What's So Special About the Bible? | Trinity Talks Podcast

Well, good morning, everyone. Welcome to Trinity Talks, which is our between services podcast

here at Trinity. And I'm excited because I've got Justin Stratis with me. And he is a professor

of systematic theology at Wycliffe College in Toronto. So thank you for joining me.

Yes, ma'am. Happy to be here.

We just are wrapping up a sermon series on the Bible. Specifically, it's called The Bible

for Grownups. And something tells me that you know a thing or two about the Bible.

A little bit. Yes, I've read it. I've seen it. It exists in my house.

Yes. And you preached on it last week.

Oh, yes, I did do that.

That's right. So we thought it would be wonderful to have you join us because myself and I as

well, I think the listeners here would be really interested to hear your perspective

on why the Bible is just so amazing and maybe also why or how we can use the Bible or maybe

more specifically be used by the Bible in the power of that as well. So let's have a

chat.

Sure.

All right. So to warm us up, I want to ask you a question. Other than Jesus, is there

anyone in the Bible who you would love to go back in time with and sit down and have

dinner with and have a chat?

Yeah. So I guess for theological reasons, I'd love to hang out with the apostle Paul

because he writes really confusing stuff and it would be good to get his sort of authoritative

take on what he wrote. But as I was mentioning before, Noah might be fun.

Why is that?

Because he's famous for getting drunk and passing out on the beach. So yeah, I mean,

the Bible doesn't affirm that, but it would be fun to hang out with him. He seems like

a good partier.

Yeah, see what he's all about. All right. OK, that's great. So we're going to talk about

the Bible and the theme of this past sermon series that we're just sort of wrapping up

now, as I said, was the Bible for grownups. And we talked about how as a mature Christian,

we may need to start approaching the Bible more maturely if we want to really understand

it and really be used by it. So I'm wondering as a child, when you were introduced, I'm

assuming to the Bible, what were your experiences with that text?

Well, so my parents grew up Greek Orthodox and they converted to evangelical Protestantism

right before I was born. So they were kind of learning about what it meant to be an evangelical

Protestant as I was growing up. So we were sort of at the mercy of whatever our churches

were teaching us. So at that time, my gosh, my interactions with scripture, we had to

memorize a lot of it. That was kind of a thing at our church. And you get various prizes

for doing that. So I remember memorizing Psalm 23 when I was a kid in the King James Version.

And I was given a Bible, I think when I was in second grade in the States, I'm from the

States. And I still have that somewhere from Mrs. Culver, if I remember.

Thanks, Mrs. Culver.

So but yeah, and then but I didn't really memorize scripture and I had a Bible and that

was kind of my interactions as a kid, but I didn't really take to it until I was a teenager.

Okay. Well, you've been known to say that you love the Bible. So I'm wondering, what's

the story there? How did you come to fall in love with the Bible?

Well, I mean, I often say, I've been involved in ministry type stuff for a long time. I

became a Christian when I was a teenager in high school. And I've kind of always had like

a behind the scenes view of church because I was a musician and I was a leader in my

youth group. And later I started working on staff at churches. And there's something that

there's kind of a seeing behind the veil of being in ministry that sort of takes the shine

off of some of Christian stuff. Yeah. But I've never had that with the Bible for some

reason, even though I study it a lot. And I spent a lot of time talking about it. It's

always surprising. And I feel like I never get to see behind the scenes of scripture.

It's always kind of front and center and challenging me and saying unusual things to me. That's

great. Sparks my imagination like nothing else.

Interesting. Actually, you're just mentioning this sparks your imagination. And I know that's

part of, we're going to be doing a course on Lectio Divina coming up here.

Oh yes. Yeah, like the monks.

Yeah. And I know that sometimes just getting into that imaginary prayer that comes with

reading scripture can just really open up the mind to what God is trying to tell us.

And I'm glad you mentioned that. But you have a lot of students at school, I assume.

Yes. Yes. And some of them may just be tackling the

Bible seriously for the very first time in your theology courses. So how do you introduce

the Bible to your students? Well, there's a couple things. I want them

to know that scripture reveals Jesus Christ. So I think that's its primary goal. Well,

it reveals God, but it reveals God through the mediation of Jesus Christ. So when you

read it, you're asking the question, how does this particular passage show me something

about Jesus? So that's number one. The second thing is you can read the Bible for all different

kinds of reasons. I kind of alluded to this in my sermon last week. You can read it to

learn about history. You can read it to learn about morality. You can read it to learn about

religion. I'm stealing this idea from Karl Barth, who's a theologian.

OK. Hero of mine. You can read it for all those reasons.

And the Bible will give you what you want out of it. But if you want to know God, it

can reveal God to you. And that's the primary way you should read it. And I think sometimes

when you get into academic readings of the Bible, you forget that. You think, well, if

I really understand what was going on in ancient Palestine, then I'll really understand what

Isaiah is about. No, you'll only understand Isaiah if you read it before God and with

the expectation that God will speak to you through the words of that prophet.

OK. So all right. So do you think there's any misconceptions or problems or challenges

that people may face when they read the Bible? And like, how do you think people can overcome

those challenges?

Yeah. So the Bible is it's weird, right? It's an old, old book. If you grew up in the West

or certain parts of the Global South and you've been sort of saturated with Bible references,

it can trick you into feeling like it's a regular book and a feature of your own culture

and society. But it's from a long time ago. It's hard to read. So a lot of people, when

they first become Christians, they'll just start at page one and start reading Genesis.

And they they sort of vibe with that part of scripture. And then all of a sudden it

starts getting into all the law and the rules. I remember trying to read scripture with my

kids and it got into all the bits about the kinds of thread that the priest needs to wear.

Yeah, there's a big chunk of yeah, dedicated just to those parts.

Yeah, it's like 12 chapters in Exodus. Right. And then people flame out and they're like,

I don't know what's going on. Right. So so that's a that's a roadblock people face.

OK, they go into it with really good intentions and then they get really confused by what's

happening there. So I think if you're going to read it for the first time ever, I would

start with some kind of self-contained thing like a gospel, starting with the gospel of

John or Mark, just to get a sense. And then you sort of start asking questions about the

text. And that leads you to other bits of the Bible to figure it out. So going with

a reading plan can help with that. So you're not just bogged down in one particular book

of the Bible, but you're jumping around. And I used to use the Navigators Discipleship

Journal Bible reading plan. OK, I was a kid, which was really. Yeah. But so what are your

thoughts on people who say I'd like to read the Bible in a year? I think that's great.

Yeah. Yeah, I think there's kind of this pain barrier you need to get through. You just

need to like read the thing. Right. Right. And then you start asking questions about

what it means. But you need to sort of get under your belt. So reading through the Bible

in a year is great. In fact, oftentimes when I'm interviewing students who want to be perspective

students that want to come to seminary, they'll ask, what can I read to prepare for seminary?

And I said, just read the Bible. Yeah. Cover to cover. If you know that, you'll have the

raw materials to start working through things. That's good. That's good. So oftentimes people

may say that they have a favorite scripture or they might have a favorite passage that

they come to over and over again, maybe even a book of the Bible. So what are some of your

favorites? And I'm sure there could be some favorites for all sorts of different reasons.

But I'm curious to know what has resonated with you maybe in the past. Well, in the Old

Testament, and this is kind of weird. Yeah, let's go Old Testament. I've been obsessed

with the book of Habakkuk for a long time or Habakook. I don't know, depending on how

do they say it in Canada? Habakkuk. Habakkuk. I honestly, I don't know. I remember I used

to teach in the UK and my students made fun of the way it pronounced it. So Canada is

always a toss up. As well with oregano. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Do you say oregano? No. Okay, good.

And you don't say aluminium either? No, we don't. No. Yeah. So I like Habakkuk because

it's just this kind of this book about everything has just turned to garbage. And it ends with

God giving a vision of hope. And I really resonated with that. And the New Testament,

I love for some reason, First Peter. Okay. It's a book written for Christians who are

sort of stuck in the world as strangers and aliens is the word that Peter uses. And so

there's this kind of note of how that's relevant for how we live our lives today in our sort

of post Christian secular society that I think First Peter speaks to. It also has this kind

of note of subversion, like, how do you live in the world and yet kind of slowly inject

Christian truth into it subtly. I love First Peter. Oh, I love that, which is probably

really good for Yeah, like you said, where we are right now in our Western culture in

our time and place. All right. So last week, you preached on the Bible and you mentioned

that the Bible is really unique in the way that the youngest Christians, even children

can go to sleep at night. I remember you saying and feel peace knowing that Jesus is with

them. The Lord is my shepherd and scholars of the Bible, people who have read it and

studied it are still learning and being revealed to by the power of the Bible. So how I guess,

how are you still learning? I mean, every time I pick up the Bible, it smashes my expectations

of what I think it's going to say. I mean, there's passages as a theologian that I have

lots of thoughts about things like Philippians, Chapter two, verses five through eleven or

Ephesians, Chapter one or John, Chapter three or John, Chapter one. And I'll go to someone

who asked me to preach a sermon on it. And I'll assume I know exactly what I'm going

to say because I've thought about this. And every time it just blows up what I think it's

going to say and teaches me something new. But I think I mean, one of the reasons why

little kids can read it and scholars is because Jesus says you need the faith of a child.

Right. To to relate to me. And one of the things that that children have is that kind

of innocence and naivete of I don't know what this is going to say to me. You know, and

they always ask interesting questions. And in a way, that's exactly what the best scholars

should do. You should always come to the text like a child. Right. Full of expectation,

full of expectation that you're going to learn something new and you don't know what's going

to happen next. Wow. And that's what makes reading the Bible. And I don't think you

can do that with any other book. You could. But you could also become an expert in another

book, which I don't think you could become an expert in the Bible. Very. You just you

probably the best Bible readers. What makes them good is they ask interesting questions

more than they've they know everything about scripture. You get better at asking questions

better at asking questions. Well, that's we're going to leave it on that note. Thank you.

Well, thanks for having me. Thanks for coming. Yeah. Yeah. So that was Justin. He is like

we said, a professor of systematic theology. I didn't have that in my notes here, so I

needed him to remind me. So professor of systematic theology at Wypcliffe College. And he preached

last week. And thank you very much for joining me. Rock on. All right. Take care.