Scripture Is the Ice Cream — Why Anabaptists Put the Bible First

Welcome to the podcast that refuses to live life on mute.

It's time to amplify the truth and drown out the noise. Coming to you live from the Lord's Lair in the Shenandoah Valley, this is Life on 11. We're turning up the volume on faith and kingdom living. Here are your hosts, Jeremy and John.

What's happening, dog? What's up, brother? Nothing. Just chilling? Just chilling. Just chilling. I'm glad it's warm enough I don't need a heated blanket on right now. Dude, it is, compared to what it was last week. Oh, dude, it was balmy today. Yeah, like a balmy 40. Did it make it to 40? I don't know. I'm not sure. I saw 37. Okay. That was good enough for me. Yeah. Yeah. We got out of the single digits. You had to what? I said we got out of the single digits. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes.

But the snow crete is still here the stoke the snow crete is definitely yes still here that fact i almost busted my hiney on it a couple times today yeah if you get to a spot where like there's no like it's just oh yeah oh yeah yeah i went i had the lord's chicken for lunch today oh nice so i parked and i parked right next to a snow pile because there's snow piles everywhere And when I got out of the truck, you know, snow crete on a 45 degree angle and my foot on it doesn't work too

good. Remember that time when I fell getting out of your truck? Dude, that's one of my favorite memories, especially because Olivia came running outside with no pants on. Yeah. It was like snow and ice on the ground, and I got out of your truck, and I fell, and we turned around, and Liv was standing at the fence in nothing but her underwear. Yeah, it was great. Are you okay, Daddy? It was great. Never forget it. And anybody who knows Liv is not at all surprised at all. How's your week?

Oh, man. Well, I got a filling repaired today. That sounds like a horrible day. I mean, it's better than pulling teeth, I guess. That's true. You know, so. Okay. And I was happy that I have a big old gaping hole in my tooth. Yeah. So that was nice. Cool. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. So that was. Anything else fun? I mean, you know, church yesterday. Yeah. A good lunch. Yeah. So I know. I know. Yeah. I know. I didn't. I didn't get a good lunch. You didn't get a good lunch,

but I mean, maybe you had a good lunch, just not. No, I didn't. With us. No, I didn't. Yeah. I did. Well, it was cool. So I had to jet right after church yesterday and go do Barron Ridge, called a new pastor. So I went to go install their pastor. Nice. Got that done. And then some people know mom's not having the best time right now with her health, so she's still in the hospital. So I went to see her yesterday. Now, when you installed this new pastor, was it like a plug-in or like screw-in?

Yeah, he's like one of those self-regenerating ones. I got like a Prius. Oh, wow. Okay. All right. Yeah. Cool. So when they called me at Mount Sin, the big joke was they were having their John installed. so.

I like it okay I like it I'm not gonna make any other jokes other than that okay, There was no football this week. Bro. Yeah, that's a little disappointing. Basketball's just not, I mean, I love basketball, but it's just not the same as football. You know what it is about basketball? I think we've talked about this before. What it is about basketball is there's so much basketball. That's true. You're right. You can just become like saturated with basketball. Yeah.

Yep. So. You can reach your dew point quickly. Very quickly. Very quickly. See what I did there? Reach your dew point. Yeah. Because like get overly saturated.

Yeah sorry that wasn't funny so last week we kicked off our our anabaptist brethren pietist all the things series it was fun things things is the new it's the thing yeah things is the new thing okay we're gonna say thing a lot so we had some fun that was good yeah i thought it was great yeah i got some good feedback i don't know about you i didn't well yeah i got a little bit of feedback okay yeah okay it wasn't bad okay good well that's the way you said it was like.

Actually you know we're gonna just skip past that but yeah and uh so we'll do this one you know it'd be good is it it is gonna be good okay because we're actually talking about so there's there's a few things about the brethren faith that i like i love i talked about a little bit last week and so one of them i keep saying the brethren faith the anabaptist faith yeah no I got you. The authority and the understanding of God's word is a key component of that.

And so today we are talking about the word that shapes us. And we're talking about a traditional Anabaptist understanding of the scriptures. And I feel like we need to start with the disclaimer that in the past few years, maybe there's been less of an emphasis on the authority of the word of God for a lot of Anabaptists. Groups. Yeah. And so, you know, we were part of the Church of the Brethren split. The Mennonites have had ongoing issues. Oh yeah, quite a few over the years, yes. Right.

And so, I want to preface this with saying, like, I think we are approaching this from a historical perspective and not going, you might hear some things like, well, that's not necessarily true. Well, it was historically true, and for some of the groups that have come out of the split, it is still true.

I mean, we kind of talked about that last week, about how things have kind of divided apart because of interpretation of Scripture and just—, pure disregard absolutely scripture i mean absolutely no other way to put it yeah so one of the things that really i've always appreciated about about the brethren side of anabaptism is so for the longest time brethren were called like people of the book okay because they took the bible seriously and like we talked about last

week like the black and white literal reading of the scripture is 99.9% of the time, the accurate way to read the scripture. Yes. And that has historically been how most Anabaptists have approached the Bible. Is that fair in the Midnight Church too? Yes. Yes. I would say for sure.

And also want to reference people back to the translations podcast, because oftentimes I hear the argument from people when you talk, like I've specifically told people that I, I firmly believe that the Bible is divinely inspired word of God. Like I firmly believe that nothing's going to change my mind. Right. And they're like, yeah, but what about all the translations? What about when, you know, you're not reading in its original language.

And I'm like, I understand what you're saying, but that's not like, I even believe that the translation of it is divinely inspired. And that is also why if you go back to that same podcast, both of us, I know, we choose to read from scriptures that are the closest that we can get to the original manuscript. That matters too, right? And so that's super important. And so the emphasis that Anabaptists have put on the Word of God.

In fact, so much so, I will tell you that one of the critiques of folks like you and I, as we talk about it, is I've heard people say, like, oh... Some brethren, some Anabaptists worship the Bible, not Jesus. I've heard people say that before. Wow, okay. And it's like, well, no, we worship Jesus, but we know who Jesus is through the scriptures. Yes. And John 1 says that Jesus is the word.

Yeah. And so it's hard to slice those two things apart. But I do think that, you know, we worship Jesus and we do that through study and being involved in the word of God. And so the Bible has to be core because if you take the Bible out of the equation, then all of a sudden you have nothing to hold together who Jesus is from a historical or theological perspective. Yeah. I mean, everything becomes, what do you call stories that aren't written down? Yeah, fables.

Yeah, fables. Yeah, that's a good one. Or folklore. There you go. So one of the things that we talked about in this outline is, so scripture is authority, not accessory.

And that is that's huge because the moment that we make scripture an accessory we're working through it backwards um we think about scriptures like second timothy chapter 3 verses 16 and 17 you know all scripture is breathed out by god and useful for teaching and rebuking and training in righteousness um and then here is 4 12 which talks about that the word is living and active and it's sharper than any two-edged sword right yeah i mean how many times do you see someone take a opinion or

a thought and then just pick through the scripture to make it, fit whatever their opinion or thought is. Absolutely. I mean, that's, you see that everywhere. Right. And yeah, so this is kind of what we're talking about. Yeah. And so the way that Anabaptists have traditionally approached the scriptures would say that it is scriptural authority placed in a cultural context. There you go. And so the scriptures provide the accuracy that we need.

And then we place them inside of a culture and we allow the scriptures to speak to culture. And unfortunately, we've moved to a place where most folks are allowing culture to speak to scripture. Absolutely. And so the Bible is never meant to be like the sprinkles on the ice cream. Ooh, I like that analogy. That's good. It's supposed to be the ice cream. It's supposed to be the thing. And then all the other stuff sits on top of it. Okay.

Instead of it being that we kind of sprinkle a little Bible on top of whatever we're talking about and then we try to make it religious. Man, how true is that today though? I mean, for absolutely like you, I'm not going to mention any names, but you know, you watch some of these big TV preachers and stuff and all that prosperity gospel.

And that's, did I send you that thing the other day? What that is. Did I send you that thing the other day? We're going to go jump on fire. I don't know if you did. I met a woman who was crying cause she, cause she lost $300. Okay. And so I gave her $100 of the $300 that I would have blessed me with that I found on the ground. Oh, my goodness. No, I don't remember seeing that. I don't remember seeing that. I must have seen somebody else, and I was like, oh, Prosperity Gospel 101.

Oh, wow. Okay. But all that to say, that is one of the, if you want to create heresy, here's number one way to create heresy. Believe something and then open the Bible to justify your opinion. Yep. All right? Absolutely. And I told folks before, like, I am a trained theologian. You give me a couple hours in a Bible, I can justify almost anything by taking scriptures out of context. Sure. I can find all sorts of one-line scriptures, and we'll just pick out of stuff.

Oh, yeah. I can justify all kinds of stuff. Oh, yeah. Yeah, hey, John, scripture says we're supposed to only wear long underwear. All right, well, give me five hours and a cup of coffee. I can probably- I can come up with something for you. Right. Like, I could twist enough scripture to probably come up somehow with that, right? Right. And unfortunately, that's how a lot of people do their Bible reading is they approach the scriptures with an opinion and say, now, scripture, justify my opinion.

And unfortunately, a lot of devotionals and things like that are written in that way to reference, to have a point of view and then reference specific things. Verses in the scripture to, to form that opinion in someone's mind. And then like, Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. And, and that, and that's, that's the, and we all have those, like we all have those biases. Right.

And so that's actually one of the reasons why. So, you know, I do, I do a fair amount of like what I would call topical preaching. Okay. That I, you know, like we talk about things, but, but at least a couple of times a year, I try to do like expository preaching where you don't preach through a whole book. We preach through like verse by verse by verse of things.

And I do a lot of Bible, like a lot of our Bible studies that we do are very expository because then you have to wrestle with every verse in order. Because if not, you'd be like, I mean, I could be right now, like create me a sermon about, you know, grace and just pull up every scripture about grace. Never read the context. Never read what it's saying. And miss the forest for the trees. I mean, especially with AI now. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

I mean, somebody could think, Someone could think they know everything about the Bible and never open a Bible. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And so we all have to lay down our biases, right? Because- And especially, you know, as like a minister, that's something that like I have to wrestle with really on a weekly basis is, you know, okay, God, help me get out of the way of what I think about this, this thing that you're having me wrestle with and let me approach the scriptures with fresh eyes.

And so many people, that's why I think Christians don't have a lot of conversation on hard topics is because it's so hard for us to lay down our bias, you know, and say, okay, let's really read the scriptures and what they say without our opinions influencing them. And let's build them from the ground up. Yeah. I mean, especially if it's a bias from a young age and something you've held on to for a long time. Oh, absolutely. That can make it even harder.

And see. And so, I mean, we don't have to get into this all tonight. I'm like, man, we could do like a whole podcast on some of this other stuff. Sure. Deconstructed theology. Have you heard of this? Ooh. Yeah. Let me do a whole podcast on deconstructive theology. So basically, it's this idea of like theologically, you deconstruct everything you think you know about God. So you approach your belief systems and you look to deconstruct them.

Ooh, okay. That's interesting. And it's a really popular way of reading the scriptures and reading the Bible. The problem is, is that most people don't ever reconstruct it again. Oh, okay. And so you have a bunch of people walking around who no longer believe in God or don't believe in all the things that they thought they did. So you have people that are like, oh, well, I mean, for example,

like homosexuality. They're like, oh, well, I'm going to read the Bible in a way that deconstructs my human sexuality theology. And then they get to the end and they're like, all right, well, I'm good now. And they never rebuild it. They never reconstruct it. Oh, interesting. It's really harmful. Yeah, I can't say I've heard that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've heard of it. So that would be a really interesting, just some different theologies to get into sometime.

The other thing we talk about with the Anabaptist way of doing faith, and this might be my single favorite thing that I love about Anabaptism. I feel like you're going to say this at least seven more times. No, no, no. This is number one. This is probably number one. Okay, all right. Until next week. This is number one for right now. Is reading the word of God in community. Yes. And I love the fact that we read the Bible together in community.

Is that like you guys i'm sure you grew up with that oh yeah absolutely absolutely we would call like communal hermeneutics would be the two dollar word whoa that's like a five dollar word that's a two dollar word that's a five dollar word yeah i'm gonna have to pause this just to look it up hot dog what kind of harmonica is he playing exactly but like i know i can remember i can remember when i was young and not not not trying to bash

any any new sunday school lessons or bible schools that we do. But I really remember, like, we really dove into the Word during Sunday school and during Bible school, like, so much so that I memorized passages, like, even, like, entire chapters to recite. Like, we went through them in that much detail and learned, like, what each And yeah, like, so that was very, very important for us. And so the phrase that I'd share with you was we read personally,

we discern communally. Yep. Right. And so it's this understanding that we have personal convictions that. And we have personal ways that we read the scriptures, but the Anabaptist way of doing faith would say, you always check those with the community, right? And so if I'm reading something, then I need to surround myself with other brothers and sisters. And I'm like, hey, this is what I think the scriptures are saying to me. And this is what I think God is saying to me.

And that's not to say that I don't have an individual reading, but it also acts as a safeguard, this might be like, John, are you crazy? Like, no, that's not what to, you know, to really have that check in it. Yeah. I mean, some of the best Bible studies I've ever been to have been exactly what you're talking about, where we're going through verse by verse and where, you know, what are your thoughts? What are you? Yeah. But here's the thing that I would say. Okay.

One of the reasons why I think that has gone away, in my opinion, is that it implies that people are in the word. True. And so, as we have become a more distracted society, and scriptural literacy is at an all-time low, you can't have a communal hermeneutic if the community is not in the Bible. You can't have a Bible study with 10 people showing up and talking about what the Bible is speaking to them if only two or three of those individuals are actually reading their Bible seriously. Mm-hmm.

And so, and that is one thing that like, again, I think we have to think about is, is if we want, if we want a way of reading the scriptures together, then we all have to have a common conviction to say, we're all going to be in the word and we're all going to be spending this time together. So that there is that understanding and not like, because you can't have a communal understanding of scripture. You can't read scripture in community.

If like we open up our Bibles to Habakkuk chapter two, and you're like, this is the first I've heard of this. Sure. But if we've all read it and we're all spending time in it, and even if like you're not in Habakkuk chapter two, even if you're in Job chapter one, like there might be ways of tying those things together.

But it assumes that we are all saturating our lives with scripture, going back to the first thing, that the scripture is the ice cream, that we are spending so much time in the Bible that we can read the Bible together. And we're not just approaching at it like, oh, this is the first time I've laid eyes in the Bible this week. Are there thoughts on that? I mean, okay. I believe you that this is number one now after hearing you go through. I believe of you, I think.

I proved it to you. Yeah, you proved it. You proved it to me. Is it because I used a $5 word? No, no, no, no. No, it's not because you used a $5 word. It's because you were very passionate about it while you're talking about it. Okay. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's very good. And you're, you're right. I mean, what, like I said, with all of the. My goodness. I mean, I'm guilty myself. Like if somebody gets into like, uh, you know, a podcast teacher or a YouTube teacher or whatever kind of teacher,

and they're, they're using that as their, as their devotional time. I'm guilty of it too. Not, not opening the Bible, but just listening to someone else talk about what they think about the Bible. It's not the same thing. And you're absolutely right. And, and it's, it's a lot, it's not harder for people to get in the, in the word, but People say it's harder. Absolutely. Because of their time commitments elsewhere. Right.

And again, because of so much of it, it's a distracted society. Oh, absolutely. My granddaddy, my mom, my granddaddy didn't watch television. They didn't have a television. He read his Bible in the evenings. Yeah. They didn't have the internet to scroll. Sure. You know what I mean? And so some of it is that. The other thing, like you were talking about, I had that early in my ministry. Like, dude, I got I got so plugged into Francis Chan at one point.

Like I would, anytime I was doing sermon prep or anytime I was doing something, like I'd always, I'd be like, oh, I'm going to see what Francis Chan said about this. And like, God really convicted me. Like, you need to, you need to stop doing that, you know? And, and I mean, I would read it, but it was like always my go-to. Like I would read a, I would read a passage and be like, all right.

What's Francis Chan's right. Like I'd be on, you know, YouTube, like Francis Chan sermons on Ephesians chapter two, you know, or whatever. We're like just trying to figure out like, and, and God, and God convicted me of that. Like, you know, be careful that you're not elevating that person. Sure. And, and, you know, especially now, like with, with Facebook and the algorithm algorithms and everything.

Absolutely. So like, like, so recently I've been, I've been listening to some sermons by Josh Howerton. Like when I'm driving long distances, I have time to listen to a whole sermon, whatever. And you sent me one and now it's all over my face. Exactly. Yes. And so that stuff always is coming up. Not necessarily that that's bad. That doesn't mean that's bad. Like it's better than other stuff to come up when you're scrolling through.

But I mean, you can easily get to where, oh, yeah, I listened to three sermons today. I don't need to read the Bible or, you know, it's really easy to think like, oh, I connected with God already. I don't need to do this. Right, right, right. And there is like... We need to be people who are immersed in scripture, but it's possible that you can be immersed in scripture and never actually open up the Bible. Oh, yes. That's the pendulum swing on the other side.

Exactly. Yeah. And that's definitely where we are as a society. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The other thing that I love about the communal hermeneutics part of reading the Bible in community is that it prevents anybody from going rogue in their theology.

Going rogue. And I would say of all the things that I have seen people struggle with, if they grew up like Baptist or they grew up like Assemblies of God, where there's this deep emphasis on like God spoke to me and then they become brethren or they start attending.

Even mounds on like the the context i can speak to like probably the hardest thing that it that that for them to wrestle with is that someone will walk in my office and say like god said to me and like that doesn't carry as much weight with me ah yes as it does with other people yep because i my next question was okay and have you processed through that that through the word and have you process that through the, through the counsel of other believers. Yes. Well, God said to me, okay.

Yep. And if God said that to you, then you should not be afraid to process that through the lens of scripture and the lens of the community. Because man, I can tell you like a lot of theological, like a lot of heresy could have been avoided had somebody who one time said, God said to me, processed it through the local church and like all their brothers and sisters and deacons, leaders in the church were like, whoa.

Hang on you know i mean and so that's what i appreciate about it is is we don't put as much weight now if if you were to walk in here to me you know we're getting ready to do next week's podcast you came in you were like john god told me that you know tara and i need to move to idaho i'm like what a coincidence god told me and jessica we have to move to idaho no. I'd be like, okay, Jeremy. It could probably be a lot more like, I feel like God is leading. It would be more like that rather than.

Yeah. And my next question would be like, okay, well, can we find some time to process that together? Yes. And that's what I would expect. Right. Yeah. And not that as your pastor, you need my permission or like that. Sure. People are always saying something. I'm like, do you want to find time to talk about that?

Because that is part of what we do as a community. And like, when somebody says like, well, God told me it is not like, it shouldn't be the point where the church goes, well, now we have no say, like we have no part to be able to tell this person. It should be the church gathers around them and says, okay, well, let's discern that together. Let's discern together. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. But man, and, and, and because we, I don't know what this, like you do you society.

Oh yeah. You can just drop like, well, God told me. And like, some people just expect everyone's like, okay, well can't say anything to them because God told them, you know, like, I don't know about you, but I've had some times in my life. Like I thought God said something to me and then come to find out, like, shouldn't be door dash and Taco Bell at midnight. Like, wait a second. I only have one time. Okay. One time.

Wow. It also means that for Anabaptists, scripture has always been ingrained into the daily life cycle of people and, Scripture is not merely just a checkbox. I did my Bible reading for the day, and now I'm good. But a deeply passionate way of intertwining and engraving scripture upon every part of your day. Yeah. Are there ways that you see that? Man, I will tell you. I would almost say it's cyclical. Now you're using a $5 word. Nah, that's not a $5 word. That's at least a $2

word. I don't know. I'm going to call it a dollar word. I don't know if that's $2. But anyway, I remember a time in my life and mine and Tara's marriage where we were very, oh, goodness, what's the word I'm looking for here? Very in tune with the word in our daily lives.

It was easier before we had kids. yeah like i'm not i'm darn kids i know i'm not like your fault riley i'm making an excuse but i know it's not an excuse but it's it is what it is we're human right but yeah no i can remember specific times where like it was a lot easier to to bring the scripture into every every portion of your day absolutely everything that was happening and you know i i'm i'm guilty of of kind of losing that because of how busy things are.

And, and yeah, I mean, it's a challenge for me to get back to it for sure. Yeah. So yeah, it's, it's, it's hard. Yeah. And I know like we've talked about this, like, I think I've, I know I've talked about this a few times in sermons and things like that. Like the idea of like placing scripture around your life to where it's like always, always close by you, you know, like Jess and I, we had this conviction, like there's scripture and I think every room of our house.

Maybe not the upstairs bathroom. Probably should be. Probably should be because that's the bathroom where I go. Probably something about casting out demons. I don't know. But there's scripture in every room of our house just so it's present. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yep. And yeah, I mean, you can saturate it. I mean, it's easier never. Oh, yeah. I mean, you have it in your hand or in your pocket. You listen to Caleb all day. But you still have to seek it out. You still have to do it.

Just having it there doesn't do you any good. Right. That is the pendulum swing, right? It's like either you can just read the Bible and walk away from it, or you can be surrounded by it so much that you never opened your Bible in the first place. The last time we talked about reading the Bible is we talked about, we got to unpack this one for a second, rocking horse theology. Oh, yeah. That's the first. Yeah. So are you familiar? I wasn't familiar until I saw it in the outline. Okay.

So rocking horse theology is this idea that everything that you believe teeters. Or hobby horse. Hobby horse. Hobby horse. Hobby horse. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everything that you believe, hobby horse, it goes back and forth depending on the situation and continue on. So you never approach the Bible as whole. Yeah.

And so at some level, and that's what I love about Anabaptist reading in the Bible is it takes the whole book, right? Because so one of the things that you'll hear, I know the brethren and other Anabaptist groups too will say like, we don't have a creed because creeds become this, go into hobby horse theology. Depending on what the thing is, we say there is no creed but the New Testament. This whole thing governs our lives, specifically the New Testament. We accept it as a whole.

And so hobby horse theology takes any subject and says, well, okay, I'm only going to read about, you know, what does it say about abortion? What does it say about gossip? And what's it say about slander? And those things start like a hobby horse that can tip it back and forth. Oh, yeah. Interesting.

And depending on what you read, your theology becomes more or less progressive or more or less liberal or more or less conservative or more or less, you know, Middle Eastern or more or less Western, depending on what you're reading and how you're reading it. Wow. Hobby horse. Yeah, okay. It makes sense. Whereas an Anabaptist reading would say, read the whole thing.

Yeah. And if you read the entire New Testament, then it will give you a full, clear understanding of the narrative of the Bible and what it says about everything. So if you want to know what God wants you to do about any situation, read the whole New Testament. All at once? All at once. Oh, man. I'm going to be busy tonight. Yeah.

Chad GPT could probably whip it up for you. whip it up in like 15 seconds create me a three-minute track yeah yeah sure and those are the things that like the the scripture reading piece of anabaptist theology is just so anabaptist life and thought is so precious sorry this this might take us on a tangent okay but so i we're I know we're similar in the way our minds work. Like for me, scripture, like I've listened and I've heard so many songs,

scriptural-based songs. Mm-hmm. When I hear a scripture read, I instantly think of the song related to that scripture. So what would your thoughts be from an Anabaptist viewpoint on surrounding yourself in Christian music? Because there's a lot of people who have come. You got the K-Love 30-Day Challenge you've heard of. But that's people's entrance into Christianity is through Christian music. Like, yeah, yeah,

yeah. Just what's your thought on that as far as surrounding yourself with scripture? Yeah, I think it's a really good piece of it. I think it can be, again, like, because some of it can be artist interpretation. Sure, that's true. Right? That's true. And so, you know, and especially, like, early Anabaptists would have probably said, like, unless you're literally singing the words of the scripture in the, you know, as they come out of the Bible.

For me, I think it's a piece. I think it's a really important piece, you know.

But there's also like i will tell you i think some especially some of the new like praise and worship music is theologically elementary elementary and so that's why i think we have to be in the word and and sure you're in our brains like we are exactly like i'll hear a song and i'm like oh yeah oh yeah boom it's there right and even like one of the you know some of my favorite songs like take pieces of scripture and put them in there sure and so i think

that's It's sort of like having the scriptures around in the house, like a really good practice, but that's not all we're doing here. No, that's not it. But yeah. Right.

Right. And so, yeah, but I think it's all part of that, like interweaving and allowing the scriptures to literally influence everything you do throughout the day. Yeah. And I know, you know, we've talked a lot, a lot with the youth about that, about, you know, the scripture has something to say about everything in your life every day, day in and day out. Absolutely. We just have to seek it out. Right. And know.

Right. And write it on the tablets of our hearts so that we know if you can't open your Bible right now, then it's written on your heart in a way that you're like, oh yeah, I know that that's, I know that the scriptures say this. And like, like I said, I know like growing up memorization was very, like very key for us. And a lot of those I still have memorized to this day. Like, is that an Anabaptist thing? Like memorization or just. I think it's just a. In general. In general. Okay. All right.

I didn't know if it was an Anabaptist thing or. Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny because that's actually so the, the new Bible journaling that I'm doing for this year. Like that's one of the things you do every week is just try to memorize the scripture every week. That's a lot harder now, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I started easy. I picked out one that I had memorized that I'd forgotten. Okay. So I kind of got a jump start on that one. Okay. It's like repeating second grade.

Okay. Not that I've repeated. Yeah, no, no, no. Can't prove nothing. No. That show's smarter than a fifth grader? Yeah. Yeah. I think you could come in third place. 66% of the time. It's been fun. Yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely. We can roll on this one for a long time. That's good. It definitely made me think about some things that I need to work on. Yeah, for sure. We all have those, right? Yep. We all have those.

Yep. Yeah, so next week we're talking about a faith that walks, and we're going to talk about the call to service and the ways that Anabaptists do service, which is, I'm sure that's probably right up your alley, knowing you. That's probably going to be my number one, actually. Yeah, knowing you, that doesn't surprise me at all. Yep. And so, yeah, it'll be it'll be fun. But yeah.

So until next time, give us a shout. If you have some thoughts on this, maybe let us know who you're rooting for in the Super Bowl. Thanks again for tuning in to Life on 11. We hope today's discussion gave you something powerful to think about and apply to your walk with Christ. If you enjoyed the conversation, the best way you can support the show is to share, like, and comment wherever you listen to your podcasts. And don't forget to connect with us. You can find us on Facebook or TikTok.