Why Trusting the Bible Feels Hard (and What Builds Confidence) | Ep. 130

Do you ever question if you’re reading the Bible the right way or using the right translation? In this episode, we talk about what it means to trust the Word of God when you feel unsure or overwhelmed. Anchored in 2 Timothy 3 and Hebrews 11, you’ll learn why confidence in Scripture starts with trusting God, not having all the answers. We also break down simple truths about the Bible and how to stay grounded in context so you can read with clarity and grow in faith over time.

Continue the reflection in Hello Virtue: Trust Who He Is

Transcript

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Welcome And The Trust Question

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is episode 130, and I'm your host, Atoya. And this is Equip the Next, where you get equipped to lead, disciple, and move the mission forward. Learning how to trust the word, still have doubts, you don't want to miss this. Feel free to leave a review and share with someone who you can help or you want to be a blessing to. That would be greatly appreciated, and I'm sure it will bless them.

Overwhelm With Translations And Doubt

SPEAKER_00 1:08

So without further ado, let's dive right on in because I know some people might still be struggling when it comes to trusting in what they're reading. There's a lot of different translations out here, and I get it. And um we talk about this in more detail in our Bible foundations course, but I do understand that it can still be very overwhelming. And so we need to learn how to trust the word, trust the Lord, rely on the Holy Spirit. So this is what I want you to focus on in this episode. Confidence in Scripture ultimately rests on trusting God, that God speaks through his word, and that his word continues to shape our faith. That's where it starts. Always remember that. Ask yourself this question. You can be honest, nobody's watching you. Ask yourself, do I trust the authority and reliability of God's word? Do you? Do you actually trust it? If you trust the word, then the confidence will grow. Because I believe it's a muscle, again, like I said, it's just like, um, and I don't know if I shared this before, but I'm sharing it again. If you're if you're working out and you work out, ultimately you'll start to see results. And then your confidence will grow. And then you'll start doing it more because you'll be like, oh, this is working. Now you're not reading the Bible because it's working, you're trying to make something work. You're reading it because it's true. It'll transform you. And the more you read it, the more your confidence will grow. But you got to have confidence to open it up. You don't have to have a lot. You just need enough to open it up. Get all the the things that you think it's supposed to say, because we know the Bible is not about us. So that already takes that out the way. And just trust the Lord and read the word and take baby steps. And ultimately, it'll grow, you'll grow, it'll grow. But you have to trust him in order to even do that. You have to trust and open the word. You have to trust and believe. And then that growth and that muscle will flourish. So I want to give you some verses, and we're just going to talk today. We're just going to talk.

Scripture And Faith As Assurance

SPEAKER_00 3:40

2 Timothy 3. It says, All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. Okay. Now, a lot of us know that, but we don't really believe it. And see, that's the thing. We have to start believing what we're reading. The word is true. We have to believe it. Okay? People are going to say all kinds of stuff about you. People are going to say negative things. It doesn't matter. We know it's true. I'm going to give you three terms today, too. Only three, because I'm not trying to overwhelm. But I'm going to give you three terms. But first, let's also go to Hebrews 11 and 1. Because we quote this, this hall of faith. We, you know, great women and men of God, men and women of God, sorry. We we say this, but the truth of the matter is that do we really believe it? It says now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. If I go to another translation, it says now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Do you believe that? If you believe that, stand on that. Let's I'm gonna give you three terms to kind of

Inspired Inerrant And Sufficient

SPEAKER_00 5:21

help you a little bit, I guess. I probably mentioned this before, but I'm gonna mention it again because we always have new people coming. The first term is that we have to understand that the word is inspired by God, right? It's the guidance of the Holy Spirit in and through the authors. They have different personalities, they have different writing styles, but it is still guided by the Holy Spirit. We have to also understand that the word is inerrant. That means that the Bible is completely true in all its messages without error. And we're talking about I'm referring to the original documents, the autographs. When we're looking at the manuscripts, that's what we have, because no one has an original document, their manuscripts. And again, I go into that in a little bit more detail in the Bible foundations course, but nonetheless, we have to understand that the Bible is completely true in all its messages. Now, there are different translations, there's like a spectrum, but it's without error. It's without error. You have to understand that. These are like the basics. We also have to understand that the word is sufficient. That means that the Bible contains everything necessary for its job, for salvation, guidance, sanctification, like excuse me. It covers everything or contains everything necessary. Now, I want to stop there because we have to keep in mind that scripture is true in all that it affirms, but scripture does not exhaustively address all matters in life. Like, should I call in the work or not? Should I talk to this person or not? Should I like we have to have common sense? But scripture will help you and guide you overall. For instance, if somebody comes up to you, say you're married, because I hear this a lot. Say you're married, and some guy says, Yeah, the Lord told me that you're my wife. No, the Lord didn't tell you that because I'm married to somebody else. You know what I'm saying? Like that goes against scripture. You you understand, hopefully, you understand where I'm coming from. So overall, it's sufficient, it's inerrant, it doesn't have any errors. It's inspired by the Holy Spirit. Like these men were inspired by the Lord to write. They weren't just writing because they felt like they wanted to write. I mean, no, they wrote what the Holy Spirit told them. But at the same time, they had um their own writing style, you know what I'm saying? They had their own personality. Um, there's poetry in here. So that's very important to note as well. When we're looking at this, we have to understand that scripture is God breathed and useful for teaching and correction. Now, when I mean correction, it's not Bible thumping. We don't go around and critical, you know, criticize everybody and Bible thump. That's not what it's for. It's not, it's not what it's for. But it is useful for teaching, for correction. It's God breathed, it's useful. Christ is the word from the beginning. John talks about this. In the beginning was the word, right? Christ is the word, and faith grows through trusting that God has spoken. You have to trust that. That's why I read the Hebrews 11 and 1. It's something you have to trust. Just like when you go in the car or wherever and you trust in the Lord that you will go to this destination to the next destination. You're trusting in that. You're trusting that you do something, you know, like um you cook a meal, you're trusting that it'll be okay to eat. You know what I'm saying? Like, we trust in those kind of things, and I get it because it's something you can see. But a good one is what you can't see. Like, we trust in gravity, right? We trust that because we have gravity on earth, we're not gonna go floating in the space. You trust that. You can't see it. You just know, and so have that same energy when we're trusting in him. If you trust the Lord for certain things, you you probably should trust him in all godly contentment, right? We should trust him in all things, in all circumstances. Good, bad, ugly, indifferent, whatever. And we should trust the word of God that has been canonized, by the way. Um, from Genesis to Revelation Confidence in the Word produces that steady faith. Again, it's about the building of the muscle. And you know, that's essentially my goal. I'm just gonna pause right here because I wanna I want to say that. Um because it's I think it's very important.

Context Study Challenge And Next Steps

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That is something that is a goal for me, um, is to teach everyday believers how to study scripture in context so that they can grow in depth and lead boldly with confidence. That's what I want everyone who's listening to this to be able to do, to grow in the word. It's so rich. Let's get now. Let's look at the clock the Christ thread in that He's the living word, he's the authority, he's given us authority, and we have that faith. We see him throughout scripture from Genesis to Revelation. We see Christ. So I'm gonna challenge you. I want you to return to a passage that has strengthened your faith and reflect on why it continues to matter. Now, because I don't know where everyone's walk is. Hopefully, you get those that first in context and you don't take it out of context because I know a lot of the passages that strengthen our faith have usually been preached or something across the pulpit, and they have like they are completely taken out of context sometimes, and we don't want to go down a prosperity vein, like the prosperity gospel. So hopefully it's a passage that if you're if it does encourage you, I would even go a step further and say read a couple of verses before that and a couple verses after that, so you can get the totality of it instead of just that one particular passage. But if it has strengthened you, and like I always tell people, Ephesians is one of the um one of Paul's happier letters. If if you don't have somewhere to read or whatever, you might want to go there. But just return to a passage that has strengthened your faith and just reflect on how it is continued to matter, why that continues to matter to you after you've taken what the passage actually meant, and then look at who God is and how this verse or passage reflects that. That's what I want to challenge you to do this week. Well, I hope this was a blessing to you. Listen, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and follow this podcast so you don't miss any future episodes. Because my goal is that you grow in God's word and you lead boldly. Bless you.