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We are back with Part 2 of our series on “How To Study The Bible For Abuse Survivors”! We have back on the show, none other than XtianNinja himself, Pastor Al Descheneau! He’s back to talk about all things Bible, answering questions like, What Bible translation do I pick amoung the dizzying array of choices!? How do we interpret the bible correctly without going to the dark side? How do we spot a bad bible teacher/preacher? And other important topics. Pastor Al offers a wealth of knowledge and wisdom, with a side of humor when it comes to studying God’s Word for yourself. Pastor Al also updates us on what God is doing in his Twitch community! We had a fun and enjoyable conversation! Don’t miss it!
Transcript below!
Introduction
Hi! I’m Al (known on Twitch as XtianNinja), a full-time streamer, podcaster, and YouTuber from Canada who is working hard to serve the online community by building an open, encouraging, and meaningful online family, through gaming, real talk, and God’s truth.
I believe with my whole heart that God called me to serve the gaming and streaming community full-time, so regular donations are what keep me, my family, and this new-frontier mission going. If you see the need for online missions and appreciate what I’m doing please become a monthly Patreon donor here. For more information, check out my vision for XtianNinja Online Missions.
Quick Bio
I grew up in a Christian home have known Jesus since I was six years old. After a short time of teenage rebellion, I went to North American Bible College (Now Taylor College & Seminary) in Edmonton to “figure things out”. There, I rededicated my life to Jesus, met my wife, Anita, and was called into full-time pastoral ministry. Since then I’ve been serving Jesus’ in all areas of church life — preaching and teaching, writing, music, leadership development, small groups, tech, sound, graphic design, photography, video editing… whatever it takes to share Jesus and teach scripture in a creative and inspiring way!
In September 2020 a new chapter of my life started when God made it absolutely clear that he wanted me to give up looking for a new ministry position, stop seeking secular work, and dedicate myself full-time to serving as a missionary on the new frontier of global missions as a Twitch streamer. It’s been quite an adventure since then, but over the past months I’ve had God’s call affirmed in amazing ways as He’s changed people’s lives through my channel. If you want to hear some stories and hear updates on how the ministry is going, here are some podcast episodes to check out:
If you really want to get to know me, I shared my “testimony” (life-story) in a series of 7 podcast episodes recently (#23-29).
Here’s the first episode (#23): https://artofthechristianninja.com/2021/02/20/how-being-bullied-changed-me-enraged-by-ravi-z-pilgrims-progress-3-3-of-interest-ep-23/
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Transcript:
Al Descheneau
[00:00:00] Brian Winkler: Welcome to the Wounds of the Faithful podcast brought to you by DSW Ministries. Your host is singer, songwriter, speaker, and domestic violence advocate Diana Winkler. She is passionate about helping survivors in the church, heal from domestic violence and abuse and trauma. This podcast is not a substitute for professional counseling or qualified medical help. [00:00:26] Now, here is Diana. [00:00:34] Diana Winkler: Hello there. Come on in the water’s fine. We are continuing on our series on how to do a Bible study and I wanted to see how you were doing so far. Are you enjoying Bible study? Have you been [00:01:00] encouraged so far, but most importantly, have you jumped into the scriptures and started discovering things? [00:01:10] Maybe you have some questions about what you’ve read. That’s okay. That’s what we’re here for. We’re here to learn. We’re here to be humble in learning in discovering God’s truth. And we have lots of other teachers that are gonna come on. They are well qualified to talk about this. Now, I have a Bible degree, a bachelor’s degree in the Bible, and yes, I can teach a series on this by myself, but I thought it would be more fun to have other people, other teachers come on and talk about this topic. [00:01:59] [00:02:00] As you all know, I was in full-time ministry, [00:02:05] but [00:02:05] I wanted to get people on here that do this full time, that know all the nitty gritty about Bible study and can steer us in the right direction. [00:02:22] So with that being said, I have returning guest to the show. Pastor Al Descheneau, Xtian Ninja. You all met him before. If you’ve been listening to the podcast regularly, he was on episode 33 and 34. And we heard about his story. He is an abuse survivor. Definitely. He’s gone through some really terrible things in his childhood and [00:03:00] as a missionary, as a pastor. [00:03:04] And we talked about all kinds of other fun stuff. He’s back on the show. When he was on the show last year, he was just starting his Twitch ministry. And so we’re going to hear an update as to what’s going on. How is this ministry going with the gaming community that he has been called to? [00:03:27] I’m involved in his ministry a little bit, as much as I can at this point. You’re going to enjoy this interview because he’s a very fun guy and very real, he’s very honest about where he is and his spiritual life and his family and his ministry. He’s very easy to relate to. [00:04:00] And I’m very picky about sermons. [00:04:03] I’m very picky about Bible teachers because I’ve been in ministry full time. A lot of Bible teaching or like sermons usually bore me, or I don’t get anything out of them. And I don’t know if it’s my spiritual state or the pastor teacher. Isn’t very good, or I don’t know, I was too big for my britches and wasn’t open to the teaching. [00:04:39] I don’t know. But anyhow, [00:04:44] Pastor Al is a very good teacher. Every time I hear him do his devotionals on Twitch, they are always very practical and very honest and engaging. And I always [00:05:00] learn something. There’s always a biblical truth that I can apply to my day right now. And he just kind of cuts through all the junk that you hear out there. [00:05:13] He’s got, his Twitch and he has a YouTube channel. He has a podcast. And he has a book right behind me, The Art of the Christian Ninja, which is really super cool. He’s gonna probably talk to you about that. So for those of you who don’t know him, I’m gonna read his bio just briefly because I’m gonna have him talk about everything else. [00:05:36] So his brief bio. He says, Hi, I’m Al known on Twitch as Christian Ninja, a full-time streamer podcaster in YouTuber from Canada who is working hard to serve the online community by building an open, encouraging, and meaningful online family, through [00:06:00] gaming, real talk and God’s truth. I believe with my whole heart, that God called me to serve the gaming and streaming community full time. [00:06:12] So regular donations are what keep me and my family and this new frontier mission going. And I will definitely have all of the information in the show notes, how you can support him. [00:06:26] And he’s got a ton of qualifications, master of divinity, bachelor, religion certificate in biblical studies. He’s got 15 years of full-time pastoral ministry experience. [00:06:45] He definitely has more letters after his name than me. So here we go. Enjoy the conversation with Pastor Al [00:07:00] Descheneau. [00:07:00] All right. I’m so excited to have back on this show, Christian Ninja, Al Descheneau. [00:07:08] Al Descheneau: Good to see you. So glad to be here. Super super fun. Yeah. I had so much fun last time, I’m anticipating much fun this time too. [00:07:15] Diana Winkler: Oh yeah. We always have a great time and can’t believe it’s been a year since you’ve been on the show! And let’s see, that was episode 33 and 34, a two parter! [00:07:27] Al Descheneau: So I’ll try to keep it to, to what, to at least one this time. That’s, I’ll do my best. [00:07:31] Diana Winkler: Yeah, no promises there, but I know that everybody watching and listening, they wanna know, Hey, what have you been up to this whole year? You with your Twitch channel, that was starting last time. Share with everybody the updates. [00:07:48] Al Descheneau: Good. Good gravy. Okay. So trying to summarize this last year is like trying to fit the ocean in a bucket at this point, but I’ll do my best. So last time I was basically just kind of starting out on Twitch and I’ve learned a ton. [00:08:00] When I started out, it was really an evangelistic sort of mindset, which was how do I get into people’s homes and be able to use content in order to build those bridges. [00:08:08] So I can, share the love of Christ with them. Over the last year, there’s been a more of a pivot. It’s still connecting to people, but I’ve been connecting to more and more content creators, more and more Christian content creators who are looking for a community to join training, mentoring, people who they can, bounce ideas off of. [00:08:23] But at the same time are really serious. Like, not just like, peer-to-peer, let’s just talk about stuff, but like legit hold me accountable. Let’s, make sure that I’m doing what I need to do. Give me some ideas. And then join together in, in real. Covenant community. And so that’s, we’ve been doing that. [00:08:38] So I just launched a streamer network. That’s sort of been my huge focus along with that of course I’m doing the stream. So I stream five days a week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, three hours a day. And that’s all encompassing. That’s make the content, plan it out, make the videos afterwards, do the short form, turn it into whatever. [00:08:57] Plus connecting with all the people that I’m trying to connect with. [00:09:00] I’ve really, it’s very pastoral what I’m doing. Essentially, if you want to nail it down, I’ve planted a church. It’s the same stuff. Like even the T.A.C.O network has the same statement of faith and board structure and everything as a church. [00:09:12] And then I do pastoral counseling. I do connection to people. I do outreach. I do visitation, but it all happens through my computer. I love every minute of it. It’s a ton of work. Just like it’s more work than I would ever have guessed, but I’m loving it. [00:09:24] Diana Winkler: That was a very short description. [00:09:27] Al Descheneau: I tried! [00:09:29] Diana Winkler: And you’ve built such a great community! That’s a very rare thing. A positive community where people can come to a safe place, and talk about God, and talk about their problems, and get support, and get help. And that’s probably the most impressive thing about your ministry is that the Discord community and those of us that are supporting you on the Twitch. Cause social media is so toxic out there. [00:09:57] Al Descheneau: Here’s the secret. Everybody [00:10:00] who is part of my Twitch channel wants to be there. Everybody who’s part of the Discord wants to be there. They don’t have to be. There’s 9 million streamers, they could be watching. There’s a billion other Discords that they could be part of, but the reason they’re investing their time into our Discord, the reason that they’re watching the stream watching my stream is cuz they like it and they want to be there. [00:10:22] Therefore it’s automatically a more positive environment. Yeah. Some people come in and try to, poop on the stream of being mean or whatever, but you bounce those guys real fast and then you move on with your day. So it’s not like, you join a church or you join a small group or you join an existing ministry where you come in there and all it’s got the clicks and it’s got things going on and it’s got all the baggage. [00:10:41] This had no baggage when I started. It was me and nobody. And then anybody who has joined since people have went, okay, I’ll watch this guy. Which means they want to be there. So it’s a super positive thing. I love it. [00:10:55] Diana Winkler: Yeah. Now I don’t do video games, at least modern video games at [00:11:00] all. And it’s funny, but I knew that. [00:11:04] The gaming community needed what you’re providing. Somebody to show the love of God in this mission field, as you call it. And I come for the devos. The devos are my favorite part. [00:11:19] Al Descheneau: yeah. I mean, that’s why I’ve connected to so many Christian content creators is cuz he’s come to stumble across me and they’re like, that guy’s preaching. [00:11:25] Right. And if they have any kind of like vibe with wanting to connect to a traditional church, whether they’ve been hurt by one or whether they are in a place where they can’t find one, or whether they’re just they’re, they haven’t connected to something institutionalized, [00:11:41] they look at me and they’re like, oh, that, you know what? That feels very churchy. So I’m gonna, I’m gonna connect in there. And then they learn that the validation, this is what I was gonna talk about, when it comes to those gaming guys, when it comes to the content creators, the validation of saying your interest, the thing that you think is fun, the thing that you’re connected to, that you, that takes up a majority of your time, [00:12:00] I validate in you the fact that interest is okay to have. I validate in you, the fact that your idea you wanting to stream is something I understand. [00:12:09] And because I come with a spirit sense of spiritual authority because I come from a place of, I know what I’m doing and I have skills and I know the Bible and whatnot. When I say, yes, you are the calling that God has in your life to be in the streaming community or the interest you have in this gaming community. [00:12:26] It’s a valid community that speaks volumes, cuz so many of them have been hurt by traditional Ministries or by people who just don’t understand. So they don’t understand, they judge and they say, no, you can’t do that. Real relationships can’t happen over the internet. Real discipleship can’t happen through an online community and you just kinda go, they don’t know what they’re talking about. [00:12:46] So these people get hurt. They come to me and they go, this guy gets it and he’s affirming me, which is a huge blessing of something that I get to do. [00:12:55] Diana Winkler: Yeah. That’s really rewarding. And I enjoy interacting with the folks on [00:13:00] Discord and Twitch. Now you guys have so much fun on Twitch. You have the Devo, that’s the serious stuff. [00:13:08] The question of the day, the scripture verse and then you do these wacky things. You do the the Far Side, right? And you do the unpacking the candy boxes. You eat gross stuff. You put on funny hats. What else you do? [00:13:29] Al Descheneau: A weird Wednesday. So we spent time looking at Wednesday at goofy pictures. [00:13:32] I played games that nobody’s ever heard of. Played one game where you were a rectangle and you were following into a big black void of other rectangles. And that was the whole game. [00:13:42] I’m a variety streamer. I love being a variety streamer. It’s the hardest way to stream because you always have to come up with something and it’s always a little bit dangerous. You never know if the thing you’re gonna pick is gonna be interesting or terrible. Could be boring as heck. And that has happened to me many times where you’re like, this looks fun and [00:13:58] it’s very not fun. And now I’m stuck playing it [00:14:00] for two straight hours. Right? So I gotta figure out how to make it fun and it’s but other than that, it’s, I love it. I love it. I’m always trying to find some new way to get some attention onto what we’re doing into the community. So people can smile. [00:14:14] There are a lot of people out there suffering from mental illness, suffering from learning disabilities, have social anxiety that have been hurt or abused, that are suffering PTSD, and they don’t leave their homes. They’re not going to counseling. [00:14:28] They’re not going to hang out with friends. They’re not going to their local church. They’re at home. So their main source of entertainment and connection is through electronic medium, right? But they get, and you’ve had this too. I’m sure where you’re tired of watching Netflix. You’re tired of watching YouTube. [00:14:44] You want something that, that is deeper, but you’re scared to go out to, wherever it is. And so what’s a good in between? Twitch, you go to Twitch, you see some stuff that’s interesting, entertaining, exciting within your wheelhouse that you’re used to, but you can talk [00:15:00] directly to the person on the other end and you can get feedback and you can hear from them and you can joke with this person and it’s perfectly safe. [00:15:07] Now if I get a little nervous, I can stop talking. They don’t know what I look like on the other end of chat, right? I don’t know what the people in chat look like. I don’t know if they have a learning disability. I don’t know if they’re in a wheelchair. I don’t know, whatever. All the stuff that makes them nervous about walking into a church or walking into a public place where they’re like, I don’t feel like I look good or I don’t feel like I fit in or I, whatever. [00:15:26] I don’t know any of that. All I see is their name in text. And so I can approach everybody equally. And because of that, many of them come in and they find that sense of community they’re looking for through Twitch. I that’s the, one of the best parts of it is when you got somebody who says, I felt really lonely or I haven’t gone out. [00:15:45] I haven’t talked to anybody, I don’t have a girlfriend. They don’t have whatever. But when I come onto your stream, it’s really cool. Cuz we have a lot of fun. Right? It’s to me, it’s real. I love it. I love it. I love it. [00:15:55] Diana Winkler: And you do this full time and so you have to trust the Lord to [00:16:00] provide. [00:16:00] Al Descheneau: Provide the funds to support your family. And how can people support you? That’s crazy. I mean, I was a full-time pastor for 16 years. I, every week I knew where the paycheck was coming from. And now. I just I’m completely and totally living on faith, living on miracles. [00:16:21] I, I don’t know where the money’s coming from, when it comes to how I’ve been paying my bills for the last year and a half, because it’s been savings. It’s been people just giving. It’s been things happening around me that, that have been able to help financially. It’s been big donations and little donations. [00:16:36] And so in answer to your question, the best way you can help me, support me, is two ways. One is if you want to do financially go to Patreon, Patreon slash XtianNinja, I’m sure you’ll provide a link and people will be able to see that. But the other one is just to tell people that I exist. [00:16:52] One of the hardest things to do is to grow online to get any kind of attention online, because it’s just so noisy out. Right? Especially as a Christian [00:17:00] because the algorithms hate Christians. They just do. They’re not gonna, they’re not gonna promote it because they all think we’re right wing nuts, who are gonna be saying horrible stuff and not all of us are right. [00:17:11] Some of us are, but not all of us are. And but if you tell your denomination, you tell your Christian friends, you tell your small group. And if one or two people that you know, are, into gaming or into Twitch are into the content that I’m putting together, they’ll get excited about it and then they’ll watch it. [00:17:27] And that’ll help me out a lot too. It’s free to watch. It helps me out a ton just by if someone turns on the stream, even when they’re not watching, that actually helps me a lot. And it’s totally free. So one of those two either send me money or watch my stuff. [00:17:41] Diana Winkler: Simple and easy, straightforward. [00:17:44] I get about the social media stuff. I appreciate you liking my posts, by the way. There’s like three people that no matter what I put on social media they’ll like my posts. Yeah, I appreciate it. We support each other to get the algorithms, right? [00:17:57] So we’re gonna get into the geeky part of [00:18:00] our podcast here and pick your brain a little bit, or a lot. [00:18:04] Al Descheneau: Do my best whatever’s left. You can have whatever’s left. [00:18:10] Diana Winkler: So we’re talking about how to study the Bible. And this is in the context of abuse survivors, which you are a survivor, as we heard last time on the show. We want to help people to not [00:18:24] run away from God, but to run towards him. And Hey, you got questions or you have doubts or you’re mad at God. Let’s talk about it. Let’s dig into the Word together and God can handle your questions. [00:18:37] For sure. For sure. I talk to a lot of content creators and I try to help them. [00:18:41] Al Descheneau: And one of the things that I keep telling them is to find the thing that makes them special. Don’t go try to be something else. Don’t go try to copy someone else. What did God make you to be? What are you? What’s the area of interest. And sometimes, and a lot of times it’s outta their area of pain. [00:18:56] It’s, I struggle with, because I, relational issues, I’ve struggled with, [00:19:00] autism, I’ve struggled with whatever, and I’m like, then embrace that. Serve those people, give, share them up, give them community. And it’s pretty rare to find somebody who’s willing to compassionately knowledgeably and effectively [00:19:12] help people who have been hurt by the church. That’s a pretty unique ministry and I’m very thankful you exist. [00:19:18] Diana Winkler: Oh, thanks so much. I’m definitely trying in the Lord’s strength to to light my corner of the world here, so to speak. So what would you say is your particular specialty when it comes to Bible study, what is your favorite part? [00:19:33] Al Descheneau: I’m a preacher. So that’s expositing. My favorite thing to do in the world is to grab a verse and just take it apart, word by word. Share the context. Show where it came from. Talk about the author. Talk about the audience. Talk about the individual big words that are in there that are important. [00:19:47] That I that’s the part I love. I I have a certificate of biblical studies, a bachelor of religion, and a masters of divinity, 16 years of preaching practice. And so all of that is just to funnel into the fact that I can, so I can share what this [00:20:00] verse means and not just a clinical way, but a practical way. [00:20:04] I’m a huge believer that every message, every devotional, every time you talk about the scriptures, it needs to end up with a, “so what?” right? So you just tell somebody 30 minutes about what Psalm 23 means. You’d go through all the shepherd thing and then what a crook is and you know why they’re going through the valley and what this valley was. [00:20:23] And here’s the name of a valley that’s in Israel that, like you do that you have to get to the end and get to the, “Thank you for all that knowledge. So what?” And if darn well better apply to their life and be something that they can take home and use, and apply and will change their relationship with God or with other people. [00:20:38] That’s what I love doing. [00:20:40] Diana Winkler: Yeah, you do that so well. So why should we study the Bible for ourselves? Cuz it’s really easy for me just to say, Hey just go listen to pastor Al and he does everything right. [00:20:52] Al Descheneau: That I guess that’s one reason not to. Because [00:20:54] There are woves and sheeps clothing out there, people that are lying to you that are manipulating you and telling you what you want to hear. So [00:21:00] when you go find these people and all of a sudden they’re telling things that you like and telling you how things about God that you’d never heard before, but really line up with what you were thinking anyway. They can be leading you completely away from God, inventing a God of their own to, pull you from the one true [00:21:16] god, pull you away from Jesus. And you won’t even notice it because you’re just assuming that this dude with the microphone knows what he’s talking about and is coming from a good place. Not all of them are. Some of them are there because they wanna self aggrandize. Some of them are there because they’re legitimately demonic and they’re trying to dissuade and destroy Christians in the church. [00:21:36] So you need to know the stuff yourself. And I think the other part of it is. It’s God’s letter to you. It’s how you discover who God is and what he’s about and how you interact with him. The Bible is a living document that you, when you read, God uses it to convict you of sin, to encourage you, to speak directly to your day, to speak directly to what you need in that moment. [00:21:57] As you read it, not just clinically or not just [00:22:00] studiously, but read it devotionally, you’ll actually see that God is working through his word to change you. And you are now in a deeper relationship with the creator of the universe, because you are engaging with him in the way that he’s wanting you to engage him. [00:22:13] So that’s pretty powerful. That’s an amazing thing. So why would you give up the amazing discoveries that come with having the Holy Spirit stir within you? Something that is directly for your day that will apply to a relationship you have right now, to go watch somebody else do that on stage. Right? [00:22:29] Diana Winkler: Yeah. I think people they wanna know, but they’re overwhelmed. Let’s start with okay. Bible translations. I mean, which one do you pick? Because there’s so many and [00:22:44] Al Descheneau: Well, the right one, obviously, [00:22:45] Diana Winkler: The right one depends on which camp you’re listening to, right? But what do you say going into the store and picking a Bible out, where do you start? [00:22:56] Al Descheneau: It is hard there. You’re right. There’s about a thousand, there’s a bazillion translations out [00:23:00] there and let’s just assume that you speak English because if you speak any other language, you got a whole other ball of wax. So we’ll just talk about English translations. Right? And so many are very good. [00:23:10] So one of the things that you’re gonna find, if you start going to the dark side of the internet and all the insane blogger people is that there are people who are conspiracy theory in pretty much every translation of the Bible. What you’ll notice there is that it’s meant to make you distrust [00:23:23] all scripture, right? I’m reading the NIV. The NIV was written by Satan himself. Oh, I didn’t know that. Okay. I’m gonna read, I’m gonna read The Message. Oh, The Message, written by Satan himself. Okay. I’m not gonna read The Message then. New Living translation. Anybody who’s an idiot would read The New Living translation that was written by idiots. [00:23:37] Oh, okay. I better not read that one. And you just find that essentially it’s to make it so that you push away the scriptures, distrust, everyone, don’t have any spiritual authority. And so now you’re susceptible to spiritual lies. That’s what the end goal of just simply distrusting everybody is. Now. [00:23:53] Do I think every translation is great? No, but I would say that many of them are, [00:24:00] right? If you read old school King James version, that’s fine. It’s hard to understand. It’s gonna take you a while, but I don’t understand why you would actively go pursue, like. [00:24:11] Shakespearean language to try to riddle out what the heck you’re reading. But it’s not bad. You go New King James, fine. You go ESV, English Standard version. The new one, I love it. It’s an excellent version. NIV, big fan of the NIV so you go TNIV, the one that everybody got upset about because they changed some pronouns. [00:24:29] They did not freak out, and all of a sudden make this thing, like a liberal masterpiece. They like changed two or three things. It really wasn’t that bad. Right? Yeah. Okay. You can negotiate. But when you walk away from reading this thing, more or less, you’ve got 200, 300, 400 scholars that have poured over this document that have worked really hard to make it helpful, applicable to people. [00:24:50] Now, if you say you don’t have a very good vocabulary, right? And you wanna read the Bible, you shouldn’t be grabbing something that requires a college education to [00:25:00] understand. You should be grabbing something that is written for people in grade four. That’s not a bad thing, right? Go get something [00:25:07] you can understand. If you don’t know how to parse the language of the Bible, you don’t know what propitiation is, you don’t, you just don’t know what that word means. Then you need to find something, that’ll explain it to you and give you that phrase to help you understand it. And whether it’s the children’s Bible, the International Children’s Bible or The Good News or the NIV or The Living Bible, or one of those translations, that’s not written to be word for word, but is phrase for phrase or thought for thought. That’s okay too. [00:25:33] I think my comment to that and the person who’s like, you can’t do that! You shouldn’t have just… I’m not saying you should have one. Okay. I think you probably should have two or three. If you’re gonna study the Bible, you should probably have two or three different kinds. So get yourself your your word for word translation and get yourself your [00:25:52] thought for thought, translation. Get yourself a poetic translation. Just kind of work through them. Because as you read the word for word one, you’ll be like, [00:26:00] okay, it means this is the exact right word. I have no idea what that word means. So you go to the thought for thought, or you go for the phrase for phrase translation. [00:26:06] You’re like, okay. I understand what that means, but I don’t really get how I’m supposed to feel about that or what is how it’s supposed to impact me. So you go to the more poetic translation and you’re like, okay. So between these three, you can get a pretty good feel for what was happening in that verse. [00:26:19] What was happening in that chapter. Right? So I’m not a big believer in, you get one Bible forever. I had one guy actually call me at the church. It used to happen a lot back when I was a pastor. People would call up and they wouldn’t even say hello. I’d be like, hello? And they’d be like, what Bible translation do you use? [00:26:36] I’m like, hello? What Bible translation do you use? I use a lot in my studies, but we read from the NIV. Oh, I can’t believe it. Click. And yeah, really? Okay. So I got a little smarter after two or three of those and they’d call up, what bible translation do you use? I’m like, sometimes I use the King James version in my studies and I find that, they’re oftentimes that the King James version is a really good translation to use. [00:26:59] And they’ll [00:27:00] actually talk to me a bit more after that, cuz they’re usually KJV only people. And once they find out that I use other Bible translations too. And so I had one guy say, Didn’t everybody knows that God gives one translation per language? And the English translation he gave to us was the King James. [00:27:20] Everybody knows that! And I’m like, I didn’t know that. And which King James version, right? [00:27:26] Diana Winkler: That’s right! [00:27:27] Al Descheneau: Because it was revised. And how far back do you want to go? And I promise you if you go grab the 1611 version, you can’t read it because it changed a lot. Anyway, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna go in that tangent. But anyway, to say, how about get a few. [00:27:40] Diana Winkler: Yeah, that’s a good answer. I needed somebody to go on the King James rant because that’s where I came from. And, they make you feel like, Jesus and the 12 apostles had the King James Bible, and Jesus spoke English. [00:27:52] Al Descheneau: There’s a big difference between respecting the scripture, and seeing God in the scripture, and making a God [00:28:00] of the scripture. [00:28:01] And some people do that. They will run over people. They will be show hatred towards people. I actually know somebody who in their seminary, there was a King James only group that came during a special talk at the seminary. And they legit, like flipped over garbage cans and lit things on fire and freaked out because somebody was there preaching the non King James version in the seminary. [00:28:26] They lost their minds. And so like, you kind of go, okay, that’s somebody who is so fully idolized, that version of scripture, that they’ve lost Christianity, right? [00:28:37] Diana Winkler: Yeah. They’ve lost Hey, the gospel! Yeah. So along those lines with Bible translations, Do you gotta be a Greek and Hebrew scholar to understand the Bible? [00:28:53] Al Descheneau: I think that the easy answer is no, but also yes, cuz here’s the thing. The Bible was [00:29:00] written originally in Greek Hebrew, it was written in languages. You don’t speak. Okay. It was written to people that existed a long time ago in a culture you no longer live in. That’s a big deal. So in other words, when they use illustrations and when they use certain words or whatever like that, you might not understand what they mean, especially considering you don’t speak the language. [00:29:20] So you need to have respect for understanding that when you approach the Bible, you are reading a translation. You’re not reading the exact text that was written because you’re not reading Greek and you’re not reading it in Hebrew. Okay. So how do you know if the right words are the right words? That’s what we just kind of talked about was that translation thing. [00:29:41] And simply to say, you need to put your faith in some scholars. That’s what you have to do. So do you have to be a Greek and Hebrew scholar to be able to study the Bible yourself? The answer is, No. But you do have to put your faith in some scholars, because at some point you’re gonna get to the end of your own knowledge, [00:30:00] right? [00:30:00] So you say you have a preacher that you trust. You think he’s a great guy and he he speaks the Bible the way you understand it. When you read it like him. That’s cool. At some point, he’s at the end of his knowledge, he has to go find out from other people. So he’s reading commentaries. [00:30:17] Written by people that are smarter than him. And the people who wrote those commentaries were taught by people who wrote other bigger thicker commentaries on stuff that is completely crazy. Who were taught by people who knew masters, who were masters of the language. Who were taught by people who were masters of the culture. Who were taught by people who were masters of philosophy. [00:30:37] And these people, all of that channeling down to the recipient of amazing gifts in scholarship. So I would say recognize in humility, your need for good scholarship. Your need to have these things explained to you because you don’t have all the knowledge. But also recognize that God does work through his scriptures. [00:30:57] God does work his spirit through these good [00:31:00] tools, and God can use them in a very real sense. So work to the realization of the knowledge that you have a limited knowledge, but do whatever you can, right? So for example, can you buy a commentary? Sure. Of course you can. If you wanna study Philippians, you can grab the book of Philippians and read the book of Philippians and you can get a lot out of that. Because if you get a decent translation or you get one that you understand, you can get a lot out of that. [00:31:22] But then if you get a study Bible and it starts explaining it a bit more to you, then you be, oh, I get a little bit more out of that because I’ve got some scholar explaining to me, some stuff I never saw, never knew. Then you get yourself a commentary. That’s an entire book written about Philippians, verse by verse explaining it even bigger. [00:31:38] And you go, okay, now I know more than even my study Bible was able to. Cuz study Bibles, get you get about two sentences, maybe about whatever it is, right? The commentary will give you three pages. Yeah. So you read the commentary and you’re like, oh wow. Now I know even more. But just recognize, [00:31:52] yeah, you can go by that commentary, but there’s so much more like, like when you go to the commentary, it’s gonna have footnotes. [00:32:00] Commentaries that are so boring and insanely difficult to read that you’re, you’d lose your mind, trying to try. So you it’s okay to stop at that commentary and go, you know what? [00:32:08] I know Philippines, I know it pretty good, but approach with humility and recognize you don’t know it perfectly. That’s what I would say. Does that make sense? [00:32:15] Diana Winkler: Oh, absolutely. That’s a great answer. And, we have families and jobs and stuff, and we don’t have the time usually to learn, formal Koine Greek or [00:32:26] Hebrew is more difficult than Greek. [00:32:29] Al Descheneau: So that’s why Ephesians three says, and to that, one of the gifts God gives you is the apostles, the prophets, the teachers, the shepherds, that’s a gift for you. God calls these people, gives ’em special equipment, special gifts, special knowledge, special abilities, and says, okay, go equip the people. [00:32:47] Right? Cause he said to, to Diana, he said to whoever, like, what I need you to do is to go take care of people who have been hurt by my people. And I need you to go show them compassion. You’re gonna go to the elder. You’re gonna go to the teacher and he’s gonna go, okay. [00:32:58] Here’s what I think you need to [00:33:00] know from the Bible. And here’s what I think. That’s why that guy exists. So you don’t have to go study all the Greek and Hebrew and know everything there to know about the Bible because that’s his job. But he can help you, equip you for the job that God called you to. [00:33:14] That’s why we have these teachers. That’s why we have these people. They’re a gift. Yeah. There’s some corrupt ones and bad ones and dumb ones or whatever, but the good ones are an absolute gift from God and you should be utilizing them. [00:33:24] Diana Winkler: So if we’re going to sit down and do a Bible study and you already mentioned Philippians, so we’ll go with that. [00:33:32] We’re gonna sit down and study Philippians or specific passage. What are some basic rules for Bible interpretation that you could give the folks that, okay. These are things you have to know to correctly interpret these passages. So you’re not going off in the weeds or down a path where you shouldn’t go, you [00:34:00] know what I’m saying? [00:34:00] Al Descheneau: All right. The easy answer is context. If you come to my stream and we, and I do a Devo, you’re gonna hear the word context like 12 times. Because whatever you’re reading was written to a certain group of people. It was written during a certain time, it was written to a certain problem or to a certain issue. [00:34:17] It was written by a certain person who had a certain perspective and was writing it for a certain purpose within the cannon of scripture. That was all designed by God to be held together, to tell a certain story to a group, to a church that exists in multiple times, that is held together by God’s Spirit, making sure that it’s continuing to be inspired. [00:34:36] Now, if you’re looking at one verse in Philippians, right? Whatever it and I’m like find brain, go find a verse in Philippians. Sorry, boss. I don’t have any. So whatever it is, you go find that one verse you need to. You can’t just walk away and go, okay, whatever that verse said is exactly whatever I think it says is exactly what it says, because that’s how I feel. [00:34:58] That’s how was raised. [00:35:00] That verse was used so many times I’ve seen it on pillows. I’ve seen it on shirts. That must be what it means. Don’t do that. Instead, read it within the chapter, read it within the book, go to your study Bible. And you’re gonna see a section in the front that says who the author is, what the background is, who the recipient is, what the timeframe of this thing is, where it sits within the cannon of scripture. [00:35:24] And now that you can get that context, you can have a much better understanding of why that verse was written there. I wish we had a practical example, but essentially to say you can’t grab isolating one thing out of scripture because chances are that your interpretation of it could be very off, even though it makes perfect sense to you, right? [00:35:46] There’s lots of verses in the Bible that can be taken completely out of contact. Like, judge not let you be judged. Right. Let’s use the King James version, right? It’s like, wow. Then I’m not allowed to judge anybody. I’m not allowed to go be critical of anyone. Like God says, [00:36:00] if I judge people he’s gonna judge me and judgment is bad. [00:36:02] And everybody knows that you don’t want the judgment of God on you. So therefore you should never judge anybody and never criticize anybody and never confront anybody. Because if you judge anybody God’s mad at you. That’s actually not what it says. Not even close to what it says, but that’s how everybody uses it. [00:36:17] Right? But that’s not remotely what it says because the rest of the canon of scripture talks very clearly about how important it is that we have discernment. And in order to have discernment, you must be judicious. You must judge. And that’s important. In fact, we’re told that we’re going to judge others. [00:36:37] We have to judge or otherwise we’re disobeying God, because otherwise we can be led into error. So I’m just saying, don’t take your first blush instinct on whatever you think you’ve heard. You gotta read the rest of scripture. You gotta read the rest of the context. And if you don’t really know, go find somebody who loves you and loves the Bible and talk with them about it. [00:36:55] Diana Winkler: Yeah. Call Al! [00:36:59] Al Descheneau: [00:37:00] Call Al yeah. [00:37:00] Diana Winkler: Call Al or call me [00:37:02] Al Descheneau: or actually don’t call Al. Just jump on stream and give Al something to talk about during the stream. That’s what you should do. [00:37:09] Diana Winkler: Yeah, we’ll go on the Discord and talk about it. Okay. When we are reading the Bible, there’s definitely some parts of scripture either really difficult to understand, [00:37:21] I have no clue what’s going on, or it’s something really horrible happening in the Bible. Really unpalatable where it makes us very uncomfortable. What do we do and we encounter those scriptures? [00:37:36] Al Descheneau: What you don’t do is chop them out. Okay, so what’ll happen. And I think it’s Thomas Edison, [00:37:43] anyway, somebody, one of the famous dudes from the past, he actually, if you go look up his Bible, he literally used a pen knife to just chop out all the parts of the Bible he didn’t like. You look at his Bible, it’s just full of holes. He’s like, that’s not true. That’s not true. That’s not true. That can’t be right. [00:37:56] I will pick whatever is right and wrong. And that’s the God I will invent. So you’re [00:38:00] gonna come across things that you don’t like, but you know what? That’s probably a good thing, cuz your thinking is not perfect. Your perception is not perfect. Your understanding of history, your understanding of your current context, your understanding of yourself and your own soul is not perfect. [00:38:15] You need correction. You need to be challenged. You need to have your eyes open to things that are frustrating. If God showed you all at once, all the sins that were in your life, you would die. You couldn’t handle that level of confrontation, that level of conviction, but by God’s grace, he lets you in a little bit. [00:38:35] He’s like, here’s a little bit, and that feels bad enough, right? When you meet God in a real sense, and he convicts you of the sins that you have, you’re like, wow, I’m the worst. And then as you grow in God, and as you, you continue in maturity, you just discovered how deep seated some of those sins really are. [00:38:51] How far down they go. How rooted in, like I got pride for days and I didn’t even know that was there until someone scratched it. In the same [00:39:00] way, I would say that when you stumble across a Bible verse, that’s difficult. You don’t like that, that it doesn’t, stroke you the right way or tells you something about God that you’re not particularly fond of. [00:39:11] You’re presented with two choices. One is chop it out. Pretend it doesn’t exist. Say, that’s not my God. My God would never do that. God would never say that to me. God would never. All you’re doing at that point is inventing a new God. The other chance is to say, okay, am I reading this wrong? [00:39:27] Maybe this is something I don’t understand. Maybe I need someone to step in here and help me understand it. Maybe I need to study it better, go get a couple commentaries, go look into this thing. Because if this is the Word of God, the Word of God is active and the Word of God is living. And the Word of God is meant to tell me about him. [00:39:43] Then there’s something in here I’m not getting. I’m getting upset. That means I’m offended at God? Because I’m judging God, that God shouldn’t do that. Or I’m offended because God is convicting me. How dare God, judge me, is that what I’m doing? Because that can’t be right. Maybe there’s something I need to look in here a bit more. [00:39:59] There’s a [00:40:00] lot of people out there that have invented their own God, their own Jesus and refuse in a very real sense to, to meet the real one. Because the real one doesn’t act the way he wants to act and keep in mind, that’s exactly what happened to Jesus everywhere he went. When he was alive he’d walk up and he’s like, hi, I’m the Messiah. [00:40:16] The Messiah is here to save you from sin and death. It’s actually your biggest problem. And they’re like, but we want sandwiches. And he’s like, I didn’t come to give you sandwiches. Yeah. I fed you that one time because I have compassion on you, but you can’t just immediately make me king and just tell me to go take care of Rome. [00:40:35] That’s not why I’m here. Every time he turned around, he’d had people misunderstanding who he was, what his mission was, where he was going. Peter looks at him and goes, you’re not gonna die. What are you crazy? And he is like, actually, Peter, I am. He literally calls him, Satan. [00:40:52] Because he’s tempting him, just like Jesus got tempted in the wilderness. So I would say that you gotta be real careful in making these [00:41:00] conclusive statements just because you don’t like it. Just cuz you don’t like, it doesn’t mean it’s not true. The Pharisees didn’t like what Jesus said and did. They killed him, but doesn’t mean Jesus was wrong. [00:41:09] Pharisees were wrong, right? [00:41:12] Diana Winkler: Definitely, they had good intentions but still wrong. So we’re in a community because we are meant to be within a community, not isolating ourself. Not coming up with our own little translations. Not coming up with our own little denomination, that we turn into some weirdo that makes their own denomination. [00:41:35] How can we avoid going into false teaching? How do we know if we’re going down the wrong path? As far as what scripture’s saying? [00:41:50] Al Descheneau: I think there’s a few ways, right? One is the sniff test. I do believe that God is God works within his people. The Holy Spirit is real, and that if you’re in prayer and you’re seeking him and you [00:42:00] really are trying to follow him, that God will give conviction. God will give you a warning or God will pull you, or God will- something. You’ll get a bit of a vibe check at some point from God that things are going a little askew. [00:42:11] I do believe that’s true. That’s not always true, but I think that we need to be sensitive to that and kind of go, okay, something feels funky here. I’m gonna, pray about this. I’m gonna think about this. I’m gonna get some counsel on this. So that’s one is just, do your vibe check every now and again. [00:42:25] The second thing is, make sure you find, and you’re sitting under good authority, good teaching authority. Good biblical teaching from someone who’s trustworthy. If you go to Titus, you go to Timothy, you can see the qualifications of an elder. Those are legit. Those are real. So if this person has a good reputation with outsiders and they are faithful to their wife and they’re generous within the church, they’re hospitable. [00:42:45] They are someone who is self-controlled, they’re not angry all the time. You don’t see ’em, losing their mind on certain drugs or whatever. Like if this person has a good reputation and you know that they’re a godly person, then find them and trust them and [00:43:00] talk to them. [00:43:00] Right? You need to find that person or , for that matter, that group, two or three elders is better to be able to say, you know what? I feel like something’s going sideways, can you explain it to me? And I trust you because I think you know the Bible really well. And say, that it’s the guy that you trust is going sideways. [00:43:15] What if it’s that? What if you’ve been sitting under this guy and he starts going completely cuckoo, right? That then you should have an authority structure within your church. If you’re going to a decent church, you have other elders, or you have deacons, or you have bishops, or you have something that is working within the system to be able to help hold you, hold this person accountable. [00:43:36] If that’s not true, if you’re part of this non-denominational church, that’s out there in the middle of nowhere and nothing looking over the shoulder and this, and you got one guy and he just calls the shots. I would say you probably are not in a healthy church, right? You’re probably not in a healthy church because that’s dangerous. [00:43:51] The guy might look good now but nobody can live without accountability. It’s just, it just can’t happen. You need to have accountability. So how do you keep yourself from falling into [00:44:00] heresy? Again, humility. Vibe check. Have good teaching. And I would say, make sure you’re in a community that you share your concerns openly and don’t just hold them to yourselves and hope it goes away, right? [00:44:15] Like go find your small group or the people that you trust. Or your women’s group or your men’s group or whatever. And just kind of go, you know what guys? I get the sense that and so’s going off the rails, or I just saw this in a teacher or I heard something. [00:44:26] Can you guys either set me straight or are you guys hearing this too? Because if you keep it open and keep it honest and you keep talking about, willing to say, okay, maybe I was wrong. Maybe, my vibe check was completely off. But if you’re willing to open up your mouth, maybe you can save yourself and everybody else with a lot of grief too. [00:44:41] So do it within the community. [00:44:44] Diana Winkler: You and I have both been in bad churches. I’ve been under some really bad preachers. What would be a red flag in your opinion that if a preacher would say this, or a teacher, whether it’s on the internet or [00:45:00] you’re visiting a church or whatever? If a teacher says this, run the other way. [00:45:06] Al Descheneau: Oh, there’s probably a thousand and [00:45:07] I’m definitely not gonna be able to say all of them. I think RC Sproul is probably gonna have a really good video on that. Probably I would say, go look at him. But I guess if I to pick a few, it would be people who don’t use a scripture in their sermons. They could be interesting. [00:45:20] They can use one scripture and use it as jumping off point to all kinds of psychological techniques or interesting stories or whatever, watch for that. If they’re super interesting, but you’re like, they don’t even talk about the Bible or they’re not reading the Bible or they’ll start with the Bible and we don’t go anywhere near the Bible. [00:45:35] So that’s one thing. The second is if they start preaching themselves, preaching their interests instead of talking about the scriptures. Going through the scriptures, one by one expositionally or going through a topic series or going through something that is, is governed by at least an external force, or a plan or something. [00:45:55] And if they’re not, if they stop doing that and they start preaching the news, or they start preaching [00:46:00] directly to things that they see in the church or of things that are just taught, they’re just coming up with, out of themselves. There’s a good chance that this person has stopped studying. And they’re being led by emotional stuff by fear by pride, by arrogance, they just wanna be heard and they have opinions. As opposed to, they’re trying to speak the Word of God to teach and educate and to equip the saints, which is very different, right? Now. [00:46:23] If something crazy happens in the news and you wanna address it from the pulpit, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s appropriate. You kind of go, okay, this is the thing that’s happening. I think we’re all concerned about it here. This is what’s going on. But you continue to talk about the Bible. [00:46:37] This is. This is a similar thing that happened in scripture. This is what happened when these people did it. This is why this is important. So let’s talk about, what happened during, when this happened to Charles Spurgeon. Let’s talk about when this happened to the reformers. [00:46:49] Let’s talk about what happened in scripture during a similar time. Let’s bring this together to get a historical and biblical framework for what we’re processing in the news today. [00:47:00] Because it’s not just today. Whereas if the guy stands up there and, or, and goes, you know what, I’m so against what they said on the news, and here’s why I’m against it. [00:47:08] And here’s all the things that I’ve seen. And this is my history. And when I was a kid, if you get all of that, this person’s not preaching the Word of God anymore. He just railing at you about his own opinions. And that’s not preaching and that’s dangerous. [00:47:20] Diana Winkler: I’m so glad you mentioned that because I see a lot of that right now. [00:47:25] One of my big red flags that I look for when I’m looking for a new church or I’m listening to a new teacher, is if they say, we’re the only church that’s the right church. [00:47:38] Al Descheneau: That’s literally a cult. [00:47:38] Diana Winkler: Or the guy down the, yeah, the guy down the street, he’s wrong. We’re the only ones that have, the real interpretation. [00:47:47] We’re the only ones that have the real Bible. The rest of the people out there, they’re idiots, or they’re not Christians. I find that to be pretty scary. [00:47:57] Al Descheneau: A good teacher will say exactly the [00:48:00] opposite. Will say, I have real concerns about that place down the road. [00:48:04] You guys should look into it. You guys get some experience there, go look into it and let’s talk about this. Let’s open up the scriptures. Let’s do something and study this together and open up our minds about this. Go read their literature, go read what the JW’S believe, go read what the Mormons believe, go read what the Satanists are doing. [00:48:19] Like, yeah, educate yourself, inform yourself about this stuff. And then let’s go, come back to the Bible and see what God has to say about that. Because what you’ll hear from a fear monger or from a cultist is, you can’t read anything else. You shouldn’t read anything else. I’m the only one you should listen to. [00:48:34] I’m the only one who has the right interpretation and everyone else there is trying to manipulate you. And if you’re feeling weird about it, it’s because they’ve gotten into your head. So just lean heavier into me. I’ll lead the way because I am the truth. That’s a cult. Yes. That’s a cult. A Christian, Christians go, let’s go study this bad boy. [00:48:51] You know what? We’re like creation versus evolution. Great. Super cool. Go learn about evolution. Become cognizant in it. Go to a university, go talk to some professor, get to know it. [00:49:00] Come back to scripture and find some good arguments because they are there. If we believe in what we believe is true, then that means there are some good arguments. [00:49:06] Let’s do this thing. Let’s open it up. Whereas someone who’s afraid for someone who is not too sure about their own opinions, they’re not gonna go out there and be challenged in them and go seek out people who are smarter than them in the opposite opinion. They’re not gonna do that. [00:49:23] And the reason is because they’re not too sure themselves, right? So they’ll just kind of close off those windows, close off all those ideas and that you get yourself a lot of trouble doing that. Yeah. When we live in our own little bubble and we don’t go outside our little bubble or use our brains and open our minds to, Hey, maybe there’s, some valid points to this, or maybe I’m thinking about this doctrine wrong. [00:49:48] Diana Winkler: Yeah. If you’ve never, ever, like you say, you’ve never studied evolution or you’ve never studied the rapture or anything like that, you don’t know where the other [00:50:00] camp is coming from at all. [00:50:02] Al Descheneau: Yeah, but there, are books written by very intelligent people who have gone to like publishers who will go out and be like, okay, here’s three really smart people. [00:50:11] And these are the three main opinions on this subject, read one after the other. And that what’s really cool, but a lot of the books will be, here’s here’s this guy’s writing. Here’s just this person’s writing. This is the person’s writing and the three opinions. And then the next chapters will be their responses to each other’s opinions. [00:50:26] Because that way you get a holistic conversation within a book or go online and watch a debate. Between, someone who’s hardcore, intelligent design or hardcore, creationism that has a clue that has a, a degree that isn’t just, some pundit standing up there that is able to talk good, but actually has, education versus somebody else who’s smart and educated and has a clue. [00:50:47] Like one of the most frustrating things is when you go to watch these debates and you’ve got like a TV personality versus a TV personality, or someone who, who sells videos versus someone who is just, like publicly known. And I’m like, [00:51:00] neither one of you guys should be talking, right? You’re not experts. [00:51:03] You’re just good at talking and you know how to hit the beats and emote so people understand. Get off the stage, get me an expert to stand here. I don’t care if they’re well spoken or particularly great. Just get me an expert and we’ll get the other guy an expert too, because often you’ll get that too. [00:51:19] Where you got people who will get an expert in their side. And a dummy on the other side, this happens all the time in CBC, in Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It’ll be talking about some Christian thing, whatever, some moral quandary. And it’ll be like, this is so and so from the university of Waterloo, who’s been, has a doctorate in the thing that we’re talking about and Diana who’s on the phone. [00:51:42] I’m like, why are you putting him against Diana? That’s not fair. Let’s get her opinion too. Oh, you can see why these people are sound. These all sound crazy. Clearly, it’s a university professor. Who’s right? And I’m like, that’s not fair, dude. You can’t do that. Let’s get smart people that are knowledgeable in both sides. [00:51:57] Right? [00:51:58] Diana Winkler: Absolutely. [00:52:00] That’s a good segway into you spoke about, about books and stuff. You must have some Bible study tools or commentaries or books that you go to whenever you wanna do some serious study. Can you recommend any for the listeners? Number one is the ESV study Bible. The ESP study Bible is fan freakingtastic. [00:52:25] Yeah. I love mine. [00:52:26] Al Descheneau: It’s huge. You can’t carry it. Many places. You need a wheelbarrow whenever you go to church, but it’s a good, excellent study. Not only have they put together a like really good study notes, but like the extra bits that they put in there and like the maps and the tables and the, and all the sides that you have and all the scholarly literature that they kind of shove in there every now once in a while. [00:52:47] It’s so good. The NIV in the last 4, 5, 6 years here just released a really good study Bible too, and it’s even thicker. I mean, it’s like another quarter bigger. It’s [00:53:00] huge book, but it’s also full color. So I mean, it’s really cool. Yeah. It’s but it’s so big. So I would say, get, if you’re gonna do anything, go get the ESV study Bible. [00:53:10] What’s cool about it is that you get automatic access to the ESV study Bible online, the website, esv.org, and it’s got even more notes and it’s got even more access to more books. So I would say that’s the number one for me. And then go get that, that NIV one, which is really good. If I had to pick a Bible commentary series, that I would recommend to everybody. [00:53:28] There’s one I’ll show you. I’ll show you the picture. Yeah. So it’s this one. The Life Application Bible commentary. Okay. [00:53:40] Diana Winkler: I’ve never used that, but that I’ve heard a lot of people using that. [00:53:43] Al Descheneau: It’s, what’s really cool about it is it’s written to be very applicable. So it’s written for people who aren’t Bible scholars. They don’t need to know three quarters of what’s already in there in order to understand it. [00:53:54] It’s written very under written for your average [00:54:00] lay person in the church. They use multiple translations within it in order to try to get kind of the best version of the translation to explain it better, which some people freak out at. I remember when Rick Warren wrote Purpose Driven Life and people were like, he used so many scripture versions! And I’m like, yeah, because he was talking to people who don’t read the Bible. [00:54:17] So he’s trying to help them understand what it said. Calm down. Right? So in the same way, the Life Application commentary, it uses different translations every now and again, to kind of get to the proper meaning. And let’s not confuse everybody cuz otherwise all you do is you read your favorite version and then explain it anyway, using the words that would’ve been in the other translation. [00:54:35] So let’s just skip the middle man. But it also is super duper uber applicable. All the way along, you’re gonna get these things that are lessons in faith, which is just like a little application. Here’s what you do. Here’s a little aside every now and again, you’ll get like a like a list of kind of like application to do’s. [00:54:54] Yeah, here’s a good one. What are you hearing at the office when you hear I’m worried about my job, my [00:55:00] future, my marriage, my child, I’m scared of dying. It could be your passing chariot, an open door for the good news of the gospel. That’s in the commentary. It’s just like, here, let’s just take this thing that you just read and turn it into some really easy sermon point that makes my life a lot easier as a preacher, but also helps you too. [00:55:14] I highly recommend this. Super, super highly. [00:55:17] Diana Winkler: I might even go get that. That sounds awesome. I know I threw a lot of stuff at you and I know you could have handled it without any problems, but was there anything that we didn’t talk about that you wanted to mention to the listeners about Bible study? [00:55:34] Al Descheneau: I don’t know. I guess I, let me speak from a preacher’s perspective. It’s really hard when you prepare a sermon for 25 hours and you deliver the thing and you go out there and it doesn’t and nothing happens. Okay. So sometimes your sermon sucks. I get it. Sometimes the application just goes nowhere, whatever. [00:55:52] But if you’ve been reading something in scripture or you heard something in a sermon and it convicted you and it hit you, if you’re going through your devo time and you have a [00:56:00] journal moment and it speaks to you, like the moment God’s like, here’s the thing for you, right? [00:56:05] Don’t let it sit. Don’t keep it to yourself. If you’re sitting there and the preacher convicts you, because you hear something in this study, you hear something and it’s something you either, you don’t believe, you don’t understand. You don’t know, you wanna argue with or it hit you between the eyes. [00:56:18] And it’s something that, that you knew was convicting you? Go talk to the guy, go sit like this. I need you to explain this better. I need you to flesh this out. This is something I felt convicted in, but I don’t even know why. Can we talk about this? If it’s something in your own private devotionals or your own private study, share it, open up your mouth and share it with other people. [00:56:40] It becomes real and grows legs when you let it outta your mouth and share it with other people. That’s why so many times you’ll be doing your Devos. You’ll be doing your, whatever. You’ll feel that present, that moment with God. And you’ll be like, that was really cool. And you go away and you feel dry. [00:56:57] You feel like. You wonder what happened? Why, [00:57:00] where’s God during the day. It’s cause God gave you something. Like he gave you this nugget and you did nothing with it. Because it was meant to spur you onto towards love and good deeds. It was meant to go help someone else. It was meant to help keep you from sin. [00:57:14] It was meant to inspire you to your next stage of development. It was spent to do something he doesn’t speak for no reason. He doesn’t give those impressions for no reason, but you just let it sit. You let it die on the page. Go tell somebody, go talk about it, open up your mouth, go share it with people. [00:57:30] Because that way it becomes real and it has more power. [00:57:35] Diana Winkler: This has been so fantastic. And I just loved all of your answers and your advice and wisdom. Remind the folks where they can connect with you. [00:57:46] If they have questions. [00:57:47] Al Descheneau: Okay, so just go to Art of the Christian Ninja.com. Art of the Christian ninja.com. [00:57:53] That’s my website. That’s got all my links for everything. If you wanna have a fun experience, you wanna have something interesting. Some of you aren’t into [00:58:00] live streaming. I get it. You don’t even know what Twitch is. I get it. Believe me, I’m old. I am, okay? Go try it. Come to my stream, hang out and watch what we do because it’s super weird. [00:58:11] And it’s really kind of cool to get that live interaction with someone online. You can just come and say, Hey, I would love it. I would love to come say, Hey, it’s X- T- I- A- N- I- N- J- A Christian Ninja. But the great Christ is an X on Twitch. Come find me. Let’s chat. [00:58:25] Diana Winkler: Yeah, you won’t regret it. [00:58:28] It is super fun. And I would like to ask if you would please pray for our listeners’ bible study and their spiritual walk. [00:58:39] Al Descheneau: For sure. [00:58:41] God, you are incredible that you would work with us and speak to us and talk to us to give us the gift of your Word, the gift of your Spirit, the gift of your presence in our lives. [00:58:52] We have broken your law. We have wandered far from you. We’re the sheep that wandered off. And yet you come and get us and you don’t just come and get us. You make us part of your family. And not [00:59:00] only that, you restore us and you cleanse us and you adopt us and you make us people who can inherit your kingdom. [00:59:06] You bring us alongside Jesus to share an inheritance with him, and you speak to us every day. You make yourself available to us every day. And you’ve given us gifts in scholars. You’ve given us gifts in translations. And there’s amazing things that thousands and thousands of books that can encourage us. Videos everywhere, audio everywhere. [00:59:26] Help us to know you more. So I pray for everybody who is listening, that they would be inspired to come and find you where you may be found, that they would long for you, that they would thirst for you like that. [00:59:38] In Jesus name. [00:59:38] Amen. [00:59:40] Diana Winkler: Thank you so much for those prayers. And thanks for being on the show. You’re welcome back anytime! [00:59:47] Al Descheneau: Super fun. This was a lot of this was great. I love talking about Bible stuff, man. [00:59:52] Diana Winkler: I knew you do. God bless you, brother. [00:59:55] Al Descheneau: Thanks so much. [00:59:57] Brian Winkler: Thank you for listening to the Wounds of the [01:00:00] Faithful podcast. [01:00:01] If this episode has been helpful to you, please hit the subscribe button and tell a friend you could connect with us at DSW Ministries dot org, where you’ll find our blog along with our Facebook, Twitter, and our YouTube channel links. Hope to see you next week.