#111. A Life-Changing Bible Study Method for Any Age or Stage: Get the Word Out

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this summer we had a dinner and I got to hear testimonies from women

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that said.

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Get the word

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out changed my life.

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it absolutely changed

and transformed my life.

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And these are women that

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grew up in

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the church studying God's word,

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but they said, I've never had an

experience like getting into God's word

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for myself as I did with get the Word out.

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Stephanie: This

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is for every age, every stage

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of believer.

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It's for men, for

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women.

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New moms.

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Get the word out can be tailored for you.

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Speaker: There are the

joyful agains, our children.

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Shout on the swings, the exhausting

agains of cooking and laundry and

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the difficult agains of discipline.

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So much of what we do

as mothers is on repeat.

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So what if we woke up with clarity,

knowing which agains we were called

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to and went to bed believing we

are faithful in what matters most.

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We believe God's word is

the key to untangle from the

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confusion and overwhelm we feel.

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Let's look up together to embrace a

motherhood full of freedom and joy.

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Steph: Welcome to the Again podcast from

Entrusted Ministry I'm Stephanie Hickox,

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and today I'm joined by Betsy Corning, the

author and developer of Get the Word Out.

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If you've listened to us for any amount

of time, you can tell that we believe

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studying God's word and spending time

with Him is absolutely transformational

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and pivotal for us in our motherhood.

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It's the, again, we keep coming back to.

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Springtime is often a time that

churches and small groups evaluate

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the study they'll select in the

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new Ministry year.

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we wanted to bring you this option

that is so flexible that it can work

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for any stage or any age of believer.

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A few episodes ago we talked

about one of my favorite

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tools, the color coding system.

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I'll link that in the show notes as

well as the whole Get the Word Out

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program in case you wanna learn more.

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And as always, you're welcome

to email me with any questions.

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If you haven't checked out

our Dwelling Place podcast

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yet, we hope you do so because

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We're doing all we can to equip

you to dwell with the Lord.

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In every episode, we

read scripture over you.

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Pray over you and your kids because

we know you're doing all the things,

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but this is the one we wanna

make sure taps the list.

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We

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are excited to talk

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to you today about Get

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the Word Out.

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It is

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a Bible study curriculum that helps you

develop your own devotional lifestyle.

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Betsy and David spent

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probably about four decades

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developing this amazing system,

and it's really absolutely unique

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We're never

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gonna regret a moment

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that we've

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spent in the word.

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We want you to feel that,

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There's a

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lot of tools and resources that I could

utilize, but I don't have to use them

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all.

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I can really tailor a system

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that works for me right now so often

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we have these lofty goals at

the beginning of the year or at

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the beginning of a school year.

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And then we

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taper off.

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But

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we find that when you've committed

yourself with a tool or a resource

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like this, you're much less

likely to fall off the rails.

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But even if you do, let's say

you have a baby in the middle of

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the year,

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maybe you can't dig in at

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the same rate or pace

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that you were,

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but you'll

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know exactly where to come back to it

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And we just want you

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to feel equipped

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and ready to jump in and

study the word yourself.

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Personally, I've been so blessed

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by get the word out and some of

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the tools that I've

used and I haven't even

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implemented all of them in my

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life.

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So I am really excited and

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Betsy,

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for you to share.

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How the Lord led you to develop

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each

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one of these

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And it was neat this summer

we had a dinner and I got to

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hear testimonies from women

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that said.

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Get the word

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out changed my life.

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it absolutely changed

and transformed my life.

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And these are women that

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grew up in

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the church studying God's word,

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but they said, I've never had an

experience like getting into God's word

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for myself as I did with get the Word out.

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Aunt Betsy, where would you like to

start in sharing how the Lord helped

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you develop this amazing system?

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Mm-hmm.

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Betsy: Well, thanks Stephanie.

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You did

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say that we've been doing

this for decades, so it is

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a tried

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and true thing for us and we're delighted

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to share it with people.

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We first piloted this, I would

say probably 22, 23 years

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ago in the Chicago area, and.

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People are still doing it, but it can

be complex when you first hear about it.

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But we start very simply,

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and the way

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that I started it probably 50

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years

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ago, 40 years ago, whatever I

don't wanna give away my age was I

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was a young mom, uh, with a

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toddler and one on

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the way,

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and I was one of those

moms that was very sick.

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So, you know.

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A lot of morning sickness,

morning, noon, and night.

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So not just morning sickness.

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And I would put down my toddler for

her afternoon nap at at lunch, after

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lunch, and I would just lay down with

my Bible because I thought, I've always

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wanted to read through the Bible.

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I don't feel well.

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I don't wanna go anywhere.

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I can't go anywhere.

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My husband and I only had one car and

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The Lord had me stationed there, so I

decided I'm gonna open my Bible like I

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always wanted to, and I'm gonna read until

my little one wakes up and I would be able

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to read for an hour, an hour and a half,

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which is

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a luxury to some.

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But honestly, I was laying down

when I was reading and the Lord

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really, uh, restored me in fact.

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When that little

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baby

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was born, we moved when he was six

weeks old to Chicago and I kept reading.

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So, you know, you can do it,

you can do it even when you have

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toddlers and babies, if you're

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determined to

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do it.

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Now, if you're a really organized

person, you like colors, you

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like

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systems, I

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mean, this is really for you.

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But really

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the idea is that you're communing with

the Lord, that you open the word and

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you get to know more about who he is.

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So we call it get the Word out,

developing a devotional lifestyle.

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We're gonna teach 18 skills about

how to study the Bible and go deep

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with the Lord's

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word.

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But you don't have to do all those 18 all

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at the same

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time.

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You're gonna discover that

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you sort of gravitate towards one or

more, and maybe one year or two years

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you're gonna really dig into those

things and maybe a different year

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you're gonna do something a little

different, which will all make sense

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when we

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continue on with

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this.

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But for now,

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I just wanna say that at

that point in my life.

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I really, really wanted to read

the Bible all the way through

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because I had never done it before.

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And I read through the Bible that

year and I learned so, so much.

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But I had a lot of confusion and a lot

of questions ' cause I didn't have much

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guidance and it wasn't chronological.

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So the next

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year I thought, well,

I'll just, do it again.

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But life got, ahead of

me and I didn't do it.

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So I was, down on myself, why

couldn't I do it, you know?

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And then the next year I

decided I would do it again.

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I realized I really had to have some

sort of system, some sort of plan that

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if I did get off for a time, that I

would come back to it and I could,

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and I would know exactly what to do.

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I wouldn't just randomly open up my Bible

and magically, be on where I needed to be.

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There needs to be

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a plan, there needs to be a

method to what we're doing so

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that what we're learning and

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reading

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makes sense and, contributes to the

whole, the whole Council of God's word.

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So when we

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look

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at the Bible.

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We know that

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the Bible is, God's revelation

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of

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himself to us, and why wouldn't

we wanna know more of who he is?

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That's

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the delight.

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Nobody's gonna check your

workbooks or say, you

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did something wrong.

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You made something the wrong color.

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Anything like that.

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It's all your own work before the

Lord for you to dig deep and delight

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in him, but to make it simple.

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All that you have to do at first is

just pick out a Bible that you wanna

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read, pick out a Bible that you wanna

read, and I've circulated between three.

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And this one happens to be

the New American standard.

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So I will do the New American

Standard for a while and I'll switch

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over to the ESV or the Legacy.

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And just because I like to see a

little bit different wording sometimes.

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And

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when I do get the word out

with friends, it's fun to have

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people use different versions.

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It's all great.

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You can see what different words

have been selected for translation.

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But I like to use a translation.

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In other words, a word for word

translation, not a paraphrase, such as

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the, the living Bible or the message,

although those can be helpful to

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read when they can give clarity to

something that you're thinking about.

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not specific translations, and

that's what we're looking for.

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So I picked out, uh, the Bible

to read and um, I decided after

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a couple years I really needed to

have a read it chronologically.

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And that made all the

difference in the world

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to

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understanding the Bible,

to read it chronologically.

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So when people do get the word out,

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this

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is the

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system.

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It has three books, uh, workbooks, the

Old Testament and the New Testament.

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But, what you also get with that

is three chronological schedules.

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And they are a one year Bible

reading schedule all on one page.

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Tiny, tiny printing.

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A

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two a year

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schedule,

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and

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a three year

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schedule.

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Now a friend of mine and I right now

are doing the three year schedule only.

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We're gonna take six years, 'cause we're

going super, super deep, especially

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through particular books of the Bible.

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But doing that will

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help put

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the Bible

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In order for you so that you

can understand the history.

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And we can also study why

it was put together the way

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it was for the Jewish Bible.

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But for our sakes in this study, we are

doing it with the chronological reading.

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Another thing we

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do is, we color code the Bible, and we're

gonna get into that in a little bit.

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But what I wanna say about

reading through the Bible, once

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you've read through the Bible.

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Everything will just seem different.

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You, you'll have a different

perspective on life.

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You will look at things

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differently.

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And what is the perspective on life?

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It's, it's that God is with me.

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God is near me.

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God cares about me.

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God

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is compassionate.

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God is

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just,

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God is holy.

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And I need to live my

life in a certain way.

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And I need him.

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I need him for salvation,

I can't earn my salvation.

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, By his grace, I am drawn to him and

see my need of salvation to repent

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for forgiveness

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of sin.

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All of these things will

come together and make sense.

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Stephanie: And speaking of

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having the word illuminated, my

favorite bible that I've found

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is the Illuminated Bible by

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Crossway.

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And they just do a beautiful job

of adding these gold etchings.

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And then there's plenty of room.

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On the side of the page

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often they'll pull a scripture

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and it's designed so beautifully.

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But I find I

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have plenty of room to

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do the color coding

and then also to add my

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notes in

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the margins.

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And when I do this, sometimes

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I think, when I'm no longer here on

this earth, I hope that this is a

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gift that my kids.

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Or my grandkids would

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be able to look back and see,

you know, my notes on them or

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when I write their name and

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the margin of things

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that I've been praying

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for them or praying in

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myself.

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And this resource is also from Crossway,

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but

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sometimes it feels a little,

you know, different to

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have the Bible

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divided into sections.

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But this is a neat resource

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because

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There's lines, pages.

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So you have plenty of room

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to put those notes too.

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And so perhaps

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this could be a step

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before you organize a little bit

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to go

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into the, get the word out books.

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But,

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I was just, studying acts

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with my Bible study and there's

a chapter in there during

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the shipwreck and there's a

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lot of nautical

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terms that I wasn't as familiar with.

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And so I could write the

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definitions out there.

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And, and maybe talk about like how

long of a distance was this and

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just to put

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little notes in that

enhanced my study of that.

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Sometimes I like a place to add those

little details before I get into,

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the, get the word out tools also.

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Betsy: We'll talk some more

about that too as we go on.

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What we really wanna do is get

you excited about getting a solid

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devotional life with the Lord.

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It's between you and him.

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You can do this with a

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friend, you can do it with your

husband, you can do it with

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your teenagers

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or even younger.

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But, really be praying about this.

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How can I,

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get closer to

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the

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Lord this

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year?

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I take a survey every year with

the moms that I teach and they

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always say, I want to be a more

godly mom, and how do we do that?

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We get in the word and so we develop

this system for people and, if you're

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thinking about that, praying about

that, we're gonna give you several

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little episodes here to sort of

draw you in on what it's all about,

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Speaker 2: We know you're busy, mama.

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So we are truly grateful you joined us for

this episode of again, if you're looking

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for more information about building your

home on the foundation of Jesus Christ,

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head to www dot Entrusted Ministries

dot com to learn more about our study

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for moms Entrusted with a child's Heart.

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This scripture saturated study

has blessed families around the

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world, and we want it for you too.

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Before you go, I want to pray this

benediction over you from Second

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Thessalonians one 11 through 12.

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We're rooting for you to this end.

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We always pray for you that our God

may make you worthy of his calling

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and fulfill every resolve for good.

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And every work of faith by his power

so that the name of our Lord Jesus

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may be glorified in you and you

and Him according to the grace of

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our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

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Amen.

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Until we meet again.