Ep 993 ｜ The Right & Wrong Way to Read the Bible ｜ Guest： Tara-Leigh Cobble
Episode Stats
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Summary
Tara Lee Cobble talks about the success of her podcast, how she got here, her testimony, and her new book, The Joy of the Trinity. This is an amazing, encouraging conversation that you're going to love!
Transcript
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The Bible Recap is one of the most popular podcasts of all time, and the host Tara Lee
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Cobble simply takes people through the Word of God every day. Tara Lee is here today to
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talk about the success of her podcast, how she got here, her testimony, as well as her
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new book, The Joy of the Trinity. This is an amazing, super encouraging conversation
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that you guys are going to love. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
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Go to GoodRanchers.com. Use code ALLY at checkout. That's GoodRanchers.com, code ALLY.
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Tara Lee, thanks so much for taking the time to join us.
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Yes. Okay, first I want to talk about the Bible Recap because, oh my goodness, the success that
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it has seen in the past few years is amazing, and it's just been such an encouragement to me as a
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Christian to see the prominence of a show that literally just leads people through Scripture.
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Like, praise God. So talk about that, why you started it, and did you imagine that it would
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Oh, I had no idea that it would. My prayer was that 300 people would read the Bible with me.
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And that's the reason I started it, was to help people read through Scripture, because
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I grew up in the church. My family prizes the Word, loves the Word. We had family devotions around
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the breakfast table at 6 a.m., private Christian school, all of the opportunities. My family even
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owns a Christian bookstore. I grew up surrounded by commentaries and all kinds of concordances and
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all the things that would help me understand the Word, and I never really took full advantage of it.
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I've primarily found that when I was reading the Bible, I was accumulating confusion.
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Hmm. So there were a couple safe spots that I felt comfortable in, and I wanted to stay in those
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spots, and I understand this part, and oh, I love the Psalms, and I love the Proverbs, and I love the
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Gospels, and Philippians, and just those places that I'm like, okay, I get this. I understand this.
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And it was daunting to me to venture out of those places, to go to the Old Testament,
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to go to Revelation. Those were scary spots. And the first time I actually read through the whole
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Bible, the only way that I finished it was because my pastor offered to answer my questions along the
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way. Okay. So every week, he would answer my questions, and I'm like, okay, I'm accumulating
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understanding, not just confusion and frustration. And that was a game changer for me.
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You were an adult. And so that just goes to show, and I would say it's the same for me. You can
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be raised in a wonderful Christian home all around, as you said, different commentaries and
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insight and wisdom about the Bible. And yet, something kind of has to click at some point
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in your faith. Typically, I think it's kind of young adulthood when someone who was raised
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a Christian says, oh, wait, I know this, and I can repeat this, which is important, but
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I don't know that I really understand it. And what a blessing that you were plugged into
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a church and had that kind of relationship with the pastor, that he was able to answer your
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questions. Yes. Yeah. And I love that he really challenged me to stop just knowing God second
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hand. Don't just take my word for what I say on stage. Don't just trust what other people
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say about God. Go get to know God firsthand, because how else will you be able to measure
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what that pastor says, or what that teacher says, or what that worship song says, or what
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that quote on Instagram says? Are you going to believe it's true just because it uses the
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name of God in it? Right. And so he challenged me to get to know God firsthand, and it changed
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everything for me. And so I wanted that for everybody. I want that for everyone, because
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there's so much richness to a personal, intimate relationship with God. And you only get that
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by getting to know him directly. You're married. If all you ever knew about your husband was
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what other people told you about him, and you never had a personal conversation with him,
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you probably wouldn't know him very well. Right. Right. And at that turning point,
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when you realized, okay, I want to know and understand God in his own words, what he says
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about himself, how did your method of studying the Bible change?
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Oh, that's a great question. So the honest answer is the first time I read through scripture,
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my pastor's answering my questions along the way. I finished, and you would think I would feel
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elated. Like, I did it. I finished reading the whole Bible. Yeah. And I didn't. I was heartbroken
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because I read it cover to cover and believed it was true. All of it. I believe all this is true.
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All this is God's word. This is God revealing himself to us. And I didn't like him. When I
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finished, I didn't like him. And my pastor said, okay, I have a new challenge for you. I've walked
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with you through the scriptures for a year. I've seen the kinds of questions you ask. I've seen
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the kinds of things you're looking for. I know the lens you're reading scripture through. My new
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challenge for you is read it again and stop looking for yourself. Start looking for God. What does he
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love? What does he hate? What motivates him to do what he does? You're reading this book like it's
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about you. It's for you, but it's not about you. It's about God. And so that was when things changed
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was on my second trip through scripture. And I was halfway through the Old Testament. And I fell in
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love. Like I fell in love with the person of God. And it was the lens that I was using to study
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scripture. I had in me this desire to, reading scripture the first time it was, okay, how do I
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check all the boxes? How am I good? And I was nailing it in the morality area. I was, you know,
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gold star, just golden child, did everything right, didn't commit any of the embarrassing sins.
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Um, if you read my diary, you would have been so pleased with me, you know? Um, but it was all
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about how I can be a good person so that God will give me what I want. It was me using God as a means
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to an end. And so when I'm reading through scripture and I see it doesn't quite work that way.
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Like Paul gets a no for the things he desires. David gets a no for some of the things he desires. And
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these are like God's gold stars, you know? And so when I see in scripture that Paul lives this very
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hard life and these horrible things happen to him in prison, and yes, we have this beautiful letter
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that he wrote to the Philippians, you know, most of his letters were written from prison. And so it's
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like, wow, things don't quite go perfectly even for the, for God's gold stars. And so I, you say that
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in air quotes, God's gold stars, you know? Um, so, um, I learned that like, oh, living a good moral
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upright life doesn't always end as beautifully as we, we want it to on this side of eternity.
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And, you know, I know you and your, your listeners and your viewers have experienced that. Like there
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are people who are out there thinking they're like, I'm, why are things going so sideways for me?
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And when I have been my motivation, when, when God is a means to my desired end, um,
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that is not what a relationship with him looks like. And, um, so getting to know him, who he really
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is, it just changed everything for me. And it brought me so much joy, um, to get to know the
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God I'm in relationship with. It's crazy that I can read the same book and have two different
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Based on the lens. And what I think is so interesting about your analysis is that
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your me centric lens, which I think all of us are guilty at, at some point, uh, guilty
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of at some point in our walk actually created resentment and bitterness in you, I guess, because
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there was a discrepancy between what maybe you thought that you deserved and what God seemed
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to be giving people, uh, who seem to deserve better, who seem to deserve as you said, the
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gold star or the reward. And so at the end of it, you're like, what, this is what I get,
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which is the temptation and the consequence for all of us. When we read scripture thinking,
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well, what is God going to give me? Is he the genie in the bottle that's going to grant me my
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three wishes if I do things the right way? And you're right. That leads to a lot of
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discouragement and disappointment, which is why theology matters, right?
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So much, so much, um, a robust theology will dismantle all our entitlement.
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Okay. First, I want to let you guys know that we have a new installment of our subscriber
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so if you want that kind of stuff, subscribe blaze TV.com slash Allie use code Allie for that $20
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And so when you started Bible recap, you started it with the desire, okay, I want people to know God
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in his own words. And I want to look at this through the lens of who is God, as you said,
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what is he love? What is he like? What is he hate? And so tell me just about the process of creating
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the Bible recap, what went into it in those early days?
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It was a lot of work, you know, podcast is a lot more work than people anticipate. Yeah. And a lot
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more work than I anticipated. I certainly approached it with, I don't know if it was naivety or ignorance
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or arrogance or what it was, but I thought it would take me about an hour a day. Yeah. And because it's
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an eight minute podcast, right? How long can that take?
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Except at that point, I had read through the Bible 10 times and had done many studies and interviewed a lot
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of people and listened to a lot of teaching. And I'm trying to piece together the storyline of
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scripture. And in each day's reading, I'm trying to answer the questions that I anticipate that the
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reader might have. And so you have to think like, okay, what would somebody who has been in church
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a long time assume about this text, but not realize? Like maybe there's something deeper that
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they, they might have some base level assumptions, but there's something deeper that I can get them to.
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And what would a person who's brand new to scripture, what would they not understand at
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all? What would completely throw them off? And even just questions like, well, where did Cain's
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wife come from? You know, questions like that. You're like, oh, I need to insert this information
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in there. And so those are the kinds of things I really wanted to dig into. And then I also wanted
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to, if there was an area of theology that like, if you and I were to sit down over dinner and we were
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to talk about all of our doctrinal beliefs, there are going to be a large amount of them that we're
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going to agree totally on. And there are going to be a few that we're going to be like, oh,
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I see things a little differently. Like we practice that differently, or we believe differently about
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that. And both of us could like seek the Lord's truth, love the Lord, be able to back up our answers
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by scripture and just have to go, you know, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know who's right.
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This is what I feel inclined toward. That's what you feel inclined toward. And that's okay.
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Mm-hmm. And we could both be attempting to honor God in those spaces. And so what I wanted to do was
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I wanted to scream where scripture screams and whisper where scripture whispers and not scream
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where scripture whispers or whisper where scripture screams. So if there is an area of theology
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that is clear throughout scripture, Jesus is God. Jesus is the only way to a relationship with God.
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I'm going to put my foot down on that. I'm going to only, I'm not going to be like,
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some people think Jesus isn't God. And here's how they back that up. I'm just going to land on,
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land the plane on Jesus is God. But if we're talking about something like, um, methods of
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baptism, the baptism episode took me the longest to write because, um, there are different faith
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traditions that practice baptism differently. And I very much hold my opinion and can back my opinion
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up. It's not that I have no opinion, but I wanted to honor the fact that there are other people with
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varying opinions on this that still fall within Orthodox Christianity. So I had to do the heavy
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lifting of like, I want to interview a pastor who believes this, and I want to walk through with him,
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support your belief for me biblically. Like, how did you get there? And be able to represent. And in the
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podcast, I'll say, um, some people believe this, and some people believe this, and some people believe
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this. And there are eight links in the show notes if you want to do further research.
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Right. That's a good way to kind of direct to them.
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I want to teach them how to dig into the text to read, to find their own conclusions. Yeah.
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Um, so if it's an area that, um, God honoring, scripture loving, uh, people might disagree on,
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I'm not going to land the plane somewhere. I'm going to, and so that takes a long time.
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Like eschatology. I can't imagine how long that takes to try to concisely explain the different
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variations of what people think about the end times. Exactly. It's so difficult. And so what I
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like to do is I worked really hard for people not to be able to find out what my opinion is,
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to be able to write the podcast and the script in such a way that they aren't distracted by my
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opinion. Like I'm very disinterested in my opinion. Uh, it's the least interesting thing I have to say.
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The most interesting thing I have to say is what I believe is clear in scripture. And so that's what
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I really want to lean in on and encourage people toward, and then, Hey, go have these conversations
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in your family, in your church, with your pastor, with your mentor. So like, go dig deeper on your
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own time. Don't listen to what I have to say. Like if it's an opinions matter, like there are other
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people in your life who should be far more influential than me.
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I mean, this could be, you could do like a two hour podcast every day if you really wanted to
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get into it. And so I'm impressed that you take all of that information, which, you know, people
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have studied for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. I mean, really this could be at each day
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could be hours and hours or weeks and weeks of just that subject. And yet you can dense it into
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eight minute bites. Is that in itself difficult? Like, do you ever have a really difficult time
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I think so. Yeah. There have been times that I really wanted to say more, but I know one of the
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things that keeps people coming back is that it's short. And my goal is I really want them in the word.
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And so if I'm taking up two hours of their day every day, that's less, less of a chance that they're
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going to be in the word if they're just sitting there listening to me for two hours every day.
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And so if I can make it quick and accessible so that, you know, the, for the, for those people out
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there listening or watching who don't know what the Bible recap is, it's read through the Bible in a
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year. That's about 12 minutes of reading a day. It's about three chapters a day. If you're a slow
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reader, the Bible app will read it to you. You know, you can choose your accent and you do your three
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chapters of reading. And then I recap what you just read, give it cultural and historical context,
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try to explain questions that you might've had and the answers. Um, and then also the places that it
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feels like scripture might contradict itself. I try to show how that actually doesn't contradict
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itself. You know, when Jesus says, blessed are the peacemakers. And then later he says, I don't come
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to bring peace, but to bring a sword. And you're like, wait, which is it Jesus? So I try to show how
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those actually are in contradiction. And we try to do that in eight minutes a day, uh, podcast or YouTube
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or two pages a day. If you're, if you like a book, we have a book that does this and just two pages a
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day. Yes. That book has sold over 320,000 copies, which is a lot. That's a lot of copies of a book.
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And right now I'm sure it's more than this. I'm not sure when we got this statistic, but the latest
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statistic that we have is that the Bible recap has garnered over 340 million downloads. It regularly
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sits at number one on the Apple podcast top overall charts, which is absolutely true. Especially if you
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look at the beginning of the year, it's like Bible recap, number one, which again is such an
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encouragement to me as a Christian. So you said that you started and you were like, I really hope
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that 300 people, which is amazing. That's, I mean, that's a great goal. 300 people read the Bible
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with me. At what point in this journey did you realize, okay, wow, this is taking off a lot more
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than I originally intended or planned. We launched on January 1st, 2019. And it was around 10 AM that
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day when I realized. It was that fast. Yeah. Because I woke up to 300 emails. Yeah. From
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listeners. Okay. Got that. I got the 300. Yeah. Real fast. So yeah, I was like, oh boy. Okay. And these
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are not, so I lead a network of Bible studies called D group international. And I was primarily
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making this for D group to listen to for D group members. And we had about, I think about 1200
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members at the time and their members on five or six continents. And so I made it to help walk them
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through scripture the way my pastor did for me and hoped for sure. I hoped and prayed that people
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outside of D group would find it. But I'm like, I'm getting emails from India. I'm getting, I'm just
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like, wow. And it, just like you said earlier, Allie, it was the, it made me so happy to see that
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because this means people want to read and love and understand God's word. And this is a conduit
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for them knowing him. This isn't a conduit for me to like, I love that it's number one on the charts
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because that's about God. That's not about me. And, um, that is people wanting to know the Lord.
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And so I, it makes me so happy, but just pretty quickly, it was evident that God was up to
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something through this. And I mean, how fun to be along on that ride for what he's doing.
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Well, you were able to know from experience that reading the Bible by yourself is really daunting
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and really overwhelming. And everyone has wanted that person in their ear who has done all of the
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work kind of on our behalf to say, okay, here's a question that you might have. And let me answer
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that for you. And so even though the Bible recap is not about you and it's not about people following
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you, God obviously has used your specific skills because not everyone can do that. Not everyone can
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communicate the way that you can and condense so many years of wisdom into eight minute commentary.
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So I'm just thankful. I'm thankful for how he's used your talent. Me too. To advance his kingdom. It's
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really, it's just amazing. Um, what would you say is one thing since the beginning of this launch in
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2019, so five years, what's one thing that you've learned in this process or that surprised you?
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Hmm. The first thing that came to mind when you asked that, um, was, uh, when, when we hear the
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verse, uh, your word is a lamp into my feet and a light into my path. Um, when you look at those words
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in the original Hebrew, um, lamp and light are two different words. Lamp is this foot lamp that they
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would carry through the night. It basically would illuminate one step in front of them, just one
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step. And so your word is a lamp into my feet. It shows me just the next step for my foot, you know,
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and we all want that very precise, like, I need to know exactly what to like, help me guide my path,
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Lord. And he's like, my, my word does that for you, you know? And then light is this blazing fire of a
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thousand suns, like illuminates, like when you turn on the lights at the football field and it's
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just like, and everything lights up. Yeah. And so it is the both and truth of his word. It is
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the little, where is my foot going to fall? Terri Lee Cobble making her way through every day.
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And it is, here is the global truth, the infallible word of God that is true across the board
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everywhere. It's not only the universal truth that, that guides the world and the universe. It is,
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where do I put my foot right now? Where do I put my foot right now? It's the both and.
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And I, that is so comforting to me. That is just how beautiful that God sees the majestic and the
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minute. Yes. It's so funny. It's so funny that you say that because just yesterday, I don't know if
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your friends and you send voice messages to each other like their podcasts. And so I was on a walk
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with my baby and I was sending a voice message back to my friend and my friend who was trying to
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figure out something with her business. And I said that verse and I didn't know the second part of
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what you said. So I'm so glad that you said that, but, and I didn't know everything that you just
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explained, but I said, you know, the verse that says your word is a lamp to my feet and light into my
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path. If you picture a lamp, God is only showing you like one foot in front of the other. I mean,
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but I didn't think about the second part being kind of like the diffusive light that shows everything
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that illuminates. And that is such a comfort because when you think about darkness, think about being a
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little kid and you see that thing in the corner and you forget that it's just a shelf and you think
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that it's a monster. Well, the thing that brings comfort is turning the lights on. When you're walking
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through a city street at night, it's a lot scarier because you don't know what's lurking around the
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corner. But when it's daytime, you see things as they are. And so I love that that insight has brought
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you a lot of comfort because it brings me a lot of comfort too. It dispels our fears. It dispels our
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confusion, but it also guides us just putting one foot in front of the other. So yes and amen.
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Speaking of God and how he works and the mysteries of God, which even someone like you who has studied
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scripture for so long, I'm sure that you would say there are still a lot of mysteries about God
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and who he is. And one of those mysteries is the Trinity, or at least something that we don't fully
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understand. And you've got a book. By the time this comes out, it'll be, I believe, tomorrow. So
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Tuesday, April 30th, that your new book comes out, right? The Joy of the Trinity. So just tell us why
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you wrote this book and what it's about. Oh, I wrote this book because like you said, the Trinity
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can be very confusing. And most of us, when we approach that confusion, we try to do, we do one of
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two things. We either just like ignore it, pretend it doesn't matter, or we try to simplify it in such
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a way that we compare it to earthly things. And the reality is there's no other thing in creation
00:24:19.560
that is like the God who is the creator. There's no thing that he has made that replicates who he is
00:24:25.280
as far as his triunity. So we try to compare God to the faces of water. Like, oh, there's steam,
00:24:31.540
and there's liquid, and there's ice, and, or the three, you know, things on a clover,
00:24:38.380
the three leaves on a clover, or an egg. And we try to compare it like that. Or even to say something
00:24:43.480
like, well, you are a daughter, and a mother, and a wife. You have these three roles that you play out.
00:24:51.140
The Trinity is like none of those things. It's similar, but it's not, those aren't great comparisons,
00:24:57.720
because they miss really important aspects of the triune God. So all that to say, what I do in
00:25:04.300
this book is I'm not going to ignore trying to learn about the Trinity, and I'm not going to try
00:25:09.280
to simplify it and reduce its complexity. What I'm going to do is take that complexity
00:25:13.600
and break it into aspects that make it more palatable and tangible for the average human.
00:25:21.060
I feel like that's one of my giftings, is taking big, complex ideas and making them
00:25:26.720
understandable for a layman, because that's what I, I'm a layman, you know, I'm just an everyday
00:25:31.780
person. I haven't been to seminary. I don't have any letters after my name. But God has given me
00:25:37.180
this brain that will digest big information and be able to talk about it in normal terms.
00:25:42.660
And so we talk about each of the three persons of the Trinity. They each have their own chapter.
00:25:48.460
And we talk about the fact that they are, and this will, this might shock some people out there.
00:25:53.340
It's a shock. It was a shock to me when I first discovered it. Jesus is all throughout the Old
00:25:59.480
Testament. He's actually there at creation. And Colossians 1 and John 1 both tell us he's there
00:26:07.820
at creation. He's doing the manual labor of creation. He's the one doing the creating. The
00:26:13.460
Father gives the creation command, the Son does the creating, and the Spirit is hovering over creation,
00:26:18.220
sustaining, affirming, approving of it all. They all work in tandem toward the same goal.
00:26:23.340
And so a lot of people, when they're reading scripture, they say things like,
00:26:27.580
boy, I'm reading through the Old Testament right now. I can't wait to get to the New Testament.
00:26:30.660
I just need some Jesus. Well, good news. He's all over the pages that you're reading. Jesus says the
00:26:36.380
Old Testament testifies about him. He says the whole thing is about him. And then the other really cool
00:26:41.980
surprise, we tend to think, and I say we in general, it is a common thought among Christians that
00:26:50.280
Old Testament God is really angry until Jesus shows up on the scene and makes nice, you know?
00:26:55.460
And so the Father's the angry one, Jesus is the nice one, and the Spirit is the kind of weird or
00:26:59.700
mysterious one. And what you find in a study of the Trinity, and we talk about this, the unity and
00:27:06.100
diversity, they're unified in their character and their personality and in their will and in their
00:27:11.700
plan to rescue humanity. And they have different roles in how they go about that. So the Father has
00:27:20.900
a role, the Son has a role, the Spirit has a role in securing our salvation, but they all have the
00:27:25.960
same plan and they all have the same character and personality. And so when Jesus shows up on the
00:27:32.060
scene as a baby in Bethlehem, he is there to reveal the character of the Father. He is the image of the
00:27:41.540
invisible God. So everything, listener, viewer, everything you love about Jesus, everything you
00:27:49.460
love about the Spirit, it serves to reveal who the Father is. So if you have had a difficult relationship
00:27:54.940
with your Father or a difficult time understanding God as your Father, as your true Father, your capital
00:28:02.920
F Father, everything you love about Jesus, everything you find endearing about the Spirit is there to
00:28:09.460
invite you into depth of relationship with the Father. And those are just some of the cool things
00:28:14.400
that we find in studying the Trinity that I hope this book will serve to help people do that. And the
00:28:20.700
other cool thing is, once you have a more robust understanding of the Trinity, it equips your
00:28:26.880
relationships on earth to be more beautiful, your relationship in the church, obviously your
00:28:31.400
relationship with God, it changes the way you pray. It's transformative in a relationship with God
00:28:50.700
And can you tell us a little bit more about the Holy Spirit? Jesus says,
00:28:55.000
it's better that I go because then the Helper will be with you. And so that's a little bit
00:29:01.280
confusing to me, knowing that they are three in one and yet, and kind of they're saying,
00:29:06.440
okay, I'm going to go, this is going to come, but we are one. He obviously says, I and the Father
00:29:11.900
are one too. And yet He ascends to heaven to sit at the right hand of God. And so that distinction
00:29:17.320
and unity can still be a little bit mind-boggling, but maybe just tell us a few things that you
00:29:23.280
learned in this writing process about the Holy Spirit.
00:29:26.860
Yeah. I love that we have the gift of the Holy Spirit. When Jesus says, it's better that I go away.
00:29:33.180
So you think about Jesus being embodied. In His last days, before He's about to be crucified,
00:29:41.180
there are some Greeks who come to Philip and they're like, hey, we want to talk to Jesus.
00:29:45.020
Jesus. And you would think that Jesus might go, okay, let's go to the Greeks and have a
00:29:49.040
conversation with them. And He says, no, actually, I've got to die now. It's my time to die. A seed
00:29:55.980
has to be buried so that it can bear much fruit. And so basically there's this idea that Jesus is
00:30:01.580
this one embodied person. And when He dies and resurrects, He can then bear fruit. A seed makes
00:30:09.720
multiple of whatever it carries, you know. So for the Holy Spirit, who is not embodied like Jesus,
00:30:19.180
who is the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of Christ, He can go live in all believers everywhere.
00:30:26.480
Jesus could be in one place, you know, when He was embodied. The Spirit can be in all of us.
00:30:31.880
And so in those, in that gift that we have, the Holy Spirit tells you, I do a couple things. Here
00:30:39.520
are some of my roles. I'm a teacher. I teach you the right things to do. I'm the reminder of the
00:30:45.160
things Jesus said. I'm the encourager. He also, He is the seal and the guarantee of our salvation. So
00:30:53.420
this deposit that God puts in us, you know, if you and I lived pre-resurrection, Jesus walks out of
00:30:59.880
the room. Jesus is out of the room. Now, yes, God has this omnipresence, but there is the special
00:31:05.060
presence of the Spirit dwelling in us that whispers to us reminders of who we are. So when I am in a
00:31:14.580
situation where I'm really frustrated and angry and I want to lash out at someone, either, you know,
00:31:20.560
the person I'm in a conversation with or the driver in traffic who has cut me off, and I have this
00:31:28.140
prick in my spirit, in my conscience, I believe that's the Holy Spirit doing His work to remind me
00:31:34.140
of the dying to self, loving others, just those opportunities like, hey, this actually isn't
00:31:42.580
eternal. This doesn't matter. You can let that person merge, you know? It's going to be fine.
00:31:49.320
You can let them merge. You inherit the earth. You can spare that 300 yards in front of you,
00:31:54.280
you know? So it's just these little reminders of who we are, reminders of eternal things. And
00:32:02.240
the Holy Spirit does some of the things in Scripture that are astonishing and, like, awe-inspiring.
00:32:12.100
But the way He works in the everyday scale of the life of a believer is to speak truth to us about
00:32:17.660
who He is and who we are. And interceding on our behalf. Yes. When we don't have the words to pray.
00:32:23.620
How incredible. Yes. What a gift, right? The fact that Jesus and the Spirit are both interceding for
00:32:29.440
us. How incredible is that? Jesus, the mediator, and then we've got the intercessor. Yes. And it is
00:32:35.600
so amazing. And obviously, we've already been reconciled to God through Christ, and we get to
00:32:40.140
approach His throne and access His throne with confidence. And yet, when we still don't have
00:32:46.520
the words in, like, our human frailty to pray what we ought to pray, like, we are given the Spirit of
00:32:51.600
God to give us those words. That's pretty amazing. Yeah.
00:33:07.420
So, you talk about, I mean, the title is The Joy of the Trinity. What does that mean? Why are joy
00:33:13.960
and the Trinity so connected? So, the Bible Recap listeners and readers will know I end every day
00:33:20.620
with the phrase, He's where the joy is. And I'm after the joy. Like, I love a good time. I like to
00:33:26.760
have fun. I like to laugh. And that is, I think, what all of us deeply are drawn to. And whether we
00:33:35.440
find our joy in accomplishment or relationships or whatever, we're after joy. We're after what brings
00:33:41.540
us happiness and joy. In Psalm 1611, David says, in your presence, there is fullness of joy.
00:33:49.800
At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. And so, I end every day of the Bible Recap pointing to
00:33:58.400
where we found the character of God in that day's reading and how that points us to deeper joy in Him
00:34:04.160
as a reminder that He's where the joy is. And so, I want to invite people in to read this book about
00:34:09.600
the Trinity as a conduit for their joy. The Trinity has joy, and we have greater joy in drawing near to
00:34:16.620
the Trinity. Like, one of the things I talk about in the introduction is, would it surprise you to
00:34:22.020
know that God is happy? That God is happy. God has infinite joy. If in His presence is fullness of
00:34:30.120
joy, right? If you go into a room where somebody is miserable and angry and, like, spiteful, they're
00:34:37.320
not the fullness of joy. In their presence is misery, and that's not who God is. In His presence
00:34:45.600
is fullness of joy. So, the closer we get to God, the closer we get to that joy.
00:34:49.600
Yes. Yes. That is amazing. And another book, another passion that you have, which is all wrapped
00:34:55.080
up in this, is on Israel. You lead tours to Israel. That's something that your dad has done for a long
00:35:01.300
time, too. So, you kind of followed in his footsteps. So, tell us about that. And I'm going to show people
00:35:05.260
also on my camera just how beautiful this book is. Coffee table book, Israel, beauty, light, and
00:35:10.480
luxury. Incredible. So, tell us just a little bit about that following in your dad's footsteps.
00:35:15.460
So, my dad led trips to Israel before I was born and would talk about it like it was the greatest
00:35:20.760
place on earth. Well, when I saw his pictures, I was like, that does not look like, that doesn't
00:35:25.080
look like fun to me. That looks like sand and desert and brown and don't thank you. Right. I'm like,
00:35:30.060
I would rather go to Hawaii. Yeah. And it wasn't until I read through the Bible the first time
00:35:34.880
that I thought, okay, I would like to go there. Yeah. I would like to check that out. And I had
00:35:39.420
no idea how beautiful it was. I got there and I was like, people have been holding out on me. This
00:35:44.980
is a Mediterranean paradise. Like, people who don't even know and love Jesus should go here on vacation.
00:35:51.020
Yeah. And so, I would try to get people to come on these tours with me. I started leading tours. I did
00:35:57.600
a couple pilgrimage tours to learn and I did a couple geopolitical tours to learn because I wanted
00:36:02.780
to go back. I wanted to go back and I wanted to keep going back and learning more. And my dad said,
00:36:07.820
you know, you could lead tours too. Here's the process for that. And so, I started doing all that.
00:36:13.100
And what I found was that my first few trips, nobody wanted to come. They had the same thoughts
00:36:17.440
I had. I'd rather go to Hawaii. Yeah. You know? Like. And it's kind of scary because we're always
00:36:22.660
seeing Israel in the news and they're always embroiled in some kind of conflict. And I think a lot of
00:36:27.820
people just think, Middle East, no thanks. Yeah. That's kind of sketchy. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
00:36:31.820
So, I've been 20 times and I've been every month of the year. I've been when there have been conflicts
00:36:37.700
going on. I've been when it's been a quote unquote peaceful and there hasn't been a specific conflict
00:36:42.000
going on. And it has become a second home to me. I have friends in the West Bank, friends in Israel,
00:36:50.180
and I spent five weeks there shooting the pictures for this book alongside my photographer because my
00:36:57.880
goal was, I want to rebrand what people think of Israel. I want to show them what Israel is really
00:37:02.580
like. Yeah. Because not just for people to have a beautiful book to put on their coffee table,
00:37:09.440
but also because when people are enticed to go to Israel and then they go to Israel and they learn
00:37:16.520
about the things that happen in this space. That here is where Jesus healed this man who was lame
00:37:25.420
for most of his life. Here is where this happened. Here is where this happened. And they fall in love
00:37:31.040
with the word more. And then it makes them want to read the word more. And then they fall in love
00:37:34.420
with the Lord more. So, beauty is a conduit for truth in this instance. This book is, and we've,
00:37:43.420
in that, we have put these beautiful pictures, but we also have these 30 little site devotionals about
00:37:49.900
some of the biblical sites in scripture so that as you're flipping through, and maybe you have it in
00:37:55.300
your home and you have a family member or a neighbor who isn't a Christian, they're flipping
00:37:58.320
through and they're looking for beauty and they're encountering Jesus. They just stumble into Jesus on
00:38:03.700
the way. And so I love that people are getting to see how beautiful Israel is because I want them to
00:38:10.400
see how beautiful Jesus is. Tell us about experiencing the Sabbath in Israel.
00:38:15.140
It's so interesting. It's so interesting. I love that you asked that question. So we try to be in
00:38:24.460
Jerusalem on Sabbath or Shabbat, as they call it there, if possible, which begins at sundown on Friday
00:38:30.880
and ends at sundown on Saturday, which is one of the things that's kind of lost on us in Western
00:38:35.880
culture. You know, if you read Genesis one, there was evening and there was morning, the first day
00:38:40.400
there was evening and there was morning, the second day, the Jewish day begins at sundown.
00:38:45.260
It starts with rest. And so when the sun is starting to set on a Friday, let's say it's 3 PM.
00:38:54.900
We usually try to go to this busy market that's there, um, where all the locals are doing,
00:39:00.100
they're shopping for bread and fruits and, and all the things that they need for their dinner that
00:39:04.740
evening. And they are hustling through. It is packed. It is busy. It is like, we have got to
00:39:10.180
get home and get out of the car and get the groceries unpacked and get the food on the table
00:39:13.700
before the sun sets. Cause the sun sets, it's game over for 24 hours, 25 hours actually, because
00:39:19.220
they've added in an extra hour to make sure they don't break the law, you know, cause they're,
00:39:23.180
they're living by that, by that law. And so then the 25 hours that follow, it is, there are no cars on
00:39:31.480
the street. There are no stores open. People are at home with their families. And a lot of people
00:39:38.480
will ask like, isn't that boring? You know, but one of the things that they really aim to do is
00:39:45.100
reconnect with it. It's not just what, it's not just about what you're unplugging from. It's about
00:39:49.020
what you're engaging with. And so they are engaging with family. They're engaging with rest. They're
00:39:53.720
engaging with the scriptures. They are reading, they're playing games. They are resting. They are
00:39:59.400
having long meals and long conversations. They don't turn on their electronics. They just
00:40:06.340
like connect to the source. And there's something really beautiful about that. And there's something
00:40:12.740
that I, I hope that the church will continue to learn how, how God has built rest into our system
00:40:19.180
and how that opportunity to reconnect with who he is as the source, there's really some beauty and joy
00:40:25.260
in that. And it's really healthy for us. And, and, um, there's some wisdom in the ways God built,
00:40:33.620
I think so too. I'm not as, um, we're not quite as disciplined as I would like to be, but I have
00:40:39.840
always admired that about my Jewish friends, about how uncompromising they are on it, of course,
00:40:45.780
because it is, uh, a law that they are trying to abide by, but no matter what's happening in the
00:40:51.520
world, no matter what demands are on their schedule, they prioritize that rest. And it's
00:40:56.580
something that I would like to apply better to my life. It's so easy to give excuses for busyness
00:41:03.080
and distractions and things like that. But you're right. God knows that we need that. And he modeled
00:41:09.500
that for us in creation. And if God modeled that, then it's still good for us today. It transcends,
00:41:14.360
I would say old Testament law, at least the principles behind it, right?
00:41:17.200
The Sabbath, uh, was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. You know, this is a gift to us. And I
00:41:22.840
love, you know, the origin of the Sabbath is you have the, the Israelites who've been under Egyptian
00:41:27.940
slavery for 400 years. And Pharaoh is such a hard slave driver that he doesn't give them a day of
00:41:34.100
rest. Their animals don't get a day of rest. And then God brings them out and rescues them. And he's
00:41:38.040
like, his commandments are showing them what he's like, showing them what his values are, how to,
00:41:42.320
how to live in society in a way that honors him and each other. And can you imagine the shock when
00:41:48.920
he's like, you lived under the, the, the hard labor of a false God and he valued your hard work and
00:41:56.200
nothing else. And I'm a God who values you. And so I'm commanding you not to work, but to rest.
00:42:01.620
I'm commanding you to rest. Like, can you imagine the shock of like, who is this God who says we can
00:42:09.160
take a day off? Who is this God who, and, and, and in, in some way we have built a society that
00:42:17.620
teaches us to take up the hammer and, and become our own slave drivers in that way.
00:42:22.160
That we push ourselves when God's like, no, no, I can sustain the universe. Trust me. It can,
00:42:28.860
it can continue without all of your hard effort. Yeah. How beautiful.
00:42:33.360
I love what you said about that. Okay. We're going to inherit the earth. Like I can
00:42:37.560
give up this spot and like the carpool line or whatever it is. And it's not just that specific
00:42:43.940
scenario. That's, I mean, how we can look eternally at all temporal situations. Like if we believe what
00:42:50.300
we say we do, that we are co-heirs with Christ and that we like there, we will lack in no good
00:42:57.320
thing. And that in his presence is fullness of joy. Then the inconveniences and discomfort of our
00:43:03.560
day or the sacrifice that's required with putting down our phone or our iPad or whatever, and just
00:43:08.640
resting is all worth it. And it is a picture of the gospel. You're talking about this like radical
00:43:15.020
message of being able to rest and not work constantly. It's a picture of the gospel because
00:43:20.900
there are a lot of religions that can tell you how to get to God and how to work hard and prove
00:43:26.200
yourself to God and make yourself righteous before God. And that's of course why, and how Christianity
00:43:31.000
stands apart. He says, actually, you can't, you cannot climb this mountain. You can't clean yourself
00:43:36.620
up. You can't work hard enough to make yourself acceptable before me. I will descend because you
00:43:41.920
can't ascend and you are dead in your sins. So you can't even, even if you wanted to, you can't do
00:43:47.940
anything. And so it's beautiful. It, it is. I love that you, uh, you linked to that because that is
00:43:54.220
the heart of it is it is this regular reminder that we can't accomplish what the father has required
00:44:00.300
of us. Like that, that the finished work of Christ on the cross, Jesus said it is finished all that the
00:44:06.600
father requires of us, Jesus has accomplished. And so we don't do these things like read the Bible
00:44:11.340
and let people merge and practice, you know, resting. Um, we don't do those things to earn God's favor
00:44:17.120
because all of his favor has been bestowed on us through the finished work of Christ. Um, we are
00:44:21.860
adopted, beloved, accepted, not because of our righteousness, but because of his, and that sets a
00:44:28.740
heart at ease. Yes. Yes. And isn't it beautifully ironic that when you switch your lens from viewing
00:44:35.960
scripture through what do I deserve to who God is, you actually see that you get much more than you
00:44:43.100
deserve. So it's the best. It's the best. Yes. Yes. Well, thank you so much. And everyone, this comes
00:44:50.440
out tomorrow, the joy of the Trinity. So if you've had questions about the Trinity, like I have, you got
00:44:55.960
to go out, you got to get this book. And if you don't listen to the Bible recap, go ahead and do it.
00:45:00.480
Just jump in right now, right? They don't have to go back.
00:45:03.000
I would encourage them to jump in, maybe start the new Testament. That's a great place to start,
00:45:08.260
you know? Um, so you can start at day one or day two 74. Okay. So really anywhere. A lot of times I
00:45:15.220
hear that people who have never read the Bible before kind of start in the book of John. That
00:45:19.980
might be a good place to start, but you make it really bite-sized and understandable, no matter where
00:45:25.440
someone wants to start. So thank you so much, Tara Lee. Thanks for having me.