A 6-Step Framework for Spirit-Led Bible Study | Alli Patterson

When reading the Bible, Christians are often trained to do one of two things: submit their interpretation to an authority or trust their feelings. Alli Patterson's new book makes the case for a third way - one where the Holy Spirit is not an alternative to good hermeneutics, but the reason they work at all.

ABOUT THIS EPISODE:
The conversation happening inside the body of Christ right now isn't just about cessationism or spiritual gifts. It's about authority. Who gets to interpret the Bible? The trained scholar? The anointed preacher? You?

Alli Patterson, seminary grad, teacher and author of a new Spirit-led Bible study, lands in a place you might not expect: all three, held together, under the actual leadership of the Holy Spirit.

Her six-practice method takes observation, context, prayer, and listening seriously as spiritual disciplines, not just academic ones. In this conversation, she and Josh work through how to apply a text personally without leaving Scripture behind, how to test a reading in community, and what to do when you've done everything right and still don't understand what you're reading.

This isn't a call to choose between your study Bible and your prayer life. It's a call to stop treating them as separate things.

0:00 – Introduction
2:44 – Spirit-Led Study Defined
14:18 – Six Practices Overview
20:08 – Observation and Context
25:01 – Listening to the Spirit
32:43 – Testing Personal Application
49:35 – Scripture-Guided Prayer
53:45 – Handling Difficult Passages
1:03:44 – Closing

ABOUT THE GUEST:
📖 Spirit-Led Bible Study https://a.co/d/08IpTSnd

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everybody, welcome back to the wonderful world of Remnant Radio. Uh today I am joined with Ali, and we're gonna be discussing her brand new book uh about the Spirit-led Bible study. It's an exciting program. You guys stay tuned. Well, I'm excited to talk to our guest Ali Patterson, but before we dive into the subject matter today, I'm gonna remind you all things Remnant. Make sure to subscribe to the channel, like the video so you get updated on content just like this. Maybe you've subscribed and you've been subscribed for a while, and because of the YouTube algorithms, you just don't see our content that much. One of the best ways to stay up to date with all the things that we're doing here, including our conferences and courses and all the discounts surrounding those sorts of things, is to subscribe to the newsletter. There's a link in the description for that. Without further ado, I want to introduce you to my guest today. Allie, would you tell us a little bit about yourself and your ministry before we dive into the subject?

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Sure. Thanks for having me. I'm Allie. I am presently in Cincinnati, Ohio. I serve as a teaching pastor on our teaching team at a church called Crossroads Church out of Cincinnati, Ohio. It's got locations in Ohio and Kentucky. And um, gosh, what can I say? I love the word of God. So I love to speak it, write it, teach it, communicate it. That's my passion. Um went back to seminary some years ago and really began to teach in more earnest and write in more earnest at that time. But I've always been a learner, a studier, a curious type. Um, when I was little, I think people thought, why are you asking me why all the time? I was always the one asking why. Why this, why that? Why do we think that? Why do we need that? That was always me. Lots of questions. Some people love that, some people hate that. I still ask a lot of questions. Um my husband usually tolerates them pretty well. I've been married uh 27 years. We just celebrated 27 years a few days ago, actually, and we have four awesome kids. They're all teenagers into young adults now, and truly, I think I'm enjoying this time in my life more than maybe any other life stage I've been in. It's just really fun. So I'm having a lot of fun in ministry and in family and just in friendship and life in general. So um, not to say everything's always coming up roses every day. That's not necessarily true. I'm just truly deeply um enjoying what's in my life right now. And I can kind of go pig big picture view on that and just um say, yeah, man, I think life is getting better and better. So that's a little bit funny.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Yeah, it's pretty cool. Uh well, tell us about why you wrote this book. And I I would almost call it a course because it's paired with these video lectures, teach you how to read the Bible as the spirit leads. But when people think of, you know, spirit-led Bible study, you know, as the continuationist over here, I'm used to people, you know, well, this is what it means to me, or I'm seeing the super spiritual meaning that no one's ever seen ever in church history ever. And it's like, well, uh so like when you hear the phrase like a spirit-led Bible study, some people hear uh let's go ahead and uh hop off the tracks now. We're gonna go to La La La Town. So help me make sense.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

You know, interesting. Um I guess it depends on what tradition you sort of grew up in, but that's right. I I really wrote this because it's how I learned to read the Bible from two, I would say two things that usually want to pull opposite each other. And I this is my attempt to say, I actually think we should and can be doing these things together. Let me explain. Um, I already said I'm a passionate learner when I went back to seminary. I mean, man, I could take every class in seminary. I love correct, you know, study of the word of God. I don't think that the Bible means whatever you want it to mean. I think there is an intended meaning to the words that are there in the context in which they're written. And so I think our job is to get as close to that as we possibly can, knowing that sometimes that's an imperfect understanding and process. That being said, the other thing that happened to me early on in my faith, before I went back and learned all the quote-unquote right ways to study the Bible and to read scripture, um, I truly encountered the Holy Spirit in a living way in my life. Um always have, like, since I had a life of faith, I was always interested in reading the Bible. But I would say the way I encountered the Holy Spirit in my life and in my own faith was so real and so personal and so alive to me that I thought it was odd that oftentimes when we read the Bible, we don't we do it a whole different way. We we don't invite him to lead that. We just go like, now I follow the bullet points, or I just read this person's material for the right answers, or I follow this teacher who clearly has the right perspective on everything, and I just need to fill in the blank. And I thought, how odd to me. I'd love to inspire and encourage people to put these two things together, that it is possible to follow the spirit as we encounter the word of God and as we do that to apply and be within a framework of correct investigation, correct understanding, honor of the original context, and all of those things. So, this study, if you will, this um, I would call it a method of reading, really wants to honor both of those things and offer some practices where we trust that the Holy Spirit is with us and leading us and extremely personal to the point where he knows exactly where he wants to take you in the Word of God and what needs revealed to you in the Word. And he's going to work through the words on the page written the way they were written, in the context and the meaning in which they were written. So I hope that kind of helps understand like what's my mindset behind it. I didn't grow up in like a charismatic setting of any kind. So to me, the Holy Spirit, when I first encountered, like, oh whoa, was it it made my life of faith make sense in a way that um nothing else ever had. So I'm I'm just out here going, hey guys, do you know the Holy Spirit actually knows what you need to know, actually can lead you into the understanding that you need inside the Word of God? And I just trust that deeply and I believe that deeply. I believe it for me, and I believe it for my readers as well.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

No, that's great. Okay, so it this is good because uh there's two sides of this where people think spiritual reading is again, maybe novel interpretation. And and I've seen that in my past, and now I'm I'm with you. I I was in the I was in the Pentecostal camp, you weren't there, but I'm just saying I was there. Then I was introduced to all of the uh Lutheran, Reformed, you know, Presbyterian, Anglican, Methodist kind of readings when I started my podcast, and I started going, well, okay, I've gone, uh maybe I've gone a little bit further than I need to go, but then I find myself encountering the power of the Spirit and still believing in spiritual gifts and still, you know, so I'm I'm like, okay, I'm I am this different thing now. But but here being in on this this other space, this middle word and spirit kind of environment, I I look at myself uh around the various uh areas where you know you've got some traditions who are like, hey, um studying scripture is a rigorous mental exercise. And then I think to myself, well, does that mean that Bart Ehrman can as easily interpret the scriptures as I can, even though he's denied the faith, denied Christ as Messiah, um, but he can still exegete a text well, give me its historical grammatical hermeneutic as he sees it. He can he can give me the historical context that feeds into this and and how the passage flows grammatically, and I look at that and I go, okay, well uh certainly there's something more than just the cerebral exercise that I have of reading the scripture that truly the Spirit is leading and guiding me into truth, and that that the Spirit is really showing me that the scriptures can only be really understood for those who are spiritual. Spiritual things are only comprehended by those who read spiritually, is what 1 Corinthians tells us. So I think this is a beautiful, again, merging of those two worlds that says, hey, we we need to have good hermeneutics, it's a big fancy three dollar word for how we study scripture, uh, but then also to uh invite the spirit into that process as we go. So maybe you could uh well, maybe maybe you want to respond. It sounded like you had something to say there before I before I even ask you a question.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Yeah, I was just gonna say I start from a place of trust that I think one of the things that seminary taught me is that I will never know all the things that I want to know. I want to know everything, Josh. Like I want I never wanted to leave seminary. If I could study and know it all, I would probably try. But the when I was in seminary, what I came to understand is the more I learned, the more I understood I'm never going to get to the bottom of this God and His Word. And how amazing is that. But now, how do I approach it? Because what the only thing I had ever been taught is that somebody who's not me has the right answer, and I should just fill in the blank. And I'm like, that can't be right. Seminary blew that up for me in a funny way because you'd think I would have come out of seminary believing that all the more. And instead, I encountered such a deep reverence for the fact that I will never get to the bottom of God, I will never get to the bottom of his word. It's that good, that deep, that rich. So now how am I to approach it? How am I to live a life of faith where even if I wanted to be a know it all, I couldn't be. There's gotta be a better way. And so when I wrote this, I would call it like a method of engagement, you know, it may lead you into study. And if it does, you need to do it faithfully according to good hermeneutics. And there are also other things that the Spirit of God can do in the middle of his word. And so it's just interesting to me. I didn't grow up deeply entrenched in any one position. And so, you know, in a funny way, um, I think God kept me a little bit more of a blank slate where I grew up, I grew up in a Presbyterian tradition. So I certainly had that type of thing in my background, but then but then I came to Jesus. I mean, like really came to Jesus and and really encountered the Holy Spirit, and all those things didn't quite fit together for me. And I just tried my best to understand and pursue a living God, and it ended me up in this space where um I want him inside my Bible time as well. I'm not willing to set him aside and take somebody else's word for it just because they went to school longer than I did. And I actually don't think you have to do that either. And I also now know none of us who try to learn, it should humble us in the face of what we start to learn. If seminary does its job, it should humble you.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

Yeah, Dr. Van Hooser, and this is I I I perceived this as you were talking, but he has this book called Biblical Authority After Babel. It here here's the thing, if like it's not necessarily a page turner. If you're really into like the nitty-gritty of epistemology, then like it can be fun. Um, you know, I'm a nerd, I enjoyed it, but I acknowledge that most people are not going to be there. But in his book, he argues that sola scriptura has to be understood in light of sola gratia. Um and the idea is that the grace of God we can trust to lead us into the truth of God's word. Like if I believe that it's the scripture that is going to lead me and guide me, and it's infallible and it's inerrant, and it's gonna lead me and guide me into truth, I actually have to depend on the grace of God in order to do that. Um because I am fallible and I will come uh to the text with all kinds of errors, but I can trust the leading and the guiding of the Spirit. Let's walk through some of your steps. Oh, I'm so sorry. I can't say something and we ripping. Let's rip.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

The thing is, every deeply changing experience that I've had in the word of God has borne that out entirely. So it's not it's not just that I think this, it's what I've actually experienced, which is kind of why I go, hey, you go experience this too. Because you're going to. And I trust that the Lord is alive and active and revealing the truth of his word to any that would come and seek it. And I've I've such a confidence in that that I don't feel like I need to put myself in the place of you, you know what, you should trust me because I I do this. Just fill in the blanks and and trust me. I've got the right answer for you. Um I just I deeply, deeply trust him.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

No, that's right. I think that's that's a wonderful, it's a wonderful place to be. And it's I think when Christians hear that who don't have that current experience, long for it. So I think it's a good thing to even model. Um, if you would, could you walk us through some of your steps that you you kind of approach so that we can kind of get uh a 30,000-foot view of how you're approaching a spirit-led study of scripture?

SPEAKER_01 14:18

Yeah, there are six practices, and I would say they're each tools. And when I um when I read, now that I have put this, given this language, if you will, like each of these practices, I've called it something, I've described it in a certain way. Now that I have these six practices named, I would tell you when I read, I combine them in all different ways. And so it's not so much that they're truly discrete practices, though they can be. It's um it's a way of reading that opens you up to different possibilities of where the spirit might go with a text. And so um, first of all, the first practice is a super basic practice that truly opened up my entire world when I learned to do it well. And it's just the practice that I call in the study observation, fundamental Bible reading practice of good observation. We are so prone to skip over this because we're very confident in ourselves, we're very confident that we know what the Bible says and what it means, that we don't just step back and observe the words that we are actually reading. It you'd be shocked, shocked how many times you read the Bible and if we read it together and somebody were a really good observer that they might stop any of us, me, you, or anybody else reading the scriptures and say, wait a second, does it actually say that? Does the Bible actually say what you just said? It's shocking how many times the answer to that question is no. We are so used to how we read, what we learn to see, what somebody else told us it meant, that we read the words on the page and we go, Oh, I know I already know what this means and exactly how to apply it. Do you? What if you stopped, paused, and just observed what you were reading? And I mean like verb tense. Um I mean conversation, I mean number of questions, I mean words that indicate tone, I mean repetition, or words and phrases that are all pointing in the same direction. I mean the pivotal point of a passage where the it climaxes and shifts. These are just really good basic practices of observation. And we're tempted to skip over them, I think, because we devalue them. We think, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I got the gist of it. Wait a second. What if I told you to make a list of 20 observations of a paragraph? The reason I say this revolutionized how I read scripture is because I always wondered how how do people truly own what they are reading? How do they confidently turn around and own what's what's in the the Bible? This is how. When you learn to observe, you come to a deep conviction about what the word actually says and what it's silent on and what it doesn't say. And you can more easily recognize when somebody's assumptions or cultural context or previous learning is in play above and beyond the word of God, you learn to sniff that out really well and go like, hang on, what does the scripture actually say? Because in my in my world, that's what we're trying to do. I and I will acknowledge, not everybody that I've read and studied the Bible with, that's not what they're trying to do. Sometimes we have an objective of our own. Um, but when you approach scripture and you want to know what did God say, this is the first practice that you need. Observation.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

I had myself muted. If I were to ask a question about um observations, like I remember uh preparing for a sermon for Easter, I think it was. Maybe it was Palm Sunday. I think it was Palm Sunday last year. And people who've listened to the podcast have heard me pick up on this observation before. I'm I'm looking at the passage where Jesus is walking in to the triumphal entry, and John's gospel seems to mention over and over they're following him because of Lazarus. They're following him because of Lazarus. It says it over and over and over. He just raised Lazarus from the dead, now he's famous. None of the other gospels seem to mention that. And I'm like, okay, well, that's interesting. And then there's this line where these guys from the east, the Gentile folks, they go, hey, um we want to see the teacher. And Jesus tells them some stuff about a seed has to fall to the ground and die, this and that, and then he goes, looks up to heaven in John 12 and says, Father, glorify your name. And then the voice speaks from heaven, I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again. And I've always passed it through that, and I go in very quickly, going, okay, yeah, God's glorifying his name, get glorified again. And I I think this is an observation, and I want you to correct me if I'm wrong, because I want to make sure we're talking about the same thing here. And I go, uh, when was the last time he glorified his name? And I just kind of backtracked to John 11. The last time that language is used is when Jesus is praying, Lord, raise up Lazarus so that they know that you've sent me and that you would glorify your name. And Lazarus is raised from the dead. And then I'm like, whoa, here's this context where God is saying, I have glorified it. I rose Lazarus, I will glorify it again, I'm gonna raise you, right in the context of this language of seed falling to the ground and dying. So, like, had I not just like slowed down and just, well, that's interesting. Like, why is this being mentioned? I don't I don't remember having read that in the other gospels. I don't, I don't remember it. Observation is just like looking for odd things, right? Like what strikes you in the text. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 20:08

Yes. So what you just described is a great example of two practices in the study that you use together, which happens all the time. Again, these aren't discrete things, but to learn them and to notice, you know, to actually practice reading a new way, we often have to pull stuff apart before we put it back together. So what you just did, I would say number one, you observed an interesting turn of phrase in what you were reading. Glorify his name. If I were making observations, I would write down the quote, glorify his name. And that rang a bell. It was a repetition, and you went looking for the context. One of the other practices in the study is context. And we take a passage and we look at an increasing set of frames, that's what I call it in the study, around the passage. You look at, well, what happens immediately in front of and behind this? What happens in the section of the book? Where it is there context that's relevant in the whole book. And so what you just described to us is you observed a turn of phrase that you noticed and that maybe rang a bell from somewhere else, or that you had a sense was important, and so you noted it. That's an interesting phrase. And then you went looking for the context and you found it in what the study would say is the third frame. It was you went to the whole book and you said, Does John write glorify his name another place? In fact, he does. In fact, he does. I had a similar, um I had a similar interaction when Jesus bends down to write in the sand when he catches the woman in the act of adultery and they force her up and they want him to condemn her. And it says so. Something about him writing with his finger. I'm gonna mess this up a little bit because I don't have the scripture right in front of me. And here was my question Did God ever write anything else with his finger?

SPEAKER_00 22:13

Certainly.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Yes, he did. Yes, he did. And so when you go looking for, like I observed, what a weird thing, what a weird detail to mention. And I'm just telling you, Josh, these moments in scripture when I'll pause and go, when else did God write with his finger? When else did the phrase glorify God, glorify his name appear? This is the Holy Spirit. You can just assume it's the Holy Spirit. That's what I encourage everyone who's reading with me to do. When you notice something like that, just assume it's the Holy Spirit and go. Go figure it out. Go follow. And I'm it's been some of the most wonderful, faith-changing, word-enlightening moments that I've had because I'll just fast forward. The end of that story is it's always the Holy Spirit. He's always at work when you're in his word because he wants to reveal more to you. And so, like if you just approach it in that context, then it's almost an exciting um adventure. Is that a weird, cheesy word to use? It's almost like I can just assume we're gonna do a thing together, God. So when I notice something, I'm just gonna go more that more often than not, this is you. So it's like, I can't wait to see what you have for me today. This is gonna be fun. And I know almost no one who approaches scripture reading like that. I think what you just said is you're a nerd, you acknowledge that not everybody's gonna think that. Same, but I'd love it if I could influence you too.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

I would love it if I could convince you that it would be amazing, because it is more often than not.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Well, nerds like you and I, we we do podcasts and write books and that kind of thing to try to influence people to like, hey, listen, the grass is green over here in Nerdville. Come on over. The water's the water's fine. The water's fine. Um, yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

So those were two, you described a um a moment where I would even argue maybe a third practice was in play. It doesn't really matter as long as you, as long as you approach from a the you approach your reading from a standpoint of faith. I I don't care if you adopt this word or not, but um, I would almost argue that you were also very likely listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit, or you were hearing his voice as you were reading. So there's something about that phrase, glorify his name, that echoed for you. There was something, there was something about it. Sometimes that's way more overt. I wrote an article about um the third, here's a third practice. So we've got observation, we've got context. Another practice in the study is very simply listening, just just having enough faith to say maybe what's going on in my mind, in the world around me, in literally what I'm hearing, any of those things could also be a communication from the Holy Spirit. Um, so, and this is where people go, like, really, well, I would say, um, yeah, really, absolutely, really. I was, um, I wrote an article about this, happy to share it with you, and you can um link it in your show notes if you want to, but I wrote an article about when I was reading Acts 12 for a totally unrelated purpose, wasn't thinking about my personal life, my parenting, nothing like that. I was actually reading as a piece of research for something. And so I'm reading Acts 12, and um there's a prison scene, and anyway, I'm going through Acts 12, and I couldn't stop thinking about a situation with my daughter. And um, she was going through something, she needed some healing, and I was confused about how to help her. And the I was just reading Acts 12, trying to do my work, and I couldn't, I kept thinking about that situation. You could assume that's just me being distracted, but what if what if it's not? What if the thing that you can't get out of your mind is related to what you're reading? And so I've learned to at least ask God. Sometimes it is me being distracted. Cool, I can just move on. Sometimes it's not. And that particular day it was not. And I was reading Acts 12, and Peter is in prison, and I kept thinking about my daughter. And pretty soon, as I was, as I just honored that thought, maybe, maybe I'm hearing the spirit. Maybe he's the one that's echoing this situation with my daughter in my mind. And um, as I asked the question, almost as soon as I asked God the question, hey, does this have something to do with my daughter? He immediately, it was almost as though this clear view on the situation came to me through Acts 12. And what happens, just to shortcut it, and you can read the article, we could have fun discussing it some other time, um, is the angel that comes to break Peter out of prison, basically, is very direct, very um, get up, put on your cloak, follow me, brings the light into the cell with him, like is the light by which they escape. Very directive. And I had been taking an approach with my daughter in her situation that was sort of like more of a coach, more of let me help you, because she's older, you know. Like, I don't think of my job with my older kids as always to tell them exactly what to do. And so I had been taking a more coaching approach, and it was almost like in that moment with that situation through Acts 12, the Lord went the way out is direct commands. She can't see. You're the one that can see. Tell her, get up, take your cloak, follow me out. And um, it became this personal engagement with God, the His personal instruction to me as a parent, his correction of me as a parent. And I was reading the story of how the angel he sent to break Peter out of prison. How did he speak? How did he move? How did he behave? And because I asked God, am I hearing you? Is this somehow related to my daughter's situation? Um, it was only because I was listening that I got that understanding and I was able to adjust, I guess. And I wasn't totally sure. You know, I'd love to say, and therefore I knew on the spot it was all gonna work out. I I didn't. I just went, okay, Lord, I'm pretty certain this is you. And so the next time the issues surfaced, which was never long at that time, I handled it a completely different way. I was extremely direct, very decisive, very instructive. And she looked at me and got big tears in her eyes, and she was like, Thank you so much for doing that. That's exactly what I needed. And then she began to explain why she was so lost, why she couldn't figure out her way out of it. And it was almost like the Lord was giving me instructions that were highly personal, but they were only the words of Acts 12. That's exactly what they were. They were just the words of Acts 12. And I was like, oh, oh, so that's how this works. Got it.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

So here, let me let me ask a question, and that might take a second to frame. Um, first of all, I agree wholeheartedly that we can be reading the text of scripture, which is inspired by the Spirit, and the Spirit can minister to us in a way that might not be the direct meaning or the authorial intent of the text at that time, ministering to our situation. It doesn't necessarily change the meaning of the text, if that makes sense. Correct. In the same way that Ezekiel could be like laying on his side and God be like, What do you see? He's like, I see a pot tipped over and water pouring out. In the same way, this nation's gonna flood out of this pot, you know, that that pot or in the same way the water's flooding out of the pot, this nation will flood out and destroy this nation and do that thing. And uh it's like, cool, I'm using a natural thing. That natural thing is actually happening that way, but this is somehow spiritually going to be communicated in a symbolic way to me in my personal circumstance. In the same way that the scripture actually has a meaning, actually has a context, and then this is how it's like applying to me in my context. This is where I again I acknowledge that is a thing, it's happened to me, I believe it, I'm for it, I encourage people to do it. And yet, there are times where I get concerned when our personal reading. Here's an example. I grew up, and I told you this, Pentecostal church, where someone would look at the woman with the issue of blood and Jairus' daughter. They would come on the scene and they go, Look, these two women represent revival. That's what I feel like the Lord was telling me that they represent revival. One is twelve, she's not thirteen yet, she can't quite inherit the promise, she can't quite inherit, you know, uh, the wealth of her father because she's not quite adult in adulthood. This older woman, uh, she's older and she can't reproduce new life because she has this issue of blood. So this one represents not coming into a maturity, this one represents not being able to raise up the next generation, and this is a prophetic image of governance because of the twelve. So like you can even see that there's an attempt to like justify the hermeneutic interpretation because they're they're trying to see they see patterns, and and rightfully so, they see the patterns. Those are good observations, but some of the applications and conclusions because the spirit led them to that. I go, man, no one in all of my light just went out. No one in all of church history has ever read that text that way. And that might be what God is communicating to you, but that's not necessarily what it means for all people everywhere. And I want to be careful. I also want to be careful to say, like, some people have had some real grandiose visions of revival in like self-enggrandizement because this is what God told them in the midst of reading scripture. So I even want to be careful with that, and you have a good check and balance with testing that in community. Could you like rein that back in so that we can kind of like make sense of how to do this in a careful way?

SPEAKER_01 32:43

Absolutely. So I would argue that some of what you just said, at least in how you characterize it there, I think you probably did a good job of representing like what some people do or say about texts, is I would argue that most of the time when that happens, the observations are going beyond what is in the text. Um, so not just with how they're applying to me, but they're actually seeing things that you could not justify in the text. My understanding of it was personal, but everything that I wrote down as an observation of Acts 12 came from Acts 12. It was not me saying, you know what I think this angel represents? I think this angel represents a great awakening that's gonna take place. What no? Was that is that in the text? You know, for me, the first thing is to question where are the observations of the text that that came from. So in my particular case, the only thing that I took from what I just described you was observations of what the angel did and said. It wasn't making something up that was outside of the text. It was saying the angel behaved instructively and gave a command. When the angel showed up, light showed up. The angel did not ask for coaching, right? Like I was just making observations of the behavior that was in the text. So the first thing I would say is I get very squeamish when people start telling me that something means something that I can't actually see in the text. And the second thing is what you brought up, um, which is the historical reading of the text as far back as you can possibly trace it into church history. Um, there are great, great understandings of most texts over most parts of history. And I would say the vast majority of the time that someone drastically departs from the true meaning of a text is turns out to be either heretical or nearly so. And I give a lot of weight to how has this text historically been interpreted by the church in multiple traditions over many different time periods, and you can usually see what ballpark are we in here, and when are you just way outside of that, right? That to me is very different than a personal application where the Holy Spirit is giving me instruction from the actual meaning of a text.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

That's good.

SPEAKER_01 35:41

And so I'm still driving for what does the text say and what does it actually mean? And then I'm open to testing, again, testing a personal application of that. And I do try to question those personal applications either by doing it and seeing what happens, or by revealing it to somebody who can say, No, you're you're kind of you're kind of off your rocker there. Like I think you sort of made that up. Because where, especially where we are emotionally charged about something, we should just have a healthy suspicion of how we read. Because we're off sometimes. We we are. It's pretty dangerous to assume that all of your own interpretations of the Bible are correct. They are not. I think we can all just safely humbly say they are not. Um, so I think you're pushed toward um historical interpretation of the church, especially when you're outside of one tradition and you're in a lot of traditions um that have all seen and interpreted a text the same way. I think you're the more that's true for the longer in history, the more solid I think you're you're standing.

SPEAKER_00 36:54

I like what you said.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

I really just want to be open to Lord, you can reach me however you want to, but I'm not gonna thrust that personal application on you, Josh. Like I'm not. And I'm not gonna stand on a stage and say, that's the only way that you should interpret this text. That's exactly what this means. I just believe the Holy Spirit can use the real meaning of a text to reach me, and I'm gonna try to listen if he does.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

No, I I think what I really liked about what you're saying there is it's not a it's it's not a when I'm my listening process, my how this thing is going affecting me, it's really in the application space, it's not in the interpretation space. And I think that is really healthy. Like even in a sermon, you know, um, someone, hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna teach on the woman at the well, okay? This is what the text says, this is what the text means, okay? Now, here are some application points. Some application points can be look, how she knew him uh as a man, a Jewish man, and then she saw that perceived that he was a prophet, and look, he saw that he was a messiah. Well, maybe my application point is like, look, you don't have to seal the deal and have someone convert the first time you talk to him. You can you know you can see walking through this level of progression. Uh you can uh talk about going to the disenfranchised, right? You can talk like the application point of that reading, it can still have its same meaning, but then how do we apply it is is can be personal. And I I think that's really helpful. Let me let me toss another example at you and see if we can get the community piece integrated into this for our even our own life application. You know, there was a uh a couple I knew back in the day. Um we were they were reading the Bible, they came to a meeting and they said, Hey, we're we're gonna move to you know uh this small town in Oklahoma. We were all living in Texas at the time. I happen to be living in a small town in Oklahoma now, but that's neither here nor there. Uh she was like, uh She was like, hey, I read this passage, and it was during this season that this group crossed over the Red Sea, and as I was praying, looking at the text, I really felt like the Lord was telling me, I've got to cross over the Red River, as it were, and we've got to move out of this place into another place. Now, if I'm gonna be honest with you, there was some personal concern I had at the at the time, I was in my real early twenties. Um I was uh very careful in telling people like, oh no, that wasn't God, you know, or even oh, let's just think about this and pray about it. Let's let's wait for confirmation. Like I I had no pastoral skill to coach, right? Like I had no nothing. And what ended up happening is that they moved, they they got themselves into some financial hardship. There was some real question on whether God had actually led them to do that. And all the while I was over here going, Man, I suspected that was the case. And I don't know if that was maybe it was. Sometimes God calls us to suffer and like do hard things. Like I'm not saying that's not on the table. But I think there's something to be said about testing and weighing those sorts of things in community for the sake of health and and care. Because if someone just opens a Bible verse and says move and you decide, okay, I have to go move to Papua New Guinea, it's like I think you should probably test and weigh that with some some wise friends that are close to you. Um yeah, your thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

I could not agree more. I have had people say some crazy stuff to me about them or about me. Like, this is what the Lord says to you. And I'm like, maybe we'll see. You know, and I think it is a balance because again, it comes back to I don't know why the Lord it made sure that I had this kind of experience with him early on, but he did. And so I maintain this there is this pure childlike thing where I'm like, I'm willing to consider it. I'm I'm just open enough. I have just enough in me that's like sometimes the Lord does throw you a curveball, you know? I'm I'm here for it. I'm willing to, I'm willing to at least consider the possibility, right? But in that particular case, man, they're they're pulling a text. I would say the heart of what they heard was theoretically happening, you know, like they're crossing over something, fair observation. The Lord said go, so they went. You know what? I mean, you know, there's some basic things that are right there, but they they went pretty deep into a very specific personal application immediately. And I agree with you, to me, that's that is the time where um I think the Lord's okay if we go, all right, I have a healthy suspicion of myself and others that just want to jump to an immediate personal reading of this. Um, not saying you couldn't be saying that, Lord, but we're gonna need to hear this other ways, more times, keep confirming it. And here's some here's some things I will do. Um, again, um, not because I think the Lord always does any of these things, but because I believe he could. And so I just feel free to ask him. Um, I'll say, Lord, would you confirm this word um through the scriptures in another way? Would you say this again another way? Would you could you send me somebody that had a has a dream about this particular thing? Would you confirm this through a message um that I'm gonna receive, you know, from a trusted source in the next, you know, in the coming while. And Lord, as I pray, would you just set my heart at peace about this and get a handful of people that are praying with me about something? And the last thing I often do is I will say to the Lord myself, I rarely do what you just described, by the way. That to me does seem it sends off a lot a lot of red flags for me. But um I will say to the Lord, I believe so deeply that this is you, but I am gonna, I'm gonna go out here and I'm gonna say, six months from now, I'm asking you for confirmation. I'm asking that you would do these things. And if I still feel this level of conviction in this period of time, then I'm gonna move. You have plenty of time, plenty of ways to get to me before then, or to change my heart before then. And if you don't, I'm gonna go. And um I don't know, there's a there's something about that that feels relational to me. Um in a really good way that gives the Lord the opportunity to intervene when we make mistakes with his word. Because we make mistakes with his word. I don't want to. I'm sure you don't want to either. Like I said, I want to know all the things and I want to know them exactly right. But my goodness, how arrogant would I be to assume that I always get it right. So that's when the others and the other methods of confirmation and the other Jesus lovers in my life become very, very important.

SPEAKER_00 44:40

Yeah. No, that's great. Um, I I think um all those processes are really helpful in in testing and weighing and discerning the things that God is speaking to us. Um there's Yeah. I I think I could talk about this too for too long, you know, hanging out in the charismatic space, you know, believing and practicing prophecy and all that stuff. I I think that this is an area where every Christian doesn't want to necessarily tell another Christian, hey, what you got was wrong. Um but all because they don't actually want to be steering someone like maybe they're wrong. Like maybe maybe in fact God was saying that, and now you've told some counseled someone against the Lord. Um but I'm really comforted by the fact that God doesn't just expect Israel to follow Moses. He like gives them signs, and then they go, Oh, okay, yeah, this is reasonable. And then after they get out of Egypt, after the deliverance, which was the plan, then Moses starts to light like a Christmas tree, and they're like, Okay, you're definitely still speaking on behalf of God because no one else can do that glowing thing you do. So I think that that's really important that like these didn't like happen in a vacuum. And I think if you think God is leading you and guiding you, don't expect that there's just gonna be like one you know, one hyper vague experience when you're reading a Bible and think, well, then I'm just gonna jump on it. Because there is another text of scripture where someone thought they were obeying the Lord when a false prophet came and told them, Hey, come back with me, and uh goes back and eats this guy's house, and he's mauled by a lion. So, like you know, there's there's some.

SPEAKER_01 46:14

I mean, listen, I just had this conversation with someone the other day because they said the following thing to me. Well, he's clearly the leader that God has anointed, so that that must be the right thing to do. And I said, have have you read the Bible where God's anointed leaders do stupid things and sinful things all the time? Like no.

SPEAKER_00 46:48

It may be harder to find times when they do the right thing. Like it actually statistically would be harder to find the right things.

SPEAKER_01 46:55

So even if I accepted your premise of this person that you're referring to is an anointed leader of the thing that you're talking about, let's just say I agree with that. That that doesn't that doesn't mean that he is right in all he does. I I can't I can't fathom many examples in scripture where that's the behavior that we see out of someone all the time. So that's sort of that's one of the beautiful things that happens when you begin to read scripture over and over and over, and you just expose yourself to good observation, good context, good practices. Because when I first started reading the Bible, I know how silly this sounds, Josh. This was um many, many years ago when it was like when I first picked up my Bible and I was like, I think I should read this thing. You know, it was like in that era where I was like, I think I'm pretty serious.

SPEAKER_00 47:50

You know? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 47:52

And I would read like about all the kings, you know, what a bunch of scoundrels for the most part. And I would be confused because I genuinely thought when I read the Bible, I'm gonna find these great examples for my life. And instead, that's not at all what I found. And it actually pushed me. The confusing and disorienting thing that happened to me as a result of that actually pushed me to go and understand the Bible. Because I was like, hold on, I thought this thing was supposed to help me. These guys are really messed up and they're doing a lot of bad stuff all the time. What? And it actually helped me to go and figure out how am I supposed to read this thing? If God's anointed leaders, for instance, are always doing really stupid, sinful things, how am I supposed to understand that? And even that confusion and disorientation pushed me to go read the Bible the right way. Because I I think I thought all those years ago, I'm just gonna find helpful things here. And instead, I found this book with all this stuff that was like, what is all this, Lord? And that's what kind of started me on the journey of how do I read this and understand it well and actually use it in my life? And I don't want to sacrifice either one of those because I think you want me to have them both. So could can we get there? Is that possible? Um and we didn't talk about yet one of the other practices that I love that is in the study, and that's prayer. Um I do not feel like if a prayer is a thing, I'm not a great one. I try to be. I admire people who love to pray all the time and pray extensively without ceasing, if you will. I've just always felt like maybe I missed something along the way, Lord. Um, I'm not great at this. It's just something I I constantly feel like I have to relearn. And when I got a hold of praying directly from the words of scripture, my whole prayer life changed. The way that I talked to God changed, the um the way that I prayed for other people changed, the things that are important to me in prayer changed. And when I learned how to take what I was reading in scripture and apply that to the way that I pray, it was probably one of the best things that's ever happened to me. Because I started off in that place of like, do I just talk to you? Do you really want to hear me babble all the time? Do I adopt these very rote religious sounding prayers? And what is this all supposed to look like? And when I when I allowed the words of scripture to guide my prayer life, it might be my favorite way to pray. And I think there's lots of wonderful ways to pray. And I admire all you people who love them and are great at all of them. But this practice that we do in the study, I just love it because as a, I don't know, some kind of prayer flunky, it trained me on how I'm supposed to pray and what's important to God and what I can ask him for, and what I can focus on when I pray for the people that I love that I just want the best for? It's all of those things. So we go through in the study. How do you take a passage, whatever you're reading, for whatever purpose? Maybe you're just on your reading plan, and then you want to pray for some people. How could you possibly let what you're reading in the Bible translate into what you're praying for the people and the places and the things in your life? It's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 52:20

Okay, what if we walk through the whole process and we do the observation, listening, orientation, context, prayer, action? We do all we do all the various steps that are necessary to understand a text, read a text. What if we still get it? Because, like, again, you you said, hey, I'm a Bible nerd, I want to know everything, and sometimes I just don't. Like, what happens when you stumble across that weird passage in Exodus where an angel comes to kill Moses, so Zephora has to circumcise him, you know, and it's like uh what? Uh like what happens like when we hit the talking donkey, you know, yeah in numbers, or I'm trying to think of some of the the the the more wacky ones that uh you know anyway. Um I'm curious, what do we do with some of those? And then I I do have a question if we still have time, where I'll ask a question on like where a good commentary comes in, because I there have been some really fascinating connections for me that like I never would have seen. And and I I still had that like that same exciting Holy Spirit like scavenger hunt that you're describing, which is like, ooh, this is cool. Oh, I think this is it, you know. Like, and and and drip drilling into Ambrose because one commentary mentioned it as a passing, you know, and I'm just like, wait, what did Ambrose say? And you have to go look it up, and you're like, oh, that's cool. Uh okay, so uh let's start with the the first one. What do we do with all the weird passages that like we went through the process and like still scratching our head?

SPEAKER_01 53:45

Um, yeah, I'll just I'll tell you what I do. I certainly have been in that space, and um yeah, I have I have those moments myself. I thrust them back to God. I don't feel any need to satisfy myself on every random Tuesday when I read the Bible. Um, what do I mean by that? I know I if I operate from a point of Lord, I am trying to understand this. I am trying to believe you, and I just don't believe the donkey talked. You know, I mean if that let's just say that's what you end up thinking, you know. Or I just can't understand this vision and I don't have the first clue what it means. And frankly, I'm a little mad it's here because I think you knew this doesn't make any sense, you know. I I talk to God like that and I just leave it. I I leave it with him and I say things to him like, you've bothered me with this. I want to understand this. I don't, or I'm struggling to believe it, and I need you to come get me. I I'm lost in this, I don't yet believe this, Lord. I'm struggling to get this, I'm struggling to care. I I I have said I've gotten to the end of like a thing in the Bible, and I've gone like, I don't care. I want to care, but the truth is, what? I don't care about this. Why am I reading this right now? You know, and I I give him what what I can, and then I just leave it with him and Josh, no kidding, he's so good, he's so interesting and so personal that I've had instances where a year later or three years later the understanding will come. Something will happen. He'll he'll take me to a place, he'll unlock an understanding, he'll cause me to read a book, he'll help me cross paths with somebody who gets gets it when I don't, you know, he'll literally send me the missing piece. And when that happens, you can't unsee how personal that is. But the only way you ever get those experiences with the Lord is if you're willing to go, okay, I did all I could to believe you here, God. I did all I could to understand this here, Lord. And I'm just gonna tell you the truth. I don't get it, and I'm not sure I believe it yet. And I'm just gonna leave it there until you come get me and you explain it, or you convince me, or you help me go further. And I'm actually kind of comfortable with the idea that it's okay to just let it be. Give him time to address that. This is not a fast food kind of thing. Um, I had a seminary professor that said we're shaped like a two-liter bottle. Like we can only handle a few drips in at once. If you turn on the faucet too hard, it just splatters out and nothing goes in. Um instead, uh it is really amazing how many times he will come back and actually answer. But you gotta just let it go. Is that is that a cop out? Does that sound crazy?

SPEAKER_00 57:38

No, no. I I think um part of, and here I'm gonna I'm gonna sound rather maybe reformed right now, and I'm not, but I'll just pretend I will be for a second. You have to you have to acknowledge our creator creation distinction and go, I am just a pot in this situation. Um you're the potter, and you can craft me, inform me, and shape me, and give me the answer, and I'm gonna just lean and trust on you and right, not even in my lack of understanding, I'm gonna acknowledge you and go, okay, trust in you to kind of lead me through this. And I think that that kind of regular process, um, that kind of relinquishing of sovereignty, um, is the humility that God says makes one wise. So, like, I would say that that is a great prerequisite for study. I I I would suggest, you know, you mentioned even in there, like, what about you know, you you said, I'll go read this book or talk to that person. So there is something to be said about the spirit speaking through the congregation in the church, and and and one area that I have an allergy for um is that just me and the Holy Spirit kind of way of reading my Bible and recognizing that like actually the Holy Spirit has been speaking to his church for a really long time. For a long time. We have some really great opportunities to read what people heard the spirit say, you know, in the first century, second century, and the twenty-first century, and we have really, really great resources to help me make sense of texts. You know, uh there I've always grown up hearing that um John the Baptist goes, I'm not worthy to untie Jesus' sandal, and that is entirely about uh the footwashing stuff that we see later on in the gospels, and like you know, the lowest person on the totem pole was the one who's supposed to wash everybody's feet. Um but I was like, there's no foot washing reference here, it just says untie his sandal. And and I was reading my commentaries, and one of my commentaries just mentioned Ambrose thinking this had to do with Leverett marriage laws, and I was like, what? And I had to go read Ambrose, and I think he maybe Gregory the Great mentioned it too. Anyway, there's this whole conversation about Deuteronomy in the book of Ruth, where if someone gets divorced, they're allowed to come in, take this and if the brother chooses not to remarry the wife after her husband has died, not a divorce, but her husband dies, so the marriage is annulled. Leverett marriage says that she passed on to the next brother. Next brother says, I don't want to marry you. She takes his sandal off and spits it in his face in this public shaming ceremony, which is wild. Um but then there's this passage in Ruth where Ruth redeems uh his his uh I don't know it's not his wife at the time, but he he redeems Ruth, um, and but he has to go to Ruth's cousin or her husband's cousin and go like, Hey, I want to redeem Ruth. He's like, Yeah, sure. And he takes off his sandal. And I think what what this church father was saying is that like John the Baptist was saying, I'm not worthy to be the bridegroom. I'm not worthy to redeem the bride. And that comes in the context right before the wedding of Canaan, and then right after the wedding of Canaan, John the Baptist says, like, I rejoice with the bridegroom. And it's like, man, I think he's right. I think all of our like modern guys are like, we're just wrong with the footwashing thing. I think this is totally John the Baptist saying, I'm not the bridegroom and I'm not worthy to be the bridegroom. Yes. And I tell you, that was as exciting to me as you know, like reading this passage in in John chapter 12 and John chapter 11, going, whoa, look at the spirit. Like, this is cool. Uh well, it's interesting. So tell me about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:50

In the study, uh, in no way do I encourage people to ignore resources. I actually list them out. Like when you're in search of context, if you're asking this kind of question, these are great resources to go and read as a pursuit of the answer to that question. So I I just couldn't agree with you more. I'm not, I in, I think we need to read widely. I think that for me, the danger and the thing that I do not like is when somebody inserts themselves into the role of the Holy Spirit. We you don't need to follow the spirit or the leadership of the spirit. You just need, um, you know, you just need to read this one church father and everything that he says fill in the blank, and that's that's it. That's you've got your answer. I'm not, I'm, I don't, I don't think that. No, not a modern person who was great at Bible study, nor anyone else in the past who was great at Bible study. But in in spirit-led Bible study, as we look at context, there are questions we ask. And you can even tell, like, what resources might you need based on the question you're forming. What in in the study we um we go through asking good questions usually puts you on the trail of certain kinds of resources you need to answer that. Um, you don't know what you don't know. I mean, and there are lots of wonderful people that the Lord has spoken very clearly to over time who have recorded that for us. Why would we not take that wisdom? Of course. But I'm not going to read one thing and go, well, that's it. I'm going to read that in the context of where what was what were we talking about, Lord? Why was I in this passage? Where were you leading me? And I'm going to put the context around that of great Bible study, great commentary, church history. I think I don't think those two things pull as opposite as we think that they do. Um, and I 100% agree with you. I one of I delight in going back to read perspectives, but I would argue that um, did you say Ambrose? His his um epiphany, his understanding of that passage probably came from a great observation of where else in the scriptures are sandals? Where else does the Lord give instruction about untying a sandal? I mean, that that would lead you to an investigation where you would get to some of those same passages. And I'm just saying, Ambrose did it. We can read his perspective and honor it. And I think the Holy Spirit could probably lead you on that if he wanted to, or he can lead you to Ambrose, and that's fine too, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:44

No, that's great. That's great. Okay, we are definitely at time. I've kept you, I know we could keep talking uh more and more about this subject because it's a fun one. I think we all want to approach the text of scripture with humility. I think we all want to approach the text of scripture as it is, which is living and active, being dependent on the spirit to lead us and to guide us, uh, while simultaneously using really good tools um to help us think critically. And I love, I mean, every when when we read with this kind of assumption, I like the thing that you said in this last piece, I don't want to give some commentary to, uh, which is like I don't want to read one guy and just assume he has every answer. Because I think what you'll end up doing, even if this is a super righteous, humble, god-loving, god-fearing person, um, that individual, if you take their their word for it, and it they actually interpret the scriptures wrong, you're gonna fall into the same kind of error that like the Pharisees did, nullifying the word of God because of the traditions of men. You're gonna see a specific thing from this person, and I think rather what we should do, and this is kind of what we see throughout the body of Christ, is like be dependent on the one and others, and and just broaden your scope from single cult figure, idol, to larger uh kind of okay, what is the body saying? What is the spirit saying to the church and making sense of that? Um, those are always been helpful guardrails for me and my study. And I'm I'm thankful that you've been able to come on and chat about this. Where do people find your book? I know I know we can get it on Amazon, but like uh where would you most recommend people to connect with you?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:12

Uh you can you can go to my website, it's allypatterson.com. You can certainly find more info about it and the other books I've written that are there as well. If you want to get the Bible study wherever you like to buy Bible studies, it will be there, um, including Amazon, of course, because everything's on Amazon, right? And you might even find it inside your Walmart and your Meyer who picked it up. So there might even be some copies in your local, your local Walmart or Meyer. We'll see.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:38

Super cool. Super cool. Hey, thank you so much for coming on. Um, it was great conversation. I'd love to have you back on in the future. Uh, for those of you who are watching, first time, subscribe to the channel. There's a link in that description for I guess the article that you said that you wrote. Maybe it's a blog, something like that. Yeah. In the link of the description if you want to go check that out. Uh and guys, thank you so much for tuning in. We'll see you next time. Allie, thanks for coming on.