Why the Bible Feels Hard to Understand (and Where to Begin) | Ep. 126

Do you ever open the Bible and feel behind before you even begin? In this episode, we talk about why understanding Scripture can feel difficult and how to approach it with clarity and confidence. Anchored in John 14, we explore the role of the Holy Spirit as our teacher and what it means to grow in understanding over time. You’ll learn simple ways to begin reading, ask better questions, and build a steady approach to studying the Bible without pressure or overwhelm.

Transcript

Welcome And The Big Question

Building Confidence In Scripture

John 14 And The Helper

Perspicuity And What’s Plain

Start Small With The Gospels

Why John 14:26 Matters

Remembering Scripture In Real Life

A Simple Prayer And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is episode 126, and I'm your host, Atoya, and this is Equip the Next, where you get equipped to lead, disciple, and move the mission forward. So are you having a hard time understanding the Bible? You don't want to miss this? If you are returning, thank you so much for coming back. I would greatly appreciate it if you um leave me a review, if these podcast episodes have been a blessing to you, and also to share this with someone you love, someone you want to reach out to. Um, I really would appreciate it. If you are new, thank you so much for stopping by. I greatly appreciate that as well. Listen, let's just dive in. Let's just dive in to today's topic because we're gonna be talking about growing in confidence when it comes to the word, growing confidently in the word, being confident in opening scripture and understanding it and not having that weight of frustration because I know when you're starting out reading the Bible, it can feel overwhelming at times. And so I want to just assure you that yes, this is this is a thing. When you're first starting the Bible, it's gonna be overwhelming, but we're not gonna make it be overwhelming because we have the Holy Spirit, right? So I'm gonna first start with scripture today, just to kind of switch it up. And when we go to John 14, 22, we have Judas, not Iscariot, said to him, talking to Jesus, Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world? And then we go down to John 14, 26. So that was John 14, 22. So we're going down to John 14, 26, when Jesus says, But the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your to your remembrance all that I have said to you. You see, many believers feel intimidated by scripture, but Jesus promises or promised the Holy Spirit would help believers understand and remember his teachings. Now I'm gonna break down what this passage actually means in context before we get into the application part, but I did want to give you a reference scripture that you can um have with you as we do talk. Um I want to kind of give you, I've been kind of giving these questions that we can think about as we're listening. And that question would be: what if um understanding scripture isn't something we achieve on our own? Like, what if we understood that it's not a walk that we do on our own? This is why it's important to fellowship with believers. That's why it's important to have a community. But it's also important to recognize and understand that if you are a believer, you have the Holy Spirit. Yes, and that's a big deal. Now, unfortunately, we overcomplicate things that don't need to be complicated. And let me listen, I'm gonna say this so that you know that you're not alone. Yes, the Bible can be very complicated. It really can. But I want to introduce you to a word. Now, some of you who have followed me for some time know this word. If you've been in the Bible Foundations course, you know this word, and it's called perspicuity. Perspicuity. Now, in this context, what it simply means is what is necessary is clear for anyone to understand. And what is unnecessary tends to be debatable. Now, with that being said, we know the whole entire Bible is necessary. We know that. But when you're starting out, the basics, you know, Bible one-on-one, creation, salvation, those things are simple and clear. They're plain. The gospel is clear and plain, simple to understand. And if you want to know more about the simplicity or the simple truth of the gospel, feel free to check out episode 96 as I share with you the simple um truth of the gospel. It's easy to understand. Things that are kind of debatable are things like speaking in tongue, who should teach versus who should not teach, um, stuff like that, whereas it's more of a person's interpretation. It doesn't mean that they're not reading the Bible exegetically, it's just that you it, depending on your view, will determine your the lens in which you're looking at scripture. And I talked about that in previous um episodes. I won't share get into detail that um here, but you know, for instance, if you're more liberal or conservative, has nothing to do with politics. This has to do with um your biblical view. Um that's one that can shape how you look at scripture. It doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong, because I'm gonna be honest, no one knows everything until Jesus comes back. Okay, we're just praying that that we're on the, you know, that we are understanding the scripture to the best of our ability. But sometimes when you're new to studying scripture, it can be difficult. So, what you want to do is you want to remove all of the um overwhelm by just understanding and inviting the Holy Spirit in. Inviting him in. You know, when we look at it, and I'm gonna first let's kind of break down the text. Well, let me let me share some key points first, and then we're gonna break down this text, and then we're gonna go into application. We have to understand that many believers feel pressure to understand everything immediately. You're not gonna understand. This is a lifelong learning ride. We are always learning, we are always growing, we are always understanding, and it's it's the growth process, that muscle. So many believers think they have to figure everything out and understand everything immediately, and they start getting all these books and all this stuff. Start small, start small, little baby steps, which is why I encourage people to read um the four gospels first. If you're like new to reading the Bible, especially if you've never read the Bible, and maybe you're intimidated by the um Old Testament. Start with the four gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Get to know who Jesus is from different perspectives and different lenses, and it will, I believe it will bless you if you're starting there, and then you can gradually move on forward. Maybe you want to start in the new testament because that's easier for us to understand than the old testament. But whatever it is, don't think you're supposed to have everything figured out. And like we looked at John for like like we've seen in John 14, 26, Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would help believers. Learn the Holy Spirit is there to help you. You also have to understand that confidence begins when we trust God's help in the process. Listen, if you're trying to figure this thing out by yourself, it's not gonna work because just naturally we're gonna always doubt ourselves. Trusting God, that's the first process, that's the step in the right direction when it comes to reading scripture. And if you don't know something, it's okay to ask. One of the things I learned, especially in seminary, is how to critically think. Oh, I was able to critically think in school and just really uh it allowed me an opportunity to ask those questions, and I may not get the answers, but at least I was able to get it out of my head and talk it over and really deep dive on some topics that I wasn't really sure about. Trust God in the process. So let's go back to John 14, 26, just to kind of break it down. We read the scripture, and what we see here is that Jesus is promising the Holy Spirit would teach the apostles all things, the helper. Um, he, you know, this is this is he, which suggests this is a person, spirit. That's where we get that's how we understand the trinity, the Holy Spirit, and so the spirit would guide the memory of these apostles as they wrote down the teachings of Christ, which would then direct the apostles to complete the New Testament that is without error. They were kind of like, you know, imagine you're you're you're rocking with Jesus, you you're with him, you eat with him, you see everything. You're like, how am I gonna remember all of this? The Holy Spirit helped the authors of the gospels to record only what is true. So then when we look at this, we can we can learn from this. We can say, okay, well, how do I learn? What should I learn in light of who God is? Well, we know that the Holy Spirit can help us too. He lives in us, he guides us, he can help us understand what we've read, he can help us remember what we've learned. I don't know about you, but when it comes to verses, I'm better with themes. Like I can remember themes very well in the Bible. I can locate them, and that's how I'm able to find out where they are. My husband, on the other hand, he when he was younger, they had to memorize like the foregops. I think he had to memorize Matthew for sure. Um, and so he knows scripture, like he can just quote scripture all day. And sometimes I may not be able to, it's funny because I can't, like if somebody said, Yeah, could you do a scripture? Of course I can quote some scriptures right now, but not like my husband. But it seems like whenever um I need a question answered, or if I'm just like praying or something, or maybe the Lord wants me to pray for somebody, or whatever the case may be, just life be life in, all of a sudden a verse will pop in my head, clear as day. And I'm like, oh, you know, it shocks me. But the thing is, is the reason why I'm saying that is listen, if you think that you're gonna memorize a whole lot of stuff in the Bible, there's a lot of scholars that know the Bible very well. They've been studying it all their lives, and still, they might be only good in one area, you know, they're not gonna remember everything. I love um history as well, and so there's just a lot of stuff. I might get some dates wrong, I'll be like, okay, but the Holy Spirit will bring back the important details that I need for that moment, he'll bring it back to my memory. Certain passages of script of scripture, certain themes in the Bible, certain teachings, and so we have to trust that if we are going to trust God, we have to trust him in all. We have to trust him in the process, we have to trust him while we're walking, we have to trust him when we fall. We have to trust him. When we're looking at the Christ thread here, we understand that he's a teacher who sent the helper. He he sent the Holy Spirit. And if you believe, if you believe in your heart, you confess that he's Lord, if you believe that he died for you, if you believe that he rose from the dead, died for your sins, then trust him that he will also teach you the word. Trust him that he will send you people who will also teach you more. It's a combo, right? There's people out here who can teach you and explain the text. We had, like I said, we have Bible um foundations and we teach you how to study scripture. How do you study scripture? It's very very basic, but it's fun. We had a good time. I might open it up again because it was really fun. But um, you you have um scenarios that we do, we have breakout sessions, it's just really good. And so I encourage you just to start where you are. Open up the word. Don't be intimidated, don't worry about how it looks. Just open up the word. My challenge for you this week is to ask the Holy Spirit, or ask the father rather, ask the ask the father, because the Holy Spirit only will say what the Father says, right? Ask the Father for guidance before you read scripture this week. Ask him for guidance. And Father, I just need guidance. I need clarity, I need to understand what this means, and then trust that he will do it. Even if you're reading throughout, you can pray before, you can pray during, you can pray after. But just trust the process. No rushing, no need to compete, no need to compare. Just start where you are. Okay. All right. Well, listen, hopefully you've downloaded those guardrails. If you haven't, go get your free guide, the Bible study guardrails. They'll help you as well. And don't forget to share this episode. Bless you. Talk to you soon.