Transcription
K. Arthur says too many people read the Bible without making it central to their lives. And the problem is, is we want this world and enough of the word to keep us out of trouble. And that's not what it's all about. We're called to a cross, and we forget that. We are called to say with Paul, "I am crucified with Christ."
This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy Damas Walgamuth, co-author of "Him" for September 3rd, 2024. I'm Dana [Music] Gresh. Hey, do you know what's so special about today, September 3rd? We have two birthdays to celebrate here around Revive Our Hearts. Not only is it the birth date of the ministry, but it's the birthday of our very beloved Nancy Damas Walgamuth. So, let me just encourage you, I'm not going to torture you with a rendition of "Happy Birthday." You would not love to hear me sing that. But I would love to encourage you to maybe jump on our social media and leave your happy birthday greeting for Nancy and the whole Revive Our Hearts team, and along with it, a little word of encouragement about what this ministry has meant in your life through the years.
Now, imagine you're exploring an exciting location, full of vibrant sights and sounds, bursting with places to explore, and you have a tour guide to point you in the most helpful directions. Well, God's word is kind of like that exciting destination. It's full of treasures to explore. And for years, K. Arthur has been a tour guide, showing people the wonder of God's word and helping them learn how to explore it for themselves. I remember discovering her in the late '90s and feeling like she was my own personal tutor in how to study the Bible. And as I've grown, she still challenges me in fresh ways. If you're just meeting her, you'll love her. Let's jump in as Nancy talks with K. Arthur.
Well, K. Arthur is no stranger to most of our listeners. She's been a dear personal friend for many years, and she has been a servant of the Lord and a faithful woman and a mentor and Bible teacher to so many women, in particular, across this country and many countries around the world. And it's a great privilege to have her with and Revive Our Hearts. Kay, thank you so much for taking time out from what I know are many pressing demands in your own schedule to share with our Revive Our Hearts listeners. And I'm so thrilled for them to have this opportunity to get to know you a little better.
Well, Nancy, you know how much I love you and how excited I was when you got ready to go into radio and and the ministry that the Lord is giving you and the impact that it's having. And so it's just a privilege to be on the the microphone with you. And uh, but not with you only, but with all of you out there. You are so precious to us. And I mean that when I say you're precious, you're beloved of God. If you don't believe that, read the Epistles and mark every reference to beloved. Yes.
And that's kind of your signature. It is my signature way of talking to people, precious ones and beloved. And those are wonderful reminders, right? People don't know they're beloved. I've had so many people tell me, uh, you know, one man, he said to me, he said, "I listen to your program just to hear you say beloved," 'cause I was hurting so badly. And when you say that, you're really saying it on behalf of the Lord. Exactly.
And see, some people don't realize that. And when I write our Precept uh courses, which are, you know, the Rolls-Royce of our Bible studies, and I'm writing them and I'm calling them beloved. And and men and women do these studies. And and of course, I write them and then the team of all of our men and and we go over them. But they'll say, "Men don't like being called beloved." And I said, "Well, just tell them to read Paul and tell them to read Jude and tell them to read Peter, and they'll see that those men use the term beloved all the time."
Well, beloved ones. Yes. Some may not be familiar with Precept Ministries. You just mentioned the Precept Bible studies. And Kay, you and and your husband, Jack Arthur, uh, founded Precept back in the early '70s. And what a wonderful gift to the body of Christ this has been. And I'm hoping as a result of this series that many of our listeners will connect with Precept Ministries. If you go to our website, reviveourhearts.com, we can link you there, tell you how you can get involved. But your mission is establishing people in the word of God, right? So that they can discover truth for themselves.
And precious one, if you feel there has to be more to know about the word of God, so many people have told me, "I was crying out to God, and then He led me to Precept." And we have Bible studies at all different levels. We even have 40-minute Bible studies where you don't do any homework, but you are brought face to face with the word of God. But our whole passion, and it's Nancy's passion too, is a Bible study that will not draw you to a personality, but draw you to the word of God yourself, so that you can say with the psalmist, "I have not turned aside from Your commandments, for You Yourself have taught me." God Himself has taught you. So the search is over. Just contact Revive Our Hearts, and they will tell you how to find out about the inductive Bible studies.
We will do that. And Kay, I have to tell you, I got back to my hotel room last night after you and Jack and I had a wonderful dinner together, and I got an email from one of our Revive Our Hearts staff members who wanted to let me know she was praying for our time in the studio today. And I want to read you what she said in this email. She is herself a gifted Bible teacher and has taught many Precept studies to other women. She said, "Precept Ministries is the tool God chose to use in igniting a passion and love in my own heart for His word." She said, "I still stand amazed as I recall attending our first Precept training weekend where God showed me that even a common woman with no theological training could understand the word and hear the Lord speak through it." She said, "I think I shouted all the way home. The word became alive for me that weekend, and my relationship with the Lord has never, all caps, never been the same." She said, "If I were there, I would give Kay a warm hug of immense gratitude for her love for the Lord and her passion in teaching others His word." What a sweet. Makes me cry. What a sweet gift.
And so many, many people could say the same thing. In fact, I got another email from another friend last night to tell me she was, it came actually early this morning. She said, "I'm choosing not to covet your time with Kay this week." And then she remembered back. She said, "That you led a conference at the church that her husband was pastoring in Norman, Oklahoma, back in the early '80s." And she said, "Please tell K that I, Nancy, have a friend who was greatly influenced by her in the '80s and who became a lover of God's word because of her challenges to my heart." That's a pastor's wife. Isn't that awesome? Who loved the word of God in a way today that she hadn't previously been able to, uh, process it, because of what God has done through your life and ministry. Isn't that exciting?
We have three pastors on our staff, two David's and a Bob. They use Precept in their churches. The other David is my son, and he, he took Precept, uh, when he was growing up. But one of the things that we're excited about is the work that we're doing with pastors, especially in the smaller churches or where the pastor hasn't had a chance to go to seminary, so he can learn the Bible inductively. We've had a lot of seminary grads say, "You know, I'll learn more doing Precept about the Bible than in seminary," because they study books about the Bible, but you know, don't really study the Bible. So if there's anybody out there, or a pastor, a pastor's wife, and and you want somebody to come alongside you and just partner with you, we're here. And not for ourselves, but for you.
Okay, now you've used this word a few times, studying the word inductively. Yes. What does that mean?
Inductively means you go straight to the book you're studying. In other words, you don't look at the commentaries. You can look at them later, but you don't look at the commentaries to find out what other people think or or discovered. Rather, you go to the word of God yourself. When you go to the word of God yourself, it basically involves three things that intertwine with one another. It's not first and then second, then third, but it's, it's you observe the text. You discover what does it say? And most of our air in handling the word of God comes because we really don't know what it says, or we don't examine it in context and its setting in that particular chapter, in that particular book, or in the light of the whole counsel of God.
So you have a big, is this a K. Arthur Study Bible sitting in front of you? No, it's not a K. Arthur Study Bible, but it's called a New Inductive Study Bible. And it's open to 1 Corinthians 15 right now. So if we were going to be looking at 1 Corinthians 15, and you were, obviously, you wouldn't start with chapter 15 if you were studying First Corinthians, you would have, but you've come to chapter 15. What kind of questions would you ask about the text as you're looking at it?
Okay, when you observe the text, the first thing you want to ask is, you want to interrogate it. I was using this in Eurasia. There were Russians there, there were Romanians there that had lived under communism. And I reached over, I'm teaching, I reached over and grabbed a guy by a shirt collar and I said, "Who are you? What are you doing here? When did you get here? Who, what, when, where, why, and how?" And I just grabbed him. And then I looked at him. We both began to laugh because he had been interrogated by the secret police, you know. But, but you, so you made him a little nervous. We just, we all broke down and we laughed because what you do with the text is you get a hold of it and you say, you ask the questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? And How? And who is this about? Who are the main characters? Who is speaking to whom are they speaking? You go with the most obvious. When you're studying inductively, you look for the easiest to see. Well, people are the easiest to see. I mean, you walk into a room, if there's a person there, you know, you may not see all the pictures on the wall, but you see the person. And so you look at who. Then what? What is this about? What is this saying? Uh, what is the subject? You know, or what is this person doing? Or what is this event? So you look at who, what. And then when? When is this happening? And when is something that we just miss. And if we're not careful, especially if you're studying prophecy, you can get your prophecy all messed up. So you want to find out when is this happening? When is it going to take place? So it's who, what, when. And then where? Where is this happening? Well, I put a circle, a green circle around every when, and then I double underline in green and find out about the where. Where did this happen? Where is this land that he's talking about? You know, where is Christ coming from? Where is He coming to? You know? So you ask the where, because if God, every word of God is God-breathed, so every word is important. So I want to pay attention to it. So it's who, what, when, where. Why? Why did he say this? Why is this happening? So you want to ask that question. And then how? Does he tell us how? For instance, in Philippians 4, he tells us, "Be anxious for nothing." Then he tells us how. And literally, in the Greek, it's "stop being anxious." And then he tells us how.
Well, we're in 1 Corinthians 15 because that's where my Bible was open. So let's start reading. "Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preach to you, also which you received, in which you also stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain." So he's talking about the gospel. So what we do, and and they would find this out from reading First Corinthians, but what they would do is we have a mark, key words. Remember, the Bible is an oral book. It wasn't until the 1400s AD that we had our own copies of the Bible. Up until then, every copy of the Bible was copied by hand. And so they heard. Well, if you want somebody to get what you're hearing, you repeat it. You use the same word. And so we would have a mark, gospel. And they would see gospel in, you know, as they go through the text. So I mark it in a distinctive way. I color-code. Now, they have discovered that color-coding medicine, color-coding words, color-coding, uh, chords and electrical things is a way of learning, a way of distinguishing. So in this inductive Study Bible, it gives you the instructions for observing the text of every single book of the Bible. Then it tells you in the front of the inductive Study Bible, it shows you how to color-code. It gives you, uh, ways that you can color-code keywords throughout the Bible. It teaches you how to observe, because there's far more to see.
And then from observation, you move to interpretation. But let's go back, let me back up on observation here. What you're really saying is, instead of just reading, uh, casually, skipping over the words of the Bible, just looking at it from a distance, you're really putting it under a microscope. Exactly.
What I say is, "Hang on every word." And that is meditation. That is meditation. Exactly. Which God says will make us successful in everything we do. Exactly.
In fact, when you read Psalm 119, which is all about the word, our son David, at our national convention in the year 2007, brought a fabulous message just from a portion of Psalm 119, explaining to us what God is doing in that Psalm and having the people mark, you know, precepts and the different words for the word of God. But you're hanging on every word. Well, when you slow down, and this is what meditation is, you know, it's like a cow chewing its cud. A cow has, I think, seven stomachs. Anyway, it has a number of stomachs. It chews that stuff, swallows it, and then a little while later, brings it back into its mouth, chews it again. Then it goes into another stomach. So what he's doing is he's thinking about, he's ruminating these truths in his mind, digesting it thoroughly.
Digesting it thoroughly. So like in verse one, let me just show you one thing. You would mark the gospel. So you would mark gospel. Then you would mark the pronouns. And he says, "I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preach to you." Mark it. "Which." And then "which also you received." You'd mark "which" because it's referring to the gospel. "In which." It's referring to the gospel. "Also you stand." "By which." And you'd mark "which" again because it's referring to the gospel. "Also you are saved." Well, then you look at this and you think, "Okay, what do I learn about the gospel?" You make a list. Okay, the gospel was preached to them. The gospel was received by them. Them. The gospel is that in which they stand. The gospel is that by which they're saved. But if you hold fast the word which I preach to you. In other words, it's something that you will continue to believe. And then he says, "For I delivered to you." Well, he delivered the gospel. What did he deliver? "As of first importance, what I also received: that Christ died for our sins, what? According to the scriptures." So he's explaining what the gospel is. The go-go-el is the death of Christ for what? Our sins. So you stop and look at that. You say, "Oh, I'm a sinner." You know, this is what he delivered to them according to the scripture. Well, you read, uh, down to verse four. "He was buried. He was raised on the third day, according to the what? Scriptures." So you see a key repeated phrase. All of a sudden, when you begin to meditate on this, to observe it, to hang on, you find out, "Oh, oh, Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures." What does he mean, "according to the scriptures"? He means according to the Old Testament. In other words, the message of the death of Christ is in the Old Testament. Then he says, "He was raised on the third day according to the scriptures." Oh, you can not only find the death of Jesus in the Old Testament, because that was the scriptures at this time, you can find the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the third day in the Old Testament. So this, this is what you begin to do. And it explains that you go from observation, discovering what does it say, to interpretation, what does it mean. But the more you observe, the more you meditate, and you know this, but the more you meditate, precious one, on the scriptures, the more you'll know the interpretation. Because God is perspicuous. This means He wants to be understood. And like you said, in that testimony that you just read, that that gal said, "I, a common woman." And this is what people all over the world are discovering. I mean, people that have had no education, and people that have been to seminaries, and people that have phDs. I mean, our, our head of our German ministry has his PhD. I mean, he is a brain. His his doctoral thesis is in the British Museum. But it's inductive study that changed his life. So it doesn't matter who you are, where you've been. And honey, I don't have a college degree. I got an honorary doctorate, but I don't have a college degree. And I'm a slow learner. I'm not naturally intelligent. And and yet, I know the word of God because I study it inductively.
So you go from observation, what does it say? Interpretation, what does it mean? And then application. Now, application is not, "Now tell us what, what does this passage mean to you?" It's not what does it mean to you. It's you've already discovered what does it say. Application is, how are you going to change your thinking to line up with what the word of God says? And how are you going to order your life so that you walk the walk, you talk the talk? In other words, application is not what does this mean to you. Application is, "Okay, this is what it says. I have to change my mind about that," which is repentance. And this is what it says, and I have to change my behavior to match up with the word of God.
And don't you think that's a huge missing ingredient in a lot of people who've been in church for years and years? They've heard the word, maybe read it for themselves, but they've never changed their thinking and their responses in their life to conform with the scripture. The problem is is they've sat there and they've heard, but they haven't studied it for themselves. One of the things that distresses me is it's thrown up on the screen, so you're sitting in church, you don't need your Bible. It's thrown up on the screen, or there's not a lot of Bible taught. So you hear, but you haven't really meditated. You, somebody spoon-feeding you. Exactly. You're not feeding yourself. And that's what was the problem with the Corinthians. He says, "You're on milk and not on meat." And because you haven't gone from milk to meat, then you are fleshly. And so I think a lot of people in the church haven't gone to meat. I, I, I meet women, and and I've heard this rumor, and I want to dispel it. And they say, "Oh, don't take Precept. It's hard." Precept is not hard. Precept requires discipline. Now, that's our Rolls-Royce. That's our five-hour, uh, study week Bible study. But I'm telling you, if you tithe your time, that's nothing. Uh, you know, five hours a week of studying. But the rewards are great. But to say it's too hard, no, you just want to be spoon-fed. You just want to be entertained. You just want some woman to stand up here and tell you a lot of stories and then tell you how to solve your marriage. All that's important, but the, the main thing is that I know God and I become like Him. Then being in His word, I know how to do the marriage. I know how to do the other.
And we want quick fixes. Oh, yes. And shortcuts. Exactly. To the process of sanctification. And we really don't want sanctification. We want the results. We want the result through the process. Exactly.
And I know you've told me that one of your frustrations is that increasingly today, people want short studies, no study, no homework. And you can't become like Jesus and become the, the mature woman that God wants you to be without going through the process and paying that price. You're so right. And that's what the inductive study is. It's the process of His word going into you. And you are so right. And it is such a burden to me, such a burden. And I think we do not understand what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Jesus says, "If any man is going to come after Me, let him deny himself." Present tense. "Let him take up his cross." Present tense. "And follow Me." Present tense, continuous action. There needs to come a point in your life, precious one, when you're saying to God, "God, I am not going to be a second-class citizen. God, I am going to be a disciple of disciples. I am going to deny myself. I'm going to take up my cross. I'm going to follow You." And He says, "He that will lose his life for My sake and the gospel's will find it." And the problem is, is we want this world and enough of the word to keep us out of trouble. And that's not what it's all about. We're called to a cross. And we forget that. We are called to say with Paul, "I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ in me."
So for the person who's saying, "I, I don't know if I'm ready for that kind of discipline. That's a hard word. I don't know if I'm ready for deep Bible study or for serious Bible study. What's the payoff? What's the reward? Why is it worth making the investment?"
First of all, I want to say to you, honey, you don't know God very well. You do not know God very well. And you don't understand His righteousness and His Holiness if you're saying you're not ready. So what will make somebody want to have that hunger and thirst? How do you cultivate that? Well, you get in the word of God. And when you get in the word of God, and and you begin to study it inductively, it's going to cultivate that. And the other thing is, you have to make some tough decisions. You need to turn off the television. You need to put up some of these Christian novels. You know, sometimes I listen to women speakers, and they get their testimonies, tell all the stuff in there, there's nothing of the word of God. And I just said to one, you know, "I can either give them the words of man, or I can give them the word of God." And today, people are preferring the words of man to the word of God. I learn from books. I write books. But I'm telling you, put up your books and get into the book.
You say, "I don't know how." The front of the Inductive Study Bible will tell you how. It has everything that you need to start studying inductively. I've written a book, and it's "Lord, Teaching Me to Study the Bible in 28 Days," and it gets you started and shows you the way. Uh, I've written one that's even, even better. It's longer, but it's "God, Are You There? Do You Care? Do You Know About Me?" And it's an inductive study on the Gospel of John. And I teach you one skill of observation each time, each lesson, as we go through.
So what are the rewards? Oh, the rewards are Christlikeness. The rewards are knowing your God. The people who know their God are able to stand firm and do exploits. The rewards are that no matter what comes your way, you can be steadfast and immovable and always abounding in the work of the Lord. That's the reward. The reward is that when you stand at the judgment seat of Christ, which every Christian will do, 2 Corinthians 5:10, Romans 14:10, and you give an account of your deeds done on your body, whether they be good or bad, you'll hear, "Well done, my good and faithful servant." The reward is you won't have a wasted life. The reward is that like Paul says in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, "Who is our joy or our crown of rejoicing? Is it not even you at the appearance of the Lord?" Because you won't stand there alone. There will be people that are impacted by your life. You don't have to be a teacher, but all of us are teaching through the way that we live and the advice that we give.
K. Arthur has been leaving us with some important questions. What kind of legacy are you leaving? Are you making a mark on other people? K has been talking with the host of Revive Our Hearts, Nancy Damas Walgamuth, all about filling up our minds with the truth of God's word. Now, I just have to say, these two wise women in one room, you're going to want to share this conversation with others. It's a rare gift for us to listen into their conversation on wisdom. And actually, this is one way we get wisdom worth sharing with others, by filling our mind with biblical wisdom from older, godly influences. Tomorrow, we'll hear the second part of that discussion on digging into God's word. And a week from today, Kay will be joining us for our online event, "Loving and Living God's Word." As you just heard, Kay is passionate about studying the Bible, and next week's online event is all about increasing your appetite for scripture. She'll be there along with Kelly Needham and Katie McCoy, and our host, Aaron Davis. I hope you'll make plans to join us Tuesday, September 10th, from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. Eastern. Or if you can't be there live, you can stream the event at your convenience through May 5th of next year. This online event is the second in our "Biblical Help for Real Life" series. Register today for $29, or you can bundle and save on all four events in the series at reviveourhearts.com. [Music] slw. While you're at the website, you'll see that Nancy's book, "Adorned: Living Out the Beauty of the Gospel Together," is available to you for a gift of any amount this month. In this book, she focuses on Titus Chapter 2 and how it talks about thriving in Christ, experiencing true community, and putting the gospel on display. Request your copy with your donation at reviveourhearts.com or call us at 1-800-569-5959.
K. Arthur says, "Faith is not really faith until it's tested." Discover what brought her to that conclusion when we come back together. I'm Dan Gresh, excited to be with you again tomorrow for Revive Our Hearts. This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.