Ranking Bible Translations: Which Ones to Trust (and Which to Avoid) | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Just because you wrestle with it as I were to sin doesn't mean something's wrong. Actually, the fact that you're wrestling with it means something is right. You are being renewed day by day. It's transforming your mind even when you don't feel like it is because it's like one day you wake up and like, oh, I'm a different person. What will keep you from understanding the Bible most is not the translation in your lap, but the posture in your heart. Let us kick this pig. Let's do it. Yeah. Jana, welcome to episode 59 of Live Free. I'm happy to be here. Hey, in the words of me and Carla Cerazo, let's kick this pig. All right, listen, where did you get that from? You've as long as I've known you, you said that. It's a rural Kentucky. Actually, we've had listeners say from Kentucky, say that it's not a Kentucky thing. Well, maybe in bowling green. I was going to say where I grew up, my high school, we said, my friends said, let's kick this pig. Okay. Yeah, I wonder, I don't know. I didn't know if it was from a movie or... Nope. Okay. Nope. Okay, Jana, let's talk about the Bible. All right, I love it. So this is going to be for Live Free listeners. Welcome to episode 59. Fifteen. We are going to talk all things really practical about the Bible. We're going to talk about what translations are best and what translations you should never, ever have in your house. I'm going to try. Throw them away and burn them. And by the way, there are translations like that. Are you going to burn one today? Maybe. I've got a listen. If they can't see it, I got one right here. I would like to burn. And I'm going to cover it so they won't know. We're going to answer questions like, how do I study the Bible? How do I choose a Bible reading plan? What Bible reading plans are good? Which ones might we avoid? Which translation is best? How do I get, you know, all the things? That's great. So we're going to get like super, super practicals. It's going to be fun. Yeah. I'm looking for it. It's going to be really fun. If you are part of Live Free Nation, by the way, man, I think we just didn't just say, isn't like 400 of these hats we sold now, then like that. That's great. Listen, man, we're pushing hats. And I'm starting to see it's funny. I'll get up and preach and I'll look around the room. I'll be like, there's a Live Free hat. There's a Live Free hat. I want to meet that dude in the lobby. That's awesome. So first of all, you can help us out by liking, commenting, subscribing, sharing. If this is helpful to you, that helps us get word out. That'd be awesome. And then you can grab you a little Live Free hat at LiveFree.shop. That sounds great. Are we going to get one away today? Yeah, I think you should. Hey, well, you try that on. Let's see what you look like here. You know what? I've never tried one of these on. How many of the women wear these? That's what I want to know. I think you look amazing. You. I think Jayna looks amazing. I think I need one. That's your Live Free hat. All right. But we are going to get... I don't want to rinse it after I put it on. That's right. Yeah. We are listening, man. We're going to up the Live Free hat, a merch push. So how about this? I've just unilaterally decided we're giving away 10 Live Free hats. 10! 10! Okay. They were ready for that. Sorry, trying to make... We're going to get away 10 Live Free hats. So head over to YouTube. And if you'll do this, me and Jayna are going to date night right after this. Yeah. We were just talking about what restaurant we should go to. So do this. Drop in the comment your restaurant recommendation. Yeah. Even if you live in some remote state or country, you can at least tell us what your favorite restaurant is. Yeah. And then... My visit. Maybe we did. And then we'll pick 10 of them. And we'll give away 10 Live Free hats. That's great. Okay. Well, Jayna, we are in week three at Lake Point of a series that we're just called Boot Camp training for Team Jesus. Great way to start the year. It's been so long. It hasn't really good. I've really, really liked it. Jayna, we have a ton to get to today. And I want this to move quick. So Jayna, would you stand in for Carlos and say... And you can say, Pastor Josh, what did make it into the sermon? Pastor Josh, what did make it into the sermon? By the way, actually, will you tell them because sometimes you call me Pastor Josh? Yeah, do. When you're talking... If I'm talking about you... Actually, it's interesting. We didn't plan to talk about this. Tell the circumstances where you actually call me Pastor Josh and why you choose to do that. Well, I mean, I think if people are asking me questions about what's going on with church or different things and I'll just say, well, we're asking about you. I'll be like, well, Pastor Josh is or whatever. But it's just, I mean, you're my pastor too. And so you're my husband, but you're also my pastor. So I want to make sure that I'm giving you that respect as my pastor as well. But I think you have some things specific in mind that I... Well, once upon a time, I noticed you doing it. And you told me that part of the reason was one, because I am your pastor and you want to respect that. But then you were also saying, like, man, I actually want to teach church members. So I need to model for them like honoring their pastor. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. You're good. You always remember me saying things more than I remember what I said. Which can be dangerous. That can be dangerous. Okay, let's keep this that moving because we got a lot to get to. So, that's a great question. Let me tell you what didn't make it into the sermon. Okay, please. So this week, obviously week three, we were talking about a disciple is a man or woman of prayer and the word, like Jesus, and taught Luke for the temptation of Jesus' passage. There's a ton here. This is honestly one of the most important events in Jesus' life. Three of... I think it's three of the synoptic gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, they all record this. And it's the spot where Jesus is. This is very interesting. Is immediately after the baptism and filling of the spirit for Jesus. The spirit then leads him out into the wilderness. And Jesus prays in fast for 40 days. Satan comes and gives him three temptations. I'm going to talk about that here in a second. That's theologically significant. And then he moves forward after this moment into his ministry. So this is like the preparation thing. So let me say a few things. First of all, this passage underscores the reality for both Jesus and for us that we have a real enemy. This is not a fake enemy. It's not an enemy that's spiritual, but not actual. We have a real enemy. The passage in Luke and some of the other narratives, they'll talk about our enemy and they'll give different names. The Bible calls him Satan. People make fun of me. I say it with a D. Satan. I don't think I've ever noticed that. Yeah, I don't know why. I say it with a D. Yeah, I've never noticed that. I do. I say it with a D. Satan is what... Bulling green things. Yeah, maybe it is. But it comes to a word, Satan, it just means adversary opponent. It also can be translated accuser. The book of Revelation calls Satan. Satan. Good job. Thank you. The accuser of the brethren, because what he does is he wants to accuse us and remind us of our sin and try to convince us that we have condemnation. Another title the Bible uses for our enemy is the word devil. It comes to the Greek word, deobaloss. We obviously have an English word that comes from that. We'll say diabolical. And it means again, it means slanderer. It's just very interesting. Bible calls him Lucifer. Lucifer just means morning star. Because the Bible very frequently uses star imagery for angels. We talked about this on the other pod. The CS Lewis, I don't know if you remember this. CS Lewis and J.R. Tolkien both thought that literally the stars are angels in one sense. It's very interesting. Interesting. We talked about this on a different pod, so we'll go back into it. But Satan was obviously originally an angel that fell. And so calls him Lucifer, morning star. And the Matthew 4 calls him the Tempter. So it kind of tells us what our enemy does. This is also interesting. It is interesting to note that the Holy Spirit leads or drives Jesus out to be temp. And it's specifically says to be tempted. Yes. Yeah. So this is really interesting. I didn't have time to go into this. The Bible actually makes it really clear that Satan, Satan, that Satan has to, people don't recognize this. He has to ask permission to tempt Christians. Yes. Yeah. I mean, definitely reading when you're reading the book of Job, that's, I mean, chapter, pre-sures in chapter 1. You're correct. That's right there. Yeah. So there's three examples of this in the Bible. This Satan actually has to request permission. It seems like to tempt Christians. First of all, you have here in these passages, Luke 4, Matthew 4, where it says the Spirit led him to be tempted. So it seems like God's control is even around the temptation. I'm going to read it. Job 1.12 says the Lord said to Satan. So he requests. He essentially says, Hey, this Job guy, whenever that, when you're blessed in him and everything's going well, of course he honors you. But if you take away all this great stuff, he's going to curse you and leave. And then this is really interesting. Job 1.12, the Lord said to Satan very well then, everything he has is in your power. But on the man himself do not lay a finger. So it's like the Bible is giving us a peak into the throne room of heaven. In some sense that we don't fully understand, Satan literally has to get permission. So Martin Luther called Satan a dog on a leash. I like it. Yeah. And then in Luke 22, Jesus, do you know where I'm going with this? So yeah, maybe I'm getting the wrong verse. I'm sure. But where he says, Simon, Simon, I have given you to Satan so that he may sift you as weathe, but when you says something, but when you return to me, strengthen the brethren. And that was a totally different translation. But the reason I remember that is because I had a season in college where God was just doing a powerful work in me. And not like, honestly, I think it was just like, will you obey when it hurts? And then I was reading that verse. And it was just like the Holy Spirit just like was like, this is what's happening to you right now. But you're going to be okay. And whenever you like, whenever you get through what you're going through right now, like I want you to use it as a testimony for, you know, for others. So yes, yeah, that was God use that powerfully in my own life. I'm really impressed. I'm impressed you got that. Because we didn't talk about this before the pop. Yeah, that's it. It's Luke 2231. Holy Spirit, it's that together. That's right. And that's why I wanted you on the podcast. We're doing all things Bible because you are a Bible worm. You're a Bible. I love the Bible. And a good way you love the Bible. Yep, Luke 2231, Simon, Simon, Satan is asked to sift all of you sift you as wheat. And then Jesus says, but I have prayed for you. That's right. That's the most important part. Yeah. Kind of a big deal. Yeah, Jesus says I have prayed for you. And man, this, you know, we can keep going on this. A lot of people wonder like, what is Jesus doing right now? We've talked about before. First, John 1 says that he is in some sense. He's defending us before the Father who we have an advocate for the Father. But then also he is interceding for us. He is praying for the sons and daughters of God that we will resist temptation. And he knows what to pray for. So like we are in good hands. That's right. Yeah. So yeah, there you go. Satan is under God's control. I didn't get that into the message. Also, just like, this is just real practical. The temptation of Jesus is shows us. This is really important that, that especially for Christians with a more sensitive conscience, like, like, like, like, like, like, like me. Yeah. Temptation to sin is not sin. And I do think sometimes Christians who like you know, it's like you're a normal person. So it's like Christians have this thing where they're sinned and they're sinned. Yeah. Either in their lives or around them. And they're like, man, I know I shouldn't do this. I know God didn't want me to do this. But I kind of want to do this thing. And when they have that desire, it's like, they'll feel guilty around having the desire. It's like, no man. Like, the thing about temptation is that it is tempting. That's right. And then we are told to just resist. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. That's right. Well, we know that temptation is not sin because literally Hebrews 4.15 says about Jesus that he was tempted in every way as we are, but without sin. Okay. So I would just like, you know, encourage everybody just because you wrestle with a desire to sin. Doesn't mean something's wrong. Actually, the fact that you're wrestling with it means something is right. If you didn't have the spirit of God living us out of you, there wouldn't even be a wrestle. So I thought that was interesting. That's good. Also, very interesting. And I touched on this in a couple of the services. So the Bible actually gives us like a theology of temptation. And it tells us that there are three specific temptations that say, then, it's like, he's beatable because he's predictable. So the book of 1 John says this, says, do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love the Father is not in them. This is the verse 16. It's really important. For everything in the world, and then these three types, you and everybody else are going to experience three types of temptation. Lust the flesh, lust the eyes, pride of life. And so it's like, I think what people got to get is that, uh, is that it's just like, um, uh, well, let me define them. Like lust the flesh is the desire to feel. A lot of times people just think they hear lust the flesh makes, they think sex. No, no, it's like lust the flesh is gluttony. Lust the flesh is drunkenness. It's like any fleshy desire we have, desire to feel lust the eyes is desire to have. Like I see that house. I see that car as, you know, yeah, covetousness. Yep. Lust the eyes of desire to have pride of life is desire to be. So what's really interesting is that this is where like, you overlay the Bible on itself and a source makes sense. First John says that if you look at the three temptations, this Satan throws Jesus in Luke four, it's those exact same thing. So he comes and he goes, Hey, if, if you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread is like, yeah, you're hungry. Yeah. So that's obviously less the flesh. And then he takes them up onto the time high mountain shows them all the kings, the kingdoms of the world. And he says, Hey, if you'll bow down and worship me, I'll give you all these. That's obviously desire to have. Now, I'm going to talk about this in a second and then we're going to talk all things. Bible, um, how to get kids to love the Bible. What's it look like in our family, all the things? Um, but this is interesting, Jana, I'll ask you, have you ever noticed that Satan tells Jesus, if you bow down and worship me, I can give you all the kings of the world. And Jesus does not correct him. In other words, Jesus doesn't say actually the kingdoms of the world are not yours to give. So it's sort of like implicitly acknowledges Satan at that time, possessed ownership of the kingdoms of the world. I'm going to talk about why that is in a second. There's a, it's called dominion theology. That is really interesting. Now, I want to talk about that in a second. Yeah. That's good. Yeah, you should. Okay. I will. And then so that's obviously that's less of the eyes. And then pride of life is he goes, Hey, um, if you are the son of God, he says, throw yourself off the top of the temple. I'm going to command the angels concerning you. And everybody's going to see just how amazing you are. And that's pride of life. So here's the big idea that I think everyone needs to get. You know, I like to fish. It's kind of like there's an old Puritan theologian. I think it was Thomas Brooks that said that Satan, temptation is like the, it's like a bait on a hook. And basically he's like a fisherman. This only got three lures. Lust of flesh, lust of his pride of life. And kind of like just what, just like when I'm fishing, if I go back to the bowl, you know, bass pond behind the house, you know, it's like all throw up a lure. And then if they're not hitting that lure, well, then I'll just clip it off. And if I was throwing a soft bait, Texas rig a soft bait, and then I hit that, then I'll clip it off and I'll throw a top water frog. And I hit that and I'll clip it off and I'll throw a crankbait or whatever it is. And what I think everybody's understand is Satan is exactly like that. In your life, he's going to throw whichever one until he figures out what you'll hit on and then he'll throw it. And once, once I find out the bass or hitting a soft bait, I'll throw that thing all day and he'll do the same thing for you. And so I think that one question, I would encourage every Christian answers question with a journal is ask yourself the question, if you were Satan, how would you take you out and have an actual answer to that question so that you know what to do? You got any thoughts there? You don't have to. I think that's good advice. It's just like, I mean, he's crafty. And like, you'll watch, he runs the same play every time because it works usually. He'll keep going. Now, obviously Jesus resists the temptation. Three temptations and three times Jesus resists the temptation by saying, it is written. It is written. It is written. And so which connects to obviously Ephesians chapter 6, the armor of God, we've got one offensive weapon, the sword of the spirit by which we extinguish the flaming airs the evil one. So how do we overcome temptation by the word of God? So that's why we're in deep dive here in a second on super practical questions about loving reading, studying the word of God. And then we're going to rank translations and I'm going to burn one of them. All right. It's going to be great. We're going to see that. No, I'm not really. Oh, okay. We'll see. I don't want to, but I'm going to. Yeah. Now, let me do the Jesus something. You're saying. Just what I was going to say, what I love about this is, Jesus is our example and everything. Like, we want to be like him. And so he gives us examples of how, like, no matter what we come across in our lives, no matter the temptation that comes, we have the same ability to do just what Jesus did and like refute all of those flaming arrows with the word of God. And so it's so important to hide that in our heart. So we have it to. That's right. Before back out. Well, and you are the master of that, which is why we wanted you on this episode. Okay. Now can I answer the the theology nerd question? Yeah. Okay, let me do it. I will allow it. Yeah. I listen. Yes. Well, all right. It is a little weird when I walk into the kitchen and you're listening to live free. Yeah. Like that. That probably is weird. Like, I, you know, haven't listened to yourself a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's weird. Okay. So here's the question. And this, this, so this passage is super interesting. This passage it touches on one. It's like a metatheme in the Bible. Nobody notices it. And it runs all the way from Genesis to Revelation. So let me answer a super theology nerd interesting question. Okay. Jenna Howardton. Mm-hmm. Why is it that when Satan temps Jesus, he offers him all the kingdoms of the world. And instead of Jesus saying, because he says, in Luke 4, I'm going to use the language, he says, for they have been delivered to me. Satan says the kingdoms of the world belong to, have been delivered to me. And Jesus, who the Bible calls King of Kings and Lord of Lords, doesn't say, no Satan, you're wrong, they belong to me. He does not say that. He seems to implicitly acknowledge that at that time, the kings of the world literally belong to Satan in some sense. So can I explain this? Please do. Okay. It's really interesting. So this is called Dominion Theology. Now, I'm going to read the passage. It says this in Luke 4. And the devil took him, Jesus up and showed all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And said to him, to you, he says, I will give all this authority and their glory for it has been delivered to me. And I give it to whom I will. This is interesting. Jesus doesn't correct it. So Jesus doesn't correct him. Number two, the New Testament calls Satan, quote, the God of this world. Number three, the New Testament says this world is lorded over the Father of lies. So what the heck's going on? Now, this is going to take me a second. So just like, roll with me and you have to listen to me talk a lot. I like listening to you. So it's good. Just wait. All right. This has a, so you got to back up to the book of Jeremiah. This has a crazy answer. It's going to take me a minute. So just roll here. All right. So the key to understanding this, I think, is if you go back to Jeremiah 32, there's a very interesting and it's an odd passage about Jeremiah and a guy named Hanamel. Okay. So this is right before Israel goes into captivity in Babylon or around that time. Israel's in captivity in Babylon. Now, I'm going to read the passage and it's not going to make any sense. And then I'm going to make my way through it and you'll be like, I can't believe that's in the Bible. Okay. So this is Jeremiah 32, start number six. Jeremiah said, the word of the Lord came to me. Behold, Hanamel, the son of Shalom, your uncle will come to you and say, buy my field that is at Anathoth for the, and this is really important. The right of redemption by purchase is yours. Bookmark that then verse eight says, then Hanamel, my cousin came to me in the court of the garden, the courtance with the word of the Lord and said to me, buy my field that is at Anathoth. So basically what God prophesied would happen is happening. Buy my field that's at Anathoth in the land of Benjamin for the right of inheritance. So this is really important. Bookmark this in your head, live-free nation. It's acknowledged there's a right of redemption. And then there's a right of inheritance. This is, this is going to blow your mind. And redemption is yours. Buy it for yourself. Do you know where I'm going here? Nevermind. Let me give you a good go. Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord. Now verse nine, and I bought the field at Anathoth from Hanamel, my cousin, and weighed out the money, Tim, 17 checkles of silver. I signed the deed, sealed it, got witnesses, and weighed the money on scales. Verse 11, then I took, now this is really important. I took the sealed deed, it says, of purchase, containing the terms and conditions, and the open copy. So in ancient Israel culture, whenever you saw, I'll explain this in a second, there were two copies of a deed, a sealed deed, and an open deed. And then verse 12, and I gave the deed of purchase to brook the son of Nariah of Mahasaya in the presence of Hanamel, my cousin. All right, so here's what's going on. And this ties together, the whole Bible, and takes you all the way to Revelation. And it explains what's going on, Luke 4. So what's going on here? Jeremiah, the prophet's dad, has probably died. I have one person, Bible, so that's great. I like it. So then the uncle buys the land, seemingly so the family has some money. All right, so now check this out. You've got two deeds, a sealed deed, an open deed. Now in ancient Israel culture, there was an open deed to any piece of property, so that you could sell it, and then you could write somebody's name on it, if you sold it to them. So they write Hanamel's name on the open deed, if you needed to sell the land for money. The sealed deed in ancient Israel culture, it always stayed with the original family to prove that it belonged to their bloodline. Okay. So obviously in ancient Israel, there was a lot of like, hey man, God allotted the portions of the land, the 12 tribes, so the land was allotted. So a tribe or a family had that property, and it was assigned to their bloodline. So bookmark this in your head. Open deed, you would give to somebody when they bought the property, but the original owner would keep the sealed deed to prove it was in their bloodline. Okay. Then you also have two rights. You've got an inheritance, the right of inheritance. So what that means is when the uncle would die, Jeremiah gets it back. Okay. So when the uncle dies, the ownership of the property reverts back to the original family, so that it stays in the bloodline. And then you've got a right of redemption if before the time when the purchaser dies, if somebody in the family wants to buy the land back, that's called the right of redemption, and it would require a quote, Kinsman Redeemer. So this is like, this starts, oh yeah, see what's going on. A Kinsman Redeemer. Somebody from the family, why am I getting emotional right now? Somebody from the family that originally owned the property could pay a great price to redeem the property the family had lost and bring it back to the original family. Now all the Bible nerds, all the bells are going off in your head. All right. So this passage, Jeremiah 32, has two meanings. It's got a historical meaning. Where essentially what God's saying is, hey, you're going to be taken out of the land to go to Babylon and he's promising, but this land is going to belong to you again. It's worth buying property because I'm going to restore you to the inheritance I originally gave you. You're coming back. So that's the historical meaning. But let's go a layer deeper for our super Bible nerds. All right. The book of Hebrews says, everything that was written in the Old Testament is for our instruction and that it was a type and a shadow of Christ. So Jeremiah 32 is a type and a shadow of Christ. All right. Now check this out. This is where it gets nuts. All right. So when you talk about dominion of the earth and we're asking the question, why in Luke 4 is Jesus tacitly acknowledging that Satan has dominion over the world and that it belongs to him? What the heck? Well, here's what the heck. God is the one who created the world. So dominion of this earth was originally our fathers and it stayed in his family, the father, the son, and the spirit. Okay. Then the book of Genesis says he creates Adam and Eve. Theologians will use the phrase that they were the vice regents of creation. And if you go back and read Genesis, it literally, he gives them it was called a dominion mandate. He gives them the Bible says dominion over the earth to work it and to keep it. So God has original dominion. He passes dominion of earth to Adam and Eve when he passed it. Now I'm coming back to this. You may be like, what's he talking about? I'm coming back to this. He passes dominion to them, but God keeps the sealed deed because the world is good. It all is in it. It belongs to our father. Now Adam and Eve, they lost dominion when they sinned and obeyed the serpent. They lost that dominion and dominion was transferred from Adam and Eve delegated dominion to Satan himself. This is why, by the way, when in Matthew 4 and Luke 4, Satan can correctly say all the kingdoms of this world have been delivered to me and Jesus does not correct the statement. Now check this out. So what's going on here? So Jesus is the first born son of the family of the original bloodline of the owner of everything in the world. Okay. When Jesus comes on this earth, who is it that has listened? Remember, there's a right of redemption and a right of inheritance. Who has the right of inheritance? That's Jesus. But he decides to exercise his right of redemption and buy back dominion of the world when he goes to the cross. And Jesus, when he goes across what he's doing, is he's paying the right of redemption. He's paying the redemption price to purchase back the land, the property that was lost by our father and bring back authority and dominion to the original family. Now this is, you go there deeper, this is where it gets nuts. If you go read Revelation chapter 5, it, everybody's gathered in Revelation 5 and then there's a scroll and it's a double-sided scroll. Now whenever there was a closed deed, okay, there's a sealed deed and an open deed. A closed deed was a sealed scroll and it was a double-sided scroll inside and out in Israelite culture, double-sided scroll. Then you get to Revelation 5 Revelation 5 is like, there's this, all of heaven is gathered. And you remember what they're crying out? They're going, man, there's a sealed scroll. And they're crying out, who is worthy to take the scroll and to break its seal? And then they say, you have redeemed us back to God. And whenever they're going, who's worthy to take the scroll and break its seal? And then everybody goes, the lamb who was slain is the only one that was found worthy. Oh my gosh. That's so good. That's so good. To open the scroll. And what's happening in Revelation chapter 5 is you're getting a vision behind the scenes in the spiritual realm that the kinsman redeemer of dominion over all the world is stepping forward and saying, I am exercising my right of redemption to buy back what was lost. And he pays the redemption price as the kinsman redeemer with his own blood. And he purchases back dominion of heaven and earth, which is why after Jesus is resurrected? It's only after Jesus is resurrected. He's resurrected. And then in Matthew 28, when he gives the Great Commission, he then says for the first time, now all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me why. Because the kinsman redeemer has now exercised his right of redemption. Dominion has been given back to him. Now take it a layer deeper. When Jesus turns to the disciples, he says, I'm going to give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be bound in heaven. And then the New Testament says that Christians will quote, rain with him. And what that is foreshadowing is that Jesus purchases purchases back the dominion of all the earth. And then for the new sons and daughters of God, for Christians who have been adopted into his family, he goes, I'm now giving you dominion. And I want you to go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father of the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them doze, everything I'm a command to you. So listen to it. You take the Bible, you pull the thread, and listen, you pull it all here. Let me just recap it and then you said, I want you to add any color you got. So what you got right here is here's how the Bible works. Dominions was originally God's at creation. He gives it, he gives delegated dominion to Adam and Eve. They lose that dominion to Satan. Jesus breaks the back of the enemy. He as a Kinsman Redeemer exercises his right of redemption at the cross, pays the price, buys back dominion over the earth. And then he now shares dominion and will in all of eternity with all of the sons and daughters of God who rain with him. That's amazing. That's amazing. So that didn't make it in. They didn't make it in the discernment. Oh, see that that's why you need this pot. I know. It is. It is too good not to share. It's amazing. All right. Now, all right, let's start talking about the Bible. I look to. So what Jesus does in this passage is three times he's tempted. He defeats the temptation of the enemy. Three times saying it is written. It is written. It is written. And what the Bible says is that the Bible itself, that's our weapon to overcome the enemy and defeat temptation. So here's what we're going to do. We're about to rapid fire. Let's rapid fire. We want to help listeners become men and women of the word. And people got a ton of questions about how do I start the Bible? How do I read the Bible? What do I do when I get bored with the Bible? Translations, all the things. Let's rapid fire these things and answer some super practical questions. I think people submitted like, I think between a few different platforms, it was like 800 questions. Oh my goodness. And we boiled them down. That's a lot. So let's do this. I'm going to rapid fire you some of these questions. And then let's talk about this. And then we're going to rank Bible translations. And it's going to be awesome. All right. Okay. So, Jana, let's begin right here. Question number one. Okay. I've never been a regular Bible reader before. Somebody says, what tips do you have for building this habit? Yeah. So I think the first thing that I would tell you is like, don't wait. Like don't like, I hear so many people, they talk about like, oh, I'm just in a really busy season. Or like, I have this going on. I have young kids or, you know, I'm taking care of aging parents. Or I'm starting a new job. Like, just don't wait. Don't wait for tomorrow because you know what, you're going to have like the next season is going to be just as busy as this season. So first, I would tell you, don't wait. Like, start now. And like, I just, then makes me think about Matthew 633. So, Jesus tells us to seek first the kingdom. And then everything else will be added to us. So that's like for me, that's just kind of been, I'm not telling you you have to do your time in the word, like first thing in the morning because I think some people, they need to do it at a different time. But it's just, I've always thought of it as first fruits. I want to give God my best in my first fruits. And so I want to get up and I want to meet with him in the morning. And so, like, practically speaking, it's just like, kind of you, you set your intention and then you do it. So that may mean going to bed earlier so you can wake up to be able to be in the word and to be awake and all of that. So I would just say, like, start there. Set the intention. And something that I pray, because Josh knows this, I like, I really don't like to wake up. I don't, I mean, I want to wake up. I just, you know, I just, nah, no, I'm not defending really quick. Because you like to sleep, but like no joke, you might be the hardest working person I've ever met. And that alarm clock is going off early every day. So that you've got time in the word before the kids get up. Yes, yes. So when thing I've done, and this is, I mean, God, just he always blows my mind. Just he's so kind and so generous. But like, I will know, like, okay, if I'm going to bed a little later, then I should. Um, and I'm going to have a hard time. I'm like, God, please, please make me get up. Wake me up tomorrow so I can meet with you. And he answers that prayer every time. And sometimes I'm a little disobedient. I might sleep a little bit longer, but he always, he always answers that prayer. So if that is something that you need to use to help you, if that is just something, I don't even know where that came from. I just started doing that. I think Winnebro is a new believer and God just kept answering it. And I just keep praying it. So, um, and then, you know, praying for the ability to focus first thing in the morning. But like, one thing I want to say is like, if reading the Bible is new to you, like, um, start small. So you don't strongly agree. Have to be reading the full like five chapters a day if you're trying to read through the Bible in a year. Start small and don't despise small beginnings. Um, like, it's just, God's going to continue to grow you. And you are going to be just so shocked at how much you learn about him and how much more you fall in love with him and love scriptures just by starting small. So, um, anything, anytime you start a new habit, like, starting small is going to keep you moving forward with that. So, like, what we tell people, um, Felicity, um, are 11-year-olds, she's like, where do I start? And how much do I read? And we're like, well, you know, with you, all you're developing, like, a new daily habit on your own, just start with one chapter a day. And so, like, start there. Um, and then I would also tell you, like, the first thing in the morning, don't, uh, when, when you wake up, don't check social media. Don't open your phone. Don't do anything else before you get time in God's word because that is just a way to sidetrack you or you start reading those emails or checking your text messages and you're just kind of sidestri- sidetracked. So, um, so I would just, for me, it's a do-it-first sort of thing. I want my day, my time with the Lord first. Um, and then another thing that I've learned over the years, especially, um, like, if you're someone, you just, uh, I don't know how to phrase this, but like, I don't know. If you, you're just like, oh, no, I can't, I can't miss a chapter. I can't miss a day. Um, and then you miss one and then, oh, what happens? Like, then the next day you miss a day. And then before you know, you're just like, I don't- Oh, you're like, oh, I can't- I don't know where to start. That's right. Yeah. So what I would tell you- We're keeping a state. Yeah. It is just go back to your reading plan if you have one and we're going to talk about that here in a minute. Yeah, that's right. And then just go to the day that you would be on and start there and then just keep, keep moving forward because then you're never, you may have missed a few chapters, but it's better than just feeling like, well, I can't go back to it. Do you cannot- can I say something about, uh, about being a mom and then something that I think moms especially struggle with? Yeah. Yeah. So, so you're here, you- In the lobby, sometimes we'll get this. I want to get in the word, but my- my kids- I can't do it. My kids are up and- And so I'll say something's got a bit of an edge to it. And then let me just kind of- we can talk about it. Yeah. Um, we made a decision- and by the way, we are not perfect parents. No. My gosh. Are you crazy? That's- we- we're failing forward. Um, we made a decision early on that our kids were going to revolve around our lives, our lives were not going to revolve around our kids. We actually, if you- if you build your entire life revolving around what your kids want and what your kids naturally do, it's actually a bad discipleship because you're teaching them, you're the most important thing in the world. You are God. You're right. You know, that's what you're- They're like the little fun- What's your teaching? Yeah. So honestly, like we- with all three of our kids, we were big on sleep schedules. Yes. We established firm- and I'm gonna say everybody's gotta do this. I'm saying this is what worked for us. Yeah. We established a firm schedule. We disciplined our kids not to break that schedule. And part of that- well, give me just a second now and then we'll get there. And then part of that was like all three of our kids from- very early age, they knew you can't come out of room for A-D-M. And very frankly, the reason for that was- I tell you all the time- What's the- Actually, what's the number one thing? You gotta put the oxygen max on first. Yes. That's like number one thing. And sometimes you need to be reminded of that. So let me explain that real quick. Because Jana, your work ethic is insane. Oh, you're kind of- And like, you know, home makers, that is a full-time and a half job. Like to run- to run an elite home is a full-time and a half job. So you'll kind of work yourself into a, you know, not a- What's the right way? You kind of run yourself down, just work, work, work, work. And what I'll say is, hey, babe, you gotta get that oxygen mask on. Oxygen mask gotta go on mama first, because if mama's not good, you're setting the tone, temperature, and vibe of the house. And if you're stressed out and you're worn down and you're frustrated, and you're angry, guess what the house gonna feel like. And so what we've learned is we have to like, sleep schedule- How do the kids work? Yeah. We have to teach you and discipline you as kids, so that your schedule allows us to get our time in the word with our father first, so that we can walk out, you know, with refreshed spirits to share- That's right. Because you have to have something to pour out. Like, you're not gonna just naturally have that. You need to be getting into the word and not just getting in the word, letting it get into you. So you have something to pour out and be able to love, like, Jesus, through us the day. That's right. Yeah. Let me go to the- Let me say one last thing, go to the next question. I'll emphasize what you said. And I'll have to listen, man. This is- I'm gonna confess some sin. I'm falling in bad habit on this. But don't go digital before you get biblical. Yeah. That's like been a rule for me, and then I've been breaking that rule lately. But don't go digital before you get biblical. When Jesus, in one of the parables, parable says Satan tries to steal the seed. Honestly, man, he doesn't- He steals it with this. You start checking notifications and social media and everything. And so I would say that. Give God the first, choose a time, choose a place, choose a plan, and work it. It can add, like, there are two other things. They don't want it added to that. So one of them, because I don't know if it was that question or another one, was saying, I get distracted. My mind wanders. So if you're in that situation, just have a piece of paper next to you. And so it's like, if you're thinking about your to-do list, write it down, and then that way you're not going to forget and you get back to reading. And then something else, write it down, and get back to it. That's a great hack. So I'll do that. I keep a pen- And by the way, don't- I've learned this by failing. Don't keep your phone next to you. It's like, oh, if I think of something, I'll put it in my to-do list, my phone. No, no, because you're going to open your phone, you're going to see four notifications, and then you're gone. So I keep my journal next to me, and then I do it in the back page. If something pops in my head, I write it down there on a physical thing. Yeah, that's great. That's so helpful. Okay, question number two. Yeah. Janice, somebody asked, okay, a Bible reading plan. Yeah. When I'm picking a Bible reading plan, which one should I do? Which ones are good? Which one should- Where do I start? Mm-hmm. And I mean, starting with that is just like, pick the one you'll actually do. Don't pick one that is 20 chapters in every day. You know, something like that. Pick the one that you will do. So, like, honestly, on, do we have a picture? Yeah, let me show it real quick. So, so I'll jump in. So I want really want to highlight, people will often ask us in the lobby, what's the best Bible reading plan? Mm-hmm. And we have a go-to response, is we say that Bible reading plans are like diets. What's the best diet? The one you'll do. What's the best Bible reading plan? The one you'll do. Yes. So, a bite-sized Bible reading plan that you'll do is better than like a Bible scholar reading plan that you're going to do for two days, get worn out and not do. Yes. So, here's what we've done at Lake Point. Is on the new Lake Point app, I'm going to show people how to do this. We are all in on getting people into the Lord God. So, here's what this is. It's one chapter per day. And now, in the Lake Point app, we load a one chapter of Bible reading plan per day that aligns with the sermon that was preached that week. So, we're trying to stack it so that you can listen to the sermon, you can listen to the Deeper Drive, Live Free podcast. And then one chapter per day, there's a chapter of the Bible that relates to what I just preached. And that way it's like, man, we're just driving it down. So, I want to show people where this is. By what's the action step for them to get the Lake Point app? Text app? Yeah. You can text the word app to the number 20411. You can get the Lake Point app. And then in the Lake Point app, are all the sermons, all the Live Free podcasts, and all the corresponding disciple guides and Bible reading plans. So, check this out. If you open the Lake Point app, this is what you're going to see. Now, don't change it yet, Trinity. You'll see at the very bottom, bottom middle of that icon that says daily. If you click on daily, this is what you're going to see. Go to the next one. You're going to see this thing. And this is all the spiritual rhythms to help you grow as a disciple. Now, you see right there where it says, read today's scripture and use the prompts to observe, apply it to your life and pray. If you click on that, click that real quick, Trinity. If you click on that, that's going to take you to that day's one chapter that relates to the sermon that was preached. And it's just one chapter. That's right. So, it's one chapter today. So, for instance, I just finished preaching on baptism in water in the spirit. Roman 6 is largely a theology of baptism. So, our Bible teaching team at Lake Point, they intentionally chose that because I, oh man, he just preached on that. Let me go a little deeper. So, it's right there. Literally every single day, there's one chapter waiting on you to take you deeper into the word and you can do that. I love that. And I think that's a great place to get started. It's one chapter day. And then you're hunger and appetite for the word is going to grow and grow and grow. And then before you know it, you'll be reading through the Bible in a year. Okay. I'm going to say a couple things on Bible reading plans. Is that good? Yeah. So, if you're not, if you want to, that's a chapter per day. If somebody wants to light up their game. Right. There's two that I would recommend that I've done. There's a, it's called the Robert Murray McShane Bible Reading Plan. I did that for years and years. He was, I think he was a, I think he was Scottish. I'm not sure. I think so. Well, he put together a Bible reading plan for his congregants and it's amazing. And it's a, the one year Robert Murray McShane Bible reading plan usually comes out to about five chapters a day. I think so. I usually do the Robert Murray McShane Bible reading plan. In two years, but there's that one. The thing that I like about the Robert Murray McShane reading plan is every single day there's Old Testament and New Testament. And I think he constructed it this way on purpose. He will stack like you'll read the Old Testament passage. And then I think he intentionally did some things to align. New Testament passages that shed light on the Old Testament passage from the same day. So that Bible reading plan is more theological. Whereas the other Bible reading plan that you and me have both done, that's a Terri Lee Cobble's Bible recap. That one's not as much the sequence of the chapters aren't aligned theological. They're aligned chronological. Right. So let me explain something for people who are new to the Bible. By the way, shout out Terri Lee Cobble. Terri Lee is a friend of ours. We've been texting lately. And we're big fans of Terri Lee, but dead gum at we can't. We've only beat her on the dead gum, religion and spirituality, podcast rankings once. Really? All we want is for me to be tough to beat. It's great. It's tough to beat. The Bible recap is a chronological Bible reading plan. So a lot of people don't know this. They're new to the Bible. The way that your normal Bible, oh shoot, sorry guys. The way that your normal Bible is arranged, it's not arranged by timeline. It's arranged by literary genre. So you start in the Old Testament. And Genesis, Genesis, Genesis, the biggest numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Joseph, Ruth, First and Samuel, First and the Kings, First and the Sec Chronicles, Ezra, Neomyaster. Yeah, up to Esther. So Genesis through Esther are the literary genre of history. Then you get Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon. Those are the literary genre. That's the wisdom literature. Then you get Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations is a cheat because Jeremiah wrote Lamentations also. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel. Those are the major prophets. And then all the rest of them, Jose, Joel, Amosoba, Die all the way through Malachi. Those are the minor prophets. So when you're open in your Bible, if you just start reading and you think you're reading things in order, you're not. There are arranged by literary genre, not timeline. What I like about the Bible recap is this a chronological reading plan. So what she does is you'll be reading in second, let's say, let's say, first, second, Samuel. And you're reading about David. And then I like it because you'll read a couple chapters about what happened. And then she'll on that day put the Psalm in the Bible reading plan that corresponds that David wrote about the events you just read. And it's honestly, it's, I had never done a chronological reading plan before two years ago. And I really liked it. Yeah. So what I would say is just a, you can either do a more theologically structured Bible reading plan like Robert Murray McShane, or you can do a chronologically oriented Bible reading plan like Bible recap, which you can find on the Bible app, you version Bible app. And those are good too. Any other thoughts here? Yeah, I mean, not there. You can just search for just Bible reading plans because there are just, there's so many more because there you can do an Old Testament chapter a New Testament chapter with Psalms and Proverbs. Like there's just all kinds of just different mixtures with different names. But chronological, I started, actually I started doing that before Bible recap came out. I would just, what I would do is at the beginning of the year print out my chronological reading. And it really was just like, I could, could read and see new things in the in scripture that I never saw before. Because I was like, oh, that, whenever you're talking about Psalms going between different chapters because that scripture, the be still and know that I am God. Okay, you think when you read that, it's just kind of like, well, that's a sweet scripture. But no, they were in the middle of war and they're being told this. And it's how just to wait upon the Lord and it just like opens your, your eyes and your mind to new things to understanding what they were exactly going through in that moment when that was written. But what's interesting is you wouldn't know that unless you were doing a chronological Bible reading plan and somebody told you. Exactly. Well, well, yeah, you're reading it. And as you're reading it, you're seeing it. That's right. Is what I'm, yeah. You also get, here's another place where chronological comes in handy. I just, because I just finished this part. You'll be reading acts. This is where it's another one is super helpful. You'll be reading acts. And you'll read and then you go through acts. And then she'll interject, oh, this is when he wrote collotions. So you'll read through that part of acts. And then you'll go read collotions. And all of a sudden things are firing in your head. Because you're like, oh, that's why he said that. This was just happening acts. And that's what just happened to him. And that's why he wrote this in collotions. And it's, it just kind of comes off the page. But the, here's the big idea is which one's the best Bible reading plan? The one you'll do. Yeah. Now, Janet, this is a question we've gotten a lot. Here's another question somebody asked. They asked the question, do you and Josh study the Bible together? And I think people's, our response to this might suppress people. So, Janet, let me ask you, do you and Josh study the Bible together? No. No, we don't. We don't. But here's what we do. Okay, we will, I will tell you what we do. So like before bed, so we'll either pray together or Charles Virgin has this devotional, it's mornings and evenings and just morning and evening. Oh, someone searches it. Morning and evening. Okay. And good. Well, can you guys make sure this right here is in the, the study got, yep, the show notes. That's great. So, and then we'll read like just whatever that day, whatever, you know, the day is then we'll read the morning or the evening devotional for that. And maybe pray and head to bed. But we do have a rule about that. I never bring it up. I never ask Josh to do it. And, and then actually, and then I'm always very enthusiastic. If he says, this is what we're doing. So, he never feels badgered. And because he never feels badgered, he does it more often. So here's that ladies, like that, you know, whenever you're not badgering, then it, you know, it's encouraging to do it more often, I think. Before you say anything else, let me tell, like to husbands and wives. Let me talk about why we do it this way. So a lot of times, overly spiritual, but underlie mature women. The thing you'll hear is like, my husband is just not a spiritual leader. He's not a spiritual leader. And they're like expecting like their husband to sit down and do a big family devotion. And then, you know, sing some hymns and everything. It's just like this, A, that might not be sustainable. B, it might feel ridiculous. It just might not fit. So the reason, so let me just help our guys out and talk about this real quick. The, this is so easy. If you're a dude that's like, man, I want to start leading my family spiritually. I'm not going to do a Bible study with my family. I'm learning about myself. The Charles Spurgeon morning and evening, those devotions, they're literally, how long do you think it takes me to read one? Less than five minutes. Oh, what? Three minutes? It's like right before we go to bed. I'll just be like, hey, babe, let's do one. I'll open it up. It literally takes three minutes to read one. And what it does is it makes sure that we both, we fall asleep with the promises of God, fresh on our hearts. And if you're a dude and it's like, dude, I don't know my Bible that well. And my wife's more spiritual in me. She knows her Bible. You can open a Kindle app and read a three minute devotional. It's fine. Now, the reason that our, that our rule is, and you came up with a rule that you never ask for it, is if the wife is pressuring or badgering the husband to do it, because she thinks she's trying to get into spiritually lead. That's literally the exact opposite thing that's happening. You're emasculating him. And actually, you're the one that's trying to take leadership. And the Bible says that a nagging wife is like waterboarding torture. And so don't do that. Yeah, yeah, it goes better. It goes better. But there are, I mean, did you have anything else for that part? Because I was going to say there are other ways that you lead our family. And for. Okay, so. I don't really know what question this falls under, but just things that we've done to help our kids like love the word. Oh, hang on. We're coming back to that. Come back to that. Okay. Yeah, we're coming back to that. So I would say if, on this one, if you're a family, this like, okay, you know, me and my wife, we want to grow together in this. I'd say do this. Do the thing where it's like, first of all, going to bed at the same time is a marriage cheat code in like seven different ways. I recommend it strongly. But then too, I recommend this. Just do the thing where it's like right before bed, or you fall asleep, grab her hand. And then I recommend one of these three because they're short. I don't want to read very frankly, I'm a normal guy. I don't want to read you a 17 minute devotion before bed. You know, I want to quit. Yeah. Charles Spurgeon morning and evening, there's an old one called note to self by Joe Thorn. Yeah, that one was so good. We've done that a couple times. A couple times. And then I'll be honest, a lot of people like this one. It's not my thing, but I'm just going to say it because a lot of people do like it. Oswald Chambers, my utmost for his highest. It's not my thing. I don't know why. It's never really resonated with me. A lot of people love it. But one of those three. Yeah, that's great. All right, let me do the next one. Yeah. Another question that people asked is, what do you do when Bible reading gets boring? You feel like you're stuck in a rut. You're in a dry season and you're not getting anything out of it. Yeah. Well, one, I want to encourage you because you, when you continue on, when you're in that season, and sometimes those wilderness seasons last longer than you want them to show, to be honest. But you are planting seeds of faithfulness. The Lord just like put that into my heart one day. That like whenever you're continuing to do it and it is a wilderness season, you're that's what you're doing. You're planting seeds of faithfulness and you are going to reap a harvest. So you just, you don't grow weary. You just keep going. But if you're in that season, there are three things that I would say. One, change it up. So if, hey, if what you're doing is not working, change it up. So sometimes what I'll do, I will take a break from reading through the Bible. In a year and I will focus on just studying certain books of the Bible. And that has been so fruitful. I really love it. I will grab out a commentary and kind of study slowly along with it. How long did you do Isaiah? Oh, it took me like, I don't, I don't, I did it really slow. But I'm thinking, I don't know if it was somewhere between three to six months. That's what I thought. And then I moved on to Jeremiah. And studied through that afterwards. And I loved it. I mean, I love the book of Isaiah so much. You know, they call Isaiah the Romans of the Old Testament. Oh, no, I didn't know that. But it's because it's like essentially, virtually every major doctrine. Isn't it? Yeah, gets hit in the book of Isaiah. It's just so good. Every time I read it, it just penetrates my heart. So deep, I love it. So that's what I would do. Just change it up somehow or try a different reading plan or, you know, add something different. I know you do some, some different things when you're... Yeah, so what I would sound this. First of all, like, dude, if you're like, man, some people start reading the Bible and then either it's boring, their, their, their anesthesia's not getting anything out of it. And they think something's wrong with them. Nothing's wrong with you. You're human. It's like this side of glory that's going to happen to us. So a couple of things I would say is number one, consistency always beats intensity. It's just like lifting weights and exercising. Like, hey, which one's better? You once every three weeks getting in there and like doing a two hour insane workout or you doing a 40 minute workout five days a week, which one's going to be better? 40 minute workout five days a week. Over time, consistency always beats intensity. So what I would say to that person is there's more happening in your soul than you think that there is just from you being in it day by day. Yes. I'd say that. You're going to say something. Well, there's something to that because you do is you are being in a new day by day. And so it's transforming your mind even when you don't feel like it is. Because it's like one day you'll wake up and like, oh, I'm a different person. That's right. I didn't respond to that the way I used to or I don't even want to do that. You know, like just you're just different. You're new. God's making you new. The other thing I would say, I'm going to say two other things. If it's like your mind's wandering, you get bored. Read with a pen in your hand. So like this helps me. I never, you know, I wish you probably can't see it. But like, you know, I'm never reading. Yeah, you can't see it. I'm never reading without just constantly every page. You know, a pen in my hand. And that kind of keeps my brain attached to what's happening. Yeah. And I'm writing it in my margin. Sometimes I'm writing prayers. Yeah. I'm always writing, oh, I noticed this. That kind of thing. And then the other thing I'd say is change of place, change of pace, change of perspective. That's good. So there's a ton of different ways to interact with a Bible. You alluded to this. You can read the Bible. You can study the Bible. You can memorize the Bible. You can meditate on the Bible. You can pray the Bible. You can sing the Bible. You can teach the Bible. All three of, or sorry, all six of those are seven of those. Those are all ways to get the word into your soul. So what I'll do, and I like hear how you approach this. Because you do some things here. If I'm stuck in a Bible reading plan, I'm like, man, this is honestly just not doing it for me. I'll just switch which way I'm interacting with the word. So like you know, in the warm months, a lot of mornings, I'm going to go out and what am I going to do? You're going to have some scripture with you and be meditating, memorizing it, and walking. That's right. In the warm months, I'm going to go out and take a walk. Yeah. And a lot of times, that's where I'll choose six verses and memorize them over the course of a week. Yeah. And I'll just take my 30 minute walk and I'm quoting it out loud to myself and just working on memorizing it. And then every time I hop in the car, I'm working on the verses. A lot of times, I find lock screen is whatever passage I'm trying to memorize. That's good. I'll meditate on the word. Sometimes I'm singing it. You, same thing. When you're getting a rut, okay, I'm going to switch it instead of reading it. I'm going to study it. I'm going to pick one book and deep dive it. Yeah. But I would say if you get stuck, just switch it up. Yeah. Anything else there? No shame there. Okay, two other things that I would hit on. Because you know, I raised a different situation, place. But I always pray when I'm in that place, like Lord, restore me to the joy of my salvation. And just asking for that heart to hunger and thirst after him. So I pray about that. And then also it's like I'm just asking myself, do I have any unconfessed sin that I need to confess to the Lord repent of to make sure that I'm not hindering being able to hear him? So I do that as well. Hey, man. Gali, I'm trying to decide whether or not I should talk about how to do the different ways to interact with the Bible. Like going through each one of those or. Yeah, let me not do that. There's a lot there. All right, let's go to the next one. Another one that a lot of people asked is, how do you study the Bible? So okay, man, you know, they just heard you talk about, you chose to deep dive Isaiah and Jeremiah. A lot of people ask in question, man, I hear, man, when Josh is teaching, he gets things out of there. I'm never would have noticed. Yeah. And that that's a made, how do you guys get that stuff? How do you study the Bible? So thoughts? Yeah, I'd love to hear honestly. Wait, wait, you do? And how you you get so many details. And I'm like, oh, I wish I knew that. But yeah, for me, as far as studying goes, also I do keep an ESV study Bible with me. And so it's like, okay, when I'm reading. And I'm like, oh, I don't really, I don't, that's a little unclear to me. I will open that study Bible to try to see what the, the commentary says inside of that to help. Or, you know, if I'm like I said, deeper diving into certain books of the Bible, I will have a commentary that I'm just studying along with it. But you have to remember, a commentary is, it's not God breathes. That's right. It's written by fallible men who, or maybe they're women who write them too, I'm not sure. But who, you know, it's possible they've made a mistake or a misinterpretation or, you know, something. So just keep that in mind and allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you. Yes. So, okay, how do you study the Bible? First of all, for me personally, this has been probably the best way to interact with the Bible for me. And it is a bit of a cheat code because like, I'm a, you know, I'm a professional Christian like they, that I get paid to study the Bible. A few things here. One, I think step one is putting you in your family under good Bible teaching and preaching. So what church you choose, I'm talking of the dads and the husbands in particular because God has chosen you to lead your family. You picking a Bible preaching church that loves the word, teaches the word, and gets into the word and helps you get into the word is a stinking big deal. So number one, put yourself under good Bible teaching and then soak yourself in it. Number two, I'll just shoot you really straight. This, how do you study the Bible? That's why we do live free. Every single week, what we're trying to do is this is Bible study. We're trying to, for an hour and a half, we're trying to take you deep into the word Bible study. Let me say a few things that I've learned have been helpful to me. Yeah. And some people, so first of all, good commentary. I have it a good commentary. If you want one that's like just generally, it's a win. Yeah. Either the John MacArthur whole Bible, he's got a whole Bible commentary. It's great. You can get on Kindle. Well, you're not carrying around like a a tomb. It's fantastic. And then he's got a commentary, I think, for every single book of the Bible. So there's, listen, there's great commentaries on all the books. But if you want like, you know, it's going to be good. It's solid. The MacArthur commentary is great. Jan already mentioned this. A good study Bible is great. I'm going to talk about this in a second. My favorite study Bible is the ESV study Bible. So you can grab one of those. Another thing I would say that a lot of people miss, pay attention to the foot notes in your Bible. So if you're like your study in foot notes, or when you see it a little number, or you see a little letter, the letters, the way that Bibles are printed and published, especially the ones that have letters that they're called cross reference foot notes. When you see the letters, what the scholars who helped put that translation together are doing is those letters are pointing you to other passages that are connected to that passage. So honestly, a lot of people when they'll hear me, like just like I did in this podcast, the Dominion theology thing. Say then said, you know, kingdoms of this world. Yeah. A lot of times you'll see a little letter and it'll point you to the passage where this says that he's the God of this world, or that this whole world is Lord over the Father of the Lion. And it'll help you make mental connections. You wouldn't have otherwise made it. That's great. Let me say a couple other quick things here. This one, some people may disagree with. I'm just telling you how it's working for me. Honestly, when I'm reading a passage, especially in the Old Testament or historical passages, I will get out. I'm using Grock Heavy right now. I'm a Grock subscriber to AI. And what I'll do is I'll put in the prompt, think like a conservative evangelical bobble scholar. And then I'll ask it questions about the passage. So if it says, for instance, that I'm in, let's say I'm in first and second Samuel and it says David went from here to here. A lot of times I'm just curious. I'm like, oh, I wonder how far that was. And I'll literally just ask Grock how, think like a conservative evangelical bobble scholar. How far is it from this city to this city? Now what I've learned is you got to double check it. I was going to ask about that. Yeah, you got to double check it. It's getting good enough where it's almost always right. But you got to double check it. And I don't trust the future of where that stuff is going yet. Yeah. So just watch out. But you can ask questions like I did. I got curious before this podcast. And I asked it the question. Think like a conservative evangelical bobble scholar. Why did Satan say that he could deliver Jesus all the kings of the world? And he got the answer right. Okay. Well, that's good. So you can, you can do that, but double check it. Yeah. A couple of other things I would say is a good bobble study method is the soap method? Okay. I hadn't heard of that until you told me about it. This is what Jeff Carlisle, my you've passed or taught me growing up. He's the guy that set us up on a blind date. Shout out, Jeff, Mary Beth. So thankful. The soap method is soap. It's an acronym. Scripture observation application prayer. So S O A P. So a scripture, you just pick a short bobble passage. And basically you just like what they say is right it out in your own hand. Take a bunch of notes, ask questions like, you know, just look at it. So get some scripture in front of you. Observation is when you just start asking questions. Who, what, when, where, why, how? Yes. And you just, and then with with a pen in your hand, you just start making observations about the passage. Application is then you move to like, okay, God, what are you saying to me to do think, feel obey? And then you get to, I need to apply the word, be doers of the word and not here's only. And then finally you end with prayer. All right, God, you've showed me this. Man, Lord, I'm praying this in my life today. I'm praying this over my kids today. I'm another kind of thing. S O A P. Last thing I would say here is, and let me show this. I'm talking to everybody, but I especially want to talk to the dads. I've done this one other time before. There's a few books that I just be like, have every Christian family ought to have one of these in the house. Get you one of these guys. That's systematic theology by Wayne Grudem. This is not the type of book. I mean, this thing's like 1600 pages, 14 hour pages. That's not the type of book you're going to sit down and read like just cover to cover chapter by chapter. I did that when I was in seminary, but that's the type of book who like, when you got a question about the Holy Spirit or salvation or hell, it's nice to have this because you can open up to the little table of contents and the glossary in the back. And it'll point you to that chapter. And then you can go read a section from Wayne Grudem is a very solid Bible scholar. Okay, now I get it. And then when your kids ask you questions, hey, Dad, it's okay to say, I don't know, but I'm going to get you the answer. And then you go grab it. So I recommend having one of those. That's good. There's two other things that have just been helpful for me. And how does the whole Bible fit together? There is. And if you guys can find this link and put it in the show notes too, there's an old lecture series. Now, this is like super Bible nerd right here. There's an old lecture series called preaching Christ in a postmodern world. And I will say it's designed for preachers, but it like anybody can read it. And if you're going, man, I want to see how the old testament and the new testament fit together and all those connections that Josh has always making and that book kind of blow your mind. It's by Tim Keller and Edmund Clowney. Okay. And it's a lecture series, stick it in your car. And I'm just telling you, you're going to walk out the other end going like dang like I get my Bible a lot more than I did now. That's great. The other one that I recommend is there was a book called there is a book called Epic of Eden by Sandra Richter. Okay. That's another one that like after I read it, the Bible made way more sense to me. So we'll have the links to all those in the show notes, but there you go. And then I'm going to show this real quick. Will you show my iPad thing here? So this is another one like if you get stuck and you're like your mind's drift and you start getting bored. So this is an app called Notability that I use my iPad and it's just little, it's an Apple pin that they made or pencil I think. And I'll just, I'll screenshot a passage, stick it in Notability. And that probably I've spent 45 minutes with those, I don't know, eight verses. And it's just I'm making all these observations. I'm writing notes. I'm writing prayers. There's things, but just keep a pen in your hand and you're going to notice stuff gets into your soul. That's great. Yeah. Uh, Janet, let's keep this moving. Okay. And then I got, I want to rank these Bible translations. Well, hey, Lifer Nation. Let me share something exciting with you. We want to invite you to the most important night of the year for our church. That is our night of prayer and worship. This is a night where we come believing that God still heals. He still restores and he still moves. And so on January 21st from 7 to 8 30 pm, that central standard time will gather to worship and pray with faith for miracles, for breakthrough, for the next generation and for the one more God is still reaching. And so this is a night to bring your need, your burden, your unanswered prayer and trust God to do what only He can do. We are believing as a church for change to break for hearts to be renewed and lives to be changed in the presence of God. And so to hear more about this event, text the word events to 20411 or you can visit Lake Point that church slash event and select night of prayer and worship. If you are in the DFW area or maybe you live in a different state or city and you're willing to drive or fly and come visit, join us in person at any of our seven campuses or you can also worship with us by joining church online via YouTube, Facebook or Lake Point dot live. Hey, come expecting, come hungry, come believing, mark your calendar January 21st and be a part of what God wants to do. Last question here, Jana, a lot of people are asking, how can we help our kids learn to love the Bible? I think, you know, it's just like Jesus is our model like we want to be a model for our kids. So when they see parents who are in love with the word and they love the Lord and they've been transformed so much by his grace, that's contagious. So when they see that in you, they're gonna, they're gonna want to want you to have it. And so just some of the stuff that we do, so we do and nightly Bible reading. So we use actually, okay, we have one. So we use, if you get some heads and we use the action Bible heads up. If you got little kids, you want one of these. So what I would say is from maybe ages zero to like, say like, I don't know. This is awesome because this action Bible, you're gonna know, it's like it puts it in comic books and then so yeah, so Josh, Josh does different voices for the different. I don't want to call them characters because they're people, but you know, just the different people in scripture and it's really funny and the kids have so much fun. What voices have I done? What we call them? Yeah, you're saying that. You know, come on, that's what makes the podcast fun. What do we call? You can say it. Yeah. So like for instance, if there's a thing about Joseph, the Joseph, we did Joseph L the other night. So Joseph L, she has a specific voice that we've given her and you're saying you want me to say what we call it? Yeah, we call it a dip with. We call it we call it a dip with voice. We want to train our daughters not to be dip with. So what's a dip with a dip with is a ditsy dip with. I don't want to raise idiot daughters that act like idiots. So like I'll do Joseph, but I'll be like, oh my god, literally. I'm like, I'll do the boy or then like Jesus, I'll do like a John Wayne voice. Or like if there's like a king, I'll do like a British. Yeah, and then you had some like bro. Oh yeah, bro, like I did that for the other night. We did Jonah. Yeah, bro. For the sale. That was not Jonah's voice though. Who was it? Who's voices that? No, you gave that to the like to the sailors. Yeah, to the sailors. But so here's the big idea. And like as a dad, it's like this is funny, but like let me, there's a method to the madness. As a dad, what you want to do when your kids are young, is anytime your kids are interacting with a Bible, it needs to be fun. Yeah. So I really want to highlight this. And we have well teenager and almost teenage, another teenage daughter. And they are still part of this. They love it. We all love this time together. We all cuddle up in Hudson's room, right before bed. Yeah. And I always tell them, you know, I always say, do you guys want me to do the voices? And then yeah, I do the voice dad. And then like, when we're like, for instance, when we're doing dipwits, like I'll ask Ellie on infolicity. What did what did dipwits say? And they were like, they say literally a lot. They said literally, they love Taylor Swift. It's all tossed in there. And yeah, it's great. But seriously, here's a big idea. I want when my kids interact with the Word of God, I want it to be fun. So that from the time that they first crack open the Word of God, they're thinking there is joy around this book. That's the big idea. Yeah. It's so good. All right. So you already hit. All right. So first of all, modeling it. Yeah, modeling, nightly Bible reading. Wait, wait, I want to say something on the modeling. Oh, okay. Yeah. Like Jana is the best at this. You know, we are, we build our family schedule around mama getting her oxygen mask on. Mama gets time in the Word and prayer before the kids get up. So you have a refresh spirit to pour out with. Yeah. Every single one of our kids and our dog. They all know if you want to find mom in the morning, we know exactly where she's going to be. Yeah. She's going to be in the little sunroom. She's going to have a Bible on her lap and they all know exactly where she's going to be. And so all of our kids grow up knowing moms in the Word every day and they walk out and they see me in the Word. That's right. I'm usually done sometimes and done by the time I get up. But that's it. Yes. Other things here that you'd say. Yeah. So there's actually a lot, but I'll try to go fast. But memorization. So part of our, the way we school our kids, that's just part of our natural flow with our school model is we always have. And it's not just a verse here and they are like our kids are through our school is they are memorizing like large passages of scripture. And that's been so fruitful and good. And they memorize way faster than me. I wish to have a young brain. Oh my goodness. They can Hudson's just memorizing like that. But but what I wanted to say about memorization is we when he was like two or three, Josh started just as a blessing before bed. I'm saying Psalm one over him every night. And within a matter of week, Hudson already had it memorized. I've had a big event. So like yeah, getting your kids to memorize scripture, especially when they're really young. It's so much easier. Let me give a hack on this. So like with Hudson, all crawling bed with them. And the first few days, I would say it. But then here's what I do. And this is a little hack for if you got real young kids. Once you said it a little bit, do the switch to where you give them a prompt and make them finish the sentence. So like Hudson, what we do every night is I'll put him to bed and I'll look at him and I'll say do not. And I'll just look at him. And he knows do not walk in the council of wicked. And then I'll say no, and he'll say stand away of centers. I'll say no, sit in the seat and he'll say sit in the seat of markers. But delight and he'll say delight yourself in the law of the Lord. And and he'll say meditate on it day and night. And then all of us. So here's what that does. Kids have attention spans like squirrels. So what you got to do as a dad of a young kid is the little prompt. It forces their brain to stay engaged and they feel proud. They start to feel proud really fast. And then like for all the parents that are listening, think about this in two weeks, all of a sudden, my six year old has an entire chapter of the Bible memorized. And why is that important? I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sit against you. I remember to this day, I remember versus that my mom was helping me memorize as a little kid. Me and my brother would get in a fight. And while we're still ticked, mom would quote that proverb, a soft answer turns away wrath. But grievous words, what Josh? Shout out mom. What Josh? I stir up anger. Yeah. And she, you know, she's teaching me these things. I remember it. I remember. I remember. That's good. That's good. What else you got? Okay. So one thing that we do, we sing the doxology before dinner, like almost every night. So that's it. That's it. We don't. And I'm not saying you got to do this. No, that's just something we do. Well, yeah. So in our family, if people don't know what that is, a lot of people they pray before a meal. But next week, the whole lot of the podcast can be on how to pray. A lot of people, they don't realize that when we sing worship songs, that's prayer. We're singing it to God. So in our family, what we do, what we, Janet finishes cooking and then we all gather in the kitchen and two things. Every kid knows I want you to finish this. Every kid knows you're not allowed to take a bite until when. Mom sits down. Till mom sits down. Nobody's allowed to take a bite because mom's a queen of the house and we honor mom in this house. So no, husband, you can't eat until mom sits down. And the reason for that is you're so busy helping everybody else that you would get to the table and they've already been eating for eight minutes. And I hate that thing. And they're done. And they're done. And then they want to know that this is really important. Listen, listen, listen. This is really important. The table is for leading not just feeding. The dinner table is for leading your family, not just feeding your family. So while we're talking about this, how do I get my kids out of the Bible? Deuteronomy six says the way that a parent, go read Deuteronomy six. The Deuteronomy six says the way that godly parents install the Bible into their kids is not through family devotions. That's not what it says. It says, talk about it when you walk along the way, when you rise, when you lie down. Everywhere you get you talking about the Bible. So at dinner, a lot of times we're going around. We're going, okay, Ellie, on how was your day? Let's say how was your day? How's the most your day? Tell us you're high and you're low. And then they'll tell us what happened at school. And this person got in a fight with this person and I'm dealing with a couple of dittwits and whatever. That's a joke. But then what we'll do is we'll pause and we'll go, oh, hey, buddy, what's the Bible say about that? And then we'll talk about it. Yeah. And what we're doing is we're it's a but anyway, what the what we do. So nobody's allowed to eat a bite until mommy sits down. And I enforce that. Mommy doesn't enforce that. Dad enforces that. So I'm I'm I'm reinforcing family structure. I'm the head of the home. And me as the head of the home, I'm making sure that the associate pastor of the home, mommy, that the congregants respect the associate pastor. That's my job. So but the other thing is a lot of people pray before meals. What we do is we just sing that oxalogy. Praise God from whom all blessings pray to you. But yeah, just depends on the night and we switch up. Yeah, we yeah, we switched it up. And usually when it when we ask Hudson to lead him prayer or whatever, he, um, he'll pick. Can I just can I sing the dog? Sing it that's all right. Yeah. But we all sing. Yeah, we do. All right, keep going. Anything else on how to get your kids a little bit Bible. Um, okay. So, um, there were several other things that we do. But so as our kids age, um, we just we do we we get them a new Bible that they're interested in. And, um, and they're all, I mean, honestly, they would get one and they want all the time if we let them because they just they get so excited about it. And so, and they get excited because we make it a big deal. Yeah. It's like, hey, we're gonna get you a Bible. It's got we're gonna get you any Bible you want. Yeah. I've been looking and oh, I found that you'll I found this real pretty one in Felicity. Yeah. It has room for you to take notes. And I'm gonna buy you six colored pens. Yes. And you make it a big deal. Yes. And then they take what I love the most is our kids are note takers. Like, um, and I take notes during sermons. I like to write my notes. Sometimes I forget my notebook and have to put it in my phone. But I love to take notes. And what I've seen is our daughters do the same. And then Hudson, when he sat in with us at Christmas, he took notes on his notes. It was amazing. I didn't ask him to do that. But he did. And so it was really cool to to see that happen. So we have big note takers. So it's just getting them Bibles that they're um, really excited about. And they love having room in the margins to take more notes. So they do that. And the pens, they're very into the pins. They're big and pens. Um, we want to steward their heroes. So, oh, this is huge. Um, we've, we've done a lot of this in the past is I love biographies myself. So we love to read about missionaries or just, um, just different, just men and women of God. And so we read about them. We discuss them because we want them to have heroes who know and love Jesus. So we read that all the time. Um, let's see. Oh, yeah, let me just, let me say something right now. Okay. So like with with your, and this ties in to get your kids love the word. Uh, uh, your kids will imitate whoever they idolize. So this is really important. They're going to imitate whoever they idolize. So especially when your kids are young, you need to work hard to make sure that they have the right heroes is what you're saying. So some things that we've done very frankly, and again, I get crushed every time I say this. I do not want my 11-year-old, uh, having Taylor Swift as a hero. I do not want her having some girl that dances on stage and looks real shady is singing about same sex relationships and is just seemingly a Jezebel or super worldly person. If that's my, if that's my daughter's hero, you imitate who you idolize. So what Janice started doing really, really, really young is she would find little fun biographies appropriate for kids. We're going to get some of those in the show notes. Janice is going to give some ideas afterwards. We're going to put those in the show notes. Um, how do they get the show notes? Oh, it's in the app. Yeah, it's in the app. So go and app and you'll get it. Um, and then we're reading stories about men and mission, men and women of the word. Here's the other thing. Listen, really close parents. If you want your kids to grow up hating the Bible and hating the Lord, walking away from the Lord and hating church, here's all you got to do in the car ride home and at home, nitpick and criticize your pastor and your church. I'm serious. Now you may hear that and you may be like, he's just being self-serving because he's a pastor. No, I'm raising children. And guess who me and, guess what me and Janet don't do? We don't, like we, revere and talk with reverence about faithful Bible teachers in our home. And what we're doing is we're teaching them to idol, and I'm using the word idolize loosely. I don't mean literally worship people as idols. We're training their heroes because people imitate who they idolize. Yeah. And I mean, we just, we do the same with the church in general. We go home and we talk about how great the people of God are and how he's using them, how generous they are, how loving and kind. And hey, listen to what is happening in this person's life and how God is transforming and moving. And so we just, we're always looking for ways to talk about the blessing of the church. That's right. Yeah. Anything else there? Well, now, Eliana is, I mean, we have three and a half years before, Eliana moves on to college, which is crazy, crazy. But now that she's getting older, it's like, I'm just trying to spend time going through some book that she has her own time in the world. She's, she's really diligent in getting that time with, with the Lord first thing in the morning. But I'm reading just a book. And then once we finish a book, then we'll, we'll read another one just to help her grow spiritually and to really make sure she is ready to grow into the woman of God that he's created her to be. That's exactly right. What's that book you all reading right now? Oh, goodness. No time to be done. No time to be done. By who? Rachel Janko. Janko Vitch. That's right. Shout out Wilson family. Yes. Yeah. So we're reading that together right now. So that's great. Okay. Jana, should we rank some Bible translations? Let's do it. Okay. Here's what we're going to do to finish this out because this is like one of the most common questions we get. What's the best Bible translation? I'm going to be, there'll be a couple moments where I'm a little savage in the next few minutes. What's the worst Bible translation? Which one should I read? Okay. All the things. So I'm going to have you hand me a couple here in a second. I can't share a story really quick because this was just so great. So this past, no, actually it was two two weeks ago. A lady named Latisha came up to me and she was so excited. She just bought a new Bible and she's starting a new Bible reading for the year. So it was at the beginning of the year. And she just asked me to pray over her and God would speak to her throughout the year. And I just, I loved that so much. Just the hunger and desire for God's word. It was just such a blessing to me. I just wanted to share that. I'll brag on this. Our bookstore just told me that last week, two almost 200 people came to the bookstore to buy their first Bible. That's awesome. I know, I love it so much. That's awesome. All right. So here we go. We're going to rank some Bible translations. Don't have anything yet. Okay. So what we're going to do is I'm going to stack them. Let me get this out of here. I'm going to stack them right here. Okay. And I'm going to stack them. I'm going to do my own kind of worst the best. Okay. We're going to do it like this. Okay. So let me begin with worst. Okay. I might, if I had a match, I'd burn this thing right now. Yeah. So a few things that are worst, the very, very worst, they're hot garbage. If they're in your home, you should literally burn them or something else are things like the new world translation that is from the Jehovah's Witness deal, all this stuff. Quote and quote translations like that. They take out the parts that refer to Jesus as God because it is a cult. They think he's the angel, Archangel Michael, and he was a created being. If you get a quote unquote Bible like that, it has literally been corrupted by Satan himself to demean Jesus and talk about Jesus. They went in and they changed all the Bible verses that refer to Jesus as God. So for instance, if you go read John 1-1, it's an actual Bible says, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. And it says Jesus is the word. They literally changed it to in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was a God. So like hot garbage, all the things, other garbage translations. So get that out of your home. Other garbage translations are things like this, the book of Mormon, or in fact, I hate it. We're going to throw on the trash, whatever it is. The book of Mormon, Joseph Smith's translation, the doctrine and covenants, the Pearl or Great Price, all those hot garbage literally influenced and affected by the demonic and by Satan. And I'll just say this. If a white guy from the Midwest that was a horse thief had multiple wives, thinks the Garden of Eden was in Missouri and he thinks that Jesus will return in Missouri rights of Bible. It's probably really crappy. So all those there at the very bottom, they're so low, I won't even get them, keep them on the table. They're awful. I would also add quote unquote translations like the new revised standard version. It's like it's like literally a woke Bible translation that we're going to do gender-neutral pronouns and remove stuff about God being father and did a super ridiculous awful. We don't have a copy up here. I refuse to have one or the the Queen James version. A few years ago somebody put together a translation to quote, prevent homophobic misinterpretation. And wrong, terrible. Yeah. Literally sacrilegious revelation 22. Jesus literally says, I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll. If anyone adds to them, the plagues described in this scroll will fall on their head. If anyone takes away words from the scroll of this prophecy, God will take away that person and any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City which are described in this scroll. So in a way like it's a stinking big deal for you to tamper with the Word of God. All those are things that cults and apostate people have done to corrupt the Word of God. They're not translations. They're corruptions. They're awful. Those go at the very bottom. Stay away from. All right. Now let me talk real quick about different types, not quite yet, about different types of translations. And then I'll have you start hand may be these. In Bible translations, there's a few different types. There are word for word translations that just obviously they take. Actually, I'll explain this here in a second. There's word for word translations. There's thought for thought translations. There's what are called paraphrases. And then there are things that are even below paraphrases. They're just corruptions of the Word. So here's what this is. Word for word translations. They're based on what's called a belief that Christians have verbal plenary in errancy. Big theological phrase. Verbal refers to the words of the Bible. Plenary means complete or all. And in errancy means without error. So theologians will talk about verbal plenary, inerrancy or verbal plenary inspiration. And what they're saying is that all of the actual words that God chose are inherent and inspired by God. Okay. So every single, this is important. It's not just every thought the Bible contains. This inspired the literal words that God chose. He chose within an intentionality. And the word for word translations, they just take the Greek word, the Hebrew word, the Arabic word, and give you the, you know, the corresponding English word. Then there's thought for thought translations. Theologians will sometimes call these dynamic equivalents translations. These aren't just the words. They'll take the intent of the word of the phrase. So for instance, some people will sometimes say, hey, Josh, do you take the Bible literally? And then if you say yes, then like Reddit atheists will be like, aha, so you think the stars literally dance for joy. I'll do it with you think the stars literally dance for joy. Oh my gosh. So the answer is no. We don't take the Bible literally. We take the Bible literally. We ask the question, what literary genre is this book of the Bible written in? And then we interpret it according to literary genre. Okay. So like, for instance, when the Bible's using poetic language and talking about the stars dancing for joy, isn't mean the stars literally dance for joy. It's a thought is just pressing something. So thought for thought translations, they'll take the thought that this phrase intended and they'll convey the corresponding English thought. A good example of this is in, in whenever you see the phrase in the old testament that gets translated, God is slow to anger. The Hebrew phrase there is that he is long of nose. That's like literally what the word say in Hebrew. He's long of nose. Why? Because in ancient Hebrew long of nose was like an idiom to express that somebody was very patient. So that, so what the thought for thought translations do is they'll take a, you know, a thought or a phrase and try to do their best to give the English. A paraphrase are some translations. I'm going to get to this here in a second like the passion translation, the message, the new living translation is a little bit of a paraphrase. And these are ones they don't pretend to be word for word. They're just trying to generally paraphrase what somebody's going for in a certain section of the Bible. So here's what I'll do before I get into these translations in rapid fire through him here. Here's my encouragement. Pick a really good word for word translation. And then when you're reading like New Testament epistles, the book of Romans, stuff like that, that's where you really want a good word for word translation. And then I'll be honest, I think it's good to sometimes have a more thought for thought or even sometimes a paraphrase for things like old Testament prophecy or a lot of the books that have lots of poetry or sometimes even like apocalyptic, another literary genre is apocalyptic literature. It's just it's a highly poetic language. If you get a good thought for thought, it does a better job of helping you understand what the heck are they talking about right here. Yeah, that makes sense. So you can do that. So Trini, will you throw up that little graphic there? So what this is, is you're going to see on the left are readability scores and on the right are literal scores. And so basically here's how it kind of works is some translations, they're extremely literal. They take just the exact closest English word for whatever word is being translated and stick it in there. And they have really high literal, but then they're not as readable because it's kind of wooden language and I don't understand what that idiom is. And then some translations, they're really readable, but they're not quite as literal. So you readability and literal, literal, litty, whatever it is, it'll kind of go like this inversely proportionate. So as I run through these really fast and we rank these Bible translations, that's what's going on here. So you know what, let's start. What where's the NASB? Where's our NASB? Let's start with the NASB. Got it for me. All right, so we're going to start with NASB. This is NASB right here. There it is. This right here, NASB is an older translation. It's kind of interesting. This was commissioned by the lot was called the Lockman Foundation in 1971. Here's why this is really important. Actually, this sets up what we're going to talk about a few here. A few of the Bible translations, they're owned by different copyrights. So somebody commissioned them and then the copyright to the translation is owned by like a publishing house or a foundation. This one is owned by the Lockman Foundation. Here's why that actually becomes kind of important. The NASB is a pretty good, it's a word for word translation. In a lot of like high church Presbyterian reformed high expository preaching churches, they like the NASB. It's a good translation. What's really interesting is it didn't get a lot of wide distribution and this is a really interesting fact because the copyright is owned by the Lockman Foundation and they charge a higher royalty rate than I think any other translation. So here's what's really interesting. A lot of people like why is it a good translation, but it doesn't get used a lot. Well, here's why because if a Bible study publisher wants to use the NASB, it costs them way more than if they use another translation. And so this one actually doesn't get as wide distribution as you would think it would given the fact that it's a pretty darn good translation. Okay, I had wondered why because well, I don't want to spoil what your next one probably is, but no, what what? I had wondered why ESB is used more than an NASB. That is one of the main reasons why. It's just more expensive. So this is really interesting. We all want to be Bible nerds. This is why when you go into hotels and you open that little drawer, it's always a KJV. Do you know why that is? Because KJV is free. There's no royalty charge on a KJV. So it's just it's cheaper free and that kind of thing. So this one, NASB, more popular among older expository Bible teachers, this is a very good word for word translation. So even though it's the first one, it's at the bottom and it's at the top. I think that's a good translation. So we're going to do that. Let's do give me another one. You pick, Jana. Okay, well, we'll do what we got there. The NKJV. Oh, NKJV. So actually, can you give me find the KJV also? We're going to do both of these at the same time. So we got NKJV and then we're going to do KJV. I'm going to talk about both of these at the same time because they're obviously related. So let me talk about the KJV first. So King James version, obviously you got right here. Lots of these in the house. So King James, first of all, let me just get this out there. King James version was completed in 1611. He was here, completed a commission in 1611 by King James. Heads up King James was probably homosexual. So there's lots of stuff in history about he probably was into dudes. Not so he was reading it but not applying it and obeying it. So you got that little interesting tidbit about the King James. King James is like in between a word for word and a thought for thought. King James literally, he commissioned this to solve disputes that were arising if you were this poor. Solved disputes that were arising in England. And there was these hot debates between the Puritans and the Church of England and they were getting ticked at each other over Bible translations. He was like, everybody stop fighting. You go into your corner, you go under your corner, we're going to create a translation that everybody in England agrees on. He commissions it and the KJV comes out in 1611. Now, every now and then heads up. You will run into these King James only people. They're stinking weird. I'm just telling you like these King James only people are weird. They, some of them literally believe that this was providentially preserved as the perfect Bible translation in English. A lot of these people, they're in like independent fundamentalist, you know, Baptist churches with like seven people in them. The earth is flat. The world is governed by lizard people and they're all dressing like Amish people and they turn their own butter. That's the, these are the people who are the King James only people. They're, they're weird. They are. You're weird. And none of them are ever going to listen to this podcast because they'll use YouTube and I'm safe. So here's the problem with the King James version. It's a decent translation. Here's the problem. It was commissioned in 1611. Now, this is like a super, super nerdy thing. All the Bible translations, they draw on two different groups of original manuscripts. The Bible was originally written in three languages, Greek, Hebrew, and sections in Aramaic. Okay, there's two groups of source texts that archaeologists dug up these ancient fragments of the manuscripts. There's two groups. It's called the textus receptus. Those come from medieval copies of Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. You know, things, medieval copies that are from the 1100s through the 1500s. So these are late, quote, unquote, original manuscripts of Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. But then there's a second group of manuscripts called the critical texts. They come from far older manuscripts. So here's the problem with the KJV. Since 1611, archaeologists have dug up way earlier manuscripts to within like 50, 60 years of when the original, what are called, Bible scholars called them the autographs, like the actual paper that the Apostle Paul wrote, Philippians on, or whatever. That's called the autograph. Well, what we want is we want the manuscripts that are the closest to the autographs so that we know, man, I'm getting the thing that is as close as possible, you know, to the original manuscripts. The problem with the KJV is it's based on the textus receptus group of manuscripts that are really, really late manuscripts. We have way better manuscripts now that are closer. So that's why it's it's a it's a decent translation, but it's based on much later manuscripts, not as good. The other problem that you get with the KJV, again, it's lots of these and dals and dines and all the things. You got to watch out for this. If your grandma handed you down a KJV, it's written in Elizabethan English. They did that in their minds. They were trying to preserve the dignity of the word of God. Here's my response to that. When the Bible was written, the New Testament was written, there were two forms of Greek. There was what was called classical Greek that like the dignitaries in Greece and Rome spoke. And there was what was called coin a Greek that was like normal blue collar dudes that swung hammers and hung drywall. They spoke coin a coin a Greek. I do not think it is a coincidence that God chose to inspire the New Testament text in coin a street level Greek. So God did not choose to inspire the Bible in the very high dignified classical Greek. He inspired it in coin a Greek. Charles Spurgeon called it, he called street level English. He called it plowman's English. So I actually think it's a mistake to translate the Bible in this very elevated lofty language that normal dudes who swing hammers and ladies that are at home, you know, cooking, whatever you all could. So I think it's a mistake. So here's what you get in the KJV. If you're ever like on a you have a Reddit atheist and here's what he'll say to you who be like the Bible literally says there's unicorns where they get that is from the KJV translation because in Elizabethan English they called a wild ox a unicorn. So this is like just one example in Elizabethan English that they did it. They're not literally referring to a magical fairy creature in Elizabethan English. That's what they would call a wild ox. So then they translated it into the KJV and you got a dagum unicorn in your KJV and you're like what the heck is going on? Let's Elizabethan English. I got like five other examples of this. So anyway, those are the problems of the KJV. Okay. And the NKJV is very, very similar. So in the end, so I'm going to put the KJV, I'm going to put under the NASB. I'm going to put NASB over KJV. Now here's the deal on the NKJV. NKJV is published by Thomas Nelson. You got to watch out for this. A lot of Christians have no idea this happens. What will happen a lot of times is a publisher that was originally a Christian publisher. They'll get bought out by some conglomerate that's not a Christian publishing company. Then they'll keep the subsidiary that was a Christian publisher, but it's under the leadership of this non-Christian organization. So then, here's what you got now. Now you have non-Christians who are in charge of Christian Bible translations. NKJV is published by Thomas Nelson. And you get to watch out for this. Now here's the problem with the NKJV. It's updated language. It's again, it's kind of a more, it's in-between word-for-word and thought-for-thought. It's updated language from the KJV. The problem is it's still based on those later manuscripts, the textus receptus, and we have better, more accurate manuscripts now. So this is not my favorite. Pentecostal people tend to love the NKJV for some reason. I think Jack Hayford used it a long time ago and wrote a study Bible that popularized it among Pentecostals. It's a decent translation. It's not terrible. I'm going to put it in-between the NASB and the KJV. All right, let's do another one. What's the next one? The NIV. The NIV. Okay. The NIV, or what some of my reformed friends will call the nearly inspired version, the NIV. Okay. So NIV. So there's a lot about the NIV. The NIV, I think ever since the NIV was originally commissioned and published in 1978, I think since 1978, it has remained by far the best-selling Bible translation. So I'll just throw my cards on the table. At Lake Point, my default translation to preach out of is the NIV, not because I think it's the best translation, but because I think it is a very good translation. It's the one that normal, I call I'm drink a beer watching a game, lost guys. It's the translation that that dude is most likely to have a dusty copy of on his shelf. So I'm just like, I want that guy to walk into Lake Point and be like, yeah, dude, I get it. That's what my Bible says. So that's why it's my default mode. The NIV is really interesting. It's undergone at least four revisions. A lot of people don't know this. English, Bible translations, they'll go through different revisions where, for instance, they published this first in 1978, then they received a bunch of feedback from people and then scholars would chime in and go, hey, actually, don't translate like this, translate like this. They updated it. What really bothers me is the, I think the best translation version of the NIV was the 1984 version and that's what I memorized, like huge chapters of the Bible in when I was in college and then they switched it on me and you can't even find a 1984 NIV anymore. But what the NIV is, it's in between a word for word and a thought for thought. So in the NIV, they're trying to walk the line between like, let me give you the actual words, God shows. But then whenever it gets to a phrase that's a little confusing, they'll do their best to like, hey, let's give you a phrase that you're going to understand. Here's what I like about the NIV and actually so far, I'm going to put it on the very top of the ones. Here's what I like in almost all NIV versions. They'll, if they insert a thought for thought, translation that's not as literal, they'll put a footnote in there and at the bottom of that page of your Bible, they'll tell you, here's the actual word for word thing. So you kind of get, you kind of get both, I really like it. Here's one tiny watch out I will give on the NIV. The most recent revision of the NIV happened I think in 2011 and they inserted gender neutral language in places where the Bible had been using masculine language that to them felt patriarchal. So not in every place. So and I'm going to talk about this here in a second. There are some quote-unquote translations of the Bible where they're actually not doing translation, they're doing interpretation and tricking you into thinking that the interpretation is translation. The NIV doesn't do that as much but you do get where they changed like he, him, his or it said man or men or let's say the original translation, the Greek word was let's say Adele Foye which means brothers and they'll insert brothers and sisters because for instance in Greek, it's kind of hard to explain the Greek plural Adele Foye which means brothers can refer to groups of people that are both masculine and feminine. So there's a big crowd of men and women in Greek they'll say Adele Foye, I think I hope I'm getting that right Adele Foye and it means the literal translation would be brothers but because it can refer to both a group of both dudes and women they'll say brothers and sisters. So I don't love that because I just personally I like real clear word for words anyway but I'm going to put that at the top so far with that one little caveat. What am I doing next? The NLT. Ooh, NLT. Okay, so NLT, here we go, NLT. NLT is published by Tindl. I'm going to brag on Tindl really quick as a Bible publisher. So I said earlier there are some Bible publishers that get acquired by non-Christian organizations and then just in general, a Pride not a great idea to have non-Christians that are in charge of Christian Bible translations. What Tindl has done if I understand this correctly is it was a Bible loving Christian family that started this publisher. They put the publishing company in a family trust which means it cannot be bought out by non-Christian organizations. Well, that's great. So what that does is it keeps everything inside of a Christian family. I'll be really honest. I like the NLT a lot as like just a daily Bible reading translation. So if I get, see here's, I would encourage people to do this. When you're doing Bible reading plans, don't do the same translation every year. Rotate among good Bible translations like do NIV1, your NLT1, your ESV1, and you're going to notice different things. Two years ago, I rotated and I did like the whole year in NLT and I loved it. I didn't know you did that. I did. The NLT is in between a word for word and a thought for thought. It leans towards thought for thought. Yeah. But it's super, super readable. So like what I would say is if you're somebody and you're Christian, you're buying a Bible for somebody that's a brand new Christian or like you're buying a Bible for you one more and they're not a Christian, I'm actually going to go ahead on record and say I actually kind of recommend the NLT because it's the most dang readable version that still does a really good job of accurate translation. So sorry. Do you have more to say about that? Go ahead and then I can tell you one of our questions. I was trying to find it. Someone had asked if the NLT is woke because someone told them that how true is this because they love it. They said the NLT was woke. There may be, I bet you what they're talking about is for instance, whenever it would have been brothers, they'll say brothers and sisters. I don't think now there are some translations like the this super and I use this word on purpose. The kind of gay, queen James version, like that one actually is woke where it's like trying to inject queer theory and gender ideology into the translation. To my knowledge, I don't think the NLT does this but I would need to go and check. I would need to go and check to double check. Here's where the NLT is really good. And let me circle back to something I said earlier. When you get into those confusing passages in Old Testament prophecy or Old Testament poetry and you're like, bro, I don't got a clue what's going on. NLT is actually really good. It does a good job on thought for thought translation and it just kind of helps you through some of those those hard passages. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to put NLT, man, I'm, ooh, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to cheat. I'm going to put it right alongside the NASB. This one's more literal. This one's more readable. I'm going to keep an IV. Right about it. Okay. All right. What's next? Can you reach it? There you go. I'll pick one out and I'll go add it. I'm going to do the one on top. Oh, the message. Oh, the message. All right here. So this one's the message is really interesting. So we said earlier there's three types. There's word-for-word thought for thought and there's a paraphrase. This is really important. The message is not a translation of the Bible. The message is one guy's paraphrase of the Bible. So originally published in 2002, it was the life work of a dude named Eugene Peterson. By the way, if you ever want to see something absolutely hysterical, Bono of YouTube fame. When he started kind of getting into the Bible, he was reading the message and it kind of gripped him. At that time, he was the most famous dude in the whole world. And he was like, I want to meet this guy, Eugene Peterson. So he had his people reach out to Eugene Peterson and they were like, Eugene. Bono wants to meet you. And he was like, who's Bono? He had no idea. So then you can go watch this documentary. It's hilarious. They bring, I think they bring Eugene Peterson to a concert and you can tell he's like, this is ridiculous. He hates it. And they formed this funny little friendship. So anyway, here's what I would say. I'm going to give, I don't hate this. It's not my favorite. Here's what I'm going to say. I will sometimes use the message when I'm personally reading Old Testament poetry or prophecy. Because that was Eugene's Peterson's specialty. What, here's why I don't love about it. It was written by one guy. It's far better to have a team of translators. Here's why. Because again, the Bible is written in three languages. Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic. Well, people like scholars are going to have one area of focus that's like that's their center bulls eye. And you know, it's hard to, you're not going to be a master of all three. And you're going to have Bible scholars that are like, dude, they're great at poetry. They're great at New Testament epistles. They're great at apocalyptic literature. So when you get a team of experts around, you kind of get the best thought from a bunch of different people. This is just written by one dude. Now this may, I may be remembering this wrong. So correct me, please. But wasn't like when he was writing that wasn't it because he had a family member who was having a hard time understanding the Bible. And he wanted, if I understand that's correct, he originally started the work because he did. I think he had a, I think he had a family member. Yeah, it wasn't one of his kids. It was somebody else. And he was like, I want to help my mother. Which is awesome. That's thinking amazing. Here's the other thing about the message to give you heads up. The chapters and verses aren't the same. Here's, so let me do, here's another thing about your Bible. You need to know the chapters and verses were not put there by God. You know, a lot of people don't know that. They're like, where did that, the numbers and the no one was comfortable? The chapters were added in the 1300s and the verses were added in the 1500s. The first Bible that ever had them was a very famous Bible called the Geneva Bible that came out in 1560. Here's one thing that's really sad for me to report, but it just gives you something to have your head on a swivel when you're reading something like the message. I'm tragically Eugene Peterson at the end of his life came out in support of same-sex marriage. And then he kind of, he did, and then he kind of walked it back halfway. But here's the reason I say that. I'm not saying that to like dump on somebody's legacy. What I am saying is it is really important that Bible translators have biblical convictions. Because translators are not just always doing translation. They're also doing a little interpretation. And I would say this, if you're trying to test a Bible translation, you need to watch how do they handle the most controversial passages, especially about gender marriage and sexuality. So on this one, it's super readable, super readable, but it's not an awesome translation. I'm going to put it just right above our old KJV, but down here. What's next? I have never even heard of this, but the passion translation. I read this a little bit in college. So here's the passion, first of all, they do make passion translations that are not for chicks. Let me just say that. I didn't know. So first of all, it needs to be really clear. This is not connected to the passion conference and has nothing to do with Louis Giglio and all of our friends over there. A lot of people think that. So this has nothing to do with that conference. Now here's one thing I would say. This says passion and it literally says on the front translation. This is not a translation. This should say paraphrase. So again, this is interpret. So here's how you need to think about a paraphrase. If it's a Bible paraphrase, it's not really a Bible. It's more like a commentary. Here's what I really, really don't like about this. I'm going to go ahead and tip my hat. This is going to go at the bottom here in a second. This was written by one dude. His name was Brian Simmons and it was commissioned. If I understand this correctly, they literally wanted him to put some of his theology, especially around the Holy Spirit, into this paraphrase of the Bible. So some people pointed out and this one may be a little different. But at least the original passion translation was almost 50% longer than the actual Bible. Wow. Why? Because the dude that wrote this, Brian Simmons, he was inserting a bunch of his own thoughts into the paraphrase. Not not awesome. So for instance, I'll just give you an example paraphrase. So 23, 1 in 1984, NIV says, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. The passion paraphrase says, the Lord is my best friend and my shepherd. And I will always have more than enough. Just sort of flowery. So in a way, not a huge fan. We're going to put this guy so far at the very bottom. We got two more. Let's do these real quick here. Okay. Christian standard Bible. The old CSB. All right. Am I blocking? This is starting to block me. There we go. The old CSB. So this is, this was a, this is, this is an iteration of what was originally the HCSB if I understand it correctly. The Holy Christian standard Bible. This is published by Holman. Now here's, here's what this is. This Bible came from our Baptist friends. So Holman is a Baptist publishing entity. I may get some things wrong here about it. I need to make sure I got this right. So the CSB, it blends word for word and thought for thought. And honestly, it does a pretty good job. If I was going to give one watch out on the CSB is, whenever you have a translation of the Bible that is commissioned by a denomination, what you got to watch out for is the interpreters will sometimes they know that they need to sort of stay within the doctrinal guidelines of the denomination. So if you get to a passage that has something to do with the doctrine of that denomination and the interpretation options are like a jump ball, they'll always default to whatever is the translation that affirms the doctrine of the denomination. And some people would say the CSB can sometimes kind of do that. So good translation. Very readable. I actually like the CSB. Like I do like it. Okay. So I think where I would put this guy, it's hard to do this. I'm going to put it right underneath our friends right here. And we'll do that guy right there. And then let's do our last one, Janet. We saved last not least. The ESV. The ESV. Now the ESV, is that camera? We still get on it. Okay. The ESV. I'm a big big big big fan. So let me just tip my hat. The ESV is what I use in my personal Bible reading. So like this, this is my ESV. I've had it for 20 years. That's what I personally use. Now this is the ESV study Bible. I mentioned earlier that I mentioned earlier study Bibles. Let me say a couple of things about study Bibles that you need to know. So if you didn't know this, I recommend especially for newer Christians. Everybody, you need to have a good study Bible in your house. Here's why I'm going to show this and we'll over there. So what you're going to see is up here is Bible. Down here is a little commentary by good Bible scholars explaining frequently asked questions about what you're reading up here. Now I'm going to give another example on it just so I happen to open to a good page for this. What you'll also see in study Bibles is you'll get this little content down here and like this thing, they'll give little theological treatises or they'll give little pages on context and setting of books that are really helpful. So like right here, I'm in Nehum and it has a chart of afflictions of a Syria against Israel. It gives a list of what King was going on here, what years they reigned, what was the affliction that they did on the people of Israel. And here's the significance biblically of those things. That kind of stuff, honestly, is super helpful. If you're like, dude, I don't know my Bible. I'm trying to figure stuff out. That stuff is, it is, it's really, really helpful. Okay. Now, but here's what you got to remember is when ever you see that, you have to emotionally calibrate in your head really clear. This stuff is inspired by God. That stuff is not inspired by God. There are errors in what's down here. There ain't no errors in what is up here. Okay. So you do need to get that in your head. The two study bibles that I have personally had that I liked the most were the MacArthur study Bible and that ESV study Bible, that ESV study Bible is the one that we keep in our house. I keep up in my office. ESV is a word for word translation. It's a really good word for word translation. It was commissioned by Crossway. I love in general. In general, there's some things, you know, hit or miss, but in general, I like a lot of stuff that comes out of Crossway. Here's the other thing I like about this. It's what I like, but here's also a watch out. Some of this generation's best Bible scholars gave influence into the ESV. So these are dudes like Bible nerds are going to know these names. These are dudes like J.I. Packer, Wayne Gerudum, who we mentioned earlier, helped with ESV, Vern Poitriss, Darrell Bach. These guys are studs. Now I will give one little caveat here. And this is a theology nerd thing that, you know, if you understand it great, if you don't, that's fine. One little watch out I'll give is either all or almost all of the guys who spoke into this translation, they were they're reformed, theologically they're reformed. So, you know, sometimes that can end up affecting the translation a little bit. I'm not saying that it did. I'm just saying that's kind of a watch out. Okay. Here's where the ESV is really good. I think it's really, really good. New Testament, New Testament epistles, all the things. It's just great blend of word for word, thought for thought, and it's very readable. Personally, I'll be honest, sometimes it can get a little wooden in the old Testament, in poetry, and in some of the prophecy. That's when I'll switch over to like an LT. And I will occasionally go, I didn't understand that at all. What did the message say? And things like that. That's good. You're going to say something other, you're going to say something. All right. So as we'll probably surprise nobody, I'm going to put that one at the top because that's the one where our stacks get in high. That's the one that I actually personally read in my own personal Bible time. So, let me just finish by asking this question. People who are asking, what's the best Bible? I want to answer in the same way that we answered earlier. Bibles are like diets, which ones the best one, the one you'll do, which translation of the Bible is the best one, the one you'll read. And what I would say to people is what will keep you from understanding the Bible most is not the translation in your lap, but the posture in your heart. You got to walk in when you open your Bible, knowing that either the Bible stands in authority over my beliefs or my belief standing authority over the Bible. I got to make sure the Bible stands in authority over my beliefs. The Holy Spirit is going to read the word with you and highlight things to you. So open your Bible, pray and ask the Holy Spirit. Please speak to me. Please help me. And what you're going to notice here's what you're going to notice. One is going to change you, but two, that is why you can read a verse you've read a thousand times before and see something you've never seen before. Why? Because the Holy Spirit is showing you something he's never shown you before. Let's get into the Bible. Oh, good. All right. Janna, will you pray for our future Bible nerds? I would love to. Yeah. Father, thank you just so much for your word. And thank you for giving it to us. Just as a way for us to know you and love you deeper to show us your character. And just to help us to to just walk like Jesus did, Father, I just pray that you will give each of us hearts that desire to know you more, desire your word. I pray that we will hunger and thirst after your word and your righteousness, Lord, Father. So I just pray that you'll just transform us into make us more like Jesus. And I know you do this through, through us being in your word, Father. So I just pray that you will give us hearts that desire you. And I just pray that all of us will walk around looking a whole lot more like Jesus because of it. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.