All right, what's up everybody? Welcome back to the podcast. I need to say before we start that we're we are pre recording this and we're a little bit ahead. So if there if there has been a problem that you guys have not liked with the latest format of this podcast, I haven't heard your complaints because those are future complaints that haven't happened yet. But I really like what we're doing. A man has been a big part of this. Parker has been a big part of this, and so is Paul.
Yes.
So what we do here is we answer your questions podcast at grangersmith dot com is the answer is how you how you asked the question, and then hopefully I'll give you the answer I'll ask it. I I think it's important that we've been answering a bunch of questions kind of bundled into one. Today is a big one. I get asked this all the time. Personally, I get asked this if I'm doing some kind of Q and
A at a conference. This is a major question. And then on the podcast itself, the last one hundred episodes or so, I've gotten this a bunch and the question is how do you read your Bible? Speaking to me personally, how do you, Granger read your Bible? And I think that's a great question. And I kind of figured out a system on my own through listening and watching other people, and so this wasn't taught to me. So it's not
the right it's not necessarily the right way. In fact, I don't think there is a right way to read your Bible as long as you are reading it. I think there are wrong ways. Maybe we should start with that, Okay, a wrong way. In fact, I just heard this today. I heard this today from a friend friend of Amber, and she said, my boyfriend just talked about a Bible verse and it was Lamentations three and it was great
as your Faithfulness. And she was like, he screenshotted great as your Faithful Faithfulness and sent it to me and says, this hits differently. And the girlfriend said why, and she said, because I'm realizing now that the Lord looks on our faithfulness, not our works. And I was like, that verse is not about the man. That's the faithfulness of God.
God.
Yeah, Jeremiah's writing that about God. And and in fact lamentations are are It's a horrible, horrible story of how the Babylonians were wrecking Jerusalem, and Jeremiah's watching it weeping as the people are being drug away and the walls of the temple are crumbling down. And he then looks up at the Lord and as great as your faithfulness? That that that is what happened, and what here's the deal, and this is what this is where it was wrong.
He didn't get any of that because he got the notification of the Bible app the quote of the day.
So he has no context.
There's no context.
That would be the wrong way to the wrong way to read the Bible is out of context.
That's one verse at a time that pops up on your phone from an app and you look at the app and it says great is your faithfulness? And you're like, I think the Lord's speaking to me saying great is your faithless? Jeremi's talking about God. It's the opposite. Yeah, I mean that is so far fetched that I didn't. I didn't. That didn't even compute with me for a second, because I've never I never could even imagine that that would be talking about us and not talking about God.
Did you start thinking to yourself, where in the Bible does he say that my faithfulness is great.
Yeah, and I couldn't understand that. I actually walked away from the conversation later and I was like a light bulb came on. I was like, oh, now I know what happened. So that is a wrong way. A long time ago, I did a couple of years ago, I did a sermon about coffee munk versus. I wouldn't recommend listening to it. Don't go listen to it because I wasn't very good preacher. I'm still not. But whatever, But that is a wrong way. We cannot read our Bible
that way. Here's another wrong way. And this came up in a conversation at a recent conference I did in Illinois, did a Q and A, and I was telling people imploring them to read their Bibles, which is what I'm doing on this episode right now. It's so important. Fact. Last time you and I were on a show together two weeks ago, we talked about being around other believers, preferably in the local church in the body and reading your Bible are the two most important things you could
do in your walk with the Lord. So this guy is I'm imploring these people. He raises his hand and he says, I read my Bible and I still just feel so distant from the Lord. And I said, okay, well, if you don't mind, and I don't mean to put you on the spot, but can you just tell us a little bit about what does that reading look like? And he said, well, I just pick it up and read. And I was like, well, if you don't mind, what does that mean? And he is, well, just whatever I
feel like reading that day. I was like, okay, I just want to point out that you're basing your reading on what you feel. You say, I feel like I'm understanding more about suffering. I'm going to go read something about suffering. I feel like reading something more about being patient, so I go look for that. So you're just going on the whim of your feelings.
Would you pick up, for lack of a better one Moby Dick and read chapter twenty? Great point, like, well, I didn't like this book? I what do you not like about it? Well? I mean it just like I don't know where this happened and that happened, And like, yeah, where'd you hang on? Show me where you started after twenty? Well that's not where you start in the book.
Yeah, that's maybe yes.
The Bible is not chronological in every single chapter. Yeah, it's funny. I'm just now reading, like I'd already read some about David and then now I am in I don't know, I lost it, sorry, but it's coming back. It's after Kings where am I I thought marked, I'll think of it later. But it was bringing back up about David, and it was it was really going through all the stuff with David, and I'm like, oh, okay, now we're back into the meat of David.
I like this, So just context, that's all we're asking exactly here. Yeah, that's a great point about movie Dick. So to this guy in the crowd, I say, have you have you ever read the Book of Romans? And he said no, And I said, do you know? The Book of Romans has just rocked the world. In fact, it is the it is the reason for the Protestant Reformation. It was was Martin Luther struggling with Romans one p. Seventeen, just struggling with that verse about righteousness, and he couldn't understand.
In fact, he hated the righteousness of man and the righteousness of God. He just couldn't understand it. But he didn't quite know what it meant, and he wrestled and wrestled and wrestled with Romans one until it finally hit him what that means. And it just rocked his world as he understood finally in context what Paul was talking about that were saved by faith. The righteousness is given to us through faith, the righteousness of Jesus, not on
her own. It rocked his world. It caused the whole world to split, and many people Parker is another one that was saved by the Book of Romans. Ambers thinks she can't remember exactly, but she thinks it was Romans. So I just pointed out this guy and Romans is just one example of sixty six books that I told this guy said, this is what you're missing when you just try to read emotionally on what you think you should read. Another wrong way to read the Bible.
Yeah, that makes sense, Chronicles, That's where I was trying to think of.
Yeah, yeah, so another wrong way to read the Bible is to not read it all. So let's talk about let's talk about what were you to say.
No, my my personal encounter with how I'm reading now came from a conversation with you and it's but if you want to jump into that, well.
I don't think we've ever talked about it. I've mentioned in passing Machine plan this is what I do. I don't think I've ever shown people what that actually looks like. And the reading the Bible is it is. It is life changing. It's life transforming, it is life giving, and it is it is as close as we're going to get to the presence of God outside of the local church, outside of heaven. It's that that important. When we pray, we're speaking to God. When he speaks back, it's through
his word in the Bible. There is nothing more important to a believer outside of the local church than reading your Bible. And if you're in ministry and you're listening to this right now, it's not just reading your Bible for your ministry work, or in my case, it's not just working in seminary and reading what I need to read for seminary or what I'm preparing for in a
sermon I have this week. It is your own devotional time, separate from all of those things, Separate from a requirement, Separate for what you're learning in your a small group at church, or what your pastor's reading to you. Separate from all of that your own personal devotional time.
So you have those in your life. You have your own personal time of reading the Bible, and then you have your seminary time or your preparation for a message.
Yeah, and I have like right now at church, we're walking through Hebrews. Okay, Marshall is walking us through Hebrews in our Wednesday night by study, we're going through Judges in seminary, where right now we're going through First Corinthians. In my message that I'm working on for this weekend is Daniel. And my devotional time is different than all of those things that just said, And these are critical things. Let's go to the Bible quickly and talk about the
importance of the Bible. Now, there's a lot of places that we can go. I think maybe Psalm one nineteen is a decent place to start. Psalm one nineteen, verse nine says, how can a young man keep his way pure by guarding it according to your word? With my whole heart, I seek you, Let me not under from your commandments. I have stored up your word in my heart that it might not sin against you. Blessed or you,
Oh Lord, teach me your statutes with my lips. I to clear all the rules of your mouth and the way of your testimonies. I delight as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes and your ways. I will delight in your statutes. I will not forget your word. So we could use that word, that word word for statutes and testimonies and precepts. We could interchange all of those things. I think David makes it clear. The Psalmist makes it very clear what
he's talking about here. John fourteen. This is the verse, the section of scripture that saved me. But fourteen twenty ish we can start around there. Jesus is talking to his disciples and talking to him about, hey, Lord, why why is it that you love us? Why are you with us? Why do you manifest yourself to us? And
he says in verse twenty two, or excuse me? First twenty three he says, Jesus answers him if anyone loves me, he will keep my word, And then twenty four says, whoever does not love me does not keep my word. So the natural implication there is, if how could you keep a word, you don't.
Know, so you have to know.
You have to know it. Let's go to second Timothy, second Timothy three sixteen. This, this one is incredible. This one just it blows me away. Every time I see it. I'm getting there way faster because I'm using an iPad.
I'm an old school analog over here.
Yeah, I do this sometimes when I'm in a Q and A. I just have this iPad. It's just so, that's great. Second Timothy second Timothy three sixteen is one of the most incredible verses in the Bible. Sixteen and seventeen.
I have it all highlighted already.
All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the Man of God may be complete equipped for every good work. Are you kidding me?
I have a new living translation, and it's translation there is. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives.
Wow, if that's not I mean tewod Timothy three sixteen is just very clear. All scriptures breathed out by God, profitable for teaching reproof correction. So one more here and then I'll kind of lay off on this Hebrews four.
Another famous one, Hebrews four twelve. This is another, another very obvious one that says, for the Word of God as living and active, sharper than any two edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Right after that, verse thirteen says, and no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eye of Him, to whom
we must give an account. So I think it's very clear that not only not only should we should we be reading, should we love it like the Psalma says, And that should be a prayer for us, that we we genuinely love the Word, we crave it like the Psalma says. Let me go one more here. This is one of my favorite Psalm forty two to one. As a deer pants for flowing streams, So pants my soul for you, Oh God, my soul thirst for God, for the living God. So not only should should that be
our heart position? And if it's not, pray for it that's a great prayer. Lord, I read this Psalm forty two one, and I don't feel that way. I don't feel that way. Please give me that. That's a good gift. That's a good prayer.
Yeah, he says it in one nineteen in it later on in thirty six, it's a pleat, give me an eagerness for your law, great prayer, give me an eagerness. And that's different than being hungry. Yeah, And eagerness is a lack of a better And this is very much a guy thing. When you have to go to the bathroom. I mean like I'm I'm gonna burst, I gotta go. That's eagerness. Yeah, give me an eagerness for your laws.
Yeah. Absolutely, I think I think it clear.
Sorry, just compared going to the bathroom. But that's it's that feeling, that anxiousness.
You know, it's it's something you can't resist.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's so.
I think I think it's very clear that we need, we need an ignorant eagerness. We need to crave it. And not only do we need to want it, but once we do want it, it is so paramount and our and our growing and our and our and our own correction of our own life, and our own faithfulness, and our and our and us getting closer to God.
All of that, all of it hinges on us understanding, reading, meditating, listening to, sitting, under wise, teaching, wrestling with the Bible, the word, the precepts, the testimonies, the law, all of those. All of those things are equate to what Jesus means when he says, if anyone loves me, I'll keep my word. Now, we're not capable of doing that on our own. So it's important to say too, we're saved by grace through faith.
This is not our own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, So that no man may boast Ephesian's two eight and nine. And it's important to know that we were not capable of these things on our own. We need to have need. We need a new heart, We need to be given a new desire, new once new and new eyes to see, new ears to hear, so that we can crave this. But once we do, and once your eyes are open to it, then then I want you to tell me the story that you I want you to tell everyone
the story that you told me today. What was that.
When we started changing the podcast. Here one of them that were brought up, and it was the first one, Should Christians stop cussing? Or you know, ken Christians cuss? George Jenko who used to be on Logan Paul's podcasts and they're best friends. He talks very highly of Logan still to this day, but they now lead very different lives and George's is saved and is moving into the you know, he's starting to recognize things in his life.
But he was on a recent podcast was talking about his father is still alive and both of our fathers have passed. But imagine right now if your father wrote you something, Yeah, would you not read, Hey, I wrote some letters to you and I put him in a book.
Would you not read single overd of it, every over and over and over again. And it's not going to be all just encouragement. It's going to say, be careful with this, and stay away from this, do more of this, try to cultivate more of this, stay steadfast in this. This is what a dad would say to his son.
Well, and I think that some of the language is that we use language in the church and it is very much appropriates in the Bible too, is that he is our father, but is he your dad? You have that relationship. Do you climb up in his lap? Do you talk to him about your day? Yeah? Do you feel his arms around you? Yeah, that's the one we're talking about. And that's who did all this. This wrote you the letters, and it has them right here for you to read.
This is going on right now with my ten year old son, Lincoln. I get him sometimes and I say, buddy, I don't want to punish you. Yeah, but I love you and I want you to be the man that I know you're going to be. Listen to me, do what I say. Suffer the consequences if need be, but endure through this because you will one day be a man. And that's the message of the Bible. It sure is. You know, when I started a website way back in probably two thousand and two, grangersmith dot com. That's probably
how old it is. There is no way I was thinking in the future about a podcast and then selling things from my website like apparel. But that's that's what we ended up doing because that was that was the necessity, you know, that was the business, and we didn't know how to do it. At the time, but thank goodness now we have Shopify. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business. From the very beginning till now, we still use Shopify,
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Com slash Granger all lowercase. Go to Shopify dot Com slash granger right now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in. Shopify dot Com slash Granger podcast is also brought to y'all by the Wellness Company. So how is it possible America could run short of a maxacillin? A maxacillin, you know, it's like the Swiss army knife of antibiotics because it treats so many different types of infections and doctors prescribe amoxacillin for nose, ear, and throat infections.
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Get fifteen percent off at TWC dot health slash granger and use promo code granger. That's promo code Granger at TWC dot Health slash Granger. So I think we've made a pretty good case for why we should read it, and not only why we should read it, but we should read it all the time.
Yeah, we should.
We should read it daily. We should read it. It should be a habit. That's like oxygen for us, as much as we need oxygen. Somebody might ask how often how many times a week should I read my Bible? Let's say seven, And we need to always have the caveat of saying you're not gaining approval by God If you read your Bible, you're not gaining status with God. If you read your Bible, you're not gaining a ticket
punched to heaven. If you read your Bible, you're not getting justified at all in any way for any other reason than Jesus and his world on the cross becoming a substitute for sinners, that whoever turn to him and believe their sin is wiped away, their debt, the wages of sin is paid, is wiped away. It's clean because of his sacrifice. So it is not anything that you do,
including going to church or reading the Bible. But after you're saved, after you're justified in that way, after you've looked to him and trusted in him, then those desires we've talked about, that you want to crave his word, that you want to grow, that you want to move. Jesus never cause us to stay in the same place. It's follow, follow, follow, Let's go. If you want to be that guy, if you want to follow him, then
he'll know you as one who keeps his word. So I would say, why wouldn't you do it seven days a week?
Yeah? Absolutely? And you know I I personally had the desire, but had no knowledge or or real practical way of understanding how to make it part of my daily life. Although I was going, you know what, I'm just gonna am I going to read the entire Bible in the year. I don't know what I am going to do. Is I'm gonna start every day. I'm gonna read one chapter of the New Testament, start in Matthew, and then just
start reading. And I read through the end and I was like, Okay, you know what I could probably do is add a psalm. I do a psalm every day, and then a chapter of the New Testament. And then you and I were talking and you said, well, have you tried the McShane plan. It's like, I don't even know what that is, never even heard of it.
So I think that's a good point to remember. It's not quantity, no, No, it's just the daily practice of it that I'm looking for first. It's it's like if I was telling you you need to run, you need to be a jogger, and then you would say how far do I need to run? I go, I don't care. I don't care how far you run, just run. I
just want you to put your shoes on. And if you run fifty feet then, and if you do that every single morning, you run fifty feet with your jog and choose and come back, then I'm expecting that by next week you're running seventy five feet. I'm expecting that, but I'm not requiring it, or I just want to build the habit. I've said this before, but by no means am I ever trying to put myself forward as someone that's got it going on, by no means using
any kind of bragging language. But the only reason I bring this stuff up is to just encourage to maybe model something that I'm seeing from other guys. Everything I do is modeled from someone else. I'm not inventing any of this. In fact, everyone all the way back to the first century, we're all just modeling that and trying our best. But the reason I even bring it up is so that people go, Grandri could do it. I
could do it. And so one thing I say it is last year in twenty twenty three, I didn't skip any mornings in twenty twenty three except four, and that's when I was in Pakistan and it was literally illegal for me to bring a Bible in any in any form, even on my phone, even an app. It was illegal in that country completely, So I just relied on memorization. Sure, and that's it. And and it was a special time
actually in Pakistan, not to not have my Bible. It was a special connection I had because because the Word is life for me, the Bible's life. And so as I separated the umbilical cord from life. Yes, sure I went to Pakistan. I said, Lord, Lord, I need you, and I just went through my you know verses that I knew and and my prayer life was fruitful. And because I think the Lord sustained me knowing I know you love my word, and thank you for that. But when I pull it away, you still have me. So there,
I think there's something to say for that. But but when I was in Pakistan, it was the only four days and then I ended up catching back up later. But I say that once again not to brag, but to just set set an example for others that might be wondering. I'm pretty busy, Granger, Like, I've got a lot going on, my work, my wife, my kids, my schedule, I go fishing, I get on airplanes to that. To all of that, I say, I could probably match you
in all those things. Yeah, I've been moderately busy the last several years, and I don't skip it because this is life and whatever else is going on, whatever busyness I've got going on, I need to get up earlier or I don't if I can't get up, if it's not doesn't make sense. If I'm getting up at three am to go get a flight, and it doesn't make as much sense to get up at two thirty to
read the Bible or two. Then I'll say, Okay, I'm not going to read in the morning when I wake up, but I'll read in the airport, sitting there way.
Away to flight.
On the flight itself, I'll read then, but I make it a point that I don't miss it. And so I say all of that to hopefully wipe away excuses from people that think they're too busy. And and then I think we should lead into what this podcast really is about. And you kind of alluded to that. How specifically do we read our Bibles? Now this part what everything I said until this part I think is you need to do everything I've said up until this part. You need to do it. You need to understand the
importance of it. As the Bible has told us the importance of itself, and you need to understand the gravity of it, the weight of it, the desperation for every breath of it, and you need to do it every day. So up until this point everything I would say, do it now, you're on your own. After that, like you said, and I think you said it well, one paragraph, if you read one paragraph, it's something. Don't read one line. Please, don't read one verse. Otherwise you might think that's your
faithfulness and not God is talking about. But if you read one paragraph a day. There is another thing I'm studying in the Bible, and that is with my family worship, and so that's another thing separate. And with that, we're working through the Book of Mark and we read maybe as much as the kids can handle. And sometimes that's only one paragraph, right, and I think that's also enough for the average viewer to listen. If you're like, look, I don't have time, or I don't understand it, or
I don't desire it. If any of those things are you, then I would say, let's go to one Let's go to one paragraph. In the Gospels, they're called perickepees, the little sections that have a little title, and then there's a little section what I do.
Like if that is your statement? Though, I find it hard to believe that you've made a commitment to Christ and have zero desire. Am I wrong in that?
No, it's a really good check engine light for you. Yeah, it's like, okay, so this truck's not running right because I don't care about the Bible. Granger, you say all this stuff, I don't understand. It makes no sense to me.
I mean, you just told me you dedicated your life to Christ and you're saved, and so you have no desire.
So so you got to check engine light in the truck. You need to you need to take it into the station. What's wrong? I don't desire your word? In Someone nineteen, which is a man after God's own heart, loves the word.
Wouldn't you? Wouldn't you even just want to go selfishly look for the benefits, you know, Let's start there. Let's start on service level, flesh level.
I think the atheist just read the Bible? Why not? It's the It's it's the most popular literature in the world. You're going to read Homer's Odyssey, why not read the Bible?
Right?
You don't have to believe it if you're a mister atheist, But why not read it now? Secretly? As Christians, we know what Hebrews four twelve says that it's sharper than inituated. Sword pierce into the division soul in the spirit, you know, and we know that.
We know that if they start reading it will happen.
Yes, but you can go in as a skeptic. That's fine with me. Maybe we could spend just a few seconds here on translations. I typically recommend against everyone hold their breath the King James. Look, I think the King James is great. In fact, i'm reading currently the New King James. But I would recommend against the King James only because of it's hard to understand, especially for people that don't that aren't turn off a lot that aren't from sixteen they don't live in the year sixteen oh five.
Then I would say, hey, you you should probably read a more modern translation and hang on with me. People are already getting pissed off, I could tell. But I'm going to I'm going to go through the reasons behind what I just said, and I'm gonna hopefully make you feel better if you're really people are angry at me right now. I could feel it because I just talked to I said, don't read the King, James.
I almost sent you a via a video to react to, which was a preacher saying, thank God we have the King James, therefore we no longer have any need for here or for the Greek and I just laughed and I was like, yeah, I'm sure we have other things to talk about. So I didn't send it to.
You, Okay, So what am I to do? And then that'll help with that discussion. I'm gonna hit screen record on this iPad, which is my Bible. So here we are, we're looking at Psalm forty two one. That's the last thing we read. So what we're looking at here is an app and I choose to read my I read different pieces of media for different situations. For instance, with our kids when we do our family worship, I'm reading the actual paper Bible when I get up in the morning,
and I read my own devotional time. I'm using this the screen I'm looking at right now. There's a lot of reasons. One it this is syncing with my phone. What's on my iPads syncs with my phone. So when I have those moments when I'm like in an uber and it's three o'clock in the morning and I didn't get to read. I'm reading right here on my phone. It's always on me, so I don't have to have my Bible in my bag. I don't have to have because that's a good excuse. If you don't, you're like, man,
my Bible is not in my backpack. I guess I can't read today. That's a bad hangout.
Eliminate those barriers.
Eliminate barriers great. Another reason is it's got a light. It's got a backlight to it, so I'm reading early in the morning. I don't necessarily need a lamp or a light on the airplane or in the terminal or in my living room. It's got its own light. That's cool. Another reason for the iPad is this particular thing I'm looking right here. This is called Lagos or other people pronounce it logos l O g O S. That is an app and effectively go out here. So it's right
here on the top left, Lagos Bible. It's blue and it has a white cross on it, and there are many versions. So don't take don't think that this is the only way to do it. But what we're looking at here is, as you could see on the screen, the as a deer pants are flowing streams. So pants my soul for you, Oh God, is highlighted in yellow. So I could highlight that. I could. I can go in here and highlight any verses, and as I get as I come back to it, I see what I
previously highlighted. Also, you see on the top left on this verse one there's a little tea, and I could hit that tee and it's going to say Joel one twenty. So there is a reference to Joel one twenty and it says, even the beast of the field pant for you because the water brooks are dried up great and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness. So there's a connection between Joel one twenty and Psalm forty two
to one. Great. Another thing I could do on Longos is I could take a word like soul and I hit soul, and now I have Hebrew, and I could look at the word study on soul and the way that this was used, and I could study the word. I could study. If I'm in the New Testament, I could study the Greek of it, and I could see the way that this was translated. So this goes back to the kind of this King James conversation is I
could look at what do these words means? So if I don't trust a translation, then let me look at what the actual word says myself. So I don't have to sit here and go I don't trust a certain translation. Well it's twenty twenty four. We have logos. Look at the word yourself. Look at the word yourself that was found on the actual scroll itself. So I can get a definition of the word. I can get the Hebrew word. I can get what the Hebrew word means. I can go way deeper than that I could look. I mean,
I can get really really deep. What I'm looking at on the screen now is the English Standard version. This is my preaching text that I use. Sure, it's also my personal reading and my personal devotional. It's it is also what I read with the kids. But I said personal devotional. That's wrong. That's this is my preaching text, and this is what I read with the kids, and this is what I teach with. But my personal reason my church uses it.
Okay, So you stay in line with the same verbiage.
I think that's I think that's the best easiest way to answer that. My church reads the ESV, and there I think it's an excellent translation. There's a lot of other reasons, but let's start there. But my personal devotional translation changes every year. Right now, I'm in the King James or the New King James. Last year in twenty twenty three, I read the CSB Christian Standard Bible.
So go ahead, New King James. Is that take out a lot of these and dows?
Yes, okay, that's pretty much where that's It's the same as King James, just without the these and dows.
That's where a lot of a lot of people get hung up in that verbicon, these and thousand. There they be talking about at this point.
The New King James and the King James. They come out. They come out of Textus receptus manuscripts, and the ESV and the CSB comes out of the Alexandrian Old manuscripts. The Alexandrian manuscripts are slightly older and found slightly more recently. Interesting we found recent more recent we have found Alexandrian
manuscripts that are older. The older ones sometimes exclude certain things which is why people see now and it's like popular on TikTok to go look at this Bible, y'all, it's missing verse twenty three, right, how dare they remove twenty three? Well, the reason is not because someone's being deceitful and taking it out of a major translation that we all can trust. It's because the older manuscripts don't include it.
Right.
It doesn't mean that it's wrong. And none of that changes major doctrine. It's all all of those instances where something is excluded or included. It's it's always second, third, fourth tier type stuff. It's never a major doctrine. It doesn't change any of our beliefs. It doesn't change the faith, it doesn't change anything about what we believe. It's just slight details. But what's cool is that we know that
it's twenty twenty four. We know these slight differences. And as I read logos, I could go back, So watch what I'm doing now on screen. I can go to text comparison, and I could go to let me see if I go to we're looking at some one, let's go to Psalm one. And so now I have the ESV, the l e B, the NASB, the NIV, the NRSV, the KGV, the good old King James, and the NKJAV. It goes on and on, and so I could sid he and go. Blessed is the man who walks not
in the council of the wicked. Blessed is the man who does not walk in the advice of the wicked. How blessed is the man who does not walk in the council.
Of the wicked.
Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the council of the ungodly. Blessed is the man who walks not in the council of the ungodly. How happy is the man who does not follow the advice? So here it is, here's all that. This makes everybody happy and logos even monitors. Right here the percentage of
difference in what the translation you're looking at is. So, for instance, the KJV is thirty one percent different than the ESV in Psalm one one, And you could look right here. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the council of the ungodly. Blessed is the man who walks not in the Council of the Wicked slightly different, but you see what I mean, it's the same thing. Yes, it's the same idea. It's very obvious if it's different, if it means a different thing, or if it hits
differently or a different emotion, that would be wrong. And these major translations are not wrong. It's a different way of looking at an ancient translation. And you know what, it's probably fair to say that none of them are exactly right right.
Because they're English.
They're English, but we know that the word is preserved for us in a way that we could trust it that it is still the inerate word of God. It's spoken differently, but it's the same essence, it's the same feeling, it's the same nature character of God that comes through the text that we can believe and wrap our lives around. So I hope this makes people comfortable. It makes people comfortable.
Well, I think a question two that can come up is like, well, how are they just now discovering new scrolls with this text? And what have you? We saw
it firsthand. I mean literally, there will be an area of ten feet by forty feet that a year ago was solid ground and today it's steps of of a Roman colisseum or what have you, that that is uncovered little by little and they're doing that every day in all of these old historic places over in Jerusalem, over in that area, and they are discovering stuff all the time.
With you know what, we should do another episode on the the historicity of the Bible and the accuracy of it. Yeah, of stuff, because because I'm like, man, we're almost out of time, and I want to go to that. But that's probably another episote to another episode. Right now, this is just how to read, how to read the Bible. So back to the screen here. If you look what I as I scroll on Lagos, I've got the English
Standard version here, there's the King James right there. So for all the people that are that love the King James, I'm right there with you. I actually love it too. I just don't read it on my daily devotional because it's hard. But as I am going through my preaching or teaching and I want to look at and what does the King James say here? I don't want to miss that, And so an easy way is to go to this text comparison and then back to my reading.
So now let's get specifically to what this podcast is about. How do I Grangersmith? How do I read? Here's here's a I read right here. This is my mc shane reading plan. Help me spell it? M apostrophe c h e y n e y n e yes mic Shane. I don't want to get into the details of who McShane was. That's probably irrelevant. He was a brilliant man and a dear brother from a couple of centuries ago. But he was absolutely brilliant, died young. I believe he's
twenty nine when he died. Oh really, yeah, brilliant man.
I didn't know that.
And he put together a really neat Bible reading plan that includes two chapters from the Old Testament and two from the New. What it does is if you read it every single day in one year, you will have made it through the New the New Testament twice, the Psalms twice, in the Old Testament once if you stick every day to those four chapters. And sometimes it's five chapters, sometimes it's three. It changes a little bit, but usually it's four.
Sometimes it's not a whole chapter. One nineteen might be split up.
And sometimes it's not a whole chapter.
Yeah, So.
Looking back to the screen. This is it says session complete because that's what I did this morning. So you could load the mcchain plan through.
Yes, oh that's great.
So you go to logos and you could load a reading plan and you could you could load any plan you want. There are the chronological plans. There's read the Bible in one year plans, there's the McShane plan, there's several. Yeah, and I don't really care what you do. Like I said, a.
Plan just really helps. It helps you organize your life as you're organizing everything else. A plan goes, hey, if you do this today, it will help you get through. It help you accomplish a goal that maybe you've set for your h If it's just reading today, that might be the goal. And that's great. It does that. If it's reading the Bible in a year, it does that as well.
Yeah, let me hit plan overview. Go to plan overview. This is my personal plan. You could see in the top left McShane reading plan, and it's this is the new King James version. I try to read a different translation every year. I've done the n IV, I've done the ESV twice, I've done the CSB, I've done CSB again, and I've done new Now I'm doing the new King James. This is all on the McShane, so I think it's helpful for me to see different text. And I start
in March and so you could see it. I'm on day thirty five and my next reading is Genesis thirty seven, Mark seven, Job three, Romans seven. And then you could see here these are the previous days and it's simple. So as I'm reading, I could highlight, I could remember that, I could tweet it or exit copy it and copy it.
That's great.
I could click on all these little tabs which are just so helpful, all the little little numbers here. Then I can go back and see what is First Samuel. Oh, there's there's a there's a connection between First Samuel and Genesis thirty seven two. Anyway, it's a deep rabbit hole. You don't have to get into it all. But this is how I read the Bible. So I'll go back to overview so that I'm ready tomorrow to hit read man.
That's great. And if if you're looking for it, this we didn't go I've learned something right here today, but we didn't go this deep. When you told me about the machine plan. But that right there helped me tremendously. And today this is this is even better. I didn't I didn't realize you were really using the logos. I was just using the Bible app if I need it on my phone.
Or the great So this is the Bible app, dude. Similar thing it does.
It doesn't import, but it just all go look at my email because they get an email every morning, it's the one at the top, and that in that account, it's the the top emails that early and nothing else has come in after that. And saw a click on it first thing in the morning, see what the passages are to read and then flip over either in my Bible or if I'm traveling, flip over on my phone
and let's read those. Yeah. And I know a lot of people look forward to those those tweets every morning, and those come from your daily.
Reading that comes from this Mixshane plain.
Yeah, that's great.
I will post something from those one of those four chapters. And that kind of forces me whenever I tweet it or post it. That forces me to not just skim read, but I got to read something worth taking away.
Yeah you can, because you can't get into a place where you are mindlessly reading.
I'm guilty of that.
Yeah, absolutely, And part of my prayer every morning before I read is to what the Bible tells us to do in many other circumstances, though, is to keep is to take thoughts captive, take those thoughts kept. So those thoughts that are not about what I'm reading right now, either reserve those for later if I need to pay attention to the thought later, or just cast it out and be done with it. But right now it's my time to read and understand and to get closer to you.
Yeah. Amen, that's well, you guys. I'd love for you to be able to comment below, if you're watching or listening on a platform where you can comment, say I'm reading, or even better, i'm starting now.
Yes, gonna be day one.
If we get an army of people that just do this to be well equipped, ready for all the good works prepared for you. That is, and that's the goal. That's that would be amazing.
Is it? A Chinese proverb that says the best the best day to plane a tree was twenty years ago. The second is today. That sounds right, The best day to start reading your Bible was twenty years ago. The second best day is right now?
Is right now? Yeah? Yeah amen. If you guys comment that, that would be super encouraging. See you next time. He Thanks for joining me on the Granger Smith podcast. I appreciate all of you guys. You could help me out by rating this podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube, subscribe to this channel, hit that little like button and notification spell so that you never miss anytime I upload a video.
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