know that's the letters to Hebrews, this hard thing. Yeah, that's a good proof.

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I like that. Hey, settle down. Well, you know, you know, Paul says himself, writing to Timothy, but as for you, continue what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

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All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

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You know, the simplest way to put it, what is the Bible, is that which God has breathed out.

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Yeah. God has spoken. It's the very thing God has spoken.

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It's from that passage that the confessions and catechisms get that idea of the only rule of faith and obedience for salvation, right?

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Right. Let me weigh in here, too, in my limited knowledge and limited mental capacity here, but there's controversy on natural revelation, natural theology.

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I just want to make a point as we talk about the Scriptures, we don't deny, Jonathan's already talked about natural revelation, seeing the tree.

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We don't deny that. We're grateful. We need it. And actually, in a sense, natural revelation, too, certainly is infallible.

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It speaks exactly what God has for it to speak. The problem is with natural revelation and then getting into natural theology, which has a different podcast, but the problem with those things is not in and of themselves.

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The problem is with man, following man. And so in the Scriptures, God has given us a certain standard.

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It's infallible, sufficient. You can know God from natural revelation.

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You can know about God. You can know that God exists, but you can't know God in a saving way apart from the

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Scriptures. And so we're just kind of laying this groundwork here. So how essential?

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Okay, so here's the thing, Jonathan and Eddie. We live, and I do have a verse that's going to go along with this, but I just throw it out to you guys first.

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We live in a very small, the whole history of Christianity, I don't know what percent we are, but we're probably less than 1 % in our access, our time, our ability.

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So if the vast majority of Christianity that's gone before us hasn't had the blessings that we have, why is it so important that we read the

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Bible? I mean, didn't, isn't there other people that, you know, they couldn't read? So they kind of got by, isn't it okay if we don't look at the

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Scriptures? Here's the thing. You see in Ephesians 1, he is predestined us that we'd be holy and says in 1

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Thessalonians 4, 3, and this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus, your, it says sanctification, the word is agias, holiness.

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Yeah. And so we're piety, piety. There you go. That's a good one. Yeah. P of Ad in Spanish, right?

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So piety, same word. Interesting that everybody wants to buck against that word and it just means holiness.

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That is insane. That's the reason we were given faith in Jesus Christ, holiness.

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How do we become holy? So we would say, and in our camps, soli deo gloria, to glorify

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God. That's the end. How do we do that? I don't agree with everything I said, but Piper defines glory beautifully, the manifested beauty of the holiness of God.

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And so glory is the revelation of holiness and therefore we glorify God when we're holy and the way that we become holy is through the scriptures through being built up in the scriptures, wise into salvation, to obedience and faith.

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And so if we would say the end of Christ in my life, the reason that God saved me is that it would be holy.

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It's impossible to walk in holiness outside the scriptures. Yeah. And whatever you think the passage means,

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I can at least give a reference here to the fact that Jesus washes the church in the water of his word.

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And so there's an aspect of that, that for growth and holiness, we need to be committed to sitting under the preaching of the scriptures, to our, to time around the scriptures with other brothers and sisters in the church, and then reading the scriptures ourselves.

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I do have a verse I want to mention, but Eddie, you have anything you want to say about that? You made a good point that someone might say, you know, what about the people that couldn't read or didn't have access and the

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Lord preserve them? Well, we should not presume upon God's mercies in that way.

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The Lord is gracious to deal with people with the access they have.

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So maybe there were many Christians in the past who were converted through hearing the gospel taught to them verbally because they couldn't read and didn't have access to the scripture.

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Praise God for that. But we're not in that situation. We shouldn't presume upon the same mercy when the mercy

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God has given us, the grace God has given us, is the scripture and the ability to read them.

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So why would we assume that God would just allow us to progress without reading the scriptures when what he's given us is the scriptures as the tools, as the means to that end.

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Let me make three points here, Eddie. That's a great point. On those same lines, John Flavel makes an argument about the thief on the cross, repenting and believing, a deathbed confession.

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He warns against that and he says, there's never been one since and don't presume that God will ever allow it to happen again.

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And so don't wait to your deathbed to confess because the guy at the cross confessed.

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So I'll just wait, right? So the same point there, why would we presume that God would use, you know, let us stay in ignorance and grow us.

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Amen. And you know, I've also heard people say, well, the thief on the cross, he never had the gospel preached to him.

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He didn't have the scriptures. And I would actually say, I don't think that's true at all.

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He would have been a Jewish man, which meant he knew Psalm 22.

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And if you take the gospel accounts and you harmonize them, you see that before Jesus says, my

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God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He is railing at Jesus just like the other thief.

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Jesus essentially preaches the gospel through Psalm 22. He hears it.

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He sees that it's happening. He's converted through the preaching of the word in that sense.

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And then he repents. I think it would be ignorant to say that his only encounter with Christ was there on the cross.

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Oh yeah, we don't know if he had others. Jesus was famous. Even in what we see just on the cross, it's not devoid of the scripture because we know

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Jesus is quoting Psalm 22. And we know that the people there are seeing this.

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This is happening. What was prophesied by David is happening right here.

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Yes, it says in Hebrews 5. This is such an important passage.

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It says in verse 11, about this we have much to say. And I think it's

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Paul there talking about the priesthood of Christ. And it's hard to explain since you've become dull of hearing.

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So I want to tell you about the priesthood of Christ, but you've made yourself stupid of hearing.

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You've done this in your life. You've removed yourself from hearing. And what would we say the hearing is?

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We would say the hearing is the scriptures. We know that. And then he says,

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For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God.

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You need milk, not solid food. For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he's a child.

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And it says, But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained.

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By constant practice to distinguish good from evil. I think a lot of what we see in modern

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Christianity, even in the reform circles, is that these young men don't have discernment.

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Because they're not trained in the scriptures. They've not had their minds trained by the word of God to discern good from evil.

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Yeah. So let me, I'll mention that. And I want to get back and try to push us in a different direction. But that's an excellent point.

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And let me just make this point. And if it's not our podcast, you know, shut us off.

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But consume your time. We do, I listen to podcasts. I listen to sermons.

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We have so much time. But if you have time to listen to podcasts and sermons and follow the ministry of men, let it be those who spur you on to love and good works.

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Let it be to those who are saturated. You can listen to some people and you're like,

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Bible's coming out of him. Yeah, right. And you can listen to some people and you're like, well, all they're reading is political theory or something like that.

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But to shift this, here's the verse I was going to go to. And some people might be like, well, that's not fair.

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But in Luke 12, 48, Jesus says, But the one who did not know and did what deserved a beating will receive a light beating.

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And then he says this. And here's the point I wanted to make. Everyone to whom much was given of him, much will be required.

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And from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand more. So John Gill, just read him.

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He says, Now you say to yourself, it's not fair.

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It's not fair that I live in this time period. And what's expected of me may be more than say the believing young Jewish man during under the

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Mosaic Covenant. He was a believer. He was looking forward to Christ. He didn't have the completed canon of Scripture.

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He wasn't literate, but he was faithful. He loved the Messiah, looking forward to the gospel that was promised, resting in Christ.

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Yes. Was he expected to read Revelation every year? Of course not.

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He didn't have. I'm talking about the book of Revelation. Was he expected to read the book of Revelation every year? No, of course not.

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He didn't have it. Okay. But you, listener, and I and Pastor Jonathan and Pastor Eddie, we live in a time period with the access and the availability of reading the

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Scripture. And to whom much is. So don't complain about the blessing that God has given. I wouldn't want to live in another time.

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I'm grateful for the time that God has given me where we have access to the Scriptures and the time to read the

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Scriptures and Scriptures in our own language. And don't think for a second that this verse and the truth of this verse does not ring true to those of us living in this time period.

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To whom much is given, much will be required. So with that,

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I want to transition now. So you have a warning there of a judgment.

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Right? So the one who's given much, much is required. So you've been given the

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Scriptures, much is required of you. Right? Amen. What about the positive side of that? And two guys

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I think of, Jonathan Edwards says that this earth is a womb of heaven. So it's preparing us for eternity.

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And Thomas Manton says that because the argument against it is, will we be less in heaven if we deny ourselves the

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Scriptures every day? Right? So will I not be sanctified if I don't read the Scriptures? That's an argument against reading the

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Scriptures. Thomas Manton says everyone will have a cup that runs over in the heavens, but some will have a thimble and some will have a barrel.

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And it's the Scriptures that dig that for us. And so the more you know of God, the more you're ready for eternity.

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Yeah. Amen. So let's— Go ahead, Eddie. Yeah, just real quick.

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You know, that analogy that you made, Quatro, about someone might think it's unfair.

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It's unfair that you were born with such prosperity. No kidding. It'd be like a person saying today, oh, it's so horrible that I was born in a time when we have indoor plumbing and air conditioning and electricity and all this wealth of food.

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Right. You were born in a time when you have all these conveniences that make life easier.

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Same with the Scriptures. You're born in a time when you have all these conveniences. You know, you mentioned listening a moment ago,

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Quatro. Isn't it amazing? You don't have to have a servant to read the

33:56

Scripture to you. You can have your phone read the Scripture to you. Like if you say,

34:02

I'm a horrible reader. Okay. Your phone will read it to you.

34:08

The Lord has pretty much taken away every excuse from this generation. And I would just make, again, make the comment, if you want to shift analogies here, but we are in the talents.

34:24

We've been given ten talents, I'm trying to say. We've been given all ten talents. And what are you going to do, go bury them in the sand?

34:32

You know, in that parable, it's the one that only had one talent that buries it because he thinks his master is too hard.

34:40

But we've been given ten talents. We've been given unrestricted access to the Scriptures. What are you going to do with that?

34:47

And let me just say this again. So this will transition us to what's required of us. But you will be held accountable to the blessing that you've been given.

34:58

You will be held accountable. So with that being said, before we get into pastors, because I do think there is a bit of a difference here, but when we talk about the average, let's just talk about the average blue -collar man or the average stay -at -home, perhaps, mom, or even working mom outside the home.

35:20

I mean, stay -at -home moms work. But the point I'm trying to make is just the average believer, what would you say is their privilege and responsibility when it comes to daily habits with the

35:34

Scriptures? And I'll let both of you guys weigh in. So you say privilege. I'll answer that one first.

35:41

The privilege of the Scriptures is that they show us God. We behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ in 2

35:48

Corinthians 4. And the Scriptures reveal to us God. And this is eternal life.

35:56

You may know God, the only true God. Jesus Christ has been sent. That's the reason we're saved, that we would know

36:02

Him. We're sanctified in the truth, so Jesus says. So the privilege is that we know

36:10

God. Second, responsibility. When we speak of responsibility in time in the

36:18

Scriptures, it's where people lose their minds. And they think, you're being legalistic.

36:24

If you say, I have a responsibility to be in the Scriptures, now you're legalistic. You're demanding something the

36:31

Scriptures don't even demand. When you say, if someone says,

36:36

I don't have a responsibility to be in the Scriptures, I don't have obligation, then why did

36:45

God preserve them and give them to us and tell us to meditate on them day and night? So we read the book of Acts, and we'd say it's descriptive, not prescriptive.

36:56

Let me ask the question. You're going through Psalm 119. On your law,

37:01

I meditate day and night. Prescriptive or descriptive? Well, I mean, it's descriptive of what he's doing.

37:12

It's not technically a command. But it certainly is the expectation of faithfulness.

37:23

Is it not the standard by which the Scriptures present to us and say, be like this? That's right.

37:29

Amen. Clearly. Clearly. So then should we not take it prescriptively?

37:36

Do we not take Psalm 119 to say this is the prescription of God? If you look at the first of it, what is it?

37:44

Verse 7 that says, how can a young man make his way pure? By guarding it according to your word.

37:50

There you go. Amen. So Eddie, what do you want to say? The privilege and responsibility of the average believer with the

37:59

Scriptures every day. Well, and I would actually want to talk about maybe a third category or way of thinking about it would be desire.

38:10

Even if you take the position, you know, the Bible doesn't give us a rule for this is how much you have to read in what time period.

38:21

It doesn't say this many. The Bible wasn't written in verses at the time, so it couldn't say so many verses per day or whatever.

38:31

But even without that, I would say to the believer, though, you need to cultivate desire.

38:39

And how do we cultivate good desires? I know you guys run.

38:44

I don't run. If I run five feet, that would be pretty far. But the way the person cultivates a desire for exercise is that they have to exercise.

38:57

And then you build the desire for it. How do you cultivate a taste for healthy food?

39:05

You have to eat healthier food. And I would say, how do you cultivate that hunger and thirst for the

39:12

Scriptures? You've got to be in the Scriptures. That's how you cultivate a desire where I don't even need an obligation when

39:23

I have a desire for the Word. It's what I want.

39:29

And I would say to the Christian, but I don't feel that desire. I would say, well, then all the more reason why you need to go to the

39:37

Scriptures so that you can build the appetite for them. Let me ask you this,

39:43

Eddie. This is an interesting question. When we talk about desire and people say, well,

39:49

I just don't desire it. There's one thing to not desire to read. I get it.

39:57

There's no one sitting here on this podcast, all three of us, and no one in our churches that says,

40:04

I wake up every morning and I have this overwhelming desire to take up and read.

40:09

I get up early and sometimes at 4 o 'clock in the morning, guess what? I don't feel like sitting down and reading.

40:19

So there's that. And Eddie's right. You have to discipline yourself in the

40:24

Scriptures to fuel that desire. However, it's a different category if somebody says,

40:31

I don't desire the God of the Scriptures. So what makes me go to the

40:37

Scriptures when I don't desire the Scriptures? When I don't desire to read the discipline of that? Because I desire the

40:43

God of the Scriptures. And if you remove that, then we've got a serious issue. And if you say, my desire for God isn't enough to push me in the

40:56

Scriptures, we have a serious issue. And I would say another warning we have to say, especially in the day that we live in, is the warning against people convincing themselves that they're going to find the

41:14

God of the Scriptures somewhere else. Yeah, right. Right? Because we know that there are people who would say, you know,

41:23

I just want Christ. But they want Christ, you know, in some, not to even hit on charismatic things, but just they want some experience of Christ outside of the

41:42

Scriptures. You know, you need to go to the Scriptures. That's where you'll find Christ.

41:47

I think we have to say time in the Scriptures does two things. Okay? It guards us from stupidity.

41:57

So it guards us from foolishness, and it gives us discernment to discern right and wrong.

42:04

Right? They restrain us. And then it also pushes me to Christ.

42:11

So it's a restrain and a pushing. So, you guys, pastors, let me ask you.

42:16

If a young man comes into your office and he's gone off onto some crazy thing, I don't believe in the

42:22

Trinity. Right? So I've listened to these guys on this podcast, and I've come to the place.

42:29

I don't agree with the Trinity. Right? If you ask him, how have you been in your daily reading time?

42:37

Ninety percent of the time, what's his answer? Yeah. No. Yeah. He's not been in the

42:44

Scriptures. I've not been in the Scriptures. Right? So what happens is I'm not being restrained because I'm not disciplined.

42:50

And so the reason that we see all these young guys just go off on all these different things is just because they're not training their minds with the

42:58

Scriptures. Yeah. They're not trained. They're listening to more podcasts about this or that, which is not wrong, but they're listening to more of these podcasts about these things than they are training their mind in the

43:12

Scriptures. Okay, so here's what I want to say. I was trying to think about how I wanted to answer that question myself, but I agree with you, brothers, and the privilege is knowing

43:22

God. The responsibility for the average believer, I'm saying, just the blue -collar guy, the stay -at -home mom, the mom working outside the home, the retired man, and whatever the case may be, the responsibility is to be in the

43:38

Word of God daily. Now, there's a lot of plans out there you can use to read the

43:44

Bible in a year. I'm a huge proponent of that, but I'm not willing to say that's the only way that you have to be in the

43:51

Scriptures. But I will say this. Whatever your time is in the Scriptures, it needs to be contextual time.

43:59

I just kind of made that up. I don't know if that makes sense. What I'm trying to say is, okay, first of all, Jesus calling is trash.

44:06

He'll throw that away. But it's not this kind of, well, I've got my verse of the day because there are no,

44:15

I hate Bible verses. That's like, well, there's a strong statement. But what I mean by that, I love

44:21

Bible verses, of course, but what I mean by I hate Bible verses is the

44:26

Scriptures intentionally were not given to us in individual verses. And there's a lot of ways that we can go wrong with just thinking,

44:35

I've read my verse of the day. No, you need to be reading the Bible. So, again, I encourage you to read the

44:41

Bible through every year. But let's say, oh, I'm not going to do that. Okay, I'm going to read

44:47

Romans the first six months and maybe I'm going to read Romans every day. That's good, okay?

44:53

But what I'm saying is, don't just say, I'm going to read three verses here today. That's my time of the word.

44:59

Tomorrow, three verses over there. You know, you need to be reading the Bible in its context.

45:05

However that plays out, that's your responsibility daily. And you say, well, no, but you don't understand.

45:11

I don't have time. Well, number one, you're listening to this podcast. Cancel it. Number two, you probably have social media.

45:18

Cancel it. Number three, you probably pay for some sort of television streaming. Cancel it.

45:23

Because if you say you don't have time, but you're doing all these other things, then these things will stand against you in the day of judgment.

45:32

Because it's a lie. You do have time, you just don't have priority. Now that comes across strong, but I'm trying to encourage us.

45:40

Remember this too. Remember the gospel. Jesus died for our sins, including the sin of the way we treat his word.

45:48

So what do you do if you're confronted with this fact that you've fallen short? The quintessential

45:54

Psalm 119 man is Jesus Christ. Only he's done it perfectly. Psalm 1, it's

45:59

Jesus Christ. Only he's done it perfectly. So what do we do? We run to Jesus and we believe the gospel for the forgiveness of our failure to read the

46:08

Bible. But then we don't turn around. Repentance is not just saying, well, okay, I'm forgiven for that, so I can go on and sin freely.

46:16

No, repentance is, I failed, I give my failures to Jesus, I'm forgiven, and now

46:21

I pursue treating the Bible as he would have me treat it. Yeah, so when we hear

46:27

Jesus say, if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Everybody wants to apply that to everything except for daily time in the word of God.

46:39

So when you say, I don't have time, what you're saying, what you're communicating is

46:46

God hasn't in his providence provided enough time for me to spend in the scriptures which he gave me that I would be sanctified.

46:56

Yeah. That's terrible. He's giving me the blessing, but not the time to enjoy it. Yes, he has.

47:01

Now, you may have to make sacrifice. Right, right, right. It's got, yeah, well, go ahead.

47:07

When someone says, I don't have time, I didn't have time to do that. No, no, no. You were given in the providence of God and his wisdom and his sovereignty, he gave you 24 hours.

47:19

You didn't use your time. So let me say this, because I know, man, we've got a long time.

47:25

It always happens when Jonathan Murdoch is on this podcast, we go long. It's always long, yeah. But let me say this, and I'm stealing from Pastor Jonathan.

47:34

This is just very practical. You need a time, a place, and a plan for the scriptures.

47:43

So if you're just saying, you know, at some point today I'm going to try to read the Bible in 2025, it's not going to happen.

47:50

For most people, I would counsel, though I understand we can find exceptions, but for most people,

47:56

I would counsel, it's your morning time. And even if you just, I know this is not the end all, be all, end all.

48:03

This is the floor. But you say, what's a practical way? One practical way is if you get up at 7 o 'clock every morning for your work and your day, your daily routines, here's just a real practical, basic level.

48:18

Get up at 6 .45. Again, I'm not saying that's the be all, end all. I'm just saying, you want a practical takeaway nugget?

48:26

15 minutes, right? Now, I would hope that it would grow, but I'm not saying, okay, let's start out

48:32

Monday getting up at 4. Maybe that, you grow into that, but I'm just, I'm just encouraging the average person, you can survive on 15 minutes less asleep.

48:41

But you need a time. You need a place. For me, it's my chair in the living room before everybody else.

48:48

But, you know, wherever that place may be. And then, then you need a plan. We don't have time to really work through it, but McShane's Bible reading plan is great.

48:55

There's others, millions, that's exaggeration, but there's lots of plans out there that you can do and be helpful.

49:01

And you should. You should change your, you should be more fervent in your scripture intake in 2025 than you were in 2024.

49:11

And if you give a context to those three things, to be consistently and constantly in the scriptures, you need a time, a place, and a plan.

49:21

But you can be in the scriptures without those things, but to be consistent in the scriptures in those three things.

49:28

Amen. So now, and we've gone long, but let's just spend the rest of our time, hopefully not too long, but it's a very important thing.

49:38

So I got, I got in trouble last year, I think both you guys know. And, and I think

49:44

I've actually maybe bruised some friendships and it wasn't my intention, not my desire.

49:50

I still don't want to do that. I never want to, and I know, I'm, I feel like I'm young.

49:55

I'm 38. So I understand sometimes young men spout off things and they say things that wind up they're too strong.

50:04

And I don't want to be, you know, Jesus, a bruised reed, will he not break? And I don't want to be that guy that's just beating people over the head.

50:11

That's not my desire. At the same time, over a year later, I, I, I feel like I'm just as resolved in this position and that is pastors must be in the scriptures daily.

50:26

Not, so I would say this, every believer should be in the scriptures daily. And I would change my language just a little bit about pastors and I would say pastors must be in the scriptures daily.

50:39

Amen. I throw that out there to you guys. I mean you can push back or say or talk or flesh that out but I want to talk more about that in just a second but just that initial statement should pastors be in the

50:51

Bible daily? Can I add something to that statement? And this, this probably caused a dust storm but it's okay.

50:58

Um, not only the pastor must be in the scriptures but for his personal care.

51:05

Not just studying to to to preach but in his personal care he must be in the scriptures.

51:14

Amen. Yeah, I was going to mention that same thing because and I don't want to don't want to go off on a tangent about the things that have transpired in the last months with Steve Lawson but one of the things that came out with that was that that I've heard from a few different sources was that basically all of his time in the scripture was was for writing assignments or sermon prep it was not soul care.

51:43

Not not not his own personal drawing near to the Lord. So yeah, I would say that that's something any

51:51

Bible teacher any pastor any person who there there maybe even a

51:56

Sunday school teacher I would say just studying the text that you have to teach that week or today or whenever is not you need to be reading and this goes back to reading contextually reading whole passages of scripture not just reading individual

52:16

Bible verses or the couple of verses that are given with your if you use daily devotional maybe that's okay but don't just read the couple of verses with that even and especially for a pastor the importance of understanding the verses in context and reading them for yourself not just because I'm reading them thinking about how

52:41

I'm going to sermonize them or how I'm going to write about them or how I'm going to teach them but how am

52:48

I going to obey them and live them what

52:54

I just want to say is let me just give some biblical backing here you've already brought up Psalm 119 and this is a few different places about the idea of on his law

53:09

I meditate day and night now we've already said the person that points us to ultimately is

53:16

Christ only the Lord Jesus Christ has ever done that perfectly so that's

53:23

Christ however in Jeremiah 23 the

53:28

Lord talks about how I will set shepherds over his flock who will care for them in 1st

53:36

Peter I'm going to a bunch of different places in 1st Peter 5 Peter talks about how we're to shepherd the flock and that our model shepherd is the chief shepherd so putting all this together if Jesus is the one who perfectly meditates on the law day and night and if he's our model for faithful ministry if he's the model for faithful pastors if we want to be shepherds as much as we can like Jesus is a shepherd over us we want to shepherd

54:09

God's people then it is an obligation upon the pastor to meditate upon the scriptures day and night of course we all fail of course we do you're not going to get to heaven based on how well you meditate but the point is that we want to model what

54:29

Christ has set forth for us and I would go so strong to say I understand we can nuance it to death and we can come with a thousand different qualifications if a man is not in the scriptures daily

54:41

I don't want him in the pulpit no no I'm preaching through James on Wednesday nights and I just came to this passage if anyone's sick among you come to the elders and let them anoint him with oil it's one of those passages where there's all these different views but I came to the conclusion this there's a progression in the context is anyone suffering let him pray is anyone sick the words translated sick

55:12

I think it's actually should be translated weak there so this suffering they've gone through has made them weak let them come to the elders and the anointing of oil there is symbolic of the pastor taking the scriptures and pointing them to Christ remember the covering that you have in Christ and so the pastor is to take what's in his heart that he's filled himself up with and pour it over the people who are weak and and that only happens if we have filled ourselves up first it only comes from the fountain of life that we've drawn from you know

55:58

Jesus sitting on the shore with Peter says if you love me feed my sheep how in the world are you going to feed them if you haven't fed your own self and it has to be personal it's got to be personal care not just oh

56:17

I studied Ephesians for 8 hours this week because I was studying to preach it no no you have to care for your own soul

56:26

I would say for many pastors again I want to be careful because we're so prone to get into some sort of legalistic but I would say for many pastors reading through the scriptures every year from Genesis to Revelation is something that should be part of your life but at some point

56:47

I will say this you do need to read through the whole Bible every two years or every three years you have to do that because you have to feed people from the whole council

57:19

I'm a lot of reading it was good whatever the case may be but you're making it through as a pastor the entirety of the canon you have to do that every 20 years 40 years that's not enough but whatever the time period you want to put but again the pastor needs to be in your time with the scripture is less than daily

57:49

Bible reading my strong encouragement to you is you've got to figure this out and going in 2025 before a lot of other things you've got to change

58:01

I'm sure but you've got to put this at the top of priority what would you say the danger of not reading through the entirety of the scriptures well

58:12

I think that it's if you're not reading through the entirety of the scriptures you can easily maybe get focused on the parts without the whole you can misunderstand the the whole story when we come to the bible we're reading one beautiful story here's something that's happened to me especially over the last handful of years is

58:38

I've began to see more and more in the scriptures in the Old Testament the beauty of the church and you're saying what the beauty of the church yes so I read the

58:48

Old Testament I see the foreshadowing and the types and the beauty of the church and I don't get that unless I'm reading the entirety of the scriptures that's one thing covenant theology what'd you say covenant theology yeah

59:03

I mean you see the working of God through the entire bible for one end yeah and that is the benefit of reading the scriptures and it's the danger of not reading the scriptures yeah that's right so pastors the exhortation is to be in the scriptures daily

59:30

I'm not mailing out some sort of plan you have to follow but we need to feed our own souls and that's our own personal time in the scriptures and then on top of that you say that's a lot of work well there's a lot of responsibility in being a pastor you know so and if you're not you need to repent and the same it's the same thing with being a father if you're not teaching your kids the bible you're wrong you're being given a responsibility and you're wrong and we should be humble about that you know and look there are days

01:00:05

I've read the bible that I know there was enough in my bible reading to condemn me to hell amen

01:00:12

I didn't have the motivation I didn't have the awe I didn't have the reverence so but we repent of that we take it

01:00:21

I heard this the other day and I think it applies to pastors and non pastors as well but it was talking about working out and the point that the guy was making was he said a bad workout is better than no workout so go work out you know

01:00:39

I've been thinking about that you know with lifting and stuff I have a lot of bad workouts so I'm like you know what ok a bad workout better than no workout let me say this let's say you don't have the right motivation let's say your discipline or whatever is off but you open the scriptures and you're reading it that's always going to be better than not because it's through that very way it's through that very means of grace that God will convict your heart and bring you out of that do you think that God's going to bring you out of your so called rut by just not reading the bible well

01:01:16

I'm in a rut so I'm not going to read the bible what I don't have the right motivation so I'm not going to read the bible what how do you think

01:01:23

God is going to correct your motivation how do you think he's going to pull you out of the rut it's through the scriptures we don't we're not in enough awe of the power and efficacy of the 66 books amen of the bible amen we don't and essentially when someone says well

01:01:43

I just didn't make time today what they're saying is I didn't make time today what you're saying is

01:01:49

God just wasn't that important to me today because it's there we see God and and that's that's what we need to realize right oh sorry and even in our own hearts when when we don't come to the scriptures you know like Eddie was talking about earlier the desire when we don't come with the desire we need to come repenting as well you know so yeah

01:02:12

Eddie you have anything you want to add in on that I would add you think about the even the meditation on the word you know day and night it you know

01:02:31

I've known people that did read their bible every day it didn't benefit them much

01:02:36

I knew a lady she was an elderly lady and she had read her

01:02:44

King James version of the bible every year her entire life and she didn't understand scriptures because she what she had done every day is she had got through her verses she had read the amount she needed to read so that she could tick it off that she had read her bible and I would say to whether it's pastors or you know brothers and sisters that aren't pastors

01:03:17

I would say we're not encouraging that you need to be meditating on the word like thinking about it because it needs to be working in us for the purpose of obedience we don't just want to know things we want to serve

01:03:39

Christ and follow Him yeah so if that's what we're seeking it's that's why it's meditation it's not just reading day and night yeah but letting it be in us day and night it's not that even reading the bible is to be all and all because you can still read the bible every day and go astray but I would say this it's not but it's not less than that yeah you gotta read it to meditate on it in the same sense you know we take our children to church who are unbelievers and sometimes they don't want to go and sometimes they grudge through it you know they sit in the pews and maybe they're not they're not happy to be there or whatever but this is where they're going to hear the gospel yeah like I just pray that God opened their hearts you know like it's right there is grace

01:04:31

I say again there is grace know that we've all failed all of us on here have failed none of us will stand before God based on our habits in the bible we've failed and we need grace we there's areas in our life that we need repenting when it comes to our time with the scriptures and so that's why we have the gospel rest in Jesus go to him but understand that going and resting in Christ and asking him to produce in us a love for his word this is something that he is pleased to answer now sometimes

01:05:07

I found this in my own prayer life sometimes the Lord is pleased to answer a prayer the first time you ask it and sometimes he bids you to keep coming and keep asking and so you say well

01:05:22

I want more desire to read the bible but God hadn't answered that yet keep asking keep going and while you're asking keep reading progress progress you said what happened when you prayed that prayer nothing what did you do

01:05:35

I prayed again what happened nothing what did you do I must have prayed it a hundred times what happened nothing what did you do

01:05:42

I asked the Lord for mercy and prayed again I want to say something and if I'm out of line and too harsh you guys rebuke me but this if you look at your twitter feed or your facebook feed and you've been posting four times five times a day and you say well

01:06:00

I don't have time for the scriptures repent and if you say well I'm going fishing and hunting and I don't have time repent it should be the top priority it should be the number one thing they bring food to Jesus and they say well what do you eat

01:06:17

I have food that you know not of and that's our food yeah if if we won't be in the scriptures then we shouldn't eat physically

01:06:28

I mean yeah that's good that's good so I hope that I know that this is a challenge but I also hope that it's an encouragement

01:06:39

God in his mercy has given us another year yeah God didn't take us out in 2024 because of the days that we we messed up with his word right he's given us another year another year of mercy but let it be known to you to whom much is given much is required so consider these days of mercy rest in the

01:07:02

Lord Jesus and then take up this book and read it God's given us a book it's the

01:07:07

King's book man and I don't mean the King James version God's given us

01:07:13

I mean King Jesus God's given us a book and we need to recover this let's be people of the book and if that cuts out if you don't get to be up on the latest you know

01:07:22

Twitter controversies so be it you don't really get to be up on the latest crypto news so be it you'll know the

01:07:28

King better and it will be worth it yeah so if you ask yourself this question if I could go back in 2024 and do one thing better right if you could do one thing better well for me

01:07:43

I would say well I wish I would have spent more time in scripture right that's seems like every year right um but this year 2025 right the

01:07:55

Lord's given it to us get in the scriptures right I'm not looking back at 2024 saying

01:08:01

I wish I would have spent more time on Twitter I wish I would have gotten more arguments over the next whatever it is going to be

01:08:08

I wish I would have listened to more podcasts I would I don't know the scriptures get in the scriptures redeem the time

01:08:15

Amen God's given us a sin bearer so rest in Him and let that grace propel you into this new year to be people of the book

01:08:25

Eddie you got anything else you want to say as we wrap this up no I'm good except for I do want to say now my earlier comment about the lady that read the

01:08:35

King James wasn't a knock on the King James if you understand it well and you prefer it

01:08:41

I'm not knocking the King James if that's the translation you want to read take up and read but yeah we want to be in good translations obviously not message but reading good translations of the scriptures and meditating on the word of God something about the

01:09:05

King James I'll put this plug in I think it's a right thing to say the King James translates fiery serpent twice as cockatrice a cockatrice is this mystical creature with the body of a serpent and the head of a rooster that will devour people it was terrible terrible in the myths and the

01:09:24

Puritans used to say you've left a cockatrice egg in your home if you're not in the scriptures you're leaving cockatrice eggs in your home so in honor of the

01:09:35

King James I say that put that on a mug on a t -shirt that's great

01:09:41

I'll I'll leave a cockatrice egg in your home let's keep dragging this out but I will make the comment you know for the most part there is good discussion we can have about translations for the most part if you're reading the

01:09:57

CSB the ESV the LSB for the NASB for the most part the

01:10:04

New King James whatever we argue way too much about those take those versions what version you got one of those versions take it up and read it so the best

01:10:15

Bible is a red Bible right okay brothers it's been a good time it's been a long time of encouragement

01:10:21

I hope this is encouragement to our listeners this is a challenge but I hope you also find grace in it and an exhortation let's do this together the

01:10:32

Lord's given us 2025 we live look I get it we could be living in any number of evil regimes but the

01:10:45

Lord's given us I do believe a season of mercy here but he's given it to us that we may be faithful and humble people repentant and pursuing his glory so utilize it in this coming year for the glory of Christ alright well

01:11:01

Jonathan you're actually going to take us out because when we cut we go immediately to you preaching

01:11:07

I don't know if people know that but Jonathan is the one preaching here at the end but we're going to let

01:11:13

Eddie sign us off see you guys next week if you really believe the church is the building the church is the house the church is what