EP 66: Honesty Over Pretending

I wish for myself, for us collectively, that we could just

be honest and say we don't know. We don't get it.

Comprehending this text is hard and just having those

conversations because if we keep pretending, I think recent

surveys of evangelical churches shows that we, with all the

abundance of resources we have, we are not growing our biblical

literacy. We cannot love God if we do not

know Him. Hey, everyone, and welcome back

to the Grace Church Podcast. I'm your host, Whitney Manus,

and today I've got some sweet friends in the studio, Don Teets

and Mary Beth Jackson. Ladies, thank you for being

here. Welcome.

Thank you for having us. Absolutely.

Before we kind of dive into our topic, would love for our

audience to get to know you a little bit better.

So would y'all just do a quick introduction of how you came to

Grace and maybe some of your serving roles and your family?

Anything like that? Yeah, My name is Dawn Teets and

my husband is Mark. We have two adult daughters.

Sarah is 24 and Jess is 27. Both happen to live in the

Upstate, and we're thankful for that.

We came to Grace in a kind of interesting sort of way.

We lived in Greenville before the Secret got out in the early

2000s. Then my husband's job took us to

Dallas for 10 years and we moved back in the memorable year of

2020. We had come back for summer

vacations just to stay in touch with really close friends in the

area and pretty much knew when we moved back that Grace Church

would be our home. And so we are at Grace

Pottersville, otherwise known as the Shire, and just learning

what life looks like is empty nesters and so thankful for our

community. Yeah, it's great.

I'm Mary Beth Jackson. My husband is Ross and we have

four children. They're still young, 1086 and

four. We've been at Grace for 13 years

now. We're at Harrison Bridge for

about 9, and then my job moved and so we we moved as well and

landed at Powdersville. Right now we're really involved

in RTS, reading through the scripture.

Yeah, that is awesome. We are so glad to have y'all

here and you know, we just, we love having our members be on

the podcast and represent a little bit of just what God is

teaching us on a regular basis. And so the three of us kind of

sat down a little while ago and I really just asked what y'all

might want to talk about. And I was just so struck that

both of your hearts were just so passionate for the word.

And that was very evident right away.

And some of that was born out of, you know, being an RTS and

just witnessing kind of what God is doing at the Powders Hill

campus. But a lot of that has to do with

your own personal experience. So what what God has done for

you, particularly just thinking around the idea of, you know, we

all, we all know that we should read the Bible.

We're all pretty clear that that's an important thing to do.

But it can be a hard thing and probably hard because it is so

important and we do want to do it well.

So as you guys were getting exposed to the word and learning

how to learn to read it for yourselves, what were some of

those difficulties or, you know, fears or maybe misconceptions

that you had as you were trying to do that and tried to read

scripture well? I think for me, I didn't want to

read my Bible because I didn't know what I was reading or I

didn't know where to start. Or should I start in Genesis?

Well, I've started in Genesis 125 Times Now, So what am I

supposed to be doing? I think that about four years

ago I was about to start region, going through region and just

really realized for myself, I have not read the whole Bible.

I mean, I've read what we listened to at church, what

they're telling me to read. I'll do a reading plan, I'll do

this and that. I'll do a Bible study, which all

of that is, is great. But I had not just sat down for

myself and read the Bible like a book and to knock away all of

the IT should look like this. I should have 30 minutes.

I should have perfect quiet. I mean, that's not going to

happen. It doesn't matter if I get up at

at 5:00, notorious a kid is going to come downstairs.

With four of them, your odds are high.

Yes, or the dog is going to start doing whatever.

And so I like for things to be a certain way.

I like for me to be a certain way.

I like for my kids to be a certain way.

I like for my family to run a certain way.

So naturally I like my Bible reading to to be a certain way.

And so I just had to say, OK, I'm just going to to do a Bible

reading plan and just start there and see what happens.

And what happened is I read the Bible and it was not fancy or

frilly or anything magical. It was just reading as I read

any other book. Yeah.

Did you have like this big epiphany or, you know, you're

like, wow, the whole Bible suddenly makes sense, Sir?

She loved those genealogies. I know it.

Right. That's right.

Mapped it all out. No, I mean, there was of course

moments where I thought, wow, that's amazing.

Noticed things, was able to to talk about things, but no, there

was no Disney magical moment when I finished Revelation and

all of a sudden I was a superior Christian.

I already thought I was a superior Christian before I read

the Bible. So.

And then came regen you. Have to worry about that.

Yeah, no, it's not a magical recipe for enlightenment, but a

lot of the power of it comes in the smaller daily moments and.

That's right. It's just little seeds.

Even if it what I read that day, I'm like, oh, I have no idea.

I don't know what that says about God.

I don't know what that says about the world besides that

there was all of these people listed, but the Lord's using

that. I mean, I can trust that the

Lord's going to use that in me, even if if it doesn't make sense

in the moment. And the Bible even talks about

like, writing his words on our hearts and on her minds so that

we can come back to it later when we need it.

It's not like every single day you need every single part of

the Bible, but something recalls later on in a way that's

helpful, so that's cool. What about you, Don?

Yeah, I would say growing up, we, my parents became believers

when I was in elementary school and we went to a church that had

a really solid Christian education program, very clear on

the gospel as far as salvation. But what was lacking?

And we didn't have a great student ministry.

As I think about it, I was not clear through high school how to

do the daily sort of rhythms, spiritual disciplines until I

really went to college and got involved in a campus ministry

where I learned more about who the Holy Spirit was, that it

wasn't some like Casper the ghost person and that I could

ask him to help me understand Scripture.

Fast forward into my 20s and beginning a career.

I happened to be single for a lot of years, so I had the

luxury of time. I did not have the interruption

of children coming down. I could have like lengthy quote

UN quote quiet times and be involved in a Bible study at our

church and learn a lot. So I was grateful for those

single years and what I learned and just learning more about the

daily sort of walk. But yet I was still striving and

performing and feeling frustrated with myself living

under a big cloud of condemnation.

And it wasn't really until Mark and I went through Reengage when

we were out in Dallas at Watermark.

And then we moved here and there were some unfinished things in

my life that needed attention. And it's funny how those things

followed me from Dallas. And we got involved in Regen and

my close group leader challenged me.

And and I would say that she is a dear friend now, but I did not

like her very much in that moment because she said, you

know, Don, I don't think that you believe Jesus loves you.

And I was ticked off about that because isn't that something

that we all learned? If you went to church as a kid,

you learned how to sing Jesus loves me.

This I know. But when she said that and I got

over my sort of pride being wounded and started asking God

to show me, how do I not believe that you, you know, do I believe

this lie that you don't love me? And something just became clear

as I kind of pulled the curtain back a little bit more and he

did some deeper soul work. And so I'm here for those who

might be a little bit further along in life to say that we

never can learn enough about Scripture.

And He is always wanting to dig deeper into areas of pride,

arrogance, unbelief, guilt, whatever lie we're believing or

set of lies, that there is always room for Him to transform

and renew our minds. And I'm so grateful that He has

taught me. I'm in a new season, you know,

where he is just reminding me and how important scripture is

and how needy I am for His word. So I I'm grateful for the

different seasons of my life and how He continues to show me more

of who He is and how I can delight in Him.

Yeah, that's beautiful. You mentioned this phrase

feeling a cloud of condemnation. What did that look like and

sound like for you? Yeah.

What were some of those lies? I mean, I was, I think just

through my personality and also my family of origin, I just was

a performer. I performed to get more approval

from my parents. I got into school and wanted to

perform there, whether it was sports or music or academics and

just always felt the need to perform.

And it was exhausting. And so there were, you know,

just times when I, I realized, and there was actually one of

our teaching pastors who came out on a, a rainy November

night. I almost didn't go to Regen that

night. And I'm so glad that God

prompted my husband to encourage me to go because I heard

something that was like an epiphany for me.

And it sounds so simple now, but it was a game changer for me in

that moment of struggling with condemnation, struggling to feel

like I never measured up, struggling to believe that God

cared enough to accept me, therefore I had to perform,

right? And So what this teaching pastor

said was if God the Father tells us in Scripture and he does that

what Jesus did was enough for him, then why is it not enough

for me? And I don't know if I said that

exactly right, but it was pretty much to that effect.

And it just really was eye opening that it was a form of

pride for me not to trust that Christ had covered my

insufficiencies, my sin, my inconsistencies.

And that just gave me some really needed relief to no

longer feel like I had to strive and perform.

And you know, the journey continues.

I continue to battle that, but that was a key pivotal moment

for me. Yeah.

And I do think it is so common. I mean, we can feel condemnation

over all sorts of things. Mary Beth, do you kind of have

any of those lies or kind of that condemnation for yourself

that you have to work through? I have.

More of a fake it till you make it mentality and an appearance

problem. I like to I already said I like

to look a certain way. I want my people to look a

certain way. I have an idea of, of how my

life should go. I mean, thankfully the Lord has

changed me a lot. So the lie that I believe is

that I can just do other things. I'm, I'm really involved.

I'm very active in the church. We go any time the doors are

open, we're there. I listen to Christian music, you

know, any of those type of things, then I'm OK.

Yeah. And that you make a good point

of just our cultural context, you know, so being in the

Upstate of South Carolina and I mean being I guess is central to

the Bible Belt is you can get. Don, did you grow up around here

as well? No, I grew up in Minnesota, but

we had our own version of the Bible Belt and Minnesota and was

more Lutheran as far as denominational, but very

ritualistic. And everybody went to church,

you know, it was just sort of assumed.

But to get beyond that. And again, like we went, we were

a blended family, went to a new community, got involved in a

great church. But you know, I'm so grateful

for that church, but for all the the different groups and

opportunities that I've had since then because I really

didn't know what to do day-to-day.

And then I was like, I want to please God.

So I guess I just have to do it myself.

And oh, it feels better to control the situation.

So it's. A lot easier.

Doing the checklist and certainly he'll be pleased with

me. And then I got to college.

Had a period of rebellion after college where the gravity of my

sin was made super apparent to me as a young adult and my need

for Christ became even more real.

So I'm just grateful that God uses even our rebellion, if we

have that in as part of our story, that he can use that to

teach us how much we need him and and the beauty of the

gospel. Yeah, absolutely.

And it is interesting. I mean, it's really not limited

to the Bible Belt and it can take on all kinds of forms, but

kind of this cultural Christianity of performance.

And I heard someone recently use the word image management.

And I like it 'cause it, it kind of implies that exhaustion of

something that you do have to manage constantly.

And it can, it can be overwhelming.

And Mary Beth, you kind of gave some examples of what that can

look like of, oh, I listen to Christian music.

And, you know, especially in the age of social media, we've got

like can post a nice picture of our Bible and our coffee cup.

And, you know, maybe your kids are screaming and the dog is

barking in the background. But nobody knows, 'cause, you

know, you're putting out this image of, you know, what your

life looks like. What other ways have you guys

seen that kind of creep into our church and your lives or even

just other people that you've talked to of this idea of image

management and trying to look like we're doing it instead of

actually doing it? I feel like we can move into a

slow drift or become complacent. There was a period in our

marriage where we were just kind of drifting and trying to

survive the busy high school years with our daughters, and we

let things slide. We were in a church before

Watermark where we didn't have accountability and community the

way we have it here at Grace. There wasn't transparency.

And so things just, you know, the sin, the complacency started

to accumulate. We cannot be a neutral as

believers. We're either moving forward and

being renewed or we're stagnating and living in our

sin. And so for us, I would say we

learned a big lesson as a couple and individually that we need to

have community, we need to be in the word, we need to communicate

as couple, we need to have a short accounts and confession

repentance. It's just like let's normalize

that rather than sort of maintain the image.

And we were very much doing that before we went to re engage and

then regen. Here, Yeah.

I think in my season that I'm in currently and have been in with

young kids and young married and the image is that everything is

fine and that my kids are fine. We're doing enough.

We're we're doing, you know, XYZ to get them saved.

I mean, I'm, I am reading the Bible to them for an end goal

and that is not really what what I want them to see.

I think in another image that we try to uphold, especially as

women mothers, that we are doing everything right, that we are

living as a Christian woman. And sure that there is such a

thing as a Christian woman, but there's not just one mold that

we can follow. And the Bible does not lay that

out for us on what that is the Bible.

You know, we're going to love the Lord our God and we're going

to love each other and that we can do that in a multitude of

ways. I think there is a lot of shame

wrapped in Bible reading and studying the Word and knowing

theological terms. And I think there's a lot of

just embarrassment and wanting to hide from that because we

want to. Gosh, I've been I've been in

church my whole life. How embarrassing it is that I

don't know. I don't know, a doctrine of end

times. You know, how embarrassing it is

that I can't tell you what happened in the book of Amos.

You know, though, it's not embarrassing, right?

It's OK. And, and just to be OK with

saying, gosh, I don't know if I've ever read Ezekiel all the

way through. Just being honest with one

another. That's right, and that's OK.

And it is OK and it is freeing. And I think that for me, it has

actually freed me up to say, gosh, I have read the Bible

cover to cover, but I cannot if you try to tell me to find

limitations like the fastest, I'm not doing that.

I'm not winning a race in any of that.

It's like. Is that before Psalms or after

psalms? It's not a it's not for that's

OK and it is OK. What I think is has been not OK

for me is just pretending or or shying away from a conversation

because I don't, I don't know and I don't want to be involved

to uphold an image that's hard, that's exhausting.

There is freedom and just saying I don't know, but I want to

know. There's freedom and saying I've

never read the Bible all the way through.

I'd like to, but it's hard and I don't understand.

That has freed me up a lot and going through RTS.

We just said the Old Testament and.

Oh boy. Oh, boy, mate, oh, boy is right.

What? I mean, there were moments where

we were like, what did we just read?

And that's OK. It is OK not to have all the

right answers. Like you said, Don.

I mean, you are further along in life than than I am, and you're

still learning. Like we're not going to reach a

pinnacle of just all right. We've arrived.

We have arrived. And that's OK.

That is OK. I mean, it doesn't feel OK for

me because I want to arrive. I want to be there.

I want people to look at me and say she knows.

So just pushing those lies behind and pushing that image

out of the way. I wish.

I wish for us, for myself, for us collectively that we could

just be honest and say we don't know.

We don't get it. Like this is hard.

Like comprehending this text is hard and and it's kind of

boring. So, you know, or, or I don't

have a clue, and just having those conversations because if

we keep pretending, I think recent surveys of evangelical

churches shows that we, with all the abundance of resources we

have, we are not growing our biblical literacy.

We're not doing well with that. And as our campus pastor loves

to remind us is we cannot love God if we do not know Him.

And the Bible is first and foremost about Him.

And I'm not trying to be preachy here, but I just have to remind

myself that I need that daily bread.

I need to keep turning to Him. Now I feel everything that you

guys are talking about and I'm even like self identifying as

you're talking like conversations I've been in where

somebody is like, oh, and you know, like this part of the

Bible when this person says that.

And I'm just like, yeah, for sure.

Yep, I'm, I'm with you. And I'm.

And then later on I'm like, I've never read that before.

I have no idea. But yeah, it's, it's partially

growing up in the church and feeling like, well, if I've been

around for 20 years or so, like I should probably know more than

I do or the shame or the pride that gets wrapped up in it,

whatever it is. Or even, I mean, just to your

point about honesty where you read scripture.

And I'm in Second Kings right now and I don't feel super

inspired every single day. And.

That's. OK.

And right. But like there's something in me

that feels like, am I doing this wrong?

Like I don't feel like I'm getting anything out of it.

Like we just expect to have this spiritual experience.

And sometimes you do, and that's a beautiful thing, but just

because you didn't on a random Thursday doesn't mean that like

God isn't present or that his word isn't living inactive.

Like we just build up all these expectations that aren't always

helpful. So then we talked about just

this idea of being honest with one another, you know, and, and

being in community as we read Scripture, we ought to talk

about that a little bit more. Just the fruit that you've seen,

not just studying Scripture on your own, but doing it with a

group of people and coming and talking about it.

Together. Well, it's struck me when we

first started doing RTS how excited I was to be able to hear

what other people read, what other people were thinking,

questions that people had, and to put down my embarrassment or

shame or whatever. That I don't want to ask a

question because I want you to think I already know and

actually ask questions and to talk.

And how that just brought an excitement and a longing to

read. Because I want to participate #1

I want to be a good student, number 2.

But it kind of grew into more than that, more than just, I'm

expected to do this and I need to do it well.

And we're going to start back in August and everybody, our group

is so excited. And I think that I realized

while we were doing it, the Bible is meant to be read in

community aloud with other believers, and not just in the

corner in my comfortable chair, that that is fine.

I am doing that as well. But to bring it and have

conversation and to talk about it and to not expect anything.

I'm just expecting that the Lord's with me.

I'm not expecting that I'm going to feel any kind of way.

I'm not expecting that Dawn's going to say something in our

RTS group that is just going to enlighten everything.

I'm not expecting anything just to come to the word with

excitement of just of, of learning, of seeing what's

there. Did you find, Mary Beth?

Like the little daily deposits we made, even when we, like you

said, Whitney, it's not these big emotional aha moments.

Sometimes it is. God's Spirit can do all kinds of

things as we read and study his word.

But for me, Old Testament RTS at Pottersville was kind of daily

compilations like daily deposits where he like there were some

major things that happened in our family toward the spring.

And if I had not had those daily deposits of Bible intake and

just the context of how God worked through a broken, messed

up, difficult group of people called the nation of Israel that

I I was able to connect the God of the Old Testament in new

fresh ways to my life today. But it was just those daily

deposits of studying how God handled those people and related

to them, had made them image bearers, but they had

misdirected longings. And then how he responded to all

that was just super helpful. But I can't say that there was

one particular week where it was like, I'm so glad I was here.

Like this was the best. And and the community part, too,

of just rolling up our sleeves and doing the work together and

holding each other accountable and encouraging one another.

If we had a tough week and didn't get through all the text

and that was OK. Yeah.

Now I think all of that is so helpful and I mean really just

doing anything like they tell you if you make a New Year's

resolution, like to tell somebody about it.

So then I mean kind of as we wrap up a little bit, can y'all

just give some some practical examples of Scripture that

you've been reading recently and just what God has been teaching

you as you have submitted yourself to his word.

And again, not with grand expectations, but like he is

working through that in real ways.

I am going back through Kings and Chronicles and interspersing

profits in with them to semi create some sort of timeline in

my brain. That's awesome.

Well, thanks, Don. You don't need to pump me up,

but it is showing me. Well, I just read it.

You would think that I would remember, right?

I'm like what? Who?

Who is? This all the kings names sound

the same so I can't keep them straight so I'm like I have to

go read those 10 more times. Yes.

And so just rereading something that I read fairly recently has

really just shown me how many times I'm going to probably, I

mean, I'm going to read it for the rest of my life and probably

have this similar experiences of wait, what, wait, what is this?

How how did this or just finding other little things.

I have a justice complex, but I don't really want God to to to

do this kind of justice. I don't.

It doesn't really make sense to me.

When we read it in RTS, I thought this is terrible, this

Bill's terrible, what are we doing?

We're killing everybody. But reading again, I have just

seen the goodness and the mercy of God as well through that.

So that's been really fun for me and encouraging as we're about

to start the New Testament, just just to see the progression of

the need for Jesus and to see the progression of my need for

Jesus everyday look at these Israelites and it's easy for me

to pass judgement on them and when really I I am that.

And so that's been that's been fun for me to go back through

and also eye opening on how much I don't remember.

Yeah. I would say that my recent

reading of Scripture dovetails really well with RTS.

We've had some women studies at Powdersville that have also been

instructive for me. But generally, even just going

to the Gospel Coalition conference recently and seeing

how the Psalms connect to the Savior, that we need Bible

intake not to become seminarians.

We can't fake it until we make it.

Proximity is not enough. Precooked Bible studies have

their place. But really, meeting God in the

pages of Scripture is so helpful.

Just in a nutshell, our family has been through a season of

lament. We've had four loved ones who

have died in the last eight months, included an unexpected

stillborn situation. And So what does lament look

like? I have responded to that based

on what God has been teaching me little bit by little bit, those

daily deposits, trusting on who He is, bringing questions to

him, but still being able to express gratitude for my

community, express gratitude for who He is and knowing that we

will be OK, that hard things do not necessarily mean bad things.

And just how to lament that. And like through an extension of

of women in our community who have been like we have been so

prayed for and we're so grateful for that.

There have been times when I didn't have words to pray.

And so something that I have learned along the way in my

journey is to simply pray Scripture back to God.

And that has been super helpful during this season of lament of

just praying Scripture. Just last night and this

morning, I was detecting a root of bitterness starting to

fester. And I, God's Spirit just

recalled for me a recent talk I'd heard about turning to him

as a good God even when things don't, circumstances don't seem

good. And the example of Naomi and her

bitterness and how through her experience, she came to see that

God was a good God. And so I just reminded myself

and confessed that I was leaning toward bitterness.

God just help me in my unbelief. Help me not to be like Naomi and

become bitter and just praying some of the passages from Ruth

or the Psalms back to him. That totally changed my

perspective. Didn't change my circumstances,

but it changed my perspective. And so the word is active and

living. The two edged sword.

I can attest to that. Like we always say, your campus

staff, leaders, and community are available to y'all and would

love to have a conversation. So if you've been listening to

this and you just need to be honest with someone that maybe

you don't know the Bible as well as you want to or you have

questions. Or maybe you just need to

confess that you've been managing the image of a good

Christian instead of seeking relationship with God.

Reading through scripture groups will kick off again this fall,

so maybe that's your next step to set up some accountability

and commit to reading through the Bible like Mary Beth did.

That would be a great way to spend the next year or so.

And if you haven't listened already, we have some great

episodes this year with Scott Mzingo on studying the Bible and

with Tim Wardle on how we got the Bible.

And if these episodes have left you with more questions, please

leave them in the comments or send us an e-mail.

We would love to equip you in any way that we can.

So Mary Beth Dawn, thank you ladies again for being here.

This has been a really sweet conversation.

Thank you so much. Thank you all for listening.

Be sure to follow and subscribe and we will see you next time on

the Grace Church Podcast.