No Sanity Required
No Sanity Required is a weekly podcast hosted by Brody Holloway and Snowbird Outfitters. Each week, we engage culture and personal stories with a Gospel-driven perspective. Our mission is to equip the Church to pierce the darkness with the light of Christ by sharing the vision, ideas, and passions God has used to carry us through 26 years of student ministry. Find more content at swoutfitters.com.
No Sanity Required
Unpacking What it Looks Like to Abide in God's Word Pt. 2
Brody and Rob Conti continue their conversation about what it really means to abide in God’s Word. Rob shares why it's important to understand the full context of Scripture before diving into individual verses, and why we shouldn’t rush to commentaries. The goal isn’t just to get answers but to spend time with God and let His Word change us.
Rob also talks about practical tools for studying the Bible and encourages us to be mindful of our biases when reading. Ultimately, Scripture is meant to shape us, not the other way around.
Bullet Points from Rob's notes:
- Pray for Understanding: Ask God for wisdom and obedience.
- Read and Reread: Understand what the Bible says, means, and how it applies.
- Know the Context: Consider the background and literary style of the passage.
- Ask Questions: Who, what, where, why, when? Dig deeper.
- Use Tools: Check study Bibles, commentaries, and different translations.
- Avoid Bias: Don’t let personal views twist the meaning.
- Understand the Genre: Know if it’s a story or teaching.
- Look for Themes: Focus on key ideas like faith, redemption, or God’s character.
- Apply It: See how it speaks to your life—commands, promises, or warnings.
- Focus on Jesus: Every passage points to His redemptive work.
- Seek Help: Ask pastors or trusted believers for clarity.
- Reflect and Apply: Meditate on what you’ve learned and share it.
Unpacking What it Looks Like to Abide in God's Word
College Retreat Sessions
Teaching Slides Link
Breakout Notes Link
Christ-Centered Exposition Books
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Click here to get our Colossians Bible study.
Well, we're going to roll right into part two. If you sat through the last episode, then we're going to pick up right where we left off. Literally, we're doing all of this recording in the same day, so that way there's cohesive thought. But if you're listening to this and you didn't hear the previous episode, you don't have to go back and listen to that now. But I think you'd want to at some point. But we'll just pick right up.
Speaker 1:We're talking about the effectiveness of studying the scripture, different ideas and approaches to how you might do that, how critical it is. Not just effective, but it's critical for life and godliness and, I think, for spiritual health, but also for mental and emotional health for a believer. And so we're with Rob. We've got Rob here walking us through the main points and ideas from the breakout session that he taught at a recent college event at SWO. We had hundreds of college students here, I think with our people all total, we were pushing 600, and then the weather messed us up and I think we ended up in the low fours in-house. So there's a lot of college folks with a lot of potential impact on the world 500 eyewitnesses to Jesus.
Speaker 1:1 Corinthians 15 tells us we had that many people under roof hearing about the effectiveness and the critical nature for the believer of studying the scripture, and so, um, yeah, so we'll pick up where we left off. We do have, um, rob's outlines and notes are available to you in the show notes. So I would even say follow along, because this is laid out, um, where it's real easy to follow what we're talking about, and take your own notes.
Speaker 2:So let's just pick up where we left off yeah, yeah, under, just when you're at the stage just reading the scripture and reading it like over and over. So you know, with a like a book like philippians or new testament book, it's just easy to read in one sitting and that's. I'll do that. You know, maybe when I'm approaching a deeper study of that book, you know, maybe the first week or two I really just listen and I'm allowing, you know, seeing those main themes of that book to kind of rise to the surface. Really helpful for seeing again, especially in epistles. But with the gospels and with narrative, like cause, there's things that get revealed at the end, whether a statement being made, like in John's gospel, that you know these things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the son of God. Well, that helps you understand, like why he told certain stories and didn't tell others, or why he told stories in a certain way, not that he's changing what happened, but he's emphasizing aspects of the stories, or the, the, what Jesus said to that end. That's his purpose for writing his gospel and and so it's, you know, helpful to get the whole picture before you try to do any kind of deep dive, cause you know you can. What's the saying Like, miss the forest for the tree. You know it's kind of the opposite, um, but so it's just helpful.
Speaker 2:And what I found personally in doing that is, uh, just kind of a almost on accident I'll memorize scripture. Because, uh, and I don't know, people are wired differently. I still fight to like memorize scripture just like I'm going to take this verse and go over it a bunch. I typically struggle with that more than when I understand the context around a verse. It sticks in my brain better. So when I'm just reading I end up realizing that I'm memorizing it Like I can, you know, share with somebody what I'm learning and that verse will come out because I just know the flow of the passage. So other people talk about that. It's not unique to me. I think it's just a really good way to memorize scripture. But yeah, so you start to see those themes, and I think about Romans is a good example.
Speaker 2:Just, you realize like, okay, paul lays out like his thesis in chapter one when he says for I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it's the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first, but also for the Greek, for in it it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith. Then he says for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, you know. And so it becomes like what he just said. What you realize is, you know that 16 through 18, the next six chapters, is really unpacking the doctrine of that statement. Well, that's really helpful.
Speaker 2:But he kind of does it in reverse order. He shows the wrath and the judgment coming down and the reason why, and then he works into how we're justified by faith and gives examples. And then the next half of the letter is like okay, here's what you do with it, the exhortation part. So it's just helpful to see that because again, it helps you from taking a passage out of context. You just start to see the whole picture, do you find?
Speaker 1:that as a Bible teacher because you're not just a preacher and you also teach Bible as part of your job at the college level, and so you've got a different handle on the scripture than most people have you could say you're a professional. So that's why I think it matters for people to listen to someone like you, because this is not just a calling that God's given you, but it's something he's gifted you to be able to communicate. And would you say that when, especially with those letters, you're talking about Paul's letters, peter's letters, you know the universal church letters like Peter and James or Peter and Jude, I guess? James was written to the Jews that were scattered throughout the Roman Empire, so there was a target audience there. Maybe there's more specific.
Speaker 1:I've always heard, and I think I've even said most books are what you just described, described the, the doctrine, and the, the doctrine and maybe the uh indicatives, which are the statements of fact. The things that are that we're told are true, typically lead off and then are followed by the application, the exhort or the imperatives or commands. Is that pretty normal? I mean, is that the way most of those New Testament books flow?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I believe so. It seems like that's how they're designed, and I wonder, too, how much people make an argument for Romans being written as a sermon, an hour-long sermon.
Speaker 2:Um, so there's a separate conversation but uh uh, and, and the, the writer of Hebrews, specifically calls his letter a word of exhortation. Um, and so, yeah, I believe it's designed to be read aloud in the church during the sermon time and then from there, you know, it seems so, it seems to follow that same pattern of read. It give the meaning and then the application is like they're following that pattern. But yeah, it seems to me that that's how the epistles are designed for the most part, and with that, when you so, when you're preaching, you might be preaching.
Speaker 1:Let's say, let's go back to we're in the middle of winter, swole, and right now we're we're preaching Philippians, um, your, your text for that is a Philippians four, four through eight.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Is that what you're preaching?
Speaker 2:Yeah, rejoice.
Speaker 1:About rejoicing. But you can also probably take that and apply it to. If you're like on the first night of winter, swole that first night I preach a lot of chapter one. I can take that message and probably I could probably stay just in the book of Philippians with all my supporting application from chapters two, three and four. You can that each one of those volumes. If you approach to read and study of a new testament letter, just know you're.
Speaker 1:You're possessing in your hand an entire work of doctrine and theology and application, just with jude right, which is one page philippians, which is four chapters um, and that's why you can devote so much time to meditate and study in one passage yeah, which you know.
Speaker 2:It's one of the things that in my outline, where you know you're seeing where something stands in relationship to the immediate context, you know and you could just, you know the, the paragraph before, the paragraph after, after, but then in the book of the Bible, like that it's in, you're seeing where it stands in relationship to it, but then you're looking at, okay, like the entire Bible, the entire story of redemption, and so it's.
Speaker 2:You know, in a sense, like any passage could lead you to any other point in the Bible. You know which folks have gone through and done the hard work of the cross references and that's one way you end up bouncing around and it helps. You know, like, uh, fill out your theology when you do that and you see how things tie together and you know just becomes more robust. But but yeah, like, yeah, you can spend so much time and and I think man has so much freedom to do that at your own pace and and not feel like you get bogged down. But you know, not beat yourself up, because all all I got out of that was, you know, a simple application, like, okay, great, okay, great, keep at it yeah that's good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one thing I like to do there at this point and I say this and when I sit down to study, it's not always all these things and it's not always in these orders, but it's just a general practice. But I love to read. I'm not a Greek student. I can't read. If you gave me a Greek New Testament, like I'm done, I read in English. I started taking Greek in college and I switched it. I dropped out of it college and and I, I switched it. Uh, I dropped out of it. Um, you know, not proud of that it was. You know, sometimes I've questioned, you know man, you know I was overwhelmed that semester and I was like, ah, I'm going to revisit Greek and I just never did Um, and so in some ways I'm handicapped there compared to other guys. But uh, the good news is we live in a time when we have so many tools and we have really good English translations. They're good, we've got a bunch of really good ones to choose from. And so one of the ways that I guess I would say I make up for not knowing the original languages is I will just read multiple translations, because the reason why there's difference and there's, you know, nuance to how the translators or the yeah, the translators came up with those versions is because there's a range of meaning for those words, and so if I read, you know three or four different translations, usually I see where I need to give more attention. Like, okay, they use this word here and they use they translated it this way here. For me that's just like an indicator of revisit this If I want to dive deeper. Like, okay, why? Like is this word you could take it to mean this way and this word you could take to mean this way. And here's where maybe they intersect. So I just love reading the different translations because it shows me those markers of hey, come back to this, make a note of this, come back, check it out. Or, you know, maybe I'll go to a Greek tool like Blue Letter Bible, click on the Strongs and look at what the Greek definition is and I try to be careful there because with my zero knowledge of Greek, I do better if I look at okay, what's just the definition for this word in Greek? What's the definition for this word in English? But then allow the context of the passage to really determine for me what's the best translation of this. Why did the ESV say this when the NLT said this, and they have different goals, specifically those two, but maybe more the ESV and the New American Standard or the CSB, and that just helps me in my study. And again, it's a process of praying and asking the Lord to teach me and spending time with the Lord and it's just fun.
Speaker 2:I love the Amplified version. If you've never checked that out, I encourage you to. It's not a paraphrase. What Amplified does is when it comes up to certain Greek words that are important for understanding that passage, it'll put it in parentheses and give you like the range of that word, or it'll like, where one word doesn't suffice, it'll give you like a phrase to understand what in English came out as just like propitiation and it'll give you like a fuller meaning. So it's a. It's like you're doing all that all at once with the Amplified. So I don't teach from it. It's not my primary version. I go.
Speaker 1:Hearing you explain that and then talking about like in the Amplified, using propitiation, the word that I always that, different translations of doing what you're saying, using different translations. The word that I've been helped with, that is the word it would be pronounced, I believe, teleos, and it's the root word of the reason I learned that is because when Jesus says tetelestai, it's the root word of telestai, it means it is finished, and you see that word show up and be translated differently in different passages and in different translations. For instance, in Romans 10.4, it says Christ is the end of the law. To everyone who believes End, it is finished. So if you take that same word in Romans 10.4, it's like Christ is the finished, completed, end of the law. He's brought it to a completion, he's finished it.
Speaker 1:Gal. Galatians, chapter 5, 16 says so. I say um walk by the spirit or live by the spirit, and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. Carry out is the same word, right. It means end or fulfilled or completed. So you can take a word and see different, a different way that that might be framed in the English language, but it it enriches the meaning, just without leaving the English Right. So if I go, galatians five, 16,. If I go, walk by the spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh and I apply that to, and I use the other translations of that word walk by the spirit and you will not complete and bring to fulfillment and bring to its finished work the desires of the flesh, um, if you're walking by the spirit and it just brings us alive that's a word that I, I think one I wrote down.
Speaker 1:There's five different words used for that Gratify, carry out, fulfill, perfect, complete, end. Six words. Yeah, that all in the English would have a little bit of a different meaning, right, but that, come a man, it just brings it alive. That's without touching the Greek, right? I was looking at five different translations, six different translations. So, yeah, I like that. I appreciate that. You shared that with me years ago and it's been very helpful for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, then at other times you go I remember I can't remember what the word was, and I think I was, you know it's when I first moved to Andrews, and so you know, I'd finished my undergrad, I was halfway through seminary, you know, which was awesome, so thankful for. But a lot of things that I felt like still were like didn't necessarily prepare me for maybe if I had kept in Greek. But I remember coming to you and I was like just really wanting to like I think I was, I was feeling what. I was, encouraging people not to feel like, like to take it as deep as possible every morning. And I came to you on on a word I think it was maybe abide, you know, or it was something. So, where I was like I'm just, you know, I'm stuck right here and I just why how's he using it here this way? And you're like it just means to like live, like you know, it was so simple. And you're like what do you mean? You hung up on it and it was so good for me because I was like yeah, I'm, you know, I'm zooming in, so close I'm, you know, the picture's now blurry.
Speaker 2:So it's this balance and a flow that you get into in the text and you're absolutely going to miss things. You just are, and that's a good thing, because if you live long enough, you'll come back to this book and read it again. And that's where people say the Lord's always given me something new, and it's not because it's like a spell book. That's where people say, man, the Lord's always giving me something new, and it's not because it's like a spell book that's changing. Sorry, we watched Harry Potter recently. But it's because, like the depth of it, it's the, you know, the word of God, it's the mind of God, it's the person of Christ and on paper, with letters, like, you're not going to plumb the depth of it. You know, no matter how deep you try to go. So you're always going to get more when you come back. So, yeah, just being being flexible and asking the Lord to teach you what he wants you to get, yeah, so typically at this point, like I, I try to be balanced with it, but I really we've got so many good tools and we kind of talked about this a little bit, with even the devotional aspect, but we've got the ESV.
Speaker 2:Study Bible is an incredible tool that you can put in your kid's hands. The NIV has a good study Bible. There's a lot of good ones. Those are the ones I'm more familiar with. The Nelson study Bible I had for a while was great. And then there's commentaries, and there's different levels of commentaries. There's ones that are, you know, designed more for like a small group study, and then different levels all the way up to.
Speaker 2:They're basically written in Greek and Hebrew and Latin and you know like you need to be a scholar to use them. There's everything in between and those are good and we should use them, and I'll come back to why. But I personally I really try to fight against going to those early in my study. I really try to put that off as long as I can because, again, the goal is not to just have an answer, it's not just to have just an understanding. The goal is to spend time with Christ and to be sanctified by it, by the Word, and so if I'm constantly depending on somebody else to just tell me what it means, I'm robbing myself of that time spent with the Lord and time spent learning to hear from the Holy Spirit, who is the author of scripture, who lives in us. I don't want to jump over that I don't want to ignore it, because here's where I think you know we should use those tools and not necessarily all of them.
Speaker 2:But you know, in Ephesians we're told that man God gave the church, you know, apostles and pastors and preachers and teachers for the building up and the edifying of the church, so that we're not tossed around by every wind of doctrine building up in the edifying of the church, so that we're not tossed around by every wind of doctrine. And it's like okay, like that's huge, because in the history of the church people have like got it wrong, like people have fallen into heresy and had wrong beliefs and that's led to all kinds of issues. And it's like, okay, well, we don't have to keep stepping in that same pothole because the church has already addressed it and so we can lean on 2,000 years of church history, of God giving us godly people who have studied the scripture in depth already corrected errors and said, no, that's not orthodox, that's not like historic Christianity given to us by the Lord and by his apostles, so I don't have to step in that same thing. So what I like to do is study it, read it, ask questions of the text. You know, just be curious. I think it's just helpful.
Speaker 2:Like you know, I think in the breakout I said look at it like you're an investigator, but just being curious, just like wanting to know what's being said, and then do your best to come up with answers to your own questions about what's the main point of this passage, what is it, what's he really talking about, what's this building up to? And you might write stuff that later on you go oh, I was way off and it's because I didn't know that that was a, I didn't know the custom of what was going on in that story. You know, I didn't know that was in, you know, 5,000 years ago. That was what Kinsman Redeemer meant. You know the Ruth and Boaz story, and so I got it wrong.
Speaker 2:But what you do is then you go to whether it's you know somebody that you can just go talk to that is a, you know, faithful pastor, bible teacher, or you look at the notes in the study Bible, or if you get a little commentary to go along with it, and then it tells you that and that reshapes. Oh, okay, now I see it in this light and that's super helpful and it keeps you from, you know, just getting it wrong, and so I love that and I think we should use it, because the Lord's given us these people for 2,000 years to do that work, so that we can benefit from it.
Speaker 1:Do you have a favorite commentary? You mentioned several in your breakout.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have some favorite commentators like FF Bruce.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I just love him.
Speaker 2:His Hebrew is probably your go-to it's my favorite hebrews commentary and so I'll, whatever book we go to, I'll see if he has one on it, um, but yeah, then I love uh that. The one that I recommend the most is the niv application commentary series. It's, it's uh, you know, I guess accessible is the right word, or it's not overly simplified. I don't like uh, I don't like ones that just are like I would use the word mushy, just you know, like, just jump to application and it does, and it gives you the historical context and then it bridges some of the grammatical, cultural, linguistic gaps that are going to be there. That, you know, just a normal person who loves to study the Bible is not going to automatically know they cover those. And then it goes into contemporary context. It's a really helpful application, um, but it's written solid, but for somebody who, you know, has to go work 40, 50 hours a week and raise a family Like it's, it's, it's great.
Speaker 1:The. Uh, if you're, if you're listening to this and you don't know exactly what a commentary is, imagine you've got your Bible and then you've got, let's say, you're going to read we've been talking about Philippians, so let's say, you're going to read Philippians. A commentary on Philippians would be a book that goes each verse it's going to kind of explain what it means and it's going to do all these things Rob's been talking about. It's going to give you some background to it, what was going on at that time and that place. And then some practical application for your life and preachers.
Speaker 1:As preachers, we use commentaries oftentimes to help us create a flow to a sermon or to fact check things that we've written, maybe in our own research. It's just a helpful tool. But some commentaries can be very academic and intellectual and scholarly and hard to really. You know, you've got to have a lot Like the word biblical commentary series. You need to have some sort of Greek background, Um, but then some can be super shallow where it's like man.
Speaker 1:I think I would be better off just reading this myself and writing my own notes and thoughts and so just finding a good practical commentary that gives you some good application. And um, yeah, there's another one that I recommend to people a lot of times. I don't personally use it a lot and I don't know why I don't use it a lot, but I used it in the Daniel study when we preached through Daniel. But it's the. Is it called life application or the application? The NIV application? There's the NIV commentary on the new testament, the one I think you're mentioning. Then there's another one. We'll link it, we'll get these and link it where it gives you commentary on the passage. Historical context, modern application. I mean it's three sections to each passage.
Speaker 2:That's the one I'm. Is that the one you're talking about? That's the niv application commentary. Okay, and then there's the one I'm.
Speaker 1:Is that the one you're talking about? That's the NIV application commentary. Yes, okay.
Speaker 2:And then there's the other one.
Speaker 1:Which is more wordy.
Speaker 2:A little bit more scholarly.
Speaker 1:Yes, okay, so that one's called the NIV application commentary. Yeah, that's the one I recommend for people too. Yeah, because it really does a good job of it'll bring it into a modern context. That's good.
Speaker 2:The Exalting Jesus in whatever book of the Bible that the commentary is on. It's a Christ-centered exposition commentary. It's also a good one, and I would say it's even simpler than that, and so if you're maybe a little bit intimidated by that idea, that would be a good one. Again, we'll link it, but they're a lot smaller too. So if you're like I don't want to dedicate six months to this book I don't know if I'm ready for that and you're like, but if you know, like, hey, in February I'm going to go through John, that would be a great. I'd recommend that one a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the one we a lot of times our folks at church are using to follow along. Yeah, so yeah, but I brought that up at this point because, you know, going to tools, there's the time for it and then. But you know, trying to push it off as long as possible is the way I always think about it. But there's some books like I don't know anybody who could just jump into Isaiah and read it and know what's really going on and get the context even started without good background help. And so, as much as I try to push it off, there's sometimes where I'm like to even have a context for what he's saying, the people that he's talking about, what was happening when he wrote it? Like, at least, I'm going to go to the ESV study Bible and look at a real quick okay, what's the historical setting, who wrote it, who did he write it to and what was the occasion? And the study Bible do a really good job at that and making it simple. And then if I think I really need to know more on one of those areas, then I'll hit the commentary up so that I can begin to get the context. Otherwise, sometimes, you know, you go to those Old Testament, you know prophets or some of the books, and you just feel lost, like I do not know why he's saying these things to these people. I don't know who those people are, that's attacking them, and you know, we know that we want God to destroy them, I guess, but why I don't know. And so I kind of break my rule for those types of books, my personal rule. But, yeah, they're really helpful and a lot of times, man, that ESV study Bible is sufficient for a lot of, a lot of good, a lot of good study, yeah, oh. So, uh, in that process of uh, one of the things I mentioned in the breakout that I think is worth saying again here is um, you know things to be aware of.
Speaker 2:Um, when you approach scripture is because, again, you're wanting to know what God said, what he intended to say in this passage, and so what'll help you is being aware of your own bias, your own preconceived ideas, at least aware enough to know that you have them. We all do about everything, and so what lens am I looking at this passage through? You know, just being aware that you have them and then recognizing, okay, like what being you know, living in 2025, raised in this type of family, raised in this type of church, whatever it is. What influence do I have? That I want to make sure I'm not reading into the text but allowing the text to speak to me. So I think, just being aware, my college professor, one of the guys I really liked he would refer to that as vertical transference. He'd say it's like, instead of getting the meaning coming up out of the text, I'm standing over the text and transferring all my thoughts into the passage, but I'm ignorant that I'm doing that, so that I'm unaware that I'm getting all the wrong meaning out of it. So, just being careful not to do that, that's a common thing, especially with theology.
Speaker 2:Theology, I think, a lot of times you know, depending on what denomination you come out of, or church you've grown up in, or you know, maybe a lot of people kind of have a wide range, have been influenced by a lot of different things. They don't realize that that's shaped their theology and doctrine, which isn't necessarily a bad thing at all, like that's good, like as pastors we want to help people develop that, but we want them to be aware of it so that all those things need to submit to Scripture. And the reason why sometimes there are denominations is because we're unaware of our predisposed ideas about what God says on a certain subject and, instead of letting scripture change the way we think, we make that passage fit our standard or our theology. So, just being aware of that and, first and foremost, desiring to submit to scripture, and if scripture teaches something and the context is clear, I need to change my system rather than try to make the Bible fit my system.
Speaker 1:That makes sense, makes good sense. This has been good. I want to be mindful of your time too. So you've been on the road. What time did you get in last night?
Speaker 2:I got in at 1.30. You were preaching, but then I was too caffeinated.
Speaker 1:You said you and Adam Garner were on the road doing a SWO thing, and you listened to Joe Rogan interview Wes Huff. Yes, Everybody's listened to that. And then you listened to Joe Rogan interview Mel Gibson. Go ahead and listen to that too, because it's a hoot.
Speaker 2:Yes, they actually covered some of the same ground Very differently, with different words. Oh man, yeah.
Speaker 1:Funny, yeah. So I want to be mindful of your time.
Speaker 2:I appreciate you coming in and doing this recording today, but kind of landing the plane yeah final thoughts yeah, so one, uh, uh, this won't be for everybody, but, man, this helps me a lot. I got this when I was in college, my probably my favorite class uh, I took just a class on the book of romans and one of the the midterm and the final, the way he designed it. He said of the the midterm and the final, the way he designed it. He said, you know, for the midterm, you had to summarize each chapter, a page, no more than a page, summarize each chapter from memory. And what he was going to look for was and summarize, being like basically make your own paraphrase and he's going to look for did you get all the key things? And so it wasn't like memorize the chapter and rewrite it, like you had to internalize the chapter and and reproduce it without missing the main point or the, the main themes that run throughout it. And so we had to do that for midterm, the first six chapters and then for the final, the entire book. And it was overwhelming, but I loved it.
Speaker 2:And you know I haven't tried it in a while, but you know, for so long, like it wasn't chapter and verse that I had memorized, but I knew where everything was and I knew that again, that argument how that book flowed and how things were building to an end, you know, and it was like that is such a cool tool. So I've tried to keep that. And when I teach the book of Hebrews for the Institute, I make them do it A little bit of payback and I think it's helpful. So I try to do that. And so just something maybe to try sometime is yeah, you're going through Philippians, you're doing all that reading, doing your studying, you know, maybe take a step back and just see, like can I summarize what that chapter was about, you know? And just I think it's a good way to internalize the passage and really wrestle with its meaning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good idea. I do something similar where I just write my own commentary. I do like you I read the book several times and then I'll go through a book and write my own commentary, meaning I'll write a verse-by-verse interpretation of it following these faithful principles. I don't want to put my meaning into it.
Speaker 1:I don't want to say what does this mean to me? I want to say what is God saying and sort of write my own notes and thoughts and then go back and check my work with reputable commentaries, and most of my preaching and sermon outlines comes from my writing right.
Speaker 1:Not from a commentary, that's a really, really good and helpful. So I want to do one. I want to do a fun thing to end it. Um, I want to do like a rapid fire ask you just a few questions that don't want a lot of elaboration, don't want a lot of thought. Some of them will be related to this. Someone would just be fun so people can get to know you a little bit. So I already know the answer to most of what I want to ask you, and these are questions that you should be able to get woke up out of a dead sleep at four in the morning and answer without preparing. So no curveballs. First, best Bible translation for studying, and is there a different one that you prefer for reading or different when you prefer for teaching?
Speaker 2:um, yeah, I've grown to just love the esv. I was a new king, new king james guy when I came to work here full time, um, but everyone's using esv and so I've come to love it. It's faithful, it's good, it's to me it's very clear. I love just to read the NLT because it flows very naturally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, those are my two as well. I think we both still enjoy the New King James and we both enjoy the CSB. Yep, those are good ones. Branching out of that. Now you say you're a big football fan.
Speaker 2:What's your?
Speaker 1:favorite team.
Speaker 2:The Miami Dolphins. I need your favorite team the Miami dolphins. I need to get over the shame of it.
Speaker 1:Just just say it. Yeah, you just gotta say it. I did see a picture of their coach. What's his name?
Speaker 2:Mike McDaniel.
Speaker 1:And he's wearing like joggers and those glasses. And then it's a picture, and beside him is a picture of Tom Landry, right the Dallas cowboys, in his suit with his derby hat, and it's like this is where we're at yeah, he looks like a frat guy he does um he's interesting dude what is uh, what's your dream? Your dream trip to take vacation, fun trip oh man, that's a good question.
Speaker 2:I I've got so with my family I'd to go, you know, like to Hawaii, like with all the kids and cousins. You know, I'm real close with my uh, with nephews and nieces and my brother and his family and love to do that Uh, just with Sarah. I would love to go uh out West and, you know, just explore the different terrain out there and different, you know, jack hole and all that stuff. Yeah, um, myself I would love one day to be equipped enough uh to do a, you know like a caribou hunt or you know, something like that yeah, those are good, those I thought about all three of those a lot yes, those are good choices.
Speaker 1:What if a couple more questions? What if you is there? If somebody said, okay and I'll give you like three answers, you can give three, you don't have to do one. If you could meet anybody from any point in history, give me three or four people.
Speaker 2:Okay, any point in history, you know it's funny. The first one that just jumps to my mind. I'd love to talk to Mel Gibson. You know, not for whatever. He's not a hero, but like he's a fascinating human being because of his depth of understanding of the gospel. But then he's crazy and he's made so many mistakes. I'd love to sit down and just have a real conversation.
Speaker 1:Without cameras. Without cameras, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like man tell me about your life Road trip without camera. Without camera, just yeah, like man, tell me about your life, what do you really think? And yeah, uh, I have a soft spot because a brave heart and I mean I want him to be in heaven. Um, william wallace and mel gibson uh, yeah, I, that's a great question. Um you, somebody like a Spurgeon would be fascinating to talk to.
Speaker 1:Um yeah, Is there anybody from scripture Is there? Like one person from scripture. You're like I'd like to hang out with that guy in context.
Speaker 2:Uh, I think uh always more drawn to Peter you know, then, as far as feeling like I could hang out with him without feeling judged, yes everybody else, I think you're gonna be like you got in on technicality yes, it's so true, that's funny.
Speaker 1:Um, and then what about, uh, one person from history, history, and is there an athlete that you don't want to meet?
Speaker 2:uh, yeah, I think just the, the, the kid in me would still love. You know, dan merino, just yeah, growing up he was, he was it and um yeah, from history yeah, I don't know, I don't know that no one jumps out at me well, it's fun.
Speaker 1:I appreciate you doing this a lot of time. I mean, it's almost two hours of content hour and a half to two hours of content, but I think very helpful. One of the things that you know we want to do, because I mean, nsr is a slow thing, it's not ady thing, and so we're all behind the cameras. We've got a whole team here even today and you know, in the tagline there's that that this is a podcast about the Bible and culture and stories and the human experience, but it's about the Bible first and foremost. And we've got our track on tailgate theology or beyond the flannel graph track, and this really will help, I think, in that area and so hope that y'all get a lot out of this. Rob, you can reach Rob. It's just Rob If you email them. Rob at SW Outfitters it's Rob, not Rob Conte, right? Just Rob at SW sw outfitterscom. Um, so feel free to reach out to rob.
Speaker 3:I know you'd be more than willing to share in-depth notes or whatever yeah, we'll.
Speaker 1:We'll have the main outline available to you in the in the in the episode notes um, but but uh, yeah, thanks for coming on. Yeah, um, we'll run it back in a few months. Just keep it going, sounds good All right.
Speaker 3:Thanks for listening to no Sanity Required. Please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating. It really helps. Visit us at SWOutfitterscom to see all of our programming and resources, and we'll see you next week on no Sanity Required.
