Why Most People Read the Bible Wrong | Kristen Deede John | Trinity Sermons

Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of

Trinity Sermons. This week, we're continuing

our teaching series called This is the Way, where

we're uncovering spiritual practices that help

us dive deeper into our faith as we follow the

way of Jesus. And today, we are excited to welcome

a special guest, Kristen Dede Johnson, who is

an author, theologian, and speaker, as well as

the current principal of Wycliffe College in

Toronto. Kristen is going to be sharing with

us about how to read the Bible, and also about

her own experiences with the transformative power

of Scripture, and how we don't just read God's

Word, but we have to allow God's Word to really

read us. Today's reading is from the Gospel of

Luke, chapter 1, verses 1 to 13. The devil said

Luke 1:1–13

to him, If you are the Son of God, tell this

stone to become bread. Jesus answered, It is

written. Man shall not live by bread alone. The

devil led him up to a high place and showed him

in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.

And he said to him, I will give you all their

authority and splendor. It has been given to

me and I can give it to anyone I want. If you

worship me, it will all be yours. Jesus answered,

It is written, Worship the Lord your God and

serve him only. The devil led him to Jerusalem

and had him stand on the highest point of the

temple. If you are the Son of God, he said, throw

yourself down from here, for it is written, he

will command his angels concerning you to guard

you carefully. They will lift up their hands

so that you will not strike your foot against

a stone. Jesus answered, It is said, Do not put

the Lord your God to the test. When the devil

had finished all his tempting, he left him until

an opportune time. This is the word of the Lord.

Many of you are not from an Anglican background,

and that might mean that you don't know the very

special relationship that Trinity Streetsville

has with Wycliffe College. Wycliffe College is

an Anglican theological school. It's associated

with the University of Toronto. I studied at

Wycliffe College and graduated in 2004. There's

many people in our midst today who have studied

at Wycliffe. Britton, who was singing this morning,

has also studied there. And we have members of

our congregation who have served on the board

of Wycliffe College. In fact, Bob Motes, who's

here today, is currently a board member at Wycliffe.

And, of course, in his other job, our electric

guitarist here this morning, Justin Stratus,

serves as the academic dean at Wycliffe. So there's

these real—oh, and I should say that a previous

rector, Harold Percy, established the— Institute

of evangelism at Wycliffe college. So there is

this really deep. between Trinity Streetsville

and Wycliffe, which is why it's so especially

meaningful this morning that I get to welcome

our guest preacher. Dr. Kristen Deedee Johnson

is the principal of Wycliffe College. And before

coming to Toronto, Kristen served as the dean

and vice president of academic affairs at Western

Theological Seminary in Michigan. She's a theologian.

She's a leader. She is a teacher who cares deeply

about helping the church to think well and to

live faithfully in today's world. Kristen has

written and spoken widely, you know, whether

it's university classrooms or podcasts or churches.

In fact, one of her books, which she co -authored,

called The Justice Calling, was named one of

the books of the year by Christianity Today.

So beyond all that, though, I know Kristen is

passionate about equipping leaders for ministry

and helping the church engage with culture and

to do that with conviction and grace. So I hope

that you will join me in giving Kristen a very

warm Trinity welcome as she preaches for us today.

Kristen. Thank you for the warm welcome and such

a gift to be with you. I've heard a lot about

you, and it's a joy to be with you this morning,

to be worshiping alongside colleagues like Karen

and Justin and board members and friends of the

college, graduates and current students as well.

Let's pray together. God, we ask that the words

of my mouth and the meditations of all of our

hearts would be acceptable in your sight. In

Jesus' name, amen. Well, I do want to bring greetings

from Wycliffe and just to say again that it's

a gift to be with you this morning. We are grateful

for the long connections between Wycliffe and

Trinity Streetsville. And I'm also grateful to

be a part of this particular sermon series, your

new This Is The Way series, reflecting with you

this morning on the practice of scripture. That

Jesus is calling us to follow him in every area

of life. That this Christian faith is not just

a belief, but is a way of life. These convictions

that are guiding your series in the season of

Lent, these are convictions that are very dear

to my heart and have been shaping for me in my

own callings. As I was reflecting on the importance

of scripture and the spiritual discipline of

study in anticipation of this morning with you,

I was reminded of the very first moment when

I realized that the words of the Bible could

have a shaping impact on my life. A friend had

invited me to her youth group at a local Anglican

church. I think one actually probably pretty

similar to this one in the United States. So

that was when I was in grade seven. And that's

probably when I first started reading the Bible.

But that wasn't right away that I saw its connection

to my life. It took a couple of years. I remember

I was navigating a challenging situation with

a friend, by that point, honestly, a former friend

at school who I thought was mistreating me. And

I was hurt, I was angry, and I was really unsure

how to approach this friend. I went to youth

group and during Bible study, I remember hearing

really for the first time these words, love your

enemies, do good to those who hate you. Bless

those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat

you. I can still recall the sense of amazement

and conviction that I felt. Now I understand

that to be the work of the Holy Spirit. I was

amazed that these words of Jesus spoken so long

ago, being read from this book, could deeply

connect to my situation as a high schooler centuries

later. And I was convicted that these words invited

me to follow a different way than I assure you

I would have taken had I not heard those words.

I needed God to shape my imagination, to work

through the Bible to help me think differently

about what it meant to love others, and over

time to use the words of Scripture to invite

me into a wholly different way of life than I

had known before becoming a Christian. This is

what Psalm 1 speaks of to those who are blessed.

It invites us to meditate on the law day and

night. The Hebrew word is more like chew on,

ingest, and allow it to nourish and shape us.

To meditate on the law day and night so that

we can become like trees planted by streams of

water. This, the psalm tells us, is the way of

the righteous, the way of life to which we're

called. Being able to see differently and to

live differently through the Spirit's work shaping

us as we study and meditate on Scripture. This

is what we're hoping for. I think through this

series, through the practices you're being invited

to, through our local churches and through places

like Wycliffe College. I sometimes think about...

I don't know if you know the cultural phenomenon

of kindergarten soccer. As a soccer mom, I can

remember taking my five -year -old children,

now 13 and 16, but they'd go to practices, and

it would seem like they could do the drills.

They could really follow what they were supposed

to do, but you'd get to game time, and it really

looked nothing like soccer. And I had this moment

where I was in the midst of teaching a class

on discipleship, and I thought, is this what

we're doing? We invite people into the drills,

the Sunday mornings, the Bible study, the meditation,

the small groups. But isn't the point how it's

actually shaping our lives? How we move from

the practice to an embodied way of life in the

world for Jesus seeking the kingdom? And are

we bridging that gap, right? That's what we're

hoping for. So what we want to be doing in our

churches and small groups and Bible studies and

our own spiritual practices. is to be inviting

the Spirit to actually shape how we live, how

we love, how we respond. To enable us, like Jesus

in the passage that Karen read for us today,

to respond with faith and trust in God when faced

with challenges and temptations. To see God's

way as the most true and beautiful and good.

To understand that the power and authority, the

glory and the splendor promised by the world

don't compare to the abundant life we have received

in Christ and the gift of living each moment

in the light of the kingdom of God. As we continue

on in the 40 -day season of Lent, let us consider

what God might have for us to learn from Jesus

during his 40 days of fasting in the wilderness.

when he's tempted or tested by the devil. To

set the stage behind this passage a little bit,

this encounter between Jesus and the devil happens

just after Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist

and just before he begins his public ministry.

He was given the gift of the Holy Spirit when

he was baptized, and the passage tells us that

the Spirit led him into the wilderness, presumably

for a season of final preparation for ministry.

That was about to begin, and that ministry includes

the culmination in his death and resurrection,

towards which we're looking this Lent as we anticipate

Easter. So as we're thinking about the importance

of the study of the Bible this morning, I want

to pause to note that each time Jesus is tempted

by the devil, he responds with words from the

Hebrew Scriptures, or what Christians today call

the Old Testament. So the first temptation, the

devil said to him, if you are the son of God,

tell this stone to become bread. Jesus answered,

it is written, man shall not live on bread alone.

This verse is drawn from Deuteronomy 8 .3. Man

does not live on bread alone, but on every word

that comes from the mouth of the Lord. And this

longer version is recorded in the temptation

story in the Gospel of Matthew. Not only does

Jesus use the words of scripture to answer the

devil and resist the temptation, but the words

themselves point to the significance of the words

that God gives us in the Bible. We do not live

on bread alone, but are utterly dependent on

the words that come from the mouth of the Lord

that are captured in this sacred book. This is

part of what we remember when we fast from food,

a traditional Lenten exercise, our deeper reliance

on God. our need from the sustenance that comes

from God's words, God's wisdom, and ultimately

God himself. The response to the devil's second

temptation, worship the Lord your God and serve

him only, comes from Deuteronomy 6, as do the

words Jesus offers in response to the third temptation.

It is said, do not put the Lord your God to the

test. It's likely that following the common practices

of Judaism in his day, Jesus's childhood included

studying and memorizing the Torah, the first

five books of the Bible, which would have included

Deuteronomy. And we see evidence actually throughout

Jesus's lifetime that the words of the Hebrew

scriptures were deep within him and they emerged

as needed, all the way to him quoting the Psalms

as he was dying on the cross. Now we can imagine

that if Jesus, who was fully God as well as fully

human, needed to spend time with and even internalize

the words of scripture, how much more do we,

who only have the fully human part, need to spend

time with every word that comes from the mouth

of the Lord? But there's even more significance

to the three verses that Jesus responds with

coming from Deuteronomy. Because the 40 -day

reference is connected to the 40 years that the

Israelites spent waiting to enter the Promised

Land after they were rescued by God from slavery

in Egypt. And the desert where the temptations

of Jesus take place is like the wilderness where

the Israelites spent this time of wandering.

The verses themselves from Deuteronomy that Jesus

uses in their original context They point to

temptations that the Israelites faced in the

wilderness and times when they failed to resist

temptation and failed to trust God. So today's

passage from Luke is actually an invitation into

the story of scripture that unfolds across the

entire Bible. As one New Testament scholar writes,

the content of the tests that Jesus not only

endures but also passes. correspond to the tests

that Israel faced in the wilderness, but failed.

Jesus is tempted by hunger, as was Israel. But

Jesus rebukes with the words, a person must not

live on bread alone, where the Israelites simply

complained, first about the lack of bread and

then about the lack of variety in their diet.

Jesus is tempted to engage in idolatrous acts

by worshiping Satan, but he rebukes Satan. Israel,

however, succumbed to the temptation to commit

idolatry and fashioned gold in the image of a

calf and worshipped it. Jesus is tempted to test

God's faithfulness, as was Israel. Jesus rebuts

Satan, but Moses, when he challenged the Israelites,

why do you test the Lord? The people continued

to complain. For Luke, the specific content of

the tests discloses. According to this scholar,

that Jesus is Israel, God's son, who is called

out of Egypt to complete Israel's exodus. And

Luke also casts this scene as a reversal of Adam's

disobedience. So Jesus' faithfulness in the face

of temptation really comes to life when we place

this in the context of earlier temptation stories

within our canon of scripture, going all the

way back to the temptation in the garden. In

the opening pages of Genesis, and including maybe

most prominently the Exodus narratives. So the

Exodus, where God's people were freed from slavery

by God and then struggled. And so Jesus is sort

of placing himself in that story, right? And

finally completing the story where we can be

freed from our slavery to sin because of his

faithfulness on our behalf. When we step back

and consider this passage in light of the longer

arc of salvation history, of God's redemption

story unfolding through generations and centuries,

the amazing grace of God made known to us in

Jesus Christ becomes all the more amazing. As

we study scripture, stepping back to place passages

in the context of the larger story of scripture

not only brings into sharper relief the grace

and the steadfast love of our Lord, But I think

it also helps us to engage with the passages

more fully and faithfully. Now, I will confess

in my own story of engaging with scripture, I

already shared with you sort of that initial

point. So a couple of years later, still in high

school, I became aware of something called an

exhaustive concordance. We don't really need

this anymore because we have the internet, but

you used to be able to buy a book about this

big and every word in the Bible was listed. And

then you could see if you wanted to see, okay,

where else are temptations in the biblical story?

You look up the word temptation and list every

verse. Well, I thought this was an amazing resource

and I asked for it as a birthday present. And

I would, you know, if I heard a sermon on, there's

a difference between biblical hope or biblical

joy and biblical unhappiness, I would sort of

go to each word and look it up. But I had never

heard about things like context and genre. I

only looked at the individual verse. I didn't

know that it was important that it's placed in

a chapter as part of a book and that there are

different kinds of books. Some are poetry and

some are wisdom literature and some are biographies.

And I didn't know how they fit into the larger

story of Scripture. Now, I do believe the Spirit

used that season. But I will say, I believe that

the Spirit can do even deeply formative work

when we engage on these other levels. So it took

me many years to learn that the study of Scripture

in light of Scripture is a real gift. And to

learn that the different books of the Bible,

these different genres, the letters, poems, compilations

of wisdom are important to how we understand

and can apply the texts. This is part of why

I'm passionate about theological education for

all, because learning these things really did

alter and shape my reading of scripture. It's

important to take the time to explore how the

particular verses and passages we are studying

fit into the chapter and the book where they're

located, and also how they're connected to that

larger story. Now, when it comes to the story

of Scripture, there are different ways of understanding

that story. Biblical scholars like N .T. Wright

talk about it like a five -act play. Others have

attempted to emphasize four parts. Maybe you've

heard creation, fall, consummation, redemption.

I tend to tell in terms of six chapters, the

original creation, our fall, God's covenant with

Israel, Jesus Christ, the central part of the

story. Then there's the church and our calling

here and now. And then the return of Christ,

who is coming to usher in the kingdom of God

finally and fully. So practically speaking, I

would suggest that when we come to a text, we

do want to consider where it falls within the

story of Scripture and how that might impact

what's written. I was thinking about this a bit

yesterday. We had the Women's Breakfast at Wycliffe

College. This happens every fall and spring.

And yesterday we were studying the Psalms and

how we might learn from engagement with the Psalms.

Marian Taylor, who specially studies how women...

have engaged with scripture through the years,

brought to light a woman writing decades ago

and inviting others to study the Psalms in a

threefold way. Understand the original context

and then consider it in light of Christ. And

finally, reflect on how it applies to your life.

I think that's one concrete way of living into

what I'm suggesting. Now, another important thing

that we want to note about scripture in our passage

from Luke from this morning is that it's not

only Jesus who quotes the Bible. Did you notice

that? The devil himself uses scripture in the

third temptation. He is citing Psalm 91. Now,

this seems really important to pause to recognize.

Studying and memorizing the Bible is not in and

of itself a guarantee that scripture will shape

and form us into faithful disciples. It's not

a magic incantation that just by knowing it and

citing a verse magically we're formed and faithfully

following the way of Jesus. As you enter into

this series on Christian practices here at Trinity

Streetsville, I want to venture a word of caution.

Christian practices can be used by the Spirit

to shape and form us, but it's not inevitable.

When we consider practices as part of the life

of Christian discipleship, we're talking about

more than developing habits that in and of themselves

will change your life and make you a better person.

In an important book called The Danger of Christian

Practices, Lauren Winner, who by the way will

be speaking at Wycliffe in May at our annual

preaching day on a different topic, But she points

out that Christians who have regularly read the

Bible, prayed, gone to church, taken the sacraments,

all important Christian practices, have nevertheless

done horrific things. We have to be aware that

practices alone do not lead us to faithfulness,

even as we can accept them as what Winner calls

damaged gifts, marred by sin, but still gifts

from God that the Spirit can use in our lives.

When it comes to scripture, I think that one

thing that can get in the way of the Bible actually

forming us into disciples who live the way of

Jesus is not acknowledging the cultural lenses

we are bringing with us as we read scripture.

This can take shape in very simple ways, even

the simple English word you. From a Western culture

that tends to prioritize the individual. And

if we're reading in English, which only has a

singular form of you, other languages have single

you and plural you. When those of us raised in

the West read certain passages, we automatically

assume it's meant for me personally and individually.

And we may miss the ways that this is an invitation

into a family. a family story, and that Paul,

for example, when he uses the word you, almost

always is writing to an entire group of Christians,

issuing reminders for the whole body of Christ

gathered in a particular place. So we hold this

kind of tension, I would say. We have places

like Romans 12 that talk about our need to be

transformed by the renewing of our minds. We

don't want to be, Paul writes there, conformed

to the pattern of this world. We need to be transformed.

And that's part of why we look to Scripture,

to transform us, to help us do things like love

our enemies when we're 14 and don't have those

categories in my own story. But at the same time,

when we go to Scripture, we're actually bringing

our cultural lenses. So it takes a deep trust

that the Spirit can do that deeper work. And

it takes a certain humility before the text to

invite the Spirit. to shape us. One of the ways

I would talk about this when I was teaching was

through the Greek myth, the Procrustean bed.

So according to Greek mythology, there's this

man, Procrusteus, and he liked to invite people

into his home. And he had a certain iron bed.

And if you didn't fit in the bed, he would make

sure to either stretch you, to fit into it or

chop parts of you off to fit into it, right?

The bed was what was central and he would shape

you to fit into it. That's really the inverse

of what we want. We want God to shape us through

our reading of scripture rather than us going

to the Bible and saying, oh, that part doesn't

quite fit. I'm chopping that off. I'm not going

to listen to that. So it's this perennial back

and forth where we want the spirit to be shaping

us. But at the same time, we are bringing certain

lenses. And one way I think that we can become

more aware of our lenses is reading the Bible

in conversations with others who see it differently.

This would be Christians from other times who've

read the Bible faithfully in their own context,

to be Christians from other places, races and

ethnicities, reading the Bible together so that

we're together wrestling with what the Spirit

might be inviting us to see. And we also want

to be aware of, to do just kind of one step further,

as John Webster, a theologian, puts it, it's

not just our own cultural lenses, because that

can sound kind of neutral. We also have our own

sinful desire to alter, negate, or neutralize

the text. We don't always want it to convict

us and shape us. So we need to read, Webster

says, with a certain posture of humility. And

not approach it with a sense of mastery. But

again, allow the spirit to give us a humble posture.

Ultimately, as we read these words of scripture,

we want to remember that the words point to the

word. The word made flesh. Because in the beginning

was the word. And the word was with God. And

the word was God. The way John the Baptist always

pointed to Jesus, the words of scripture are

there to point us to Jesus. And as we're conformed

to the image of Christ, it's really not as much

about us and our transformation as it is about

God, who in the flesh came to save us and redeem

us and invite us by the Holy Spirit into the

family of God. So we are grateful that the Spirit

can form and transform us. even as we always

want to be remembering and pointing to Jesus

Christ. And that is what we will do together

in a few moments when we come to the table, remembering

that through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit,

we do have the power to become children of God

because the word became flesh and dwelt among

us. Amen. Thanks for tuning in to this week's

episode of Trinity Sermons. This sermon was recorded

at Trinity Church Streetsville in Mississauga,

Ontario on March 1st, 2026.