Speaker 1: You are listening to the com Frandie Christianity podcast, the
Speaker 1: first episode of twenty twenty five. I really forget what
Speaker 1: season this is. It might be fourth or fifth, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Anyway, it's twenty twenty five. I do know that,
Speaker 1: and I'm here with a fellow Brit, Rachel Jones. Hi, Rachel, Hello,
Speaker 1: that was far too enthusiastic for a Brit. Britz are
Speaker 1: not meant to whoop like that. Control yourself.
Speaker 2: I'm channeling my inner American.
Speaker 1: My husband Brian always says he thinks that I'm American
Speaker 1: on the inside because I'm far too kind of enthusiastic
Speaker 1: and open and all the things to be properly English.
Speaker 1: But I have a pretty solidly English track record and
Speaker 1: sort of crust at least. Rachel, for those who don't
Speaker 1: yet know her, is an editor at The Good Book Company,
Speaker 1: which is a company that produces good books. I can
Speaker 1: vouch for that, based in the UK, but also in
Speaker 1: the US. Is that right? Sort of both sides of.
Speaker 2: The pond, Yeah, teams in both sides, Yeah, lovely.
Speaker 1: I have a couple of times written books for the
Speaker 1: Good Book Company. I've hat three times now that I
Speaker 1: think about it. And every time Rachel's been my editor
Speaker 1: and she's been excellent, outstanding editor there. And she has
Speaker 1: also written books herself, including a book called is This It?
Speaker 1: Which is a sort of about how to think about
Speaker 1: quarter life crisis from a Christian perspective? Is that fair
Speaker 1: to say?
Speaker 2: How to be an adult right from a Christian perspective?
Speaker 2: It's got big avocado on the front. I love that
Speaker 2: that was about when millennials were the thing that now
Speaker 2: I guess it's the day of gen Z's so whole
Speaker 2: gen Z's. I don't know what fruit they'd have on
Speaker 2: the front.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that in England it's gen Z because
Speaker 1: I'm so used to hearing gen Z here. Also, I'm
Speaker 1: continually arguing with our mutual friend Rachel Gilson about whether
Speaker 1: I am a millennial or a gen X because by
Speaker 1: some calculations, millennials start in nineteen eighty and I just
Speaker 1: squeak into nineteen eighty, but by others they don't. So
Speaker 1: she's always like, no, you're solidly gen X. What's wrong
Speaker 1: with you? And I'm like, no, no, no, but look
Speaker 1: at all the avocado toasts that I eat religiously. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that's not what we're talking about today, we are talking
Speaker 1: instead about Rachel's new book, which is called The Quiet
Speaker 1: Time Kickstart Six Weeks to a Healthy Bible Habit. I
Speaker 1: love this the book cover. Not that you should judge
Speaker 1: a book by its cover, but I just want people
Speaker 1: to know, especially as this is a podcast, people probably
Speaker 1: can't see the cover. I'm going to hold it up
Speaker 1: in case I have a clip mix and what's the
Speaker 1: way on to social media. It's got a really fun
Speaker 1: cover that suggests the sort of beginning small and growing
Speaker 1: over time is what I'm taking away from that. And
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear first Rachel, kind of what motivated
Speaker 1: you to want to write a little bit like this,
Speaker 1: and also what on earth is a quiet time? For
Speaker 1: those who are less familiar with that particular piece of
Speaker 1: Christian jargon, Yeah, it's a.
Speaker 2: Weird it's a weird phrase. So quiet time is this
Speaker 2: idea that, Yeah, as a Christian, as a follower of Jesus,
Speaker 2: each day you set aside a chunk of time, I
Speaker 2: don't know, fifteen minutes, half an hour to read Bible
Speaker 2: and to pray. And I would say, if you've like
Speaker 2: grown up going to church or have been around churches,
Speaker 2: a while, you probably have this impression that, like having
Speaker 2: a quiet time is a thing you're meant to do,
Speaker 2: it's a thing that it's a thing that Christians do,
Speaker 2: and you know, often, you know, there's a sort of
Speaker 2: a joke or a trope or whatever that you know,
Speaker 2: like every every talk at youth group ends with the
Speaker 2: application that you need to reach a Bible and tell
Speaker 2: your friends about Jesus. And that's kind of where we start.
Speaker 2: But it is a helpful thing to do. But it's
Speaker 2: a thing actually that quietly, quite a lot of Christians
Speaker 2: aren't doing a lot of a lot of my friends,
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of people at my church. They
Speaker 2: have this sense that they're meant to be in the Bible.
Speaker 2: They want to read the Bible and pray each day,
Speaker 2: but it's just not part of their routine. And so
Speaker 2: it really grew out of that observation and what would
Speaker 2: what would a resource look like that would help people
Speaker 2: who wanted to develop that habit to actually do that.
Speaker 2: And the inspiration really came from the couch to five
Speaker 2: K program. I don't know, do you have that there?
Speaker 1: I think so, I haven't done it personally, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's something over here as well,
Speaker 1: a sort of exercise beginning to exercise routine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's like this app and it helps you
Speaker 2: go from couch potato to someone who can run five k.
Speaker 2: And so it starts small and then you build up,
Speaker 2: so your first run you're not kind of running solidly,
Speaker 2: you know. It tells you to run for sixty seconds
Speaker 2: and then you like walk for ninety seconds, and you've
Speaker 2: got like this celebrity coach in your ear who's like saying, yeah,
Speaker 2: you can do it, and you sort of gradually, you know,
Speaker 2: you gradually increase the amount of jogging you do and
Speaker 2: like reduce the rest times you have until like you're
Speaker 2: running for like thirty minutes. And I had done touch
Speaker 2: five k. Like family members at Christmas, you know, and
Speaker 2: everyone's like vegging out on the sofa on like the
Speaker 2: twenty eighth of December, and you know, my sister would
Speaker 2: go up for a run and then she'd just come
Speaker 2: back as like this whole new person. And I say,
Speaker 2: but it's really hard to develop a habit like that.
Speaker 2: It's really hard to sort of know where to start
Speaker 2: or how to get there. And I figured that for
Speaker 2: lots of people It's pretty similar with this kind of
Speaker 2: discipline of reading the Bible and having a time to pray.
Speaker 2: You kind of want to do it, but it's hard
Speaker 2: to develop the habit. So in the same way, this
Speaker 2: little booklet, it's got readings that you do each day,
Speaker 2: and they start really small, just with like a couple
Speaker 2: of sentences, and then they build up and kind of
Speaker 2: gradually kind of increasing the time that you're spending. And yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm the one saying, WHOA, you can do it and
Speaker 2: kind of helping people, giving people pointers as to how
Speaker 2: to understand scripture as they go.
Speaker 1: That's Richard. Now the second time you've whooped on this podcast,
Speaker 1: and I'm increasingly concerned about you. Yeah, I really like
Speaker 1: this this analogy to exercise, because my guess is for
Speaker 1: folks who are listening, regardless of how they would identify religiously,
Speaker 1: that probably all of us know that we should be exercising,
Speaker 1: that that's something that you know, healthy people do, and
Speaker 1: that even there's a there's a whole narrative around the
Speaker 1: fact that if you exercise actually makes you happy, that
Speaker 1: there are sort of I don't know, and orphans firing
Speaker 1: off or whatever when you exercise and that even though
Speaker 1: we might have a mental barrier to exercise because it
Speaker 1: takes effort and it's often more comfortable sitting on the
Speaker 1: couch than it is, you know, running down the street,
Speaker 1: that there is going to be this kind of payoff
Speaker 1: in terms of not only our like overall long term
Speaker 1: physical health, but also even people who exercise tend to
Speaker 1: have sort of less LIGHTLYHD depression and better kind of
Speaker 1: overall happiness and mental health and physical health and kind
Speaker 1: of all the all the things. So it's like it's
Speaker 1: something that's can be hard for us to implement, but
Speaker 1: we know that there is this sort of promised land
Speaker 1: of betterness on the other side of it. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that it's not just about like, Okay, you know, let's
Speaker 1: go to the gym one day and exercise our hearts
Speaker 1: out and then sort of exhausted for a month and
Speaker 1: never do it again. It's there's something about the consistent
Speaker 1: rhythm of exercise that is what really makes the difference,
Speaker 1: rather than just kind of the daily sort of a
Speaker 1: random burst that doesn't follow through to consistency. Is that true? Also,
Speaker 1: would you say of Bible reading and kind of prayer time,
Speaker 1: This this sort of mysterious quiet time that that we're
Speaker 1: talking about in this book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say so definitely, and that especially that
Speaker 2: idea that the benefits are reaped not just kind of
Speaker 2: in that one moment, but through having that consistent habit
Speaker 2: that you sort of are yeah, growing, growing in wisdom
Speaker 2: and kind of spiritual health in a way that yeah,
Speaker 2: you you you know, the results aren't always instant, and
Speaker 2: as you say, like it's always it's it's often easier
Speaker 2: to do something else, but that Yeah, the Bible promises that,
Speaker 2: you know, if we are people consistently dwelling in God's
Speaker 2: word and and speaking to him in prayer, then then
Speaker 2: we will find ourselves changed by the process.
Speaker 1: Well, what do you think is the biggest barrier to
Speaker 1: getting started when it comes to Bible reading? And when
Speaker 1: I say getting started, I don't just mean like opening
Speaker 1: the Bible once, but getting started on a Bible reading habit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there are lots, aren't there. You know
Speaker 2: you can point to, you know, things like distraction or
Speaker 2: just our phones or just kind of you know, the
Speaker 2: the endorphin hits that we can get so much more
Speaker 2: easily from other places. But you know, I think you know,
Speaker 2: most most things stem from the heart, don't they All
Speaker 2: things stem from the heart, and not most things. And
Speaker 2: so I think often it comes down to, you know,
Speaker 2: there's there's there's part of us maybe that doesn't want
Speaker 2: to because of what we're expecting of God and who
Speaker 2: we what we think he's like, and what we think
Speaker 2: he'll say. Sometimes I think there's a part of us
Speaker 2: that thinks we don't need to because of, you know what,
Speaker 2: what we think about ourselves. And you know, we're generally
Speaker 2: kind of competent individuals maybe who who who kind of
Speaker 2: get on with life okay, And sometimes you know, we
Speaker 2: think that we we can't, you know, And I guess
Speaker 2: those those are the people who I was really thinking
Speaker 2: about as I as I wrote this little resource, this
Speaker 2: idea that the Bible is a big and really intimidating book.
Speaker 2: You know, how do you how do you even like, yeah,
Speaker 2: get started where you know which bit, which bit do
Speaker 2: you read first? And then you read it and it's
Speaker 2: weird or there's you know, there's people killing each other,
Speaker 2: or you know, there's there's some there's some odd stuff,
Speaker 2: and you know, how can I be how can I
Speaker 2: be confident that you know what what I think it
Speaker 2: means is really what it means. I meet a lot
Speaker 2: of people who kind of have that, that's that fear.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think some of the are some of
Speaker 2: the big barriers to people having a quiet time regularly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's I think that's absolutely right. A
Speaker 1: sense of intimidation, I guess, especially as as often, we'll
Speaker 1: kind of instinctively start at the beginning, you know, as
Speaker 1: is it. Maria von Trap puts it in the sound
Speaker 1: of music. Let's start at the very beginning, A very
Speaker 1: good place to start. When we begin with ABC, I'm
Speaker 1: refraining from singing only just And when we read the Bible,
Speaker 1: we begin with Genesis chapter one, and I think for
Speaker 1: a lot of people, you know, Genesis chapter one goes swimmingly,
Speaker 1: and then chapters sort of two and three start to
Speaker 1: become a little bit confusing because we have all sort
Speaker 1: of stuff about how human beings are made, and people,
Speaker 1: you know, questions come up about what about relationship between
Speaker 1: the first woman even the first man, Adam, And then
Speaker 1: what happens in chapter three we have this serpent coming along,
Speaker 1: and there's the curiousness of the Bible starts pretty early on,
Speaker 1: and people might have a lot of questions, and then
Speaker 1: I think, you know, as people progress through the narrative,
Speaker 1: they might find, you know, Genesis, they see a lot
Speaker 1: of things described that we would recognize as bad things,
Speaker 1: and then an exodus. You know, the narrative continues highs
Speaker 1: and lows, and then by the time we're getting to
Speaker 1: Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy, the sort of third, fourth,
Speaker 1: and fifth books of the Bible, I think people are
Speaker 1: often kind of come completely unstuck because they're harder to
Speaker 1: figure out, like, how does this fit into an overall
Speaker 1: kind of understanding of who God is and how this
Speaker 1: all works. Would you recommend that people start at the
Speaker 1: very beginning and work through the Bible from there, or
Speaker 1: would you recommend that they start with a New Testament
Speaker 1: and seat of set the Old Testament aside. What are
Speaker 1: your thoughts on starting points?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess if I had a friend who was
Speaker 2: wanting to start reading the Bible, whether they were a
Speaker 2: Christian or art I would probably recommend they start with
Speaker 2: the New Testament, just because it's more obvious in some ways,
Speaker 2: or some bits of it are, and really, you know,
Speaker 2: the benefit of reading the Bible is that it shows
Speaker 2: us the Lord Jesus. I mean, that's what we're that's
Speaker 2: what we're seeking to do. When we read any bit
Speaker 2: of the Bible, including the Old Testament, there's this idea
Speaker 2: that it's that all of it is pointing to Jesus
Speaker 2: Christ and what he would come and do. And so yeah,
Speaker 2: I guess if you if you open up Mark's Gospel,
Speaker 2: it's kind of easier to get to the point and
Speaker 2: see Jesus. Then maybe if you're if you're working through Genesis.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think I think if there's someone here,
Speaker 2: you know, listening, wanted to wanted to start reading the Bible,
Speaker 2: it might be a good idea to start with one
Speaker 2: of the gospels. Yeah, yeah, I think.
Speaker 1: I think that's wise advice that we would maybe stop
Speaker 1: in one of the gospels. You reference Mark, which is
Speaker 1: the shortest and as far as we can tell, earliest
Speaker 1: of the gospels to be written down, and they're in
Speaker 1: the sort of sequencing in the Bible. Matthew comes first,
Speaker 1: and I think depending on people sort of temperamented interests,
Speaker 1: you can make it argument for starting with with Mark
Speaker 1: or starting with Luke. If you're somebody who's especially thinking
Speaker 1: about and interested in the treatment of the marginalize. That's
Speaker 1: a particular focus in Luke though. It's the longest of
Speaker 1: the gospels, John, if you're philosophically minded, John is an
Speaker 1: absolute riot in the most wonderful possible way. And our
Speaker 1: mutual friend Rachel thinks that Matthew's Gospel is top of
Speaker 1: the tree in terms of I guess you get. You
Speaker 1: get some really significant teachings of Jesus in Matthew's Gospel.
Speaker 1: I mean you do in all four of them, of course,
Speaker 1: and you also get a lot of ties back, great
Speaker 1: explicit ties back to the narrative of the Old Testament.
Speaker 1: And I think it's sort of worth saying that even
Speaker 1: if you do start with one of the Gospels, which
Speaker 1: could be a really great place to start if you've
Speaker 1: never opened the Bible and sort of read before, then
Speaker 1: what you'll come to find is that in order to
Speaker 1: understand the New Testament, you actually need to dig into
Speaker 1: the Old Testament. And conversely, from a Christian perspective, in
Speaker 1: order to understand the Old Testament, you have to dig
Speaker 1: into the New Testament. So it's not actually I think
Speaker 1: an either or approach is not going to be helpful
Speaker 1: to us in terms of building a around it sense
Speaker 1: of of how God has revealed himself in the world,
Speaker 1: and I think it's it's unfortunately a lot of Christians
Speaker 1: actually start with the New Testament and really basically continue
Speaker 1: with the New Testament and never really dive into the
Speaker 1: Old Testament, and actually that way you're missing a massive
Speaker 1: amount of what happened. It's a little bit like I
Speaker 1: absolutely love Jerr R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings sort
Speaker 1: of trilogy, and it's only really the New Testament is
Speaker 1: a little bit like starting with the Return of the King.
Speaker 1: You kind of need you need, you need the story
Speaker 1: up to that point to really understand it. And I
Speaker 1: do think we're selling ourselves short if we don't submerge
Speaker 1: ourselves also in the Old Testament narratives. But we're going
Speaker 1: to need to have a different approach to different parts
Speaker 1: of the Bible, depending on what kind of genre they're
Speaker 1: written in. So you're fine parts of the Old Testament
Speaker 1: that are our narrative, you'll find parts that are poetry.
Speaker 1: If you know, for example, the Book of Psalms, which
Speaker 1: is sort of sort of the hymn book of God's people,
Speaker 1: and the Old Testament the Jewish people, and you know,
Speaker 1: strongly framed around poetry. You'll find prophecy, and the prophetic
Speaker 1: books are actually quite poetic as well. So you'll find
Speaker 1: you'll find all sorts of different ways of writing in
Speaker 1: the Old Testament, and you'll need to approach them in
Speaker 1: different ways in order to understand the world kind of
Speaker 1: just like we do in our you know, normal reading
Speaker 1: in other parts of our lives. You wouldn't open a
Speaker 1: book of poetry and expect to read it in the
Speaker 1: same way as you would open a sort of history
Speaker 1: of the United Kingdom, for example. Like you just you'd
Speaker 1: know that you were expecting different kinds of things. And
Speaker 1: I think sometimes people come to the Bible expecting only
Speaker 1: one kind of writing, and so they're throne by the
Speaker 1: fact there's actually a vast diversity of different kinds of
Speaker 1: writing that we're going to find there, but all of them,
Speaker 1: according to the Christian claim, all of them actually the
Speaker 1: inspired word of God and pointing us as you've pointed out, Rachel,
Speaker 1: to the person of Jesus in one way or another.
Speaker 1: If we think about just the habits of our days,
Speaker 1: the kind of structure of our days. Are there any
Speaker 1: thoughts or recommendations that you have in terms of people
Speaker 1: building a Bible reading habit into their daily rhythms, Like,
Speaker 1: is it something that you can just kind of slot
Speaker 1: in at any point in the day. Is it something
Speaker 1: where your best to kind of build it around are
Speaker 1: the habits you have. I'm sort of curious for your
Speaker 1: your wisdomne on that front.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, I think I think that most of us
Speaker 2: will be greatly helped by by by planning it in
Speaker 2: I guess by having a time set aside each day
Speaker 2: where we do this thing. I mean, that's that's that's
Speaker 2: how I get anything done, really is by kind of
Speaker 2: diorizing my good intentions. That's the way I'll follow through.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think there's there's real wisdom in trying
Speaker 2: to build it in as a as a regular thing
Speaker 2: in this time, in this place. My housemate actually tells
Speaker 2: the story of when she was at college university, she
Speaker 2: had a friend who became a Christian and her dad,
Speaker 2: my friend's dad. She he said to her, oh, well,
Speaker 2: you you need to teach this new Christian how to
Speaker 2: have a quiet time. And that's less about like what
Speaker 2: to do when you do it, but just this this
Speaker 2: sense of kind of setting aside a time and a
Speaker 2: place you need to help her grow that grow that habit.
Speaker 2: And so this friend of mine, she would cycle around
Speaker 2: to this friend's like dorm room and at seven am
Speaker 2: in the morning and you know, open the Bible with
Speaker 2: her and kind of help her get to get used
Speaker 2: to the idea of you know, reading the Bible at
Speaker 2: this end of day. So yeah, that's just to say, yeah,
Speaker 2: there these are habits that it's helpful to really build
Speaker 2: like that. So yeah, I think there's there's benefit in
Speaker 2: doing it in the morning. I tend to read the
Speaker 2: Bible in the morning. It's sort of sets you up
Speaker 2: for the day. It means, you know, one of the
Speaker 2: one of the first voices you hear is this wisdom
Speaker 2: from God's Word. You know. It means so you can
Speaker 2: you can pray about the things coming up ahead of you.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I don't think that's a I don't think
Speaker 2: that's a must. You know, it might be that like
Speaker 2: in your lunch break from work, that's when you're gonna
Speaker 2: set aside time. It might be in the evening, right
Speaker 2: before beds. You know, maybe you've got already a habit
Speaker 2: of you know, reading before beds. Add In adding the Bible,
Speaker 2: there maybe, Yeah, I think it's I think it's about
Speaker 2: thinking about what will what will work with your routine.
Speaker 2: You know, what are the fixed points in your day
Speaker 2: where you're always in the same place at the same time,
Speaker 2: I guess and for most of us that's at the
Speaker 2: start of the end. And yeah, adding it in there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that example of your your friend who
Speaker 1: wanted to help her friend in a very kind of
Speaker 1: proactive way, like just get established on a rhythm. And
Speaker 1: I do think that one of the best resources that
Speaker 1: we have, if if we are followers of Jesus, we
Speaker 1: actually have each other, and that's something that we can
Speaker 1: use to sort of help us move forward in any
Speaker 1: area of our lives spiritually, and not least in this area.
Speaker 1: A couple of kind of life hacks that I found helpful,
Speaker 1: either for myself or for friends as follows. One is
Speaker 1: a couple of times with friends who've been wanting to
Speaker 1: start a daily bubber reading habit, I've said, hey, why
Speaker 1: don't we both read through the same books of the
Speaker 1: Bible and we'll just do it like a paragraph at
Speaker 1: the time, a couple of paragraphs, have a chapter whatever,
Speaker 1: like a little chunk at a time, and we'll text
Speaker 1: each other with a top thought from what we read.
Speaker 1: So I've done that with a couple of friends where
Speaker 1: it's just, you know, we worked through one or sometimes
Speaker 1: two books of the Bible, and it's just been a
Speaker 1: kind of helpful starting point for helping them just sort
Speaker 1: of get off the ground in terms of byber reading
Speaker 1: for themselves and having some built in like community around
Speaker 1: that where we're able to sort of just send a
Speaker 1: quick thought back and forth of like, oh, this has
Speaker 1: struck me, or here's a question I had, or here's
Speaker 1: something I was confused by, or here's something that I
Speaker 1: was excited to discover. But there's like that sense of
Speaker 1: kind of communal togetherness in the experience of reading the Bible,
Speaker 1: even though we're in different places and reading at different times.
Speaker 1: It's an asynchronous approach to reading together. If you can't
Speaker 1: psycle around to your friend's house at seven am in
Speaker 1: the morning and like literally sit alongside them. I think
Speaker 1: another thing that I found helpful is putting my Bible
Speaker 1: reading before I communicate with friends. I'm very much a
Speaker 1: social being. I mean, I know we all are, but
Speaker 1: I'm a sort of extra extra social being, and one
Speaker 1: of my personal rules is that I do my by
Speaker 1: reading quiet time before I get to text my friends.
Speaker 1: And that's really helpful to me just as a sort
Speaker 1: of discipline, so that I'm not getting kind of pulled
Speaker 1: into other things and that I have ah a sense
Speaker 1: of like, actually, I'm going to put this first in
Speaker 1: my day and get things off to that start. Also, honestly,
Speaker 1: in different seasons of life, different things at work. Like
Speaker 1: I've got three kids, and when each of them was
Speaker 1: like a small baby, I was lucky to read the
Speaker 1: Bible on my phone at like a random time in
Speaker 1: the night while I was feeding. Like it was not Oh,
Speaker 1: I get up every morning and I have a sort
Speaker 1: of set time because the baby was already crying and
Speaker 1: I was already you know, you're sort of so chronically
Speaker 1: sleep deprived that you don't even know whether it's the
Speaker 1: morning on the night half a time like this. There'll
Speaker 1: be seasons in our lives, for one reason or another
Speaker 1: where actually it's it's a real fight to get the
Speaker 1: Bible open in any way, shape or form, and that
Speaker 1: we you know, we may need to just kind of
Speaker 1: grab what we can get. Now, I say, there's no
Speaker 1: you know, I have friends who have four children and
Speaker 1: have always maintained like the most beautifully consistent sort of
Speaker 1: Bible reading habit. And that's wonderful. And if that to you,
Speaker 1: I know you're listening, then hoorray. You know I'm happy
Speaker 1: for you. But for somebody like me who struggles when
Speaker 1: they are severely sleep deprived to meaningfully engage with anything,
Speaker 1: I was, Yeah, I was needing to really grab what
Speaker 1: I could when I when I could, in the random
Speaker 1: sort of moments that I was feeding and kind of conscious.
Speaker 1: What would you say two people who've maybe come discouraged.
Speaker 1: They're saying, you know, look, I've tried reading them by
Speaker 1: but before I've made it for a few days or
Speaker 1: even a few weeks, and then I've just sort of
Speaker 1: given up or fizzled out, and I just feel discouraged
Speaker 1: and like I maybe shouldn't try again. Or would you
Speaker 1: say to encourage somebody in that sport, I.
Speaker 2: Just say, you know, the Lord is gracious, and you
Speaker 2: know he he is. He has an unlimited supply of
Speaker 2: fresh starts for you, and so yeah, I would I
Speaker 2: would encourage you to try again, And yeah, to ask God,
Speaker 2: I mean, ultimately, this isn't this isn't a thing we
Speaker 2: can do in our own strength. You know, this is
Speaker 2: this is the key difference with running. You know, this
Speaker 2: isn't this isn't kind of a checkbox exercise or about
Speaker 2: getting a streak on Strava or whatever. You know, this
Speaker 2: is about you meeting with Jesus through his written word
Speaker 2: in the Bible and speaking to him in prayer. And yeah,
Speaker 2: so I think really, you know, coming face to face
Speaker 2: with him and saying, you know, Lord, please, would you place,
Speaker 2: would you help me? And trusting that he will He
Speaker 2: will answer that prayer when we pray and fee. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: and you know, and I think there's there's as you say,
Speaker 2: you know, you share some really great wisdom there on
Speaker 2: with our you know, help of friends, accountability, that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff. But yeah, and even if this is the
Speaker 2: time you try and fail again, you can try again,
Speaker 2: you know that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there really is.
Speaker 2: There is really no limit to the number of times
Speaker 2: you can you can have another go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's helpful. I think it's it's so important
Speaker 1: for us if we followers of Jesus to remember the
Speaker 1: Gospel as we think about our Bible reading habits. So
Speaker 1: the gospel truth that God hasn't saved us because we
Speaker 1: are good, or because we are lovable, or because we
Speaker 1: are disciplined, or because we're religious, or because X Y
Speaker 1: or Z slash Z, depending on which side of the
Speaker 1: pond you hail from, but that God, in his mercy
Speaker 1: has saved us if we've trusted in Jesus, simply because
Speaker 1: we have trusted in Jesus, that he paid for our
Speaker 1: sin to the fullest extent, and that we're not on
Speaker 1: like a sort of performance progress plan to where like
Speaker 1: maybe over time, if we read the Bible enough we
Speaker 1: will get to the point where God is pleased with us.
Speaker 1: But instead that just as a parent delights in the child,
Speaker 1: so God delights in his children in spite of our inadequacy,
Speaker 1: in spite of our daily struggles with sin, in spite
Speaker 1: of our measily attempts to read His word, in spite
Speaker 1: of our you know, lack of prayerfulness often that he
Speaker 1: he loves us first, but that that doesn't and shouldn't
Speaker 1: produce in us a kind of complacency that says, okay, well,
Speaker 1: I know that I know that God loves me, and
Speaker 1: I know that Jesus died for me, and so it
Speaker 1: doesn't depend on my performance that's true, and then I'm
Speaker 1: just going to sit on the couch spiritually speaking, and
Speaker 1: not look to grow and not look to delight in
Speaker 1: God's word. That instead, we need to sort of combine
Speaker 1: that sense of freedom that we have foo fallers of Jesus,
Speaker 1: of knowing that we're forgiven and inexpressibly loved, with a
Speaker 1: desire to grow. And I think sometimes, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: sort of interesting as we've touched a little bit on
Speaker 1: like culture and how we can help one another in
Speaker 1: relationship with sort of accountability and encouragement. It's been striking
Speaker 1: to me in the last couple of years as I've
Speaker 1: been in church alongside our mutual friend Rachel Gilson, that
Speaker 1: my approach with a new believer, if I was getting
Speaker 1: somebody sort of started on Bible reading, would be to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: you know, let's try and get you started with like
Speaker 1: a paragraph a day. That would be fantastic. Rachel's approaches,
Speaker 1: you know, welcome to the people of God, here's a
Speaker 1: Bible and a year plan, let's get going kind of thing.
Speaker 1: And honestly, it wouldn't have occurred to me to ask
Speaker 1: a new believer to read the Bible in a year
Speaker 1: which takes about twelve minutes of reading a day. It's
Speaker 1: actually not as much as you might think, but is
Speaker 1: you know, significant in several chapters of the Bible every day.
Speaker 1: It just wouldn't have occurred to me. Is that Like,
Speaker 1: that's seemed like a really high standard to set for
Speaker 1: somebody who's just sort of starting out in faith. But
Speaker 1: what I've seen in a number of instances is people
Speaker 1: saying okay, great and going ahead and reading the Bible
Speaker 1: in a year, and actually it's been incredibly good for them.
Speaker 1: So I guess what I would say, You know, if
Speaker 1: you're listening to this and thinking, okay, I don't yet
Speaker 1: have a Bible reading habit, or maybe I do, but
Speaker 1: it's it's not where I would want it to be.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any harm in saying, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: actually going to really challenge myself here, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to say I'm going to set aside, like twelve to
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes a day max, is what it takes to
Speaker 1: read the Bible in a year. I'm going to get
Speaker 1: a hold of either so many different plans. You can
Speaker 1: just sort of google Bible and a year plans, and
Speaker 1: often they'll mix Old Testament and New Testament, so you
Speaker 1: sort of have both both lenses coming on a daily basis,
Speaker 1: and yeah, you can get actually a lot of God's
Speaker 1: words sort of into your bloodstream that way. I think
Speaker 1: it's important for us, as we do that in community,
Speaker 1: to not have a sense of trying to impress others
Speaker 1: or looking down on others if they fail, or thinking
Speaker 1: that others are looking down on us. I think it's
Speaker 1: vital that we have in every aspect of the Christian life,
Speaker 1: a sensitivity to how the Gospel applies to us, and
Speaker 1: how the Gospel applies to everybody around us, and actually
Speaker 1: how Jesus consistently taught that self righteousness is disgusting in
Speaker 1: God's eyes. Like basically, so if you know that you
Speaker 1: have a tendency to be the kind of person who
Speaker 1: reads the Bible diligently and quite enjoys looking down on
Speaker 1: all the other Christians you aren't, then that's probably something
Speaker 1: you're going to need to be consistently bringing to God
Speaker 1: in prayer and asking for his forgiveness. And conversely, if
Speaker 1: you're somebody who thinks, do you know what, I'm a
Speaker 1: total spiritual failure, probably everybody else is reading the Bible
Speaker 1: multiple times, you know, Bible through multiple times per year,
Speaker 1: and I'm you know, struggling to even get the Bible
Speaker 1: open in the first place. Don't don't be discouraged you
Speaker 1: you don't have to stay there. That doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be your ongoing pattern. And pray for the self righteousness
Speaker 1: of other people who might be looking down on you.
Speaker 1: What's been in your life, Rachel, what's been the most
Speaker 1: helpful thing to you as you've grown in your Bible
Speaker 1: reading habits.
Speaker 2: Well, that's a good question.
Speaker 1: Have there been people in your life who've encouraged you
Speaker 1: or there has writing this book encouraged you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, write the book, you guys. Me. I guess I
Speaker 2: owe a lot to my mother, who, you know, when
Speaker 2: we were children, every night she would you know, sit
Speaker 2: down with the Bible with us, and you know, we'd
Speaker 2: have these like Bible reading notes and she would you know,
Speaker 2: do them with us, and we'd read the Bible together.
Speaker 2: And then when we were like eleven and we were
Speaker 2: going to secondary school, we'd call it here. I was like, okay,
Speaker 2: now it's your turn. Are you going to Are you
Speaker 2: going to keep this up? And you know, yeah, I did,
Speaker 2: and I don't know if that's because I'm a creature
Speaker 2: of habit or because you know, God already had hold
Speaker 2: of me. But yeah, I'm very kind of very grateful
Speaker 2: for that, and yeah, it's it's a great joy to
Speaker 2: now work for the publishing company that does those notes
Speaker 2: and does those kind of resources. But I think as well, Yeah,
Speaker 2: people I remember as a as a student at university
Speaker 2: again that was just a really formative time and being
Speaker 2: in this Bible study with people who were just so
Speaker 2: gripped by it was the Philippians we were doing at
Speaker 2: the time, this kind of letter to Christians in the
Speaker 2: first century, and yeah, being being really really challenged by
Speaker 2: that because I had I had gone into it thinking,
Speaker 2: you know, I want to be a Christian, but I
Speaker 2: don't want to be one of those Christians, you know,
Speaker 2: the really keen ones on campus who were lame and
Speaker 2: they're wearing their Christian Union T shirts and you know,
Speaker 2: I don't, I don't. I don't want to be one
Speaker 2: of those.
Speaker 1: I was just going to.
Speaker 2: Just gonna it's gonna be a Sunday morning thing for me,
Speaker 2: and Okay, I'll go to Bible study on a Thursday
Speaker 2: night and that and that will be that will be fine.
Speaker 2: And yeah, being being with these other students who were
Speaker 2: all in, they were in with both feet. I had
Speaker 2: like a foot in both camps, and I just saw
Speaker 2: that they had so much Yeah, they were so much
Speaker 2: better for it. They were so much more joyful and
Speaker 2: just the kind of yeah, that sense of being wholehearted
Speaker 2: about something. You know, I think that's what we're designed
Speaker 2: to be as humans. We're designed to be all in.
Speaker 2: We're designed to be devoted, and yeah, we were all
Speaker 2: devoted to something, aren't we? But actually, you know, the
Speaker 2: Bible says that we're designed to be devoted to the
Speaker 2: God who made us and who loves us. And seeing
Speaker 2: these seeing these other students who were that yeah, really
Speaker 2: really challenged me. And so yeah, I just I just
Speaker 2: gradually got more and more all in. And yeah, it
Speaker 2: was it was. It was in my last year at
Speaker 2: university that I first did the Bible in a year
Speaker 2: reading plan that you've just mentioned, and again like, yeah,
Speaker 2: there was such there was such value in just sort
Speaker 2: of having this bath in the Bible over the course
Speaker 2: of the year, just kind of soaking it, soaking it
Speaker 2: all in in a way that I hadn't done hadn't
Speaker 2: you know that in that volume, in that space of
Speaker 2: shorter space of time, And I think it's I think
Speaker 2: it's impossible to do that without coming away with just
Speaker 2: a sense of how how big God is and how
Speaker 2: sort of vast this story that he's writing is, and
Speaker 2: just kind of Yeah, that's the sort of richness of
Speaker 2: scripture as a as a piece of literature.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I love that your reference to baths makes
Speaker 1: me happy because I'm a religious bath taker rather than
Speaker 1: a shower, which my American friends find sort of they
Speaker 1: cannot wrap their minds around why you would take a
Speaker 1: bath rather than a shout, But I think it's absolutely
Speaker 1: the best way to do it. But one of the
Speaker 1: things that that's been helpful to me, and I've just
Speaker 1: recently sort of switched over to this because I'm it's
Speaker 1: now January fifteenth, I'm on a I'm in a new
Speaker 1: kind of exercise region for the year, and my struggle
Speaker 1: has always been I'm just going to use I'm going
Speaker 1: to say this illustratively because I think it's helpful for
Speaker 1: people to think, like, Okay, everybody's in a different life situation,
Speaker 1: and maybe we've all got to think about what's going
Speaker 1: to like work best for us in the life situation
Speaker 1: that we're in. I have historically really struggled to develop
Speaker 1: an exercise habit because I need to exercise before having
Speaker 1: my morning bath, and I hate starting work without having
Speaker 1: had my bath. And I also have three kids who,
Speaker 1: at different points in the morning kind of need little
Speaker 1: pieces of attention, so that this time period is pretty constrained.
Speaker 1: And my brain for writing is best in the morning.
Speaker 1: And all these things have been hampering me from exercise
Speaker 1: in the last couple of years because I've had my
Speaker 1: Bible reading the morning and then I've had my bath,
Speaker 1: and there isn't just isn't time just sort of slot
Speaker 1: in exercise as well. And what I'm experimenting with this
Speaker 1: year and so far it's actually been really helpful is
Speaker 1: I've got a recording of the Bible done by Jackie
Speaker 1: ol Perry, whose voice I love and who's teaching I appreciate.
Speaker 1: She is one of the people who Crossway had engaged
Speaker 1: to read just sort of do an audiobook version of
Speaker 1: the Bible, along with several other people, so you can
Speaker 1: sort of pick your voice, as it were. And I
Speaker 1: thought to myself, you know, given that most of Christians
Speaker 1: throughout most of history having countered God's word actually in
Speaker 1: an auditory way rather than in a reading way. And
Speaker 1: given that I'm actually somebody who's I grew up on
Speaker 1: audiobooks and it's always been a way that I've really learned, well,
Speaker 1: I thought, oh, maybe I can crack this nut by
Speaker 1: running while listening to Jackie L. Perry reading me the Bible.
Speaker 1: And it's actually been fabulous. So I found I'm actually
Speaker 1: focusing better on what I'm hearing while I'm running than
Speaker 1: I would have been than i was when I was
Speaker 1: sort of sitting and reading for myself. Now again, that's
Speaker 1: like purely personality type dependent, I'm sure, and we're all
Speaker 1: you know, some people are more visual learners and blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. So I'm not saying like you guys should
Speaker 1: all do what I'm doing. I'm just saying it's been
Speaker 1: helpful to me to think, Okay, here's another strategy that
Speaker 1: I could have for reading the Bible. And even I'm
Speaker 1: now implementing a kind of walking prayer style of prayer,
Speaker 1: which I'm actually also finding I'm engaging better with prayer
Speaker 1: as I walk than when I was sort of sitting
Speaker 1: and praying something about the fact that my body is moving.
Speaker 1: And then I'm sort of praying out loud quietly to
Speaker 1: myself walking down the street, probably looking like a complete weirdo,
Speaker 1: but like, never mind, seeah. I just encourage folks who
Speaker 1: are listening if you want to start a quiet time habit.
Speaker 1: That may be that at this point in your life,
Speaker 1: the absolutely best thing for you to do is to
Speaker 1: be sort of sitting down for ten, twenty thirty minutes,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, five minutes, like a number of minutes,
Speaker 1: and maybe sitting down on your couch, opening your Bible
Speaker 1: in the quiet. It may be running it, maybe walking
Speaker 1: at Maybe there are different ways that this can look
Speaker 1: and actually all of these can be good. And it
Speaker 1: may be that something works for one period of your
Speaker 1: life and then and you know, switch over to something
Speaker 1: else for another period of your life. But I just
Speaker 1: encourage you. And also, if you're not yet a believer
Speaker 1: in Jesus, if you're not convinced by who Jesus is,
Speaker 1: why not make it your goal in twenty twenty to
Speaker 1: read through one of the gospel accounts of jesus life.
Speaker 1: They're actually remarkably short. You could read even the longest
Speaker 1: gospel Luke, in the time that it takes you to
Speaker 1: watch the movie Wicked, you know, one of the longer
Speaker 1: movies and the short shortest one mark you could read
Speaker 1: in the time that it takes you to watch the
Speaker 1: average kind of Disney film. And yeah, spend some time
Speaker 1: thinking like, who is Jesus? How I actually really considered
Speaker 1: that question? Have I taken the time to read one
Speaker 1: of the first century accounts of his life and to
Speaker 1: ask myself? Is he perhaps who he claims to be? Rachel,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining me. For those who
Speaker 1: are interested in grabbing a copy of Rachel's helpful little book.
Speaker 1: And when I say little, it really is quite small,
Speaker 1: so you're not going to spend a whole lot of
Speaker 1: time reading it. It's called The Quiet Time Kickstart six
Speaker 1: Weeks to a Healthy Bible Habit by Rachel Jones, and yeah,
Speaker 1: it could be just what you need to get yourself started,
Speaker 1: get yourself off the couch, so to speak, and headed
Speaker 1: toward the five K. So thanks again, Rachel, my pleasure.
Speaker 2: Great to be here.
Speaker 1: You guys have been listening to the Confronting Christiani podcast.
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Speaker 1: you'd like a topic or a question you'd like to
Speaker 1: see explored in a future episode. And until I speaking
Speaker 1: to your AirPods or whatever it is next week, I
Speaker 1: hope you have a week where you encounter God through
Speaker 1: his word