Using God’s Word to Answer Hard Questions

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Ever wrestled with a question that felt too big to answer—something that Google couldn’t quite help with, and the Bible app just gave a list of verses that didn’t really land?

We live in a world of instant answers, but spiritual wisdom takes more than a search bar.

So, how do we actually find answers to hard questions using God’s Word first, not last?

Today’s episode is called “Bible First: Finding Real Answers to Questions”, and we’re talking about how to study, search, and investigate hard topics using Scripture, not just shortcuts. And the episode is less about specific questions and more about methods to use when searching for answers. 

When you have a question, where do you usually start? Why do you take this approach? Be honest! Here are more questions to consider:

• Why is our default to Google or search in the Bible app? And is that always bad?
• What does it look like to actually investigate using Scripture alone?
• What types of resources can we use when searching for answers?
• What makes this kind of study so hard for most of us?
• What fruit comes from doing it “the hard way”—the Bible-first way?
• What do we really need when we’re studying? TIME and PATIENCE!

I hope our listeners know that that Google is not our enemy, but we should still question the root, and the effect, of getting quick answers that we seldom meditate upon. How do you need to slow down, read, reread, and ponder God’s word? This is a challenge for me, as well.

We don’t learn everything all at once; growth takes time. We are always learning!

We encourage you to keep reading, praying, and talking with the Lord about your questions. Then, speak with mature Christians who have navigated similar questions and know their Bibles well.

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UNEDITED TRANSCRIPTION:

00:00:00 Patricia: Have you ever wrestled with a question that felt too big to answer? Something that Google couldn’t quite help you with? And the Bible app just gave a list of verses that didn’t really land. We live in a world of instant answers, but gaining spiritual wisdom takes more than just searching in a search bar. So today’s podcast is about using the Bible first finding real answers to our questions. Welcome to our Patterns of Truth podcast. I’m Patricia, your host, and today we are talking about how to study, search and investigate hard topics using the scriptures and not just shortcuts. Shortcuts are not a bad thing. We’ll talk about that. Um, but we want to kind of reexamine the practices that we engage in when we’re searching for answers. So this episode is about is not really about specific questions, specific hard questions that we seek to answer, but more about the methods that we can use when searching for those answers. So hello to everyone on the podcast today. Hello, Peter. Hello, Roy. Hello, Bethel. How are you all doing today?

00:01:05 Peter: Hello, hello.

00:01:07 Roy: Hey, great. Rainy and cold in Oregon. Oh it’s raining. Yeah. Rainy.

00:01:15 Bethel: Not humid here.

00:01:17 Patricia: Yeah.

00:01:17 Peter: Whereas here Bethel.

00:01:19 Bethel: Right now it’s Jersey.

00:01:21 Patricia: Yeah.

00:01:22 Bethel: It’s not Philly. It’s Jersey today.

00:01:24 Patricia: Jersey. Welcome back. All right. So um I’ll start with a panel question for all of us. So when any of us have a question, something popped into your mind. Somebody talks about something. Where do you usually start to find the answer? It can be any resource. It could be Google, it could be another. Right. So where do you start and why do you take this approach?

00:01:52 Bethel: I’m a Googler.

00:01:54 Patricia: All right. Yeah.

00:01:55 Bethel: Everybody and everybody makes fun of me that I even use Google because everybody just uses AI. Like everybody’s just like, just ask ChatGPT. Just ask ChatGPT. Um, so even googling is like outdated at this point, but depending on how deep I might text my dad.

00:02:11 Patricia: Oh, nice. All right. Cool. Roy? Peter.

00:02:17 Roy: Um, I asked my wife.

00:02:19 Patricia: Okay.

00:02:21 Roy: Um, good place to start. That’s good intuition. Um, my daughter, um, who also has very good insight. Um, and then it depends on what kind of a question. And I appreciate the Google answer. Um, in fact, I did, I used Google just the other day when I wanted to know the initial, um, area that was assigned to the tribe of Dan and I got a pretty good answer. So if the question is specific enough, um, then I think, um, Google is fine or I don’t know about chat, I haven’t used chat GP so I don’t know how that works, but I know Google uses AI underneath. So Google basically a, a front end to an AI program. Yeah. But it has to be specific. It depends on the type of question.

00:03:18 Patricia: Yeah, I like that you mentioned that because sometimes you could do like a broad question and then who knows what you’re going to get just just how Google works. Right. Sorry, Peter.

00:03:28 Peter: Yeah. I, I would say I try to find the shortest article I find, usually from kind of the same circle of church community. Amen. Um, um, and uh, definitely Google. Like sometimes it’s like a specific website that I go to other than, uh, I find got questions sometimes is a website that would help a lot in like general questions. Uh, if it’s something specific, more doctrine, I go back to the like some brief, uh, article and then control F to find. Yeah, the article. So, uh, yeah, I do that.

00:04:12 Patricia: Yeah. All right. That’s practical, I like it. I tend to start with the Bible app for some reason, right? There’s just, I don’t know, it’s, uh, it’s easy and I don’t know, there’s something I like Google, but I feel like So I really slow down and I think about like, what I feel when I Google something, I usually feel fear because I think that there are questions that I may have that when I Google it, there are harmful or anti-God, anti-Christian things that seem to pop up at the top. And I honestly just don’t want to see that when I’m searching out something. I don’t know what it is, but it just really disturbs me. Um, I know some people can see it and just discard it, but for me, it just, it really unsettles me. So I tend to like not want to go to Google for some reason. So maybe the Bible app, I’m trying to protect myself in some way. I’m not sure. But, um, our first question really is about like, why do we think that, um, a more popular default for searching for any question will be Google or a search in the Bible app? Why is that something that we tend to do these days? And is that always a bad thing?

00:05:21 Peter: Well, convenience.

00:05:24 Patricia: Um.

00:05:25 Roy: It depends a lot on the question.

00:05:28 Patricia: Do you ever feel like. Or maybe I should ask it this way? Is there a scenario where you find something on Google or a different tool, and it makes you immediately stop searching? Like you don’t go back to your Bible? Or does the opposite happen? You find what you need and then you say, oh, I want to go deeper. What does that look like?

00:05:50 Roy: Really depends upon the subject matter and the question. Okay. Um, I think, you know.

00:05:56 Peter: Yeah. I mean, for, for Patricia’s point, um, that’s a good point because I think when I Google things, it does stop me from digging more into scripture because I found the solution or at least part of an answer, and then I’m satisfied with it. Um, so that’s a, that’s a good point. I mean, we’re definitely not against technology. We should use technology. Um, if it’s your favorite AI search, LLM or Google, uh, it can be useful. Um, but, um, I think studying scripture as we can talk soon about is and, uh, like changing your heart through studying scripture is more just knowledge. Um, and I think you reach just knowledge if you like, get the answer quickly.

00:06:55 Roy: Yes. That’s very important point. Uh, and I want to emphasize that we are talking about having a specific question or a question about something. We get an answer, but that should lead us to dig deeper. And that should even that even specific studies should not keep us from regular Bible reading. Um, and that’s where we gain a general knowledge of God’s character. Um, you know, there’s a, a rule, there’s apps and whatnot that lead you through the Bible? Genesis to revelation in a year? Well, you may or may not want to use one of those apps, but the point is you have to be generally familiar with your Bible. I found questions that are, quite surprisingly in books like Ecclesiastes or Proverbs or Chronicles, and that seem to have nothing to do with the subject matter, but they. But they’re put in a way that for trigger thinking about things in a different way. So general Bible reading needs to always be done on a regular basis.

00:08:03 Patricia: Yeah. So leading into that, um, or coming out of that point, I should say, uh, if we had no technology, right. I couldn’t use my phone. Google’s down. It does happen from time to time, right? We can’t get to the website that we want. Um, I’m thinking about that AWS blackout from a few weeks ago where people were panicking. They couldn’t find anything. So if we only had our Bible in front of us, the actual physical volume, what does it look like to investigate using Scripture alone? Where does it start?

00:08:38 Roy: Need to know the books of the Bible and where they are.

00:08:41 Patricia: Mhm. Mhm.

00:08:44 Speaker 6: And I think maybe a general gist of what’s happening in each one.

00:08:48 Patricia: Yeah.

00:08:49 Roy: Definitely the difference between the Old and New Testament. Mhm. Um, and it also helps to have a, a mental map like Bethel was saying of what generally goes together. And this is fairly obvious, and I think a lot of people, uh, talk about it. So maybe we don’t need to belabor the point, but there are prophetic books, there are poetry books, there are history books, and there’s the Pentateuch and there’s New Testament. That’s a general classification. But we should know generally how how the different books relate to one another. Like among the Gospels, Matthew presents the Lord Jesus as the King. And I’m not saying anything that is particularly remarkable. I mean, we I think we all know this quote.

00:09:44 Bethel: And maybe instead of just looking up, oh, what does the Bible say about this? Fill in the blank. We could use Google as a resource to say, hey, how is the Bible split up? What is the Old Testament about? What are the parts of the Old Testament? What makes it different from the New Testament? What makes the Gospels different from each other? And you can use the internet as that type of resource to dig deeper in that way.

00:10:10 Patricia: Yeah. I think also if someone is a new believer, I mean, it’s, it might feel like kind of steep, right? Like, oh, before you start, you got to memorize all these things. I think while you’re doing it, I think I’m looking at the front of my Bible. There’s a table of contents, right? So if you’re a new Christian, or maybe it’s been a little while, if you if you need the pages with the numbers, right, start with it, like where each book of the Bible is. And what’s great is like most Bibles, like mine is organized, it tells you what’s in the Old Testament, what’s in the New Testament, and that can help you with organizing. Um, we’re looking at the Bible like how it’s, how it’s organized. And I think that’s a good place to begin. Um, I.

00:10:52 Peter: Think it’s high yield to Patricia. Like knowing the books of the Bible can be very helpful and knowing like the sections that, like Roy was saying, and I can argue also like some of them maybe can, they’re not inspired the chapters, but knowing how many chapters, like, you know, like, oh, you know, for example, Ephesians and Galatians are six chapters. Colossians and Philippians are four chapters. Um, so help you kind of. you know, contain or have a hold of of the book and how, how long it is.

00:11:29 Patricia: Yeah, that’s really good. And I think too, it’s, um, it’s good to think of how while we learned about what the book of the Bible’s are and how the Bible’s organized, that we can still start reading it. I think sometimes it can feel like levels like, oh, I can’t, I can’t do this until I do that. But it’s like, no, start reading while you’re memorizing where the books of the Bible are. So we talked about, I guess, operationally speaking, knowing how the Bible’s organized, but is there another way that we can begin that helps us when we’re just looking at the scripture alone and trying to find an answer?

00:12:08 Peter: We need help from Roy on this one.

00:12:14 Roy: Well, it’s been a long time since I was, uh, first, uh, I was pretty much know where everything is right now, and I hope this is going to be cut out of the. That’s the final deal. Um, well, again, I have to go back to the kind of question, I guess, because questions about the church, for example, if I have a question about that, I’m going to have to look in the New Testament. And I have to start with acts because that’s where the church began. And then Paul’s epistles in particular. So having a knowledge of where things are talked about and explained in Scripture is almost essential. Um, if you need comfort, let me give a couple of examples. We often look to the Psalms for comfort and encouragement, but in doing that, you need to realize that it’s a Jewish book. And so there are things in the Psalms which do not apply to us. Um, the Imprecatory Psalms in particular, which are Psalms which call down judgment upon our enemies. Well, if you’re new to the Bible, you might get confused by some of that. If you haven’t read and absorbed Romans, for example, toward the end where it says, vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. And if you haven’t really digested that. So I guess I’d have to say that we need to start looking through the New Testament to get a feel for the kinds of things that are particularly appropriate for the Christian. I’m thinking of a new believer now. Sometimes we say, okay, start reading John’s gospel. Well, that’s a good one. Um, if I say start reading Matthew, Then I may run across the kingdom of God, where servants are failed, and throw in thrown into outer darkness. And that kind of verses have led to the idea of we can lose our salvation if you don’t really understand what the kingdom of God is. So there is some basic knowledge that’s required. You know, if you keep reading, then you’ll get to John’s Gospel. And there you find out that if you’re in the hand of the Lord, no one can pluck you out. And so there’s the answer. But some of this can be confusing to a new person. So the only solution is, I think, to ask somebody that you can trust, give you a general feeling for what the different books talk about. And then you have to have your general knowledge to have scripture reading it through to, to come up with stuff. And I gotta say this right here too. There are several verses that emphasize that God is compassionate and he preserves the simple. And I think if actually, in my experience, the biggest hindrance is pride. So if we come to the Bible with the proper attitude that this is God’s word, then I think God can lead us. The Holy Spirit leads us to apply things in the right way. Um, striking verses in um, um, Psalm one hundred and sixteen six is perhaps just a good one. Um, and also in Proverbs there’s some. So God and God will guide us if we’re humble enough to learn from him.

00:16:15 Peter: Yeah. Just to add to what Roy was saying is when you’re studying the scripture, uh, it’s good to, uh, uh, look at the context of.

00:16:25 Roy: Right.

00:16:26 Peter: Uh, I think that’s what Roy’s saying also of the whole scripture and the book and the context of the chapter. What does it talk about?

00:16:36 Patricia: So then, okay, so we have the word of God, um, itself, and we have the Holy Spirit who will teach us and reveal things to us that we cannot learn just intellectually on our own. So when we’re Christians, we have that. We have him as a resource. But what about some other resources that we can use when searching for answers? I’m talking about things that other very mature Christians who have studied the Bible have put together. Um, and I’m thinking of a concordance. I’m thinking of biblical commentaries. Um, can we have some commentary on that? What type of resources can we use when searching for answers and how do we use them?

00:17:19 Roy: Concordance is really helpful. I use a concordance frequently. Usually there’s a concordance at the back of most Bibles that is tuned to the particular, um, um, uh, version that you’re using, uh, translation, but you can always do a cross-reference. You know, the standard concordance is ah, Strong’s and Young’s someone that says strongest for the weak and young is for the old. But be that as it may, um, they’re both both good, although they’re different. Um, um, and if you’re not using King James, both of those are based on King James. Maybe they’ve been upgraded, I don’t know, or changed. But anyway, you can always, um, if you have a particular verse in NIV, for example, look it up at the same verse, uh, in, uh, in the King James. Um, and figure out what verse, what word you want to look up and then go to the concordance with that. Now, I use Young’s a lot because it gives the Greek and Hebrew and, um, that can be helpful if you have a good, um, uh, uh, dictionary, uh, specific, you know, the, the, the old Testament, uh, dictionary I use is um, theological wordbook of the old Testament, which is good, good Hebrew, uh, analysis. I don’t know a word of Hebrew. So I just have to depend in that, uh, in Greek, uh, in Hebrew.

00:18:56 Speaker 7: Let me ask you, Roy.

00:18:57 Peter: Um, I, I don’t remember the last time I used the concordance. Bethel. Have you you.

00:19:05 Bethel: Really just just the one in the back of my Bible.

00:19:09 Peter: Uh, are we missing out a lot because we’re not using the concordance or when do you use it? Do you. When is the deep study verse by verse?

00:19:19 Patricia: Wait, so maybe I should define it and it will help to answer the question. Right? I’m thinking that the concordance is actually what the search bar is now in the Bible app. But all right, so the definition of concordance, it’s an alphabetical index of all the words in the Bible or any text. And it lists where each word appears. So it’s an alphabetical index of all the words in a text and lists where each word appears.

00:19:48 Roy: Now the problem is, and this is why I use Young’s analytical concordance, is that there are only about four thousand words in the Hebrew biblical Hebrew. Now, modern Hebrew is totally different, but we’re dealing with an Old Testament text. And if you think about the number of words that we have in the English language, It’s up in the. Millions and more are being added every year. So to have four thousand words in a language means that each word is going to have to do multiple jobs. And so context is really important. And you can get that information. You can look that information up, uh, in the, um, in the back of the Young’s concordance and figure out how the different words are being used in the context in which they’re being used. So you can kind of parse that out. So it is definitely for a deeper study of, of the words. But the basic idea is that it gives you a list of verses where the word is used.

00:20:56 Patricia: Mhm.

00:20:56 Roy: And so you can go and compare where the word is used or how the word is being used in these different verses. And in the back of Young’s Concordance, you also have a reverse cross reference so that you can look up the Hebrew word, for example, and see the different version, the different ways the translators have translated it. So you get a sense of how specific the word is and, um, and what the translators were thinking of when they translated it. You can sort of figure that out. So, um, those kinds of things have to do with puzzling verses that you run across and they just, why? What does that mean? And so if you’re trying to figure out what that means or what a particular verse means, then, uh, a concordance is really helpful. Okay.

00:22:00 Patricia: So on the most basic level, for example, if I have a question about world peace, does the Bible ever talk about world peace? I can look up the word peace in a physical concordance. And I know Strong’s is like big and blue. Maybe they updated it, but the one I grew up seeing was like baby blue. Um, and you could look up the word peace. And when you look it up, it’s got a list of every single place that the word peace is mentioned. And you have to go through each verse to decipher what the definition of peace, I guess you could say is being, or I should say like the part of speech is being used, right? Is it the peace that’s between that passes all understanding for Christians? Is it the peace between God and humans? Now, because of the Lord Jesus? Is it peace that God will establish in the future? So you have to really do some legwork to find out if what you’re looking for is the definition of the word that you found. I guess you would say, is that like how you start at the most basic level?

00:23:04 Roy: Yes.

00:23:05 Patricia: Okay. All right. But if you’re advanced, you’d be like, going towards more nuanced definitions of the word. Um, maybe if they’re in Greek or in Hebrew, there are different words for different types of peace, which I know, like for people who are bilingual, they understand that a lot better than I do. Like being monolingual. I only speak English, but I know there are multiple words. Say, for example, love. So you can’t just look up love. You can. But there’s so much variety in what you’ll find. So it takes effort, right? That’s what it sounds like. Effort.

00:23:42 Roy: Yeah, yeah. You have to do some study. Okay. Probably a real example would be, um, the word corruption in the New Testament. Okay. That has a certain, uh, mental image brought up. But the problem is that in Greek, which is what the base language that the New Testament was translated from, the Greek word uses the same word, same Greek word for two different kinds of corruption. Now we distinguish, for example, corruption from decay. Decay is what results from the law of physics. The entropy. You throw a pile of grass out in the in the backyard and after a while it decays. Um, on the other hand, um, immorality is also corruption. So this, this requires that you kind of look at the verse and try and figure out what is being meant by the word decay. But and some translators will translate them differently. Sometimes they won’t. Okay.

00:24:53 Patricia: So then I guess it’s good to just have a dictionary. Yes. Do I know what the words mean that I’m searching up? Right. That I think that would probably be useful. Like even in your own language, like, you know, the way we use certain words are not necessarily how they’re always used in other contexts? It would be good to have a dictionary as well. Okay. All right. So we got the concordance. So what about biblical commentaries? What are they? When should be the when should they be used and does the publication date matter?

00:25:27 Peter: I thought the use the commentary.

00:25:29 Bethel: Honestly, I’m big on commentaries. I am an enduring word person. Um, I don’t know how the saints feel about that, but I like it. Um, no, I just think it’s very helpful that like sometimes, honestly, I’ll sit and read a passage and I’m like, wow. Um, my reading comprehension is not with us today. I have no idea what I just read. And so sometimes enduring word does a good job of setting the scene of where are we in the chapter? What’s going on? Um, and it breaks it down like couple verses at a time. And then it’ll provide like texts of what certain authors have said about said portion. Um, so it’s very helpful to get a well-rounded picture. Of course, like anything else, we are trying to emphasize that using things as a resource is good. Using things as the source is not good. And so referring back to the Word of God and just kind of, you know, I think we said this, but to, to pray and ask the Lord for wisdom and help. Um, because that’s, that’s the main reason that we can understand any of this because of the help of the Holy Spirit and, um, to kind of be able to have a better understanding of the word of God, but using scriptures in itself to understand you look at a couple commentaries. I mean, like that’s, I really thought about like, how did I learn anything when I was applying for college? How did I learn how any of that process worked? I read a million articles and I read a million Reddit posts, and I read a million everything. And I gathered information on what is what are people saying? And so you can go about it like that, but ultimately approaching it prayerfully and using things, like we said, as a resource, not as the source.

00:27:16 Roy: Yes, that’s that’s a very important principle because no resource I haven’t I’ve been through lots of different translations, for example, and I don’t find any single one that’s perfect or that I, you know, isn’t without some complaint that I can come up with. Uh, and that’s doubly true of commentaries. We have to look at several. And it changes over the years. The commentaries that I looked at when I was, uh, twenty or thirty are quite different than the ones I look at today. But we have to look at different ones and think about what they’re saying in context. And we have to talk to different people to. MM.

00:27:58 Patricia: Oh, one thing I forgot to do was like, define what a commentary is. I know the word comment is in commentary, but there are some people who don’t use a commentary at all. Or maybe they’re nervous about it because it seems like, is it about the Bible? How am I supposed to know? So just by way of defining things, a biblical commentary is a written aid that provides explanations and sometimes interpretations of scriptures to help readers better understand a biblical text. So there are lots of different types. There are some that are about certain topics that are discussing certain topics. And then there are others that are, um, devotional, um, there are some that are historical, cultural. So Bethel, probably the one that you’re talking about. And I’ve seen some in some study Bibles where they give the context of the cultural Sauk, um, backdrop of a particular book of the Bible or a particular passage. And that’s really helpful to help to assist in how we can understand. But like I said, there’s lots of different types of commentaries that we.

00:29:06 Bethel: I think.

00:29:06 Patricia: It is.

00:29:06 Bethel: Helpful along the lines of what you’re saying. I took a class and it’s silly that I had to take a class about this in college to understand it. But always, always, always, no matter what you are looking up, know what the source is and knowing what the point of the source is like. For example, if I’m reading a commentary that is meant for daily encouragement, it’s always going to be not twisted, but the point pulled out of that portion will be to encourage me. And so maybe that’s not exactly what this portion is, or that’s not the point of this portion, or that’s not the context that this portion originally was in. So being able to read a resource and take a step back and put it back in the big picture, is this what the what the scripture is saying? Is this what our context is? Does this fit into what we’re understanding here? AM I getting this right? Always, always, always looking back at what is the source?

00:30:01 Roy: Yes, that’s extremely important. Um, if you pick up something from Legionnaire, for example, which is a reformed, uh, outlet, um, you’re going to have reformed theology woven in and some of what they said is going to be quite wrong. Uh, from my point of view, um, but a lot of it is going to be spot on. You know, I was once riding in a car. This really struck me because I was riding in, in the car listening to some religious program of some kind. It was just a general program. No, it was a Catholic priest, and it was one of the best explanations of a particular subject in Scripture that I had heard. I haven’t heard anything better since, but that was a Catholic priest, but it just happened to be a subject that was so universal that, uh, any denomination basically would, um, would agree to what he said. Uh, but it was, it was very sound and very well put. But if I’m going to listen to him about the remembrance meeting, as we call it, or can, um, confession or something like that, that’s not going to be reliable. So having the source, knowing the source is extremely important.

00:31:15 Patricia: What should people do if they, if the answer they are seeking, the support they’re seeking can be found in a commentary that was written a long time ago, but it just doesn’t make sense to you because we understand things a little bit differently now. What should they do?

00:31:33 Roy: That’s a really tough one. And the best advice that I can say is to talk to somebody about it. Um, an older person, uh, it’s really unfortunate. Uh, you know, it’s, it’s terrible because I, I see exactly what you’re, what you’re talking about. Um, some of these, some of these texts should be rewritten. Um, but who’s going to do that? We just don’t have the energy and the time anymore. Um, if you, if you really want to get into some of the best commentaries I remember, I tell you a funny story. I was in a Bible study at work for a while, and as a miscellaneous group of people there from all kinds of denominations. And, um, we were talking everything and I said, well, I don’t think anything useful has been written about the Bible in the last hundred years.

00:32:27 Patricia: Mhm.

00:32:29 Roy: Well, that was a good talking point. We got off on a real discussion about commentaries. Right. But the problem is it’s it’s almost true. And it’s sad. Um, if you really want to learn about these, then get a dictionary. Sit down and just work at it. MM. That’s all I can say. You know, it’s like if you want, if you want to be really good at something, If you want to be a great basketball player and always be able to sink that shot from beyond the third three shot line, three point line. That’s going to take concentration. It’s going to take work. It’s going to take effort. It’s going to take time. Yeah. So I’m I’m sorry. There’s just no other way.

00:33:18 Patricia: Yeah. No I don’t think you have to be sorry. I do think that there’s something there’s something in the effort that comes forth. And just on the literacy side, like I’ve always got two suggestions. Um, one is using technology and one is just reading out loud. So at times reading out loud, right, can help bring a certain clarity that the voice in your head may not be able to, um, and reading something repeatedly out loud in a conversational voice can be very helpful. Um, in terms of helping you to hear what the author is saying. My second suggestion is that particular sentences or passages you don’t understand, honestly, you can feed it into AI and ask AI, can you please change the level which is literacy? You could change the lexile level. That is what it’s called, or just the reading level of the passage. And you can put it down to like a ninth grade or tenth grade level. If you’re in nine states and it’s going to help you a lot. Just know that it may take away some of the original author’s voice and their particular writing style. Um, but that could be really helpful for you to get the gist of what they’re trying to say. But do be careful because those commentaries are commenting on the Bible, which is God’s Word and AI, and Google those resources. When they summarize, they can lose the original nuances of the words that the Lord intends. So always just know that the technology is not perfect either. Um, and it can also just be a way to just lose the true core meaning of a passage. So just be careful. Thank you, Peter Boy and Bethel for this important conversation about how to answer any question using the Bible. Of course, I’ll go back to the beginning. Knowing the books of the Bible and where they are is always a really great challenge to put upon yourself. Memorize them. We used to have competitions about this when we were younger. There’s some there are there are songs. Right? Exactly. But that’s a really good place to start. Um, I hope that our listeners know that Google is not our enemy. The internet is not our enemy. We love technology, but we should always question the root. The effect of getting quick answers. Um, when we seldom meditate on those answers. So let’s think about how we need to slow down, read, reread, and ponder God’s Word. It’s a challenge for me as well. And just know that we don’t need to learn everything all at once. Growth takes time as well. So we encourage you to keep reading, praying, and talking to the Lord about your questions. And then also, as has been mentioned so many times, talk to mature Christians who have navigated similar questions and they know their Bibles well. They can probably give you some really great supports as to how they have been helped too. For more on this topic, you can check out Patterns of Truth dot org and we will see you next time for another conversation about living this Christian life.

00:36:15 Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Patterns of Truth podcast. We invite you to join us for our next episode. And we also encourage you to check out Patterns of truth dot org, where we post articles every week for the encouragement and growth of Christ followers. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to submit them on our website. I’m Peter. Until next time.