Episode Transcript
[00:00:18] Speaker A: Okay, well, hey, this is Shanna Williams, and this is the Grace and Grit Mindset podcast.
And I started this podcast last year out of me overcoming and walking through and still walking through so many things that were so difficult and challenging over the years and the things I've learned over the years, I felt like I needed to share those with people who maybe this is you.
Maybe you struggle with overcoming anxiety or depression or negative thought loops. That was my life in a nutshell for so long. And so I felt like at some point, as I started to really make so much progress in this. I mean, the things I've been through are unreal. And I just felt like, you know, what the right thing to do, the legacy that I want to leave, is that I help people overcome and walk out their life in a victorious way, full of joy, full of peace, and that they change their mindset. Because I truly believe my mindset is really where everything starts.
And we cannot walk with God unless we really have the mind of Christ. We have to develop and form the mind of Christ in our lives. Yay. So that's what we're doing. And so one of the ways that we do that. Last week I talked about the danger of not studying scripture. I can't remember exactly what that episode was called.
There was something along those lines, yeah, the quiet danger of not studying scripture. But this week, I want to talk about something about, like, you know, I want to teach you or not teach you, but really just kind of give you a thought, give you a little bit of a process, a system to studying Scripture in a way that's not intimidating or overwhelming to you. So if I say, hey, there's a quiet danger not studying Scripture, then the follow up would be, well, okay, how do I study scripture?
And what I want to say is, very gently, I want to say this in a very nice way, but I want to say it nonetheless, is that we can really, really. And I did this for years. We can get really caught up in just reading someone else's study of the Bible. And in every area of our life, I've talked to people of counsel, people and things like that, and they kind of just tell me how many Bible studies they've done. They've done this Beth Moore Bible study. They've done this Lisa Tuckhurst book. And then they went to. And it's all like, kind of built around the minister or the teacher.
And I can tell that, you know, and this is not a judgment call because I've done the same thing for years. It's like okay, that's great. But did you really dig into this yourself instead of someone telling you what it said, but did you get into it yourself and discover with the Lord what it's saying in its most pure form, not what someone has articulated to you that they think it says? And you know, I mean, you could even say that about me, like, don't take my word for all the things that I say about the Bible or what I teach. You know, I teach from experience. But I want to just say that, get in there for yourself. Learn how to study for yourself. So that way you're not an easy target. You're not easy prey for the enemy to deceive you by using another person to do it. And I'm not saying that people are intentionally trying to deceive you or that everybody that you read their Bible studies, but I'm not saying that at all. I just think we have to be really careful. There's a real danger when we decide to always let another person kind of interpret everything for us.
There are times in our life where God will definitely use someone to teach us.
And maybe it is their Bible study, maybe it's their book, whatever, but it can really turn into a kind of situation where we kind of put this person on a pedestal and it becomes like we only believe what they say instead of us going to the Bible ourself, instead of us going to the author of the Bible ourselves.
Yeah. So I want to talk about really kind of a simple way to study scripture that, you know, I've. I've been doing this for years, and anytime I teach publicly or if I get asked to come and speak at a conference, this is the way that I study Scripture. It's very.
I guess initially it might seem a little academic or it might seem a little bit.
For some people, they may feel like, oh my gosh, I feel like I'm writing a research paper. But, you know, the great thing about writing a research paper is by the time you get done with it, you know what you're talking about.
That's the whole point. Right? People who write their thesis paper, when they're, when they're getting their degree, by the time they get done and they've studied this thing for four years, they know what they're talking about. And that's the whole point of this is research study is going to make you a person who understands and knows what they're talking about, as opposed to a person who's just kind of blindly led by other people, other quote unquote experts in that field, you know, it's not a slight to you. If you are new and you haven't been studying, I'm not at all bringing any judgment against you at all. I'm so glad that you are wanting to study. I'm just saying, hey, as you progress in your Christian walk, make sure that you also learn to study for yourself. That's all I'm saying.
So really, this. I mean, this approach is not about. It's not super complicated, it's not super academic. It is a little bit academic in some ways, but. And it's not about sounding super smart. I'm not trying to impress people with my, you know, capacity to research and analyze the Bible and tell people, you know, I mean, I'm not trying to be like a theologian.
I'm just a person. I'm a human being who doesn't want to be misled and I don't want to be deceived.
So we're going to break this down into like, four parts, right?
[00:06:35] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: So this is how I study. This is a very common method of studying, studying the Bible. I did not make this up. This is kind of what I would call the inductive Bible study method, which is. I was trying to do this years ago and I really still do this. There are other methods and you can use those. Absolutely. This is just what makes sense to my brain. So there's four parts of it, and it's. I'm just going to tell you the four parts and then I'll go through them a little bit. So it's observation, part one, part two is interpretation, and then part three is application.
So this is not hard. Okay, so we have observation, interpretation and application. So I'm going to look at each one of these steps and just kind of maybe use a little bit of Scripture to look at, just to kind of prove a point here to you. Or not prove, but just show you how to do this.
Okay, Right.
So we start with. I lost my note. Hold on just a second.
So we start with observation. And what I do here. These are just some things that I do. You can kind of get your own method down. But for me, I'm asking questions. I'm asking questions because what I really am trying to get to in this section is I'm trying to get to answer the question of what does it actually say in its most pure form? This is not me specifically speculating. This is not me trying to draw conclusions. This is literally me reading it and for what it really says. So, you know, before I interpret anything I want to slow down and I want to actually read it. I don't want to add any meaning to it. I don't want to spiritualize it just yet. I just want to notice things. And this is where you ask questions. This is always what I do. I become almost like an investigative journalist or reporter. I'm asking questions in my mind or even out loud as I'm reading it. I'm asking like, who, who is speaking? First of all, who is speaking?
That's super important because that's going to determine so many things if I know who is speaking, but then also who are they speaking to? So I need to know who's in this scene right now, you know, because that's going to determine so much of what this really means. If I know who is speaking and who they're speaking to too. Are they repetitively, are they repeating words over and am I seeing words kind of over and over in this passage of scripture in maybe a chapter or maybe it's a small book in the Bible, something like, you know, Ephesians or Philippians or Colossians, something that's a few chapters long. Am I seeing repetition in words?
And I'm going to ask things like, is there a command? Is there a promise? Is there a warning? Is there a story here? Like, I'm still kind of being an investigator here.
And then I also want to look at context. I want to look at what happens before and after the passage.
That's super important, before and after the passage. So what that does is that really gives me an understanding.
Instead of me just plucking out a passage, I'm actually going to look at the entire thing. Especially when you're looking at these letters that Paul writes or some of the other letters in here.
You know, they weren't subdivided and they weren't like chaptered out the way that we see them. These were just a continuous letter.
Right? So it's really not, it's not probably smart to pluck out a paragraph out of a letter someone wrote. It's kind of like when you watch the news and someone edits a comment that may be a political part, someone in a political party or you know, a politician says, and they take out like one sentence out of a 30 minute speech that they were giving and they. And it completely gives it a different meaning. You know what I mean? It's the same thing here.
People can, you know, misinterpret things when you are just trying to just pluck out one small part of it as opposed to looking at the whole of it. So this is a lot. This is, you know, when you're doing this kind of study, it's not like devotional stuff where you just put. Pull a scripture out and you're like, oh, isn't this beautiful? And there's nothing wrong with DeVos. Hey, I've written a devotional. Like, they're good. I mean, it's, it's, it's a good thing too, because it kind of pulls us into a frame of mind and a spirit of humility before the Lord and that kind of thing. But, you know, when you're dealing with wanting to study, which is what we're called to do, Paul tells Timothy, study to show yourself approved as a workman who doesn't need to be ashamed. Right.
So we're actually commanded to do that. Well, he commands Timothy to do that. And the application is, oh, I need to do that too. You know, that's what we're. That's. That's the application part.
So, you know, let's just take, for example, let's just look a little bit at Ephesians, chapter six.
And up until this point, Paul has just kind of been talking about some
[00:11:35] Speaker B: different things, but especially in chapter five,
[00:11:38] Speaker A: he's talking about different roles that you might be in, like a wife or husband or a child or even a slave and a master. He's talking about those types of things and how you should act and behave in those roles. Like, what does Christ expect of you?
Based on what we know about Jesus, here's how you should act. That's basically kind of what he's been saying. And then all of a sudden, he jumps into Christian warfare. And this is a very, very famous passage that all of us know. If you've been in church for any length of time, time six and 10, says, finally, be strong in the Lord
[00:12:13] Speaker B: and by his vast strength put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil.
[00:12:19] Speaker A: For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against
[00:12:23] Speaker B: the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil spiritual forces in the heavens. For this reason, take up the full armor of God so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, having prepared everything to take your stand. Stand therefore with truth like a belt around your waist, righteousness like armor on your chest and your feet, sandaled with readiness for the gospel of peace. In every situation, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of Salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request, and stay alert with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints. Wow, that's a lot.
[00:13:05] Speaker A: So here's. Here's what I'm doing as I'm reading this. I would obviously slow down. This is, you know, that's what you would do. You want to slow down. You say, who's speaking?
Paul speaking. Where? Where is he speaking from?
[00:13:17] Speaker B: A prison.
[00:13:18] Speaker A: He's. He's writing to the Church of Ephesus that he is. That he had a part in establishing. And he's writing, I believe, from a prison.
I believe most of these epistles are written from prison.
[00:13:33] Speaker B: So.
[00:13:33] Speaker A: And you can check that, and I will check that, too. Who is he speaking to? He's speaking to these new baby Christians, right?
What words does he repeat?
[00:13:44] Speaker B: I would say he talks about being strengthened. He talks about standing a lot.
[00:13:49] Speaker A: Kind of some of these.
These words that we see kind of over and over in that passage. Is there a command, a promise, a warning, a story?
There's a command.
There's a command here. He's saying, hey, I don't know if you realize what you're up against, but you're up against principalities and spiritual rulers in high places.
And, you know, you got to realize that you're not just floating around, you know, a bystander that's not engaged in this, that you're actually like a soldier.
So let's talk about.
Let's talk. And even in my notes, I don't have this. But I just want to say real quick on here that, you know, we talk about who.
Who and what words.
But also, I think we need to touch on why. Why would he say this, right? And how does this apply to them? Because we want to look at it in its first primary meaning. And so, you know, as I'm reading this, I'm thinking about, okay, this time in history, Rome dominated the world, right? Rome had conquered so many civilizations, including Israel, including the Jews. They had been overrun by the Roman Empire. You know, of course we know that because Jesus is crucified kind of at the height of the Roman Empire.
And so, you know, I think there's something interesting about this, because you and I don't live in a world where we see. See soldiers dressed like this, right? The soldiers that we see now have on camo and probably have guns all unstrapped all over them. They don't look like this. So he's using A symbol, a symbolic visualization for them that would have been normal in their time. These people, these Jews were. And a lot of people, a lot. Almost everybody was used to seeing Roman soldiers everywhere, and they were used to seeing these elements and these pieces of their, you know, of. Of their armor. Like, these are the things they had to wear. And so that would not have been abnormal for them to see that. And. And so for us, it's different because we. We didn't. We don't see that. We don't walk outside and see Roman soldiers in our. We don't even really see American soldiers in our front yard, you know, so we don't have kind of a real base point, I guess, to understand what. What he's saying here. To us, it kind of seems foreign. Like, why would you talk about that? And I believe it's because, you know, first of all, he wants to paint a picture for them, but he wants them to understand that who they are is not just some victim. They're. They're not just at the mercy of the powers that be, that they're actually soldiers of Christ, and he wants them to understand how they are to fight.
How do they fight in a world where that's being dominated by such powerful forces of Rome that are honestly being propped up by principalities and spiritual authorities in these places. Right? He's saying, okay, you don't wage war.
You don't wage war physically by trying to stand up against Rome physically. Right? Because that's what the Jews had been trying to do before, right? Now we're in a new era. Now we're in the New Testament. So the when of when was this? Well, we're in the New Testament.
We are in a completely different time era, but also we're in a different covenant. Right?
So he's telling them, I want you to know, and I want you to see yourselves this way, and I want you to understand that, yes, you are fighting really strong, powerful forces.
But I'm gonna tell you how to do it.
And so that's super cool, because now I'm certain. Now we're starting to understand. Okay, let me see it through their eyes.
And now once I see it through their eyes, that is the observation. I'm getting a full. It's almost like I'm sitting down and I'm watching.
Like, I put myself there and I'm watching it, or I see it on a screen, it's playing out before me. I see these people. That's why I love watching historical movies that are biblical, and some of the stuff that's out now, because I feel like I get to see it and my imagination can understand better. What was this person trying to say? What is this story really about?
So here's the truth when you talk about observation is that you cannot understand what it really means until you understand what it says.
So we really have to understand what it says. And we do that by slowing down. We ask some of these questions that I just said.
So now we've observed it. The interpretation now is part two. What does it mean then? Okay, so I see. I've observed it now. What does that mean? This is where I believe spiritual maturity begins.
Because, you know, we understand that every passage was written by someone, to someone, in a specific time frame, in a specific covenant context, which we just talked about all of that. So before it means something to me, it meant something to them. And we kind of just were looking at what. What would the original audience have understood by reading this letter of Paul? They would have understood, oh, my gosh.
I'm not like, here's my role.
[00:19:12] Speaker B: Now I understand what my role is.
[00:19:14] Speaker A: Before, I just was kind of. They were probably just kind of floating around and maybe frantically praying because Paul's in prison and they're scared or they're. There's a persecution of the church everywhere.
And he doesn't want them to live in fear. He wants them to understand that they've been given power, that they are soldiers in an army, and they're the soldiers in God's army, which is just so much more powerful than anything else they could be facing.
Even as scary as what they were looking at, the threat of death all the time, constantly being persecuted. I mean, being hunted down and stoned
[00:19:49] Speaker B: or crucified or whatever horrible death that
[00:19:53] Speaker A: Rome or, you know, the Jews wanted to use, whatever method they wanted to use. But he's telling them, you know, to stand. He's saying to stand, but he's saying to stand like this.
So that's what it meant to them.
And I think this is just amazing, like, because it just gives me personally, so much more rich. A richer depth of meaning for what. What this means, as opposed to just superficially on the surface, reading that and just saying, okay, so I'm supposed to be like a romantic. Okay, so I have a shield. Okay, that's great. Blah, blah, blah. Right?
So why do we. Why do we worry about primary meaning like this before we try to apply it? Because primary meaning comes before personal meaning. And what that does is it protects us against emotional, emotionally misreading a passage it protects us against pulling verses out of context.
It protects us against building doctrine on isolated phrases. There have been entire denominations built on isolated phrases in the Bible. It's really scary.
Go back and research that for yourself. We don't want to build an entire doctrine on one passage of Scripture or an experience that we had.
We want to base things on the entire council of God, and we don't want to pull things out of context. Right? So we have, first we start with observation, and then we go to interpretation, which is what we just said. We just said, okay, what was Paul saying? Why did he say it? What does this mean? Now I'm going to talk about application. And this is usually where people start. People read a passage of Scripture. A lot of us do it. I do it. I'm not trying to sound judgmental.
And we immediately apply it instead of taking the time to actually go, what did this originally mean?
And let me observe it first for what it really just says, and then let me interpret it for what it meant to them originally. And then, okay, now I can apply. Now I have a better understanding of it.
So now that I know when you're talking about application, what you're really asking is, what does obedience look like now?
So now after we've done these other things, we can apply this, right? So application is not how does this make me feel, or what do I want this to mean?
So it is not about how does it make me feel, or what do I want it to mean. What it is. What application is, is what truth about God do I see now since I've read this, or what correction am I seeing here? What encouragement am I seeing here? Or what needs to change in my thinking or behavior? So now I can look at Ephesians, chapter six, and I can say, you know what?
I see the truth of what God is showing me, that there's a heavenly realm, and that's where all this spiritual warfare takes place.
And I see the truth of who I am in the middle of this and who he is and who the. You know, what the enemy is doing. I see the encouragement I have here is that I can, that I need to stand. And here's how I do it. I make sure I have covering and I have the armor of God on what needs to change in my thinking, behavior. I need to realize that I'm actually in an army. I mean, I'm part of God's military fleet. You know, I'm a. I'm part of this. And I'm not just a grandstanding, like a Bystander. I'm not just standing over here watching everyone else fight from a distance and hoping and praying that I don't get massacred or I'm letting somebody else do. Do what I should be doing. You know, when you read this, he's talking now, here's the application. He's talking to the church at Ephesus. He's telling them all that they are soldiers, that they need to learn how to stand and put on the full armor of God. He didn't just tell the leaders. He didn't just tell a couple of people that he really liked. This was everyone. So what does that mean? That means that now I am.
When I apply this, this means all believers. This is how we're supposed to be. I'm not supposed to be a bystanding Christian who doesn't know how to stand, who doesn't know how to wear the form of God, who doesn't know how to fight in the way and understand spiritual warfare in the way that it really is. I have an obligation now, right? So my behavior, my change in my thinking is, okay, I need to take this for what it really is and realize who I am and who he is and how do I fight?
So I want to just say that application without interpretation leads to confusion and obedience is the goal, not just information. So I don't want to just read this and not change something about myself. I want to read this at a place of obedience. Okay, what is it that I need to change here?
What is out of alignment in me that I need to ask the Lord to help me align myself? Or what is God asking me to do now? Is he asking me to engage spiritually more than I have been? Is he trying to show me that my prayers matter? Is he trying to tell me that I need to stand with the rest of the body of Christ and I need to fight this good fight? I need to learn how to put my armor on every day because it matters.
[00:25:10] Speaker B: Right?
[00:25:10] Speaker A: So that's my example for you of the observation, interpretation, and application.
So I want to just, you know, I want to tie this back to what I talked about last week. Okay. Last week was, you know, the danger of not studying scripture for yourself, really, and just always taking somebody's word for it.
So when we do this, you know, I don't want to say that you need to be suspicious of every single person that is teaching or your pastor or whatever. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that you need to know for yourself what the Bible says and when you do, then you are accountable. That is the downside. Once we learn, then we're accountable for it. But I think so much of the deception that's out there is because people don't know the truth.
This is about what we're trying to do here is grow up in the Word and be stabilized in the Word.
And the truth is that when you learn to slow down and ask those questions like we just talked about, the Bible becomes less intimidating and it becomes more alive to you because you realize that this is not just an old, dusty book that was written a long time ago for specific people.
It was written for specific people at the time. But God had it written in such a way that it could be handed down to us because these truths are timeless. This is who God is. God is saying there's, you know, there's always going to be spiritual warfare. And this is the mystery that, you know, like the people in the Old Testament before Christ didn't understand spiritual warfare the way that we do. They didn't realize more than likely, that they were dealing with principalities and powers. What they thought they were dealing with were people. That's why they constantly would, you know, God would tell them to go into these areas, go into the cane, go into Canaan, kill all the people there, you know, kill all the Amorites, kill all the Jebusites, don't spare anyone. You know, so to them, people are the enemy. That's what they had been taught. Just like every other culture. The Jews had been taught that Gentiles were evil and horrible. But. But what they. And they, of course, they believed in Satan and all that, but I think they believed in demons. But I think what happened was they didn't really make this correlation and didn't understand.
And this is me speculating a little bit, but I think they didn't understand that what they were dealing with was a hierarchy of demonic powers and these principalities that we really don't even understand exactly what that means. I mean, it can could just mean demons, or it could mean fallen, fallen powers that we don't really even understand that. You know, I don't think they had the words and the language to understand this. I think what they really thought was going on was they needed to kill people because, you know, people, the people were their enemy. As opposed to how Paul's describing this. He's saying, you know, we don't fight in the natural. Like, people are not our enemy. It's these spiritual powers behind the people.
And this is how you're gonna fight that war. I hope that this makes sense to you. And I'm so happy because I kept this right at 30 minutes.
So here's. Here's homework for you. If you're hanging in there and you really do want to learn to study like this, which is so cool, y'. All. I love it.
And I even get a little more nerdy than this when I am getting ready for conferences or retreats or whatever, man. I go back and I do research, historical research. I want to know.
And some of that you have to get outside of the Bible, because the Bible is not going to contain everything that has to do with history. So you have to get into some historical research to understand and some Jewish culture and the world history.
But it's fascinating to me because when you put it all together, you get a really great picture of what was really going on, and you get to immerse yourself in the story. And when you immerse yourself in the story, you begin to understand the story. When you really understand the story, you begin to really understand the application. Okay, now, how does this apply to me?
And I think that's amazing, right?
So here's what you could do this week if you. If you want to try this out, right? So you just choose one short passage. Doesn't really matter what it is. You could pull from Psalms. I love that you could pull a psalm. You know, a lot of them were written by David. But the interesting thing is, like, if you look at some of these Psalms, is it Psalm 50, 51, I believe.
Give me a second here. I'm going to give you an example. Okay, here we go. I am. Had a little incident there. But what I just wanted to give you was a quick example of what I'm talking about. So if you flip to Psalm 51 and you just started reading, you would see some of the things that David says here. And like he says, against you, you alone I have sinned and done this
[00:30:27] Speaker B: evil in your sight. Sir, you are right when you're. When you pass sentence, you are blameless when you judge.
[00:30:32] Speaker A: He says, surely you desire integrity in
[00:30:35] Speaker B: my inner self, and you teach me wisdom deep within. Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean. Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
[00:30:41] Speaker A: So it just keeps going.
But if you go back and you look at the subtitle of this psalm, it is a psalm that Nathan, that
[00:30:50] Speaker B: David wrote when Nathan came to him after he had gone to Bathsheba.
[00:30:54] Speaker A: So this is after he had had this adulterous relationship.
They have the baby the baby dies, and there's God pronounces some judgment against David and the whole entire nation. And so what you're seeing here, I mean, if you just were to read that and not understand what was going on, it would not have the impact that it has. But when you start to understand what was going on, some of the things that David said, and you understand this level of repentance that he's at, and that can really be applied to us once we understand what was happening at that moment. So that's just a quick. Another quick example. So for you, you know, choose a short passage. Ask yourself, like, what does it actually say?
And then. What did it mean to them? Or then. And what does obedience look like now? That's it, y'. All. There's. There's no pressure. It's just attention.
It's slowing down and paying attention and not mindlessly reading Scripture without any slowing down to really study it. Right? Because we want to study.
[00:32:02] Speaker B: So that's all I have for you
[00:32:03] Speaker A: this week, and I can't wait to keep going with this next week. Not sure where we're gonna go, but it will be good. So you guys have a good week and study your Bible. Bye.
[00:32:12] Speaker C: He's bringing new light and no. Hey. His fire is burning, right? His L is breaking through he's coming for me S.
Whoa.
No scheme from hell can stop his love no weapon forms can break his old he's faithful to his shining light not even death can hold his beloved.
