Dr. Jessica Peck Hello, and welcome to the Dr. Nurse Mama show, prescribing Hope for Healthy Families
Dr. Jessica Peck here on American Family Radio.
Dr. Jessica Peck Here's your host, professor, pediatric nurse practitioner, and mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck.
Dr. Jessica Peck Well, hey there, friends, and welcome to my favorite time of day, getting to spend time with you, prescribing Hope for Healthy Families. And we got a great show for you today, one that's going to encourage you, one that's going to give you hope. It's a positive thing we're talking about, and I hope that you will stick with us, because as I'm saying these words and you're listening to me talk, I am very cognizant of the fact that we live in a world that's overflowing with words. We have. We can listen to podcasts just like this one, which I hope is offering you good guidance and encouragement. But we also see other words that come from our social media that maybe offer inspiration, maybe rage bait. Our phones certainly deliver a steady stream of opinions about who we should be, what we should believe, how we should raise our children. Have we voted? Who are we voting for? Who's ready for those messages to be done? But even spiritual encouragement can arrive in just fragments. Just a favorite verse that's on a coffee mug, an inspirational reel, a scripture, graphic we share before moving on with our day. But how do we move from recognizing familiar verses to understanding the God who gave them to us? Now, for families, that question matters a lot. Our children are encountering countless messages about identity, purpose, truth and belonging. And as Christian parents and grandparents, we want to help them recognize God's voice in the middle of those competing messages. At the same time, we wonder, how do we teach our children the Bible when there's so much that we don't understand ourselves? And maybe, you know, the courage it takes to begin a Bible reading plan and the discouragement that comes when you know that you're behind that has been one of the greatest blessings to me in my own spiritual journey is finding a Bible plan and sticking to it. It is just. I can't imagine beginning my day any other way. But maybe you love the Gospels, but you feel lost in the prophets. This was my conversation with my father in law, actually last night. He was struggling through a part of the Old Testament and I said, oh, I actually love that. But maybe you grew up knowing Noah, and David and Daniel, but you just didn't understand how their stories connect to Jesus. And those experience leave us with familiar pieces of scripture, but little confidence in the arc, the overarching arc of the gospel story and how they all fit together. So that's what we're talking about today. How do we read the Bible with understanding, with curiosity, with delight, even? And how does seeing scripture as one unified story deepen our love for God? How can we approach difficult passages without giving up? And how can those very ordinary moments in the car, at the breakfast table, on a walk, in the afternoon, at bedtime, how do those become opportunities to help the next generation know the whole story of God's faithfulness? Well, joining me today is Mary Wiley. She's a Bible teacher. She's the author of Everyday theology, what you believe matters, Our highest good, which I, talk about theology here all the time. All the time. Theology's for everybody. And her new study, Every day in the Bible, Delighting in the whole word of God in 52 weeks. Hey, we got January coming up. You could start this then. You can start it now. Now, Mary holds a master's degree in theological. She serves as an associate publisher at B H Publishing Group, and she and her husband Jon have four kiddos. They live in the Nashville area. And her new study guides readers through all 66 books of the Bible, helps them see connections between the Old and the NewSong Testaments and recognize Jesus at the center of scripture. Mary, I'm so glad to have you here. Let's make sure. Do we have Mary with us? Hey, Mary, are you there?
Dr. Jessica Peck Hi. Thanks so much for having me.
Dr. Jessica Peck Fantastic. Okay, great. I'm, just, you know, the joys of live radio, you never quite know until it happens, the connection. But I'm so glad to have you here, Mary. You know, as I. I was reading about your study, I'm so excited for the potential for people to engage in God's Word. As you're starting to look at the landscape of 2027, this is a great goal for then, but it's a great goal to start today, and it's definitely one that's been transformational for me. I would love to hear how scripture has been transformational in your story. How did you come to know the Lord? And how did he give you a passion for teaching his Word?
Dr. Jessica Peck Yeah, so I came to know the Lord as a young kid. my family had me at church every time the doors were open, and that was so formative for me because I had people around me who loved God's Word, who were teaching me God's Word. when I was about 8 years old, my dad was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymph noma and that became a really large portion of my story as he wisely helped our family navigate what was ultimately a terminal condition, through the lens of Scripture, of seeing Christ in what was happening. And so I was a really stubborn child. I loved to go to the cancer center with my dad, much to my mom's frustration. And I saw really, really sick people and was able to ask a lot of questions about why bad things happen to good people. And my dad very wisely explained to me that sin was like a cancer, that Christ was the only cure for that. There were lots of sick people at this cancer center because they were seeking treatments, they were seeking doctors to help them with their maladies. And that we all were infected with sin and needed Christ to, to solve our sin problem m. For us. And so through that conversation and continued conversations, certainly, I was a very curious child. So I asked a million questions, before choosing to follow Jesus. But he just, ah, Christ just continued to pursue me through my parents, through teachers at school, through friends. And at about 12 I chose to follow Jesus. And from then just really had this hunger for His Word to understand who it was that we worshiped, to the point that my youth minister handed me his copy of Systematic theology as a 14 year old and was like, just go home and read this. I think he was tired of me being in his office asking questions and he thought that would stop the problem. And I remember walking back in about two months later and I was like, I have some questions, I've worked through this and I've got some high highlighted things. And he said, yeah, that's not how we use books like that. You don't read a reference book from Cove to cover. but I had because I just wanted to know what was true. Now. Have I, like read the Bible every day of my life? Certainly not. We certainly struggle through seasons and there have been seasons of drought and seasons of fruitful study certainly. But the kindness of the Lord has kept me coming back to His Word again and again. I, truly have like, tasted and seen that the Lord is good and truly do find that His Word is not something that I just need for a 10 minute moment of my day. But I need it like I need bread. I need it like I need three meals a day. I need it like I need breath in my lungs. That it truly is life to us. As the Israelites found again and again as they, traveled in the wilderness. They never complained about God's Word to them, God's Law to them. They Complained about a lot of things, but they knew that his word was life. And that is what I have found again and again.
Dr. Jessica Peck Well, I confess I want to go back to 8 year old Mary and give her a hug. I'm so sorry you lost your dad, Mary. I know that, that God works all things for, for good, for those who love him and are called according to his purpose. And I'm so grateful to hear of your dad's impact and his testimony of faith and the impact that that had on your own faith. That is a beautiful thing. But that's a tough thing for a kid to go through and I'm sure that that was part of your journey in really one having that hunger to know what kind of God would allow this to happen. And there's a difference between reading the Bible, to kind of be a content expert, to know what the Bible says, to, you know, be able to excel in the sword drills, maybe that some of us grew up with, you know, being able to find God's wor to read about it. But you really are encouraging a very dramatic shift and I hope that listeners will catch this. It's not just knowing things about the Bible. It's delighting in the God it reveals. It's, it's learning about the character of the author. How did that transition happen for you?
Dr. Jessica Peck Yeah, I was a child who wanted to know all the right answers. type A to the max. And yet as I realized walking through my dad's death and just really working through what does this mean in my life? How will my life be different? What does it mean for God to be my father in this situation and beyond? I found that just knowing true facts about God made me hard, made me want ah, to be the one who won the argument in the room but didn't make me soft towards the thing things of God. And I do think that there's a real difference between studying God's word to be the smartest in the room, studying God's word to win an argument, to to exert some sort of power to win a sword drill. Yes, I loved to compete against my friends and I was not competing against my friends because I wanted to hide God's word in my heart. I was competing against my friends because I wanted to win. Now has God blessed that and his word has truly never returned void? Absolutely. He brings those verses that I memorized to beat my friends back to my mind when I need them today. but I think walking through such a hard season as a, as a young child really knit me to the heart of God, where I needed to know him personally, not just know a lot of true facts about Him. and I'm, I'm a PhD student today, not because I want to know more about God, but because I want to know God rightly and talk, Talk about Him rightly. And there. It's such a. You, you said it well, Jessica. It's a very narrow difference. There's a very small line between those two things. And we want to develop biblical literacy, meaning we know God's word, we know the text, we want to be able to answer the trivia questions because it means that we've spent time learning God and His Word. But the motive under that learning really matters.
Dr. Jessica Peck Oh, it really does. And one of the things that concerns me today, Mary, is the fragmentation of Scripture. Just like I talked about at the beginning, in some ways it's really good because you can scroll through social media and depending on who you're following, you can see, you know, scriptures that are posted there and that has its rightful place. And just like you said, you know, God used that Bible memorization, that Bible literacy for good, even when your motives maybe weren't the best. But we do see this fragmentation where we just hear like one little word out of context. A, 30 second reel about this. Or, you know, maybe we see it on a T shirt or, wall art at Hobby Lobby or whatever it is. But there is a difference between just kind of having that scripture peripherally around you and really diving in to the overarching arc of the, of the narrative, the unified story of the gospel. Not just isolated stories like, okay, a nursery, maybe Noah's Ark, which actually I've seen a lot of funny reels about that. I dig Mary, about how maybe that's kind of a scary theme for a kid's nursery, but somehow we do that. We know these, these fragments of stories. What would you do to compel us to really invest in seeing the ark of the Gospel?
Dr. Jessica Peck Yeah. When we are focusing only on a single story or even a selection of stories, or maybe even a lifetime of stories. This is something I saw when I wrote Everyday Theology. it was my first work. I wrote it for my local church because I was serving as a children's minister, receiving lots of questions from parents about how do these stories fit together? Who is God? My kids coming home, talking about the Trinity, and I don't know how to explain that. And, what I was hearing from them without them saying it was, I have been in this church my whole life But I have not developed a language of faith. I don't know how to explain what's happening in the big story of Scripture. And I think when we aren't considering the full council of Scripture, and you mentioned it earlier, the prophets can be really hard. Or many people say Leviticus is where year long reading plans go to die. And they're not wrong because those passages can be very challenging. And yet when we look at the whole of God's story of what he's doing, we understand why Leviticus really matters. Because he's showing us who Christ would be on every page of the text. That as we see the prophets, like we're seeing what sin really cost God to pay for, right? That sin caused these people to be in exile. It caused all of these consequences. I, I think we have a really light view of sin and the Bible has a really heavy view of sin most of the time. And if we only stick to our favorite passages, I think we miss seeing the fully orbed picture of God that he intends to communicate to his children. because we only see glimpses and pieces of him. And it can also really, help us or, or hinder us rather from understanding some of the more challenging pieces of scripture. And so when someone comes to you and says, hey, what do I do with Joshua when God tells them to remove the people from the land, what do I do with that? That seems like God is harsh, like
Dr. Jessica Peck he's angry, you know, Mary, I'm gonna hold you right there because that's a little bit of a cliffhanger. We're right at our first break. But what do we do with those stories? I know my daughter told my father in law. You've heard all the kid Bible studies. Let's talk about Noah getting drunk. Now those can be hard things to wrestle with, but we'll do more of that with Mary widely right on the other side of this break. Don't go away. We'll be right back. Hello, I'm Jessica peck, host of Dr. Nurse Mama. Did you know that this show is listener supported? Without people like you, this show would not exist. And that's why we need you. A generous monthly gift of any amount will help sustain American Family Radio, specifically this show as we reach thousands of people each week with biblical truth. Please consider becoming a monthly financial partner today by visiting afr.netgive that's afr.net give.
Dr. Jessica Peck So intimate, so powerful and I've tasted, I've seen and nothing comes close I've never known a love like yours Jesus, your Name is power. It's breath in living water. And your spirit guides me to the heart of the, Father. Letting your braids ring louder every day and every hour. Cause your spirit guides, me to the heart of the Father.
Dr. Jessica Peck welcome back, friends. That is Heart of the Father by Rhyen Ellis. And that's exactly what we're talking about. Running to the heart of the Father and finding him who he is, his character, his nature, how he loves us. Finding that in his word. Joining me today is Mary Wiley. She is a, theologian. She is author of a new study called Every Day in the Bible, Delighting in the Whole Word of God in 52 weeks. And I'll tell you, reading through the Bible in a year is just. Just a spiritual lifeline for me. And it really, really changed my spiritual life. Just. And I constantly learn new things. And right before the break, we were just talking about the whole arc and the narrative of Scripture. This is something I'm really learning more and more about every single day to learn about the perfections, the miracles that happen in Scripture. The Old Testament reflecting the NewSong. The curse being unwound, till one day things will be new again. There will be no tears, no more mourning, no more crying. And we long for that day. But in the meantime, we grasp, we grapple in the messy middle. So, Mary, right before the break, you were just talking about how some of those more difficult concepts, especially in the Old Testament, can be really difficult to wrestle with. So I'm going to let you pick it right back up. Right where we left off.
Dr. Jessica Peck Sure. So as we look at the full story of Scripture, we can better understand what God is doing in those hard, those really difficult passages to understand. So if we're looking at a. At a Joshua, the conquest in Joshua, we can look back at Genesis and see that God has already said he is being patient with the Amorites for 400 years before he's coming to administer justice to them through the Israelites. And so we want to see the full story of Scripture because just as you just so beautifully said, God is doing something. all of history is pointed in a particular direction, and that is that he is. He's going to restore all things through Christ. He is going to renew all things through Christ. And when Christ is the center of our lives and the center of the way we read the text, then the Spirit will transform our hearts through Him.
Dr. Jessica Peck That is something that we all want. And when I, I look at the Old Testament, you know, I see people who today who kind of think, well, it's Just irrelevant. You know that that's the old, that's the old way. That's the law. It's not anymore like we're just going to focus on the NewSong Testament, but seeing the work of God, the character of God, how he, you know, just planned from the beginning a way of grace and salvation and to demonstrate his love for his people, it. You're missing out if you miss that. One of the things I love about your study, Mary, is that each quarter begins in a gospel, so that's an easy entry. But then it connects books across the Old and NewSong Testament, which is just one of my favorite things ever now about studying the Bible. Tell us why you organized it that way and how you're helping readers to keep the bigger picture in view, how it might be different than another Bible reading plan that they have done before.
Dr. Jessica Peck Sure. So we start in the Gospel of Jon, because Jon begins in the beginning was the Word. He's telling us who this Jesus is that we need to know. But he's intentionally using the language of Genesis to show that he's doing something new. Something, that is both, new in the Gospels, but also old and ancient and before time began. Because in the beginning was the Word. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And so we read Jon and then we read Genesis because Jon is helping us understand how to read Genesis in light of Christ. so we're going to read, ah, Exodus and Leviticus, these, these books of the law, these books where God is revealing himself as the deliverer, as the good king to us. We're going to read that alongside Hebrews. That gives us all of the instructions around, okay, how is Jesus fulfilling the law? How is he the better high priest? Where we have the instructions to the high priest in Exodus, their enactment in Leviticus and beyond. We're going to read numbers in Deuteronomy with Romans. So you get this second iteration of the law in Deuteronomy. And if a reader is reading from Cove to cover and they make it through Leviticus is somehow, then they get to Deuteronomy and they feel like they're reading Leviticus again. And so often readers are like, I'm done. Like, I can't do Leviticus again. And so we read that alongside Romans to see the beauty of grace in the giving of the law. Romans is such a theologically rich, beautiful book. And it is constantly pointing back to what Moses is doing in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. So we continue that pattern throughout the entire course of The Bible to help you see not just, oh, these passages are tied together, but, oh, these big themes, these big truths about who God is. Is one thing across all 66 books that God is doing that. God is not different in the Old Testament than he is in the NewSong Testament. He's not an angry God in the Old Testament. And this really kind God who's given us Jesus, us in the NewSong Testament, no, God is one. And so revealing both, Genesis all the way through revelation, ultimately is about Jesus. That Paul in, his letter says, hey, the Exodus is for the instruction of the church. And so we're asking that question, how do we, as Christians on this side of the Resurrection, read those books that maybe feel old, maybe feel like they don't have a direct connection to our lives, lives? And how do we seek to see Jesus with our eyes wide open, illuminated by the Spirit, seeing who he is, clearly not as a shadow, as Paul says, the Old Testament is a shadow, but to see him as the substance and, this shadow, that all points to him.
Dr. Jessica Peck Mary I think it's more important now than at any point in history for parents, especially to engage with the word of God, just as you described, to learn the Bible, to learn about the God who m. Who gave us his word, to learn theology. Because I think when previous generations were growing up, you know, if you were a Christian family, you're going to church, you know, you talk about the things of God, but if there's questions that came up, it seemed like it was more acceptable to say, you know, oh, I don't know that we'll ask the pastor, we'll ask your Sunday school teacher, you know, we'll ask, we'll go to church and we'll talk about that. But now there's so many sources of information, and one of the things is that I see is that influencers on social media, they come across with the same authority and credibility as AI does, you know, where they're just very boldly confident. And you can see, even now, we see this playing out in the political landscape, where we'll see different parts of scripture just taken out of context. Or no, I interpret it to mean this. Or no, I interpret it to mean this. And there's different brands, almost even that emerge. And you can identify with theology that just feels right to you, that's most comfortable with you. And we're getting into some dangerous theological territory there. And I think it's really important for us before we, you know, reach for somebody else's explanation, how do we develop our own convictions. How do we discern that? Because it can be really intimidating, you know, for me. I don't have a theology degree, you know, Mary, and so sometimes that can be really intimidating for me. But how do we teach our kids, kids, how do we to be discerning and how do we teach our kids to be discerning when we're listening to others interpretations of Scripture?
Dr. Jessica Peck Yeah. So I would begin by saying, there's a difference between knowledge and wisdom. And I, think I hear a lot of parents say, oh, I don't have a degree, I can't lead my children, I can't disciple my children. I need someone who knows more. But we also know that the work of a disciple is ultimately like an apprentice. It's, it's a very personal, intimate, relational work. I recently heard someone speaking about how AI could replace discipleship, how it could become this tool for personalized spiritual growth. And and while AI might help us seek wisdom or seek knowledge, it can't help us seek wisdom because the Bible tells us that wisdom is only in Christ. It is only, it's God's to give and it's ours to seek from him, not from a source of knowledge that might be able to tell us true facts but cannot actually develop us in the ways of God. So while we might have true things we know, the decision making process of wisdom, the development of long earned formation, maturity, only comes through interactions with God. And so the first thing I would say to a parent who says, where do I even begin? What do I do? I can't do this. I would say that's right where God likes to have us because he works best through the week. And there is no amount of degrees that will ever make you, ready to disciple your children because they have a front row seat to both your faithfulness and your disobedience. And in so many ways that is really beautiful because we are not meant to be our child's savior. We are simply meant to walk them to the One who is. And so we can disciple them, we can walk them that direction, and we only have to be a few steps ahead. And so what I love about the opportunity to read through the Bible with your kids even is, that you can do it with them. One of the most instructive things in my childhood was catching my mom with her Bible open in her lap. She did not have to sit down and have hour long conversations with us. I knew she cared about God's word because I saw her constantly running to it. And Our kids need to see us running to God's word instead of to the world, instead of to social media, instead of AI. Because true personal discipleship is something that only Christ and His church can do. Only another person can help lead us, us to the Savior. We're made in his image. no amount of knowledge, no AI, no social media. Those things aren't made in his image. Only people are made in his image. And as parents, our goal is to, do the very best we can. And yet I also want to free parents up, that sometimes the most valuable thing you can say is, I don't know, but let's find out. I don't know, but let's open the Bible together. Teach your kids how to not just seek an answer, but how to actually seek to find that answer for themselves. That's a skill that is going to serve them their entire lives. Not ask Siri, not OpenAI. Although certainly Google can be helpful. Like where I do that. Where's this verse? I know that this is somewhere. I can't remember the address. Help me Google, but get into your Bibles. Open your Bibles with your kids. it does not have to be fancy, it does not have to be perfect, because you're not the one responsible for the transformation. The Spirit is. God will do it through you if you just allow him to work. So I just, as a parent, my biggest encouragement is just come ready, come willing, and be willing to say, I don't know, but always take your children to the gospel, to the Bible, to help them unearth what it is they're seeking to know.
Dr. Jessica Peck That's really good advice. And I love to hear your testimony of seeing your mom with her Bible in her lap. And this, you know, brings me to a point I've been talking about a lot. I think there is still value in today, in modern society and modern context of having a paper Bible with a version that you have carefully selected that you, you know is not going to change. Because that's something that I'm reading about, you know, online. When we read online, like, okay, was the version changed? We didn't know. Or. Or is something presented out of context. But if you have your paper Bible, there's something different about that. Rather than like, is my mom playing Candy Crush or is she reading her devotional on her iPad? I can't tell. There's just something about that visual. And I keep hearing people share a testimony of that, of he, of seeing their parent, their caregiver, their grandparent, a, really special adult in Their life, who modeled that and demonstrated that. And the other thing that you equip us to do. And, and you are welcome. I invite you to opine on paper Bible or electronic Bible or both. Mary, you, you're more than welcome to opine on that. And I want to know too, like, how we turn those everyday interactions into ongoing discipleship, because that's where it is. It's not in, you know, sitting down in the picture perfect devotional where everybody is, you know, just saying, oh mother, this is my fav. Favorite time of the day. Shall I light the candles? You know, we have this image of it being perfect, but it's really those imperfect everyday interactions. So, I'll give you the soapbox and give you a turn.
Dr. Jessica Peck That's absolutely right. And for our family, it happens in car rides more than any other time. And with really simple questions. Hey, what did you learn about God today? What questions did you have today? we'll read a chapter or a couple of verses and then we'll seek to kind of unpack those. Okay, so what did we learn here? What's God doing? I have another kids resource called Discovering the Bible and it is the process that I use with my kids, both at home and at church. And, and so we're constantly looking to, to pray, to read and reread a passage to make sure we understood it. So we read it. Normally. I let kids read it the first time and then I read it behind them. Mostly because it just takes a lot of time to let a child read that amount of verses. and then we ask and we answer. And this is what I think is the most important thing about, being someone who is a person of faith. And that is that we cultivate curiosity about God's word. So we are constantly asking, why did God say this? What does this connect to? what could I learn? So in college I, was drafted into a discipleship group and my leader handed us a card which, with three verses on it and said, come back in a week having asked 50 questions about three, three verses.
Dr. Jessica Peck Wow.
Dr. Jessica Peck And 19 year old Mary Wiley rolled her eyes and was like, that is not possible and I will not be doing that. And my leader looked at me and said, you will or you will not be coming back in this classroom. And I said, yes sir, I will be bringing 50 questions. And the beautiful part of that is we all came back with 50, 50 questions and not one of us had the same set of questions.
Dr. Jessica Peck Wow.
Dr. Jessica Peck So many questions could have been asked about those same verses. And so when we get really curious about what God is doing and why, that really is when we develop these understandings of what he's doing, it's what growth looks like. So I'm gonna hold you right there.
Dr. Jessica Peck I'm gonna hold you right there. We have more to talk about, Mary. The book is the study is every day in the Bible, delighting in the whole word of God in 52 weeks. And we have more conversation to be had with the delightful Mary Wiley right on the other side of this break. Don't miss it. Come back and let your heart be encouraged. We'll see you in just a second, Friend. We're living in the defining moment today. A woman facing an unexpected pregnancy can order the abortion pill online, often before anyone has the chance to tell her she is is loved, that she's not alone, or that there is hope. That's why you are needed right now. You were made for this moment. At, PreBorn Network clinics, mothers are welcomed with compassion, practical support and a free ultrasound. And when she sees her baby and hears that tiny heartbeat for the very first time, fear often gives way to hope. In fact, more than 80% of abortion vulnerable women choose life after seeing their baby on an ultrasound at a PreBorn Network clinic.
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Dr. Jessica Peck I searched the world but it couldn't feel me Man's empty breaks and treasures of faith are never enough
Dr. Jessica Peck then
Dr. Jessica Peck you came along and put me back together Every desire is now served satisfied Here in your love. Oh, there's nothing better than you there's nothing better than you Lord, there's nothing nothing is better than you
Dr. Jessica Peck welcome back, friends. That is graves into gardens by elevation worship. And we're talking today with theologian author Mary Wiley. She's the author of a new study called Every Day in the Bible Delighting in the whole word of God in 52 weeks. And she does a beautiful job taking, starting you in the Gospels and then connecting that to the Old Testament so that you can, can see the overarching arc of scripture, the arc of the Gospel narrative and how God has just beautifully told this unified story that is connected the Old Testament and the NewSong Testament. And right before the break, we were just talking about encouraging our kids to ask questions. And Mary was sharing her own experience bringing 50 questions about three verses into a, into a Bible study, which would be a pretty big task there. And Mary, you and I were just chatting during the break that I think today when kids ask questions, it often can make us as parents. Even though we wouldn't want to admit it or maybe we don't even see it, it just makes us a little uneasy. It strikes this fear in our hearts because we've heard from a long, for a long time about the percentages of young people who walk away from their faith and how that's been growing and that that is real and that's every Christian parents fear is that you're raising your kids, try to grow up and love God and love others, serve people, serve and love people. Well, you don't want them to walk away from their faith. And somet when they have those questions, we start to think, oh, why are you questioning this? I feel so strongly we need to push back on this. And you were talking about this with, approaching it with curiosity. Let's talk a little bit more about how we can cultivate a healthy curiosity about scripture in our homes.
Dr. Jessica Peck Yeah. So there is no replacement for asking questions about the text. it is the way that we help kids own their own faith. Instead of, of simply telling them what to believe, they're able to wrestle through those questions and ask how they're processing so that we can lean in and help direct them rather than give them just a statement to memorize. Because we all know that when you just have a statement memorized, as you continue to grow and you learn more about the world and you see more of the hard things in the world, you're gonna eventually ask those questions. And so in my home, I want my kids to ask those questions to me. I want them to ask those questions long before they become an adult because I can help guide them to where to find the right answers rather than just seeking to download information to them. I want to raise, I want to raise critical thinkers in my home and in my church. And that really is what the church needs. We need people who can take what the Bible says and apply it to the cultural conversations that are happening in the world. We need in the next generation people who can read, the, the prophets and say, hey, here's the wisdom from this, this is how we should live because of what we've read here. And so the way that we develop people who can do that, the way we develop children who can do that, but also adults, adults is to give them the space to ask the, the hard questions. Because what I know to be true is that our God is big enough to handle the questions and he welcomes them. Let's look at the Psalms. I mean, David. There are times where David is crying out and saying, lord, where even are you? Like, are you gone? What is happening? and that's an appropriate expression of emotion when hard things happen. And so helping them know that the Bible has, has space for their questions is going to, instead of, putting them in a rocky place, which I think we fear, right? We fear if I give you the space to ask these questions, you might discover something that leads you somewhere else. And I'm, I want to be really generous and really gracious, but I also do think that that is, kind of a thought of us needing to control it when God is more than capable of, of controlling his own reputation and building up our children. And so what I hope, ah, my, my immediate knee jerk reaction is when kids ask questions is that we go to the Bible and that I start praying that I pray that my children will develop in the ways of the Lord, that I pray that they will love God's Word, that they will seek God's Word for the answers, but also that I'm asking God to reveal it to them in his word because he does have an answer. We don't have to fear our children asking questions because our God does have an answer. And he is good and he is gracious. And they will not find, if they're truly, seeking to know him, they will not find a God that is, any lesser than their understanding, any lesser than their imagination. But he will certainly be better.
Dr. Jessica Peck Certainly, certainly. And you're onto something there, Mary, with the control. I think that is one of the great, greatest potential traps for modern parenting is for us to fall into that trap of seeking instant gratification as parents. And the way that we do that is by controlling behavior. Because if our kids are saying the right thing, if they're doing the right thing, that's an immediate feedback loop to us that, oh, I must be doing a good job As a parent, I can stay in this comfortable place and we can just continue moving on and, and we get uncomfortable even I think in exploring those more difficult conversations of the heart. Some of those messy emotions, some of those questions that you know, we are going to ask and maybe not get a really good answer this side of heaven. Maybe this will be something that we continue to wrestle with. But it's in that wrestling, it's in that those identity issues, character formation, that's where discipleship is really going to happen. It's not about if I teach my kids enough scripture to memorize, if I have enough, you know, gold stars on their attendance chart at church. It's, it's not about checking a box, it's about. And it's not about controlling their behavior. It's about cultivating, creating the conditions to cultivate a relationship where kids are safe to ask questions, where they are surrounded by trusted people that they can talk to about that, where they have easy access to God's word. So tell us more about, about that, about really use it. Using God's word to shape our kids view of their identity, of their purpose, most importantly of God's character. Because that's going to tell them back their identity.
Dr. Jessica Peck That's exactly right. And I think just what we're talking about today as we read the full text of the Bible, kids can do that. So this is something we do every Sunday morning. I teach second grade, Sunday school. These are brand new readers, right. Sometimes we're reading a chapter of the text and it takes us 30 minutes just to read it because it is slow and it is tedious. This. But there is such value in creating spaces for your children to experience the Bible for themselves that they can read it for themselves. even at 8, at my oldest, we're like, let's read through the Bible together. And so we started that process. Now we didn't make it all the way through. We hope to start again now that they're 10. Because there are some very difficult stories that I had forgotten, gotten honestly and was like, okay, now I need to figure out how to explain these very complicated things. And yet, even as soon as they can read, they can, they can read the Bible. They can read a full text Bible for themselves. It does not have to be cover to cover, but we can help equip them to do those things so that they are being formed by what they're reading. And it also is up to us that as they ask questions or as they don't ask the questions, they have and instead we see behaviors or we see, curiosities, or we see frustrations. It's up to us as parents to identify. Oh, I think my child might be struggling with putting words to their emotions. Let's, at dinner, read a psalm together. Really simple. Take you less than five minutes. Let's talk about how David poured his heart out to God.
Dr. Jessica Peck God.
Dr. Jessica Peck it does not have to be an all in. We're going to read, you know, an hour every night for it to be beneficial. There is grace for whatever it looks like. But we do want to make sure we're moving forward in informing them in the ways of God. Now, again, I want to be really clear. We're not the ones doing the forming. There is no perfect plan. The Spirit is faithful to do it. We just need to pray and, and take the first right step.
Dr. Jessica Peck That first right step is so important. And what you're talking about as a grace based approach, Mary, is, is so important too. And I think, you know, sometimes I know I grew up in, in an environment where I felt like my adherence to those spiritual disciplines, like if I read my Bible, God would be pleased with me, he would love me, he would check my life. Check, check. It's like this. If, then proposition like, okay, God, I'll do the checklist and then you bless my life. Okay? And that is, right, really a dangerous perspective to have. And there is a lot of grace to be found in that relationship base. Like, okay, I forgot today I got off track. You know, we, we. Oh, you know, we started this and I really had good intentions and it just fell off. And maybe sometime there's something for a season. You know, maybe you have that nighttime routine for a season and then maybe another season, the morning works better. How do we go for a relationship based approach rather than a, A schedule based approach?
Dr. Jessica Peck And you are speaking my language because as a child, I love to get a gold star. I love to get a checkbox.
Dr. Jessica Peck Yes, ma'. Am.
Dr. Jessica Peck And it is a hard thing to unlearn. Those are difficult behaviors to unravel. And yet what we see in God's word as we, as we, we feast on it, as we visit it every day as we meet with God in the pages, is that, it's. His words truly are alive. They are different from any other book. And, I think often we think about God and we want to form him in our image rather than us considering that we are formed in his image. And we think, oh, I missed a day, God's gonna be mad at me. Oh, I missed a day, say, God's not going to speak to me today. He's. He's frustrated. And yet what I see in the Scriptures is a father who loves when his children run to him. as a mom, there's not a single time when a child crawls up in my lap that I'm not excited about that. And so, I do think it is a shift in our, our, thinking when it comes to expectations around being in God's Word. Word. Because we do still want to be in God's Word. It is the primary indicator of if children will continue in the faith into adulthood. It's the primary indicator of if someone is actually growing as a Christian, as an adult, are they in God's Word? But it comes back to the thing we talked about earlier, that motive. Are we reading so we can check it off? Are we reading X number of verses because we want to be able to say on social media that, like, we really read the Bible in a year maybe? Or are we saying, I want to commit to reading God's Word in a year because I know it's going to change me. in the work of every day in the Bible as I've been writing, it will have a daily podcast that goes with it. So the print piece is already out, but the daily podcast has honestly been what has formed me so much because it is a crazy amount of words. It's been so kind of the Lord to carve out the space and, and the needs. I thought this was a project I would work on when I was 60 years old, you know, 20 to 30 years from now, I was like, lord, maybe in the future we'll work on this. And the Lord just made it really clear that we're doing this now. Get, on. Get on the boat. We're going, we're doing this. And, at the end of it, I know that we'll be able to look back and say, this is something that only the Lord could do. And I think that's what God is after in all of our devotion to Him. Him that he is after us being able to look at our lives, to look at our children, to look at the way they, they are formed in his image, to look at the way they are formed in His Word. And to say this is something only God could do and that we would pray to that end God, make it true of us, make it true of our children, that at the, at the end of life, and even not at the end, maybe a year from now, maybe five years from now, maybe 10 years from now, that we look back on the years we've traveled and we say, wow, look what God has done. This is something, something only he could do.
Dr. Jessica Peck I hear the sincerity and the emotion in your voice, Mary, and it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. And I am so grateful for what you have challenged us to do, what you've encouraged us to do. Because as parents, we don't want our kids growing up feeling like they have to read God's Word. We want them to feel like I have to read God's Word as my bread, as my daily bread. I cannot get through this day, for without reading God's Word. And it just seems to me my experience has been the more that I learn about God's Word, the more that I read it, the more I want to read it, because there's just always something new to discover. And I'm so grateful for the tools that you've given us. This study is called Every Day in the Bible Delighting in the Whole Word of God. In 52 weeks, she has tons. Mary Wiley has tons of other resources, books, books, even a teen study guide, a teen girl study guide. Mary, I thank you so much for helping us to approach scripture with curiosity and with confidence in that, in, our ability to read God's Word and for. And to desire to know God more deeply. So if you're listening, listen. You don't have to know every answer to open the Bible with your kids. You can say, let's read, let's ask, let's learn together. And just that simple everyday invitation can become extremely transformational over time. I challenge you to pick up Mary's study or just the Bible. Just choose a passage from the Gospels and read it together and see what it sells you, what it teaches you about Jesus. Once again, that Mary's book is called Every Day in the Bible Delighting in the Word of God. In 52 weeks, a companion series, 365 podcast episodes, corresponding teen girls study, and it releases November 3rd. May the Lord bless you and keep you. Make his face shine upon you. I'll see you right back here tomorrow. The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
Dr. Jessica Peck Hello, and welcome to the Dr. Nurse Mama show, prescribing Hope for Healthy Families
Dr. Jessica Peck here on American Family Radio.
Dr. Jessica Peck Here's your host, professor, pediatric nurse practitioner, and mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck.
Dr. Jessica Peck Well, hey there, friends, and welcome to my favorite time of day, getting to spend time with you, prescribing Hope for Healthy Families. And we got a great show for you today, one that's going to encourage you, one that's going to give you hope. It's a positive thing we're talking about, and I hope that you will stick with us, because as I'm saying these words and you're listening to me talk, I am very cognizant of the fact that we live in a world that's overflowing with words. We have. We can listen to podcasts just like this one, which I hope is offering you good guidance and encouragement. But we also see other words that come from our social media that maybe offer inspiration, maybe rage bait. Our phones certainly deliver a steady stream of opinions about who we should be, what we should believe, how we should raise our children. Have we voted? Who are we voting for? Who's ready for those messages to be done? But even spiritual encouragement can arrive in just fragments. Just a favorite verse that's on a coffee mug, an inspirational reel, a scripture, graphic we share before moving on with our day. But how do we move from recognizing familiar verses to understanding the God who gave them to us? Now, for families, that question matters a lot. Our children are encountering countless messages about identity, purpose, truth and belonging. And as Christian parents and grandparents, we want to help them recognize God's voice in the middle of those competing messages. At the same time, we wonder, how do we teach our children the Bible when there's so much that we don't understand ourselves? And maybe, you know, the courage it takes to begin a Bible reading plan and the discouragement that comes when you know that you're behind that has been one of the greatest blessings to me in my own spiritual journey is finding a Bible plan and sticking to it. It is just. I can't imagine beginning my day any other way. But maybe you love the Gospels, but you feel lost in the prophets. This was my conversation with my father in law, actually last night. He was struggling through a part of the Old Testament and I said, oh, I actually love that. But maybe you grew up knowing Noah, and David and Daniel, but you just didn't understand how their stories connect to Jesus. And those experience leave us with familiar pieces of scripture, but little confidence in the arc, the overarching arc of the gospel story and how they all fit together. So that's what we're talking about today. How do we read the Bible with understanding, with curiosity, with delight, even? And how does seeing scripture as one unified story deepen our love for God? How can we approach difficult passages without giving up? And how can those very ordinary moments in the car, at the breakfast table, on a walk, in the afternoon, at bedtime, how do those become opportunities to help the next generation know the whole story of God's faithfulness? Well, joining me today is Mary Wiley. She's a Bible teacher. She's the author of Everyday theology, what you believe matters, Our highest good, which I, talk about theology here all the time. All the time. Theology's for everybody. And her new study, Every day in the Bible, Delighting in the whole word of God in 52 weeks. Hey, we got January coming up. You could start this then. You can start it now. Now, Mary holds a master's degree in theological. She serves as an associate publisher at B H Publishing Group, and she and her husband Jon have four kiddos. They live in the Nashville area. And her new study guides readers through all 66 books of the Bible, helps them see connections between the Old and the NewSong Testaments and recognize Jesus at the center of scripture. Mary, I'm so glad to have you here. Let's make sure. Do we have Mary with us? Hey, Mary, are you there?
Dr. Jessica Peck Hi. Thanks so much for having me.
Dr. Jessica Peck Fantastic. Okay, great. I'm, just, you know, the joys of live radio, you never quite know until it happens, the connection. But I'm so glad to have you here, Mary. You know, as I. I was reading about your study, I'm so excited for the potential for people to engage in God's Word. As you're starting to look at the landscape of 2027, this is a great goal for then, but it's a great goal to start today, and it's definitely one that's been transformational for me. I would love to hear how scripture has been transformational in your story. How did you come to know the Lord? And how did he give you a passion for teaching his Word?
Dr. Jessica Peck Yeah, so I came to know the Lord as a young kid. my family had me at church every time the doors were open, and that was so formative for me because I had people around me who loved God's Word, who were teaching me God's Word. when I was about 8 years old, my dad was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymph noma and that became a really large portion of my story as he wisely helped our family navigate what was ultimately a terminal condition, through the lens of Scripture, of seeing Christ in what was happening. And so I was a really stubborn child. I loved to go to the cancer center with my dad, much to my mom's frustration. And I saw really, really sick people and was able to ask a lot of questions about why bad things happen to good people. And my dad very wisely explained to me that sin was like a cancer, that Christ was the only cure for that. There were lots of sick people at this cancer center because they were seeking treatments, they were seeking doctors to help them with their maladies. And that we all were infected with sin and needed Christ to, to solve our sin problem m. For us. And so through that conversation and continued conversations, certainly, I was a very curious child. So I asked a million questions, before choosing to follow Jesus. But he just, ah, Christ just continued to pursue me through my parents, through teachers at school, through friends. And at about 12 I chose to follow Jesus. And from then just really had this hunger for His Word to understand who it was that we worshiped, to the point that my youth minister handed me his copy of Systematic theology as a 14 year old and was like, just go home and read this. I think he was tired of me being in his office asking questions and he thought that would stop the problem. And I remember walking back in about two months later and I was like, I have some questions, I've worked through this and I've got some high highlighted things. And he said, yeah, that's not how we use books like that. You don't read a reference book from Cove to cover. but I had because I just wanted to know what was true. Now. Have I, like read the Bible every day of my life? Certainly not. We certainly struggle through seasons and there have been seasons of drought and seasons of fruitful study certainly. But the kindness of the Lord has kept me coming back to His Word again and again. I, truly have like, tasted and seen that the Lord is good and truly do find that His Word is not something that I just need for a 10 minute moment of my day. But I need it like I need bread. I need it like I need three meals a day. I need it like I need breath in my lungs. That it truly is life to us. As the Israelites found again and again as they, traveled in the wilderness. They never complained about God's Word to them, God's Law to them. They Complained about a lot of things, but they knew that his word was life. And that is what I have found again and again.
Dr. Jessica Peck Well, I confess I want to go back to 8 year old Mary and give her a hug. I'm so sorry you lost your dad, Mary. I know that, that God works all things for, for good, for those who love him and are called according to his purpose. And I'm so grateful to hear of your dad's impact and his testimony of faith and the impact that that had on your own faith. That is a beautiful thing. But that's a tough thing for a kid to go through and I'm sure that that was part of your journey in really one having that hunger to know what kind of God would allow this to happen. And there's a difference between reading the Bible, to kind of be a content expert, to know what the Bible says, to, you know, be able to excel in the sword drills, maybe that some of us grew up with, you know, being able to find God's wor to read about it. But you really are encouraging a very dramatic shift and I hope that listeners will catch this. It's not just knowing things about the Bible. It's delighting in the God it reveals. It's, it's learning about the character of the author. How did that transition happen for you?
Dr. Jessica Peck Yeah, I was a child who wanted to know all the right answers. type A to the max. And yet as I realized walking through my dad's death and just really working through what does this mean in my life? How will my life be different? What does it mean for God to be my father in this situation and beyond? I found that just knowing true facts about God made me hard, made me want ah, to be the one who won the argument in the room but didn't make me soft towards the thing things of God. And I do think that there's a real difference between studying God's word to be the smartest in the room, studying God's word to win an argument, to to exert some sort of power to win a sword drill. Yes, I loved to compete against my friends and I was not competing against my friends because I wanted to hide God's word in my heart. I was competing against my friends because I wanted to win. Now has God blessed that and his word has truly never returned void? Absolutely. He brings those verses that I memorized to beat my friends back to my mind when I need them today. but I think walking through such a hard season as a, as a young child really knit me to the heart of God, where I needed to know him personally, not just know a lot of true facts about Him. and I'm, I'm a PhD student today, not because I want to know more about God, but because I want to know God rightly and talk, Talk about Him rightly. And there. It's such a. You, you said it well, Jessica. It's a very narrow difference. There's a very small line between those two things. And we want to develop biblical literacy, meaning we know God's word, we know the text, we want to be able to answer the trivia questions because it means that we've spent time learning God and His Word. But the motive under that learning really matters.
Dr. Jessica Peck Oh, it really does. And one of the things that concerns me today, Mary, is the fragmentation of Scripture. Just like I talked about at the beginning, in some ways it's really good because you can scroll through social media and depending on who you're following, you can see, you know, scriptures that are posted there and that has its rightful place. And just like you said, you know, God used that Bible memorization, that Bible literacy for good, even when your motives maybe weren't the best. But we do see this fragmentation where we just hear like one little word out of context. A, 30 second reel about this. Or, you know, maybe we see it on a T shirt or, wall art at Hobby Lobby or whatever it is. But there is a difference between just kind of having that scripture peripherally around you and really diving in to the overarching arc of the, of the narrative, the unified story of the gospel. Not just isolated stories like, okay, a nursery, maybe Noah's Ark, which actually I've seen a lot of funny reels about that. I dig Mary, about how maybe that's kind of a scary theme for a kid's nursery, but somehow we do that. We know these, these fragments of stories. What would you do to compel us to really invest in seeing the ark of the Gospel?
Dr. Jessica Peck Yeah. When we are focusing only on a single story or even a selection of stories, or maybe even a lifetime of stories. This is something I saw when I wrote Everyday Theology. it was my first work. I wrote it for my local church because I was serving as a children's minister, receiving lots of questions from parents about how do these stories fit together? Who is God? My kids coming home, talking about the Trinity, and I don't know how to explain that. And, what I was hearing from them without them saying it was, I have been in this church my whole life But I have not developed a language of faith. I don't know how to explain what's happening in the big story of Scripture. And I think when we aren't considering the full council of Scripture, and you mentioned it earlier, the prophets can be really hard. Or many people say Leviticus is where year long reading plans go to die. And they're not wrong because those passages can be very challenging. And yet when we look at the whole of God's story of what he's doing, we understand why Leviticus really matters. Because he's showing us who Christ would be on every page of the text. That as we see the prophets, like we're seeing what sin really cost God to pay for, right? That sin caused these people to be in exile. It caused all of these consequences. I, I think we have a really light view of sin and the Bible has a really heavy view of sin most of the time. And if we only stick to our favorite passages, I think we miss seeing the fully orbed picture of God that he intends to communicate to his children. because we only see glimpses and pieces of him. And it can also really, help us or, or hinder us rather from understanding some of the more challenging pieces of scripture. And so when someone comes to you and says, hey, what do I do with Joshua when God tells them to remove the people from the land, what do I do with that? That seems like God is harsh, like
Dr. Jessica Peck he's angry, you know, Mary, I'm gonna hold you right there because that's a little bit of a cliffhanger. We're right at our first break. But what do we do with those stories? I know my daughter told my father in law. You've heard all the kid Bible studies. Let's talk about Noah getting drunk. Now those can be hard things to wrestle with, but we'll do more of that with Mary widely right on the other side of this break. Don't go away. We'll be right back. Hello, I'm Jessica peck, host of Dr. Nurse Mama. Did you know that this show is listener supported? Without people like you, this show would not exist. And that's why we need you. A generous monthly gift of any amount will help sustain American Family Radio, specifically this show as we reach thousands of people each week with biblical truth. Please consider becoming a monthly financial partner today by visiting afr.netgive that's afr.net give.
Dr. Jessica Peck So intimate, so powerful and I've tasted, I've seen and nothing comes close I've never known a love like yours Jesus, your Name is power. It's breath in living water. And your spirit guides me to the heart of the, Father. Letting your braids ring louder every day and every hour. Cause your spirit guides, me to the heart of the Father.
Dr. Jessica Peck welcome back, friends. That is Heart of the Father by Rhyen Ellis. And that's exactly what we're talking about. Running to the heart of the Father and finding him who he is, his character, his nature, how he loves us. Finding that in his word. Joining me today is Mary Wiley. She is a, theologian. She is author of a new study called Every Day in the Bible, Delighting in the Whole Word of God in 52 weeks. And I'll tell you, reading through the Bible in a year is just. Just a spiritual lifeline for me. And it really, really changed my spiritual life. Just. And I constantly learn new things. And right before the break, we were just talking about the whole arc and the narrative of Scripture. This is something I'm really learning more and more about every single day to learn about the perfections, the miracles that happen in Scripture. The Old Testament reflecting the NewSong. The curse being unwound, till one day things will be new again. There will be no tears, no more mourning, no more crying. And we long for that day. But in the meantime, we grasp, we grapple in the messy middle. So, Mary, right before the break, you were just talking about how some of those more difficult concepts, especially in the Old Testament, can be really difficult to wrestle with. So I'm going to let you pick it right back up. Right where we left off.
Dr. Jessica Peck Sure. So as we look at the full story of Scripture, we can better understand what God is doing in those hard, those really difficult passages to understand. So if we're looking at a. At a Joshua, the conquest in Joshua, we can look back at Genesis and see that God has already said he is being patient with the Amorites for 400 years before he's coming to administer justice to them through the Israelites. And so we want to see the full story of Scripture because just as you just so beautifully said, God is doing something. all of history is pointed in a particular direction, and that is that he is. He's going to restore all things through Christ. He is going to renew all things through Christ. And when Christ is the center of our lives and the center of the way we read the text, then the Spirit will transform our hearts through Him.
Dr. Jessica Peck That is something that we all want. And when I, I look at the Old Testament, you know, I see people who today who kind of think, well, it's Just irrelevant. You know that that's the old, that's the old way. That's the law. It's not anymore like we're just going to focus on the NewSong Testament, but seeing the work of God, the character of God, how he, you know, just planned from the beginning a way of grace and salvation and to demonstrate his love for his people, it. You're missing out if you miss that. One of the things I love about your study, Mary, is that each quarter begins in a gospel, so that's an easy entry. But then it connects books across the Old and NewSong Testament, which is just one of my favorite things ever now about studying the Bible. Tell us why you organized it that way and how you're helping readers to keep the bigger picture in view, how it might be different than another Bible reading plan that they have done before.
Dr. Jessica Peck Sure. So we start in the Gospel of Jon, because Jon begins in the beginning was the Word. He's telling us who this Jesus is that we need to know. But he's intentionally using the language of Genesis to show that he's doing something new. Something, that is both, new in the Gospels, but also old and ancient and before time began. Because in the beginning was the Word. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And so we read Jon and then we read Genesis because Jon is helping us understand how to read Genesis in light of Christ. so we're going to read, ah, Exodus and Leviticus, these, these books of the law, these books where God is revealing himself as the deliverer, as the good king to us. We're going to read that alongside Hebrews. That gives us all of the instructions around, okay, how is Jesus fulfilling the law? How is he the better high priest? Where we have the instructions to the high priest in Exodus, their enactment in Leviticus and beyond. We're going to read numbers in Deuteronomy with Romans. So you get this second iteration of the law in Deuteronomy. And if a reader is reading from Cove to cover and they make it through Leviticus is somehow, then they get to Deuteronomy and they feel like they're reading Leviticus again. And so often readers are like, I'm done. Like, I can't do Leviticus again. And so we read that alongside Romans to see the beauty of grace in the giving of the law. Romans is such a theologically rich, beautiful book. And it is constantly pointing back to what Moses is doing in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. So we continue that pattern throughout the entire course of The Bible to help you see not just, oh, these passages are tied together, but, oh, these big themes, these big truths about who God is. Is one thing across all 66 books that God is doing that. God is not different in the Old Testament than he is in the NewSong Testament. He's not an angry God in the Old Testament. And this really kind God who's given us Jesus, us in the NewSong Testament, no, God is one. And so revealing both, Genesis all the way through revelation, ultimately is about Jesus. That Paul in, his letter says, hey, the Exodus is for the instruction of the church. And so we're asking that question, how do we, as Christians on this side of the Resurrection, read those books that maybe feel old, maybe feel like they don't have a direct connection to our lives, lives? And how do we seek to see Jesus with our eyes wide open, illuminated by the Spirit, seeing who he is, clearly not as a shadow, as Paul says, the Old Testament is a shadow, but to see him as the substance and, this shadow, that all points to him.
Dr. Jessica Peck Mary I think it's more important now than at any point in history for parents, especially to engage with the word of God, just as you described, to learn the Bible, to learn about the God who m. Who gave us his word, to learn theology. Because I think when previous generations were growing up, you know, if you were a Christian family, you're going to church, you know, you talk about the things of God, but if there's questions that came up, it seemed like it was more acceptable to say, you know, oh, I don't know that we'll ask the pastor, we'll ask your Sunday school teacher, you know, we'll ask, we'll go to church and we'll talk about that. But now there's so many sources of information, and one of the things is that I see is that influencers on social media, they come across with the same authority and credibility as AI does, you know, where they're just very boldly confident. And you can see, even now, we see this playing out in the political landscape, where we'll see different parts of scripture just taken out of context. Or no, I interpret it to mean this. Or no, I interpret it to mean this. And there's different brands, almost even that emerge. And you can identify with theology that just feels right to you, that's most comfortable with you. And we're getting into some dangerous theological territory there. And I think it's really important for us before we, you know, reach for somebody else's explanation, how do we develop our own convictions. How do we discern that? Because it can be really intimidating, you know, for me. I don't have a theology degree, you know, Mary, and so sometimes that can be really intimidating for me. But how do we teach our kids, kids, how do we to be discerning and how do we teach our kids to be discerning when we're listening to others interpretations of Scripture?
Dr. Jessica Peck Yeah. So I would begin by saying, there's a difference between knowledge and wisdom. And I, think I hear a lot of parents say, oh, I don't have a degree, I can't lead my children, I can't disciple my children. I need someone who knows more. But we also know that the work of a disciple is ultimately like an apprentice. It's, it's a very personal, intimate, relational work. I recently heard someone speaking about how AI could replace discipleship, how it could become this tool for personalized spiritual growth. And and while AI might help us seek wisdom or seek knowledge, it can't help us seek wisdom because the Bible tells us that wisdom is only in Christ. It is only, it's God's to give and it's ours to seek from him, not from a source of knowledge that might be able to tell us true facts but cannot actually develop us in the ways of God. So while we might have true things we know, the decision making process of wisdom, the development of long earned formation, maturity, only comes through interactions with God. And so the first thing I would say to a parent who says, where do I even begin? What do I do? I can't do this. I would say that's right where God likes to have us because he works best through the week. And there is no amount of degrees that will ever make you, ready to disciple your children because they have a front row seat to both your faithfulness and your disobedience. And in so many ways that is really beautiful because we are not meant to be our child's savior. We are simply meant to walk them to the One who is. And so we can disciple them, we can walk them that direction, and we only have to be a few steps ahead. And so what I love about the opportunity to read through the Bible with your kids even is, that you can do it with them. One of the most instructive things in my childhood was catching my mom with her Bible open in her lap. She did not have to sit down and have hour long conversations with us. I knew she cared about God's word because I saw her constantly running to it. And Our kids need to see us running to God's word instead of to the world, instead of to social media, instead of AI. Because true personal discipleship is something that only Christ and His church can do. Only another person can help lead us, us to the Savior. We're made in his image. no amount of knowledge, no AI, no social media. Those things aren't made in his image. Only people are made in his image. And as parents, our goal is to, do the very best we can. And yet I also want to free parents up, that sometimes the most valuable thing you can say is, I don't know, but let's find out. I don't know, but let's open the Bible together. Teach your kids how to not just seek an answer, but how to actually seek to find that answer for themselves. That's a skill that is going to serve them their entire lives. Not ask Siri, not OpenAI. Although certainly Google can be helpful. Like where I do that. Where's this verse? I know that this is somewhere. I can't remember the address. Help me Google, but get into your Bibles. Open your Bibles with your kids. it does not have to be fancy, it does not have to be perfect, because you're not the one responsible for the transformation. The Spirit is. God will do it through you if you just allow him to work. So I just, as a parent, my biggest encouragement is just come ready, come willing, and be willing to say, I don't know, but always take your children to the gospel, to the Bible, to help them unearth what it is they're seeking to know.
Dr. Jessica Peck That's really good advice. And I love to hear your testimony of seeing your mom with her Bible in her lap. And this, you know, brings me to a point I've been talking about a lot. I think there is still value in today, in modern society and modern context of having a paper Bible with a version that you have carefully selected that you, you know is not going to change. Because that's something that I'm reading about, you know, online. When we read online, like, okay, was the version changed? We didn't know. Or. Or is something presented out of context. But if you have your paper Bible, there's something different about that. Rather than like, is my mom playing Candy Crush or is she reading her devotional on her iPad? I can't tell. There's just something about that visual. And I keep hearing people share a testimony of that, of he, of seeing their parent, their caregiver, their grandparent, a, really special adult in Their life, who modeled that and demonstrated that. And the other thing that you equip us to do. And, and you are welcome. I invite you to opine on paper Bible or electronic Bible or both. Mary, you, you're more than welcome to opine on that. And I want to know too, like, how we turn those everyday interactions into ongoing discipleship, because that's where it is. It's not in, you know, sitting down in the picture perfect devotional where everybody is, you know, just saying, oh mother, this is my fav. Favorite time of the day. Shall I light the candles? You know, we have this image of it being perfect, but it's really those imperfect everyday interactions. So, I'll give you the soapbox and give you a turn.
Dr. Jessica Peck That's absolutely right. And for our family, it happens in car rides more than any other time. And with really simple questions. Hey, what did you learn about God today? What questions did you have today? we'll read a chapter or a couple of verses and then we'll seek to kind of unpack those. Okay, so what did we learn here? What's God doing? I have another kids resource called Discovering the Bible and it is the process that I use with my kids, both at home and at church. And, and so we're constantly looking to, to pray, to read and reread a passage to make sure we understood it. So we read it. Normally. I let kids read it the first time and then I read it behind them. Mostly because it just takes a lot of time to let a child read that amount of verses. and then we ask and we answer. And this is what I think is the most important thing about, being someone who is a person of faith. And that is that we cultivate curiosity about God's word. So we are constantly asking, why did God say this? What does this connect to? what could I learn? So in college I, was drafted into a discipleship group and my leader handed us a card which, with three verses on it and said, come back in a week having asked 50 questions about three, three verses.
Dr. Jessica Peck Wow.
Dr. Jessica Peck And 19 year old Mary Wiley rolled her eyes and was like, that is not possible and I will not be doing that. And my leader looked at me and said, you will or you will not be coming back in this classroom. And I said, yes sir, I will be bringing 50 questions. And the beautiful part of that is we all came back with 50, 50 questions and not one of us had the same set of questions.
Dr. Jessica Peck Wow.
Dr. Jessica Peck So many questions could have been asked about those same verses. And so when we get really curious about what God is doing and why, that really is when we develop these understandings of what he's doing, it's what growth looks like. So I'm gonna hold you right there.
Dr. Jessica Peck I'm gonna hold you right there. We have more to talk about, Mary. The book is the study is every day in the Bible, delighting in the whole word of God in 52 weeks. And we have more conversation to be had with the delightful Mary Wiley right on the other side of this break. Don't miss it. Come back and let your heart be encouraged. We'll see you in just a second, Friend. We're living in the defining moment today. A woman facing an unexpected pregnancy can order the abortion pill online, often before anyone has the chance to tell her she is is loved, that she's not alone, or that there is hope. That's why you are needed right now. You were made for this moment. At, PreBorn Network clinics, mothers are welcomed with compassion, practical support and a free ultrasound. And when she sees her baby and hears that tiny heartbeat for the very first time, fear often gives way to hope. In fact, more than 80% of abortion vulnerable women choose life after seeing their baby on an ultrasound at a PreBorn Network clinic.
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Dr. Jessica Peck I searched the world but it couldn't feel me Man's empty breaks and treasures of faith are never enough
Dr. Jessica Peck then
Dr. Jessica Peck you came along and put me back together Every desire is now served satisfied Here in your love. Oh, there's nothing better than you there's nothing better than you Lord, there's nothing nothing is better than you
Dr. Jessica Peck welcome back, friends. That is graves into gardens by elevation worship. And we're talking today with theologian author Mary Wiley. She's the author of a new study called Every Day in the Bible Delighting in the whole word of God in 52 weeks. And she does a beautiful job taking, starting you in the Gospels and then connecting that to the Old Testament so that you can, can see the overarching arc of scripture, the arc of the Gospel narrative and how God has just beautifully told this unified story that is connected the Old Testament and the NewSong Testament. And right before the break, we were just talking about encouraging our kids to ask questions. And Mary was sharing her own experience bringing 50 questions about three verses into a, into a Bible study, which would be a pretty big task there. And Mary, you and I were just chatting during the break that I think today when kids ask questions, it often can make us as parents. Even though we wouldn't want to admit it or maybe we don't even see it, it just makes us a little uneasy. It strikes this fear in our hearts because we've heard from a long, for a long time about the percentages of young people who walk away from their faith and how that's been growing and that that is real and that's every Christian parents fear is that you're raising your kids, try to grow up and love God and love others, serve people, serve and love people. Well, you don't want them to walk away from their faith. And somet when they have those questions, we start to think, oh, why are you questioning this? I feel so strongly we need to push back on this. And you were talking about this with, approaching it with curiosity. Let's talk a little bit more about how we can cultivate a healthy curiosity about scripture in our homes.
Dr. Jessica Peck Yeah. So there is no replacement for asking questions about the text. it is the way that we help kids own their own faith. Instead of, of simply telling them what to believe, they're able to wrestle through those questions and ask how they're processing so that we can lean in and help direct them rather than give them just a statement to memorize. Because we all know that when you just have a statement memorized, as you continue to grow and you learn more about the world and you see more of the hard things in the world, you're gonna eventually ask those questions. And so in my home, I want my kids to ask those questions to me. I want them to ask those questions long before they become an adult because I can help guide them to where to find the right answers rather than just seeking to download information to them. I want to raise, I want to raise critical thinkers in my home and in my church. And that really is what the church needs. We need people who can take what the Bible says and apply it to the cultural conversations that are happening in the world. We need in the next generation people who can read, the, the prophets and say, hey, here's the wisdom from this, this is how we should live because of what we've read here. And so the way that we develop people who can do that, the way we develop children who can do that, but also adults, adults is to give them the space to ask the, the hard questions. Because what I know to be true is that our God is big enough to handle the questions and he welcomes them. Let's look at the Psalms. I mean, David. There are times where David is crying out and saying, lord, where even are you? Like, are you gone? What is happening? and that's an appropriate expression of emotion when hard things happen. And so helping them know that the Bible has, has space for their questions is going to, instead of, putting them in a rocky place, which I think we fear, right? We fear if I give you the space to ask these questions, you might discover something that leads you somewhere else. And I'm, I want to be really generous and really gracious, but I also do think that that is, kind of a thought of us needing to control it when God is more than capable of, of controlling his own reputation and building up our children. And so what I hope, ah, my, my immediate knee jerk reaction is when kids ask questions is that we go to the Bible and that I start praying that I pray that my children will develop in the ways of the Lord, that I pray that they will love God's Word, that they will seek God's Word for the answers, but also that I'm asking God to reveal it to them in his word because he does have an answer. We don't have to fear our children asking questions because our God does have an answer. And he is good and he is gracious. And they will not find, if they're truly, seeking to know him, they will not find a God that is, any lesser than their understanding, any lesser than their imagination. But he will certainly be better.
Dr. Jessica Peck Certainly, certainly. And you're onto something there, Mary, with the control. I think that is one of the great, greatest potential traps for modern parenting is for us to fall into that trap of seeking instant gratification as parents. And the way that we do that is by controlling behavior. Because if our kids are saying the right thing, if they're doing the right thing, that's an immediate feedback loop to us that, oh, I must be doing a good job As a parent, I can stay in this comfortable place and we can just continue moving on and, and we get uncomfortable even I think in exploring those more difficult conversations of the heart. Some of those messy emotions, some of those questions that you know, we are going to ask and maybe not get a really good answer this side of heaven. Maybe this will be something that we continue to wrestle with. But it's in that wrestling, it's in that those identity issues, character formation, that's where discipleship is really going to happen. It's not about if I teach my kids enough scripture to memorize, if I have enough, you know, gold stars on their attendance chart at church. It's, it's not about checking a box, it's about. And it's not about controlling their behavior. It's about cultivating, creating the conditions to cultivate a relationship where kids are safe to ask questions, where they are surrounded by trusted people that they can talk to about that, where they have easy access to God's word. So tell us more about, about that, about really use it. Using God's word to shape our kids view of their identity, of their purpose, most importantly of God's character. Because that's going to tell them back their identity.
Dr. Jessica Peck That's exactly right. And I think just what we're talking about today as we read the full text of the Bible, kids can do that. So this is something we do every Sunday morning. I teach second grade, Sunday school. These are brand new readers, right. Sometimes we're reading a chapter of the text and it takes us 30 minutes just to read it because it is slow and it is tedious. This. But there is such value in creating spaces for your children to experience the Bible for themselves that they can read it for themselves. even at 8, at my oldest, we're like, let's read through the Bible together. And so we started that process. Now we didn't make it all the way through. We hope to start again now that they're 10. Because there are some very difficult stories that I had forgotten, gotten honestly and was like, okay, now I need to figure out how to explain these very complicated things. And yet, even as soon as they can read, they can, they can read the Bible. They can read a full text Bible for themselves. It does not have to be cover to cover, but we can help equip them to do those things so that they are being formed by what they're reading. And it also is up to us that as they ask questions or as they don't ask the questions, they have and instead we see behaviors or we see, curiosities, or we see frustrations. It's up to us as parents to identify. Oh, I think my child might be struggling with putting words to their emotions. Let's, at dinner, read a psalm together. Really simple. Take you less than five minutes. Let's talk about how David poured his heart out to God.
Dr. Jessica Peck God.
Dr. Jessica Peck it does not have to be an all in. We're going to read, you know, an hour every night for it to be beneficial. There is grace for whatever it looks like. But we do want to make sure we're moving forward in informing them in the ways of God. Now, again, I want to be really clear. We're not the ones doing the forming. There is no perfect plan. The Spirit is faithful to do it. We just need to pray and, and take the first right step.
Dr. Jessica Peck That first right step is so important. And what you're talking about as a grace based approach, Mary, is, is so important too. And I think, you know, sometimes I know I grew up in, in an environment where I felt like my adherence to those spiritual disciplines, like if I read my Bible, God would be pleased with me, he would love me, he would check my life. Check, check. It's like this. If, then proposition like, okay, God, I'll do the checklist and then you bless my life. Okay? And that is, right, really a dangerous perspective to have. And there is a lot of grace to be found in that relationship base. Like, okay, I forgot today I got off track. You know, we, we. Oh, you know, we started this and I really had good intentions and it just fell off. And maybe sometime there's something for a season. You know, maybe you have that nighttime routine for a season and then maybe another season, the morning works better. How do we go for a relationship based approach rather than a, A schedule based approach?
Dr. Jessica Peck And you are speaking my language because as a child, I love to get a gold star. I love to get a checkbox.
Dr. Jessica Peck Yes, ma'. Am.
Dr. Jessica Peck And it is a hard thing to unlearn. Those are difficult behaviors to unravel. And yet what we see in God's word as we, as we, we feast on it, as we visit it every day as we meet with God in the pages, is that, it's. His words truly are alive. They are different from any other book. And, I think often we think about God and we want to form him in our image rather than us considering that we are formed in his image. And we think, oh, I missed a day, God's gonna be mad at me. Oh, I missed a day, say, God's not going to speak to me today. He's. He's frustrated. And yet what I see in the Scriptures is a father who loves when his children run to him. as a mom, there's not a single time when a child crawls up in my lap that I'm not excited about that. And so, I do think it is a shift in our, our, thinking when it comes to expectations around being in God's Word. Word. Because we do still want to be in God's Word. It is the primary indicator of if children will continue in the faith into adulthood. It's the primary indicator of if someone is actually growing as a Christian, as an adult, are they in God's Word? But it comes back to the thing we talked about earlier, that motive. Are we reading so we can check it off? Are we reading X number of verses because we want to be able to say on social media that, like, we really read the Bible in a year maybe? Or are we saying, I want to commit to reading God's Word in a year because I know it's going to change me. in the work of every day in the Bible as I've been writing, it will have a daily podcast that goes with it. So the print piece is already out, but the daily podcast has honestly been what has formed me so much because it is a crazy amount of words. It's been so kind of the Lord to carve out the space and, and the needs. I thought this was a project I would work on when I was 60 years old, you know, 20 to 30 years from now, I was like, lord, maybe in the future we'll work on this. And the Lord just made it really clear that we're doing this now. Get, on. Get on the boat. We're going, we're doing this. And, at the end of it, I know that we'll be able to look back and say, this is something that only the Lord could do. And I think that's what God is after in all of our devotion to Him. Him that he is after us being able to look at our lives, to look at our children, to look at the way they, they are formed in his image, to look at the way they are formed in His Word. And to say this is something only God could do and that we would pray to that end God, make it true of us, make it true of our children, that at the, at the end of life, and even not at the end, maybe a year from now, maybe five years from now, maybe 10 years from now, that we look back on the years we've traveled and we say, wow, look what God has done. This is something, something only he could do.
Dr. Jessica Peck I hear the sincerity and the emotion in your voice, Mary, and it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. And I am so grateful for what you have challenged us to do, what you've encouraged us to do. Because as parents, we don't want our kids growing up feeling like they have to read God's Word. We want them to feel like I have to read God's Word as my bread, as my daily bread. I cannot get through this day, for without reading God's Word. And it just seems to me my experience has been the more that I learn about God's Word, the more that I read it, the more I want to read it, because there's just always something new to discover. And I'm so grateful for the tools that you've given us. This study is called Every Day in the Bible Delighting in the Whole Word of God. In 52 weeks, she has tons. Mary Wiley has tons of other resources, books, books, even a teen study guide, a teen girl study guide. Mary, I thank you so much for helping us to approach scripture with curiosity and with confidence in that, in, our ability to read God's Word and for. And to desire to know God more deeply. So if you're listening, listen. You don't have to know every answer to open the Bible with your kids. You can say, let's read, let's ask, let's learn together. And just that simple everyday invitation can become extremely transformational over time. I challenge you to pick up Mary's study or just the Bible. Just choose a passage from the Gospels and read it together and see what it sells you, what it teaches you about Jesus. Once again, that Mary's book is called Every Day in the Bible Delighting in the Word of God. In 52 weeks, a companion series, 365 podcast episodes, corresponding teen girls study, and it releases November 3rd. May the Lord bless you and keep you. Make his face shine upon you. I'll see you right back here tomorrow. The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
How do we move our children past fragmented Bible verses and help them understand the overarching arc of the Gospel? In this episode, Jessica Peck sits down with author and Bible teacher Mary Wiley. Together, they explore how to read all 66 books of the Bible, cultivate a healthy curiosity in children, and transition from checking boxes to truly delighting in the character of God. Discover practical ways to disciple your kids, embrace tough biblical questions, and make God’s Word your daily bread.
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