In this episode of Faith & Clarity, Dr. Mark Turman is joined by Faith Womack, founder of Bible Nerd Ministries, for a thoughtful conversation about how we approach Scripture and why it matters. Faith shares how her own experiences with the misuse of the Bible shaped her desire to help others engage God’s word with humility, care, and genuine curiosity.
Together, they explore what it looks like to move beyond treating the Bible as a task to be completed and instead encounter it as a living story that forms our faith. Faith offers practical insight into reading Scripture wisely, paying attention to the Bible’s larger story, choosing helpful translations, and balancing personal study with learning in community, inviting listeners to rediscover the joy and depth of knowing God through his word.
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Topics
- (00:00): Introduction
- (01:56) Introducing Faith Womack and Bible Nerd Ministries
- (05:21) Common mistakes in Bible study
- (08:10) The importance of hermeneutics
- (11:32) Should every Christian be a Bible nerd?
- (17:24) Misuse of Scripture and personal testimony
- (27:03) Understanding Bible translations
- (30:55) The role of paraphrased translations
- (31:28) Using multiple translations for deeper understanding
- (33:48) The importance of studying the Bible in groups
- (35:57) The necessity of church in Christian life
- (39:11) Understanding the story arc of the Bible
- (43:34) Digital tools for Bible study
- (46:09) Maintaining humility in Bible study
- (49:52) Encouragement for new Bible readers
- (54:12) Favorite Bible books and final thoughts
Resources
- Ask Us Anything: [email protected]
- How has Denison Forum impacted your faith?
- Walking in His Commands: A Lenten Journey with Jesus
- The Focus Newsletter
- Why are there so many different Bible translations? And which Bible should I read? • Denison Forum
- What are the best tools for studying Scripture? • Denison Forum
- How can I study the Bible? • Denison Forum
- Bible Nerd Ministries on YouTube
- Bible Nerd Ministries on Instagram
- Bible Nerd Ministries on TikTok
- Bible Nerd Ministries Website
About Faith Womack
Faith Womack is the founder of Bible Nerd Ministries and a content creator who aims to inspire Christians to get back into the Word of God. Her courses, including “Bible Study Bootcamp” and “Theology Bootcamp,” have reached thousands, and her Bible study content has reached over 10 million people on TikTok and YouTube.
Faith aims to empower Christians not only to understand the Bible but also to enjoy it. Her debut book, No More Boring Bible Study: Why Taking Scripture Seriously Is Easier and More Exciting Than You Think, was released from Zondervan in November 2025.
Faith has a B.A. in biblical and theological studies from Covenant College and a M.A.T.S. from Erskine Seminary. When she’s not filming or teaching, Faith spends her time with her family going on hikes, crafting and drinking way too much coffee.
About Dr. Mark Turman
Mark Turman, DMin, serves as the Executive Director of Denison Forum, where he leads with a passion for equipping believers to navigate today’s complex culture with biblical truth. He is best known as the host of The Denison Forum Podcast and the lead pastor of the Possum Kingdom Chapel, the in-person congregation of Denison Ministries.
Dr. Turman is the coauthor of Sacred Sexuality: Reclaiming God’s Design and Who Am I? What the Bible Says About Identity and Why it Matters. He earned his undergraduate degree from Howard Payne University in Brownwood, Texas, and received his Master of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. He later completed his Doctor of Ministry at George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University in Waco.
Before joining Denison Forum, Mark served as a pastor for 35 years, including 25 years as the founding pastor of Crosspoint Church in McKinney, Texas.
Mark and his high school sweetheart, Judi, married in 1986. They are proud parents of two adult children and grandparents to three grandchildren.
About Denison Forum
Denison Forum exists to thoughtfully engage the issues of the day from a biblical perspective through The Daily Article email newsletter and podcast, the Faith & Clarity podcast, as well as many books and additional resources.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
NOTE: This transcript was AI-generated and has not been fully edited.
Dr. Mark Turman: [00:00:00] Welcome again to 2026. I’m Mark Turman and this is Faith and Clarity. Thanks for joining us. Today’s another day, the beginning of a new adventure, new opportunities to know, serve and celebrate Christ Jesus and define clarity in our culture, sometimes very confused. You know that at Denison Forum and at Faith and Clarity, we wanna help you find hope beyond the headlines.
So we hope you’ll grab a cup of coffee or whatever you like to drink, and sit down and join us for today’s conversation. Underneath our topic today is my conviction. Our conviction that God is a lot of things, but he simply cannot be boring. Therefore, if that’s true. Learning about him in a lot of different ways also cannot and should not be boring.
And that especially is true when it comes to learning about him through the Bible. One of our convictions at Faith and Clarity is that there are a lot of good books in the world. Not every [00:01:00] book is good, but a lot of good books in the world. But there is no book like the Bible. We hold to a very, very high view of scripture and we believe that it is a singular kind of revelation for us to know God, that he wrote it, that he has protected and preserved it, and he wants us to discover things about him and about ourselves every day.
As we engage with his word, we, we want that to be profound. Life changing and energizing. And so that’s kind of the conviction, understanding our conversation today. And we’re gonna talk about that being declared by a new friend of mine, the Declaration, no more boring Bible study, to which when I heard that topic, I thought Amen to that, because I’ve been in a number of those and I’ve probably been guilty of teaching a few boring Bible studies and I don’t ever want that to happen again.
My friend today in our conversation is Faith Womack. Let me tell [00:02:00] you a little bit about her. She is the founder of Bible Nerd Ministries, which right off the bat, you just gotta love somebody that would start a ministry called Bible Nerds. She founded Bible Nerds Ministries and she creates content that helps to inspire Christians.
To get into God’s word more. Some of you may have already encountered her online. She’s popular and has created a number of really helpful content tools and resources that have reached more than 10 million people on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. And she enjoys not only studying the Bible, but helping us to enjoy studying the Bible.
She recently released her first book called No More Boring Bible Study, and we’re gonna draw from that book in our conversations. But Faith, welcome to the Faith and Clarity podcast. We’re glad to have you.
Faith Womack: Thank you, mark. I do have to say, there’s no way you let boring Bible studies. There’s no way.
You’re too [00:03:00] fun.
Dr. Mark Turman: You know, every time, you know, I’ve been teaching the Bible for a while now several decades, and it still creeps up on me every time I get ready to walk into an environment of Lord. Just don’t let this be boring. It may not be the most helpful thing, but don’t let it be boring.
Yeah. And you know, like every Bible teacher and preacher, you know, you, you just know that some people just may not stay with you and sometimes it’s because of what you’re doing. Sometimes it’s because they didn’t get enough sleep the night before. Yeah.
Faith Womack: Let’s be real.
Dr. Mark Turman: Absolutely. Tell us a little bit more about you a little bit more about your, how your faith journey got started and how you started.
Bible Nerd Ministries.
Faith Womack: Yeah, I am a pastor’s wife and a mom to two boys. We live here outside of the Dallas area. And at the time I, we were out in rural South Carolina and I really wanted to start up like a women’s group or something. I was having a hard time finding friends as a pastor’s wife.
[00:04:00] It can be isolating. And so I went online and the Lord through that over the years just kind of. Formed together this little community online through me posting silly little videos. And I could not stop, stop, stop talking about him. Like I just wanted to talk about what I had studied in undergrad.
I did an undergrad degree in Biblical Geological studies and I was just so encouraged by it and wanted to do like little bible studies online and slowly found the Bible community. And they started calling me the Bible nerd, and I was like. You know what, that’s a compliment. Let’s do that. Let’s run with it.
And so we fully embrace that name and we call ourselves the Bible nerds. And I’m just so grateful for the way that the Lord can use technology like even right now to, for discipleship, for fruitfulness to call us out a sin at times to call out sin in our culture. You know, just all those beautiful things that the Lord is just redeeming us even through the means of technology, which I remember, you know, growing up in, you know, the two thousands, it was like technology was scary.
The TV was like the devil with the two horns, you know? And it’s just, I’m so encouraged by the way [00:05:00] that the Lord has moved and worked in this generation to reach millions and millions for the gospel. Not just through people like us, but also through amazing, unexpected streams. And so praise Lord for that.
But anyway, yes, that’s who I am. That’s Bible ministries.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. It’s just great to hear your story and, and how God has just kind of shaped this the last number of years. What have you discovered about some of the mistakes that people make when it comes to approaching their Bible Bible study? Why are there so many seemingly boring Bible studies?
We don’t wanna be too harsh on anybody, but we all know that it happens, right? What are some of the mistakes that people make?
Faith Womack: You know, I titled my book No More Boring Bible Study to really poke at the hidden assumptions that we make around the Bible. And I think those are the biggest mistakes we usually start off with is our assumptions.
We don’t even realize we have around the Bible like Leviticus. None of us are like, I’m gonna turn to Leviticus when I’m having a great day. We’re like, no. Maybe we’ll accidentally flip there and see if God can [00:06:00] use a Bible verse outta context, right? Like a lot of us wouldn’t ever say, we think the Bible’s boring, but our Bible sits dusty on our nightstands, right?
Like we, we reluctantly open it up because we ought. To read it because we wanna kind of pat ourself on the back or check that box and feel like a good Christian so often. We don’t turn to the word because we actually view it as our lifeline, like an IV on a sick day, you know, like an anchor to a ship in a storm.
But that’s what scripture is. It really is the capital T truth in the storm of lies that the enemy is throwing at us, that the world is throwing at us and we need God’s word as that light in the darkness. And so going online and trying to talk about the Bible, that was one of the biggest walls I kept walking into, was realizing that people don’t have a long attention span.
They want to know for sure it’s gonna bring, you know, some kind of transformation in their life. It’s gonna change them in some way. Or they are so much less likely to watch a Bible study video to even wanna hear my thoughts around a passage of scripture. And [00:07:00] not even that it’s my thoughts, but an ex of Jesus one, the passage of scripture.
And that was one of the first hurdles we had to walk through was, okay, what are our assumptions around scripture? Do, why do we just stay in the New Testament? Why do we avoid the prophets? Why do we take random Bible verses outta context and then totally ignore the ones before and after it?
What are, what are our assumptions around scripture? And once we can kind of grapple with that, then we can look at what does scripture require of us? Because scripture isn’t written in a vacuum. It’s written by historical real people at a historical real time. And it’s still historically relevant and transformative for us today in a totally different historical place in time.
So what does that look like? And you know, so often we treat the Bible one way. As believers, we view it as merit and infallible. Meaning that it’s not gonna fool us and it’s trustworthy and true. It doesn’t have errors. But other people view it as an old historic, boring document that doesn’t apply to people [00:08:00] anymore.
And so the ways that I and an atheist handle scripture are very different. And so walking through those assumptions, that will change the way that you read a passage or understand a passage. And so really what my book is, is it’s an introduction to hermeneutics, which is a very intimidating word for many people.
But it’s really just the study of how we read, interpret, and eventually apply scripture to our lives. So before we ever get to reading scripture, we wanna just evaluate how are we treating it? What are we expecting of it when we open it up, what are our goals and aims? Are we considering who wrote it, when and why?
You know, all those things. And that is the biggest error, I think is a lot of people haven’t ever been discipled in a faithful hermeneutic. I think the, you know, the church overall, capital C Church has been so focused on translating the Bible, distributing the Bible. Now all the hotel rooms have bibles.
You know, all those things we had and tons of great translations in all different languages. But now the real problem is teaching discipling the church. [00:09:00] How do we handle the Bible? How to faithfully wrestle with a text, read the text, interpret it, and apply it to our lives. And that’s why we have so many false teachers today.
That’s why we have all these weird heresies online. That’s why there’s all these different denominations. It all comes down to how do you read and handle the scriptures, our hermeneutic? And instead of pointing fingers and saying, oh, they do this in baptism, or, Ooh, they do that with the sacraments, we really need to understand how they got there.
And it’s through how they’re treating the text, how they’re handling it and interpreting it. And once we understand where they got there, through their interpretation, then we can faithfully compassionately wrestle with what does it actually say? So yes, I rambled for a while, but that’s my book.
No, that’s great. And that, yeah,
Dr. Mark Turman: not, but yeah, I love that. It just is that, you know, the Bible is a unique tool and a unique creation of God that really could only have been created by God. But it’s very important how [00:10:00] you approach it. And like you said, some of those underlying assumptions also made me laugh.
You know, a lot of people here at the beginning of the year, they’re like, okay, this is the year I’m gonna read the whole Bible. And I remember the first time that I ever thought that I might take that on. I thought there’s just no way. There’s probably very few people that actually ever read this entire thing.
And then I found out that with about 15 minutes a day of commitment, you could actually read the whole Bible in a year. But, you know, so many people start off and they’re like, oh the story of Genesis is pretty good, the story of Exodus. And they run into Leviticus and they’re, you know, like they are with joining their gym.
They’re kind of done by the end of February uhhuh. Because they, they just don’t understand how Leviticus fits into the story and how it’s a, a, a unique part of the story of God’s revelation. And you know, there’s a lot of challenges and a lot of things to understand about how to approach all the Bible and different parts of the Bible.
Faith, I wanted to get you to gimme some thoughts on this. I’ve been thinking about how [00:11:00] accessible the Bible is to us now. So many translations, we’ll get to that question in a little bit. The Bible is readily available on any electronic device. I think the YouVersion folks are right at the point of celebrating a billion downloads if they haven’t already celebrated that.
And I just, I keep going back in my mind thinking, you know what, it’s been almost 2000 years since Jesus was here. And his part of the revelation came about that we read about in the New Testament. So I, I guess the simple way of asking you this is do you think every Christian should be a Bible nerd?
Do you think all of that, that that should be normative for Christians? Because I’m thinking back, if you were a Christian in the year 300 or the year 700, or the year 900, you didn’t have a Bible sitting on your bookshelf and you certainly didn’t have it sitting in an electronic device. And while you know, I’ve been.
Committed to reading the Bible [00:12:00] daily for decades. There’s not a specific command in the Bible that says, read your Bible every day. Because that wouldn’t have been possible for a whole lot of people over two millennia. So what, gimme some feedback on that. Should everybody be a Bible nerd?
Faith Womack: I would argue absolutely.
It really comes down to do we believe it’s true? Do we really believe it’s true? And that’s what I start with my book off with because if we really believe it’s true, then we’ll treat it like it is. And if it really is true, then we will run to it quicker than we run to our Instagram feeds to scroll or Twitter to get the t on the latest, whatever.
If we really believe it’s true, it’s the most important thing we’ll read for the day. It’s the most informative piece of information we’ll consume for the day. And not only is it just brute facts and information, it is life changing sauce. Like it changes our worldview, it changes our worship, it changes the [00:13:00] way that we view our trials, our doubts, our our children, our marriage.
It changes everything if we believe it’s true. And I think just re like every single day, every single day when I sit down to Bible study, I have that inner turmoil of I really should answer that one email and I really need to edit that video. And there’s that one thing I need to post. And that one, you know, I, I get it every single morning.
I get this temptations to do other things, but then the, the quickest way to reformat my brain to go and I’m gonna choose to do my Bible study is, do I believe it’s true? Do I really believe it’s truth? Because if it really is truth, it’s way more important than anything else I could possibly do for my day.
And I start there. You know, I, I think we need to understand that it’s true. And if we understand that it’s true, then yes, we will naturally wanna be bible nerds. Not for just the title or the pout in the back, but because we want to know truth. Everything else is folly. Everything else is falsehood.
Everything else is running after the wind. If we can hold onto truth and have truth change the way that we view the [00:14:00] world, the, the way that we live and, and, and grip onto it every single day, it’s way more important than that trend on TikTok or that, you know, conversation on Instagram or Twitter. It’s way more important than anything else we can do.
And so I think we have no excuse as this generation. You know, in the New Testament there’s, we see Bible verses like the word of God, dwell richly within you. We see Bible verses like the whole of scripture is profitable for teaching rebuking, correcting all training and righteousness. We see Bible verses like that, and that’s talking about the Old Testament because the New Testament wasn’t compiled yet when Paul wrote those things.
So how much more today if we do have our Bibles on our phones, should we be holding onto scripture without much shatter? Do we have no excuse? You know, first century Christians had to gather together. You know, some of them still met in the synagogue before 70 ad, like they, they, they had a totally different experience with consuming scripture and consuming truth, but they still pursued it at all costs, even to the point of death, right?
So how much more should we have? No excuse to pursue truth. We’re the most educated [00:15:00] generation than any before. I’m the first woman in my bloodline going all the way back to Adam and Eve to get a degree. Nevermind have, oh wow. Countless resources online. Nevermind. Yeah, get a master’s degree as well.
Nevermind have all these commentaries sitting behind me or have the time to do a Bible study. We have no excuse. You know, right before me, my, I’m the first generation Protestant, so right before me was Catholics and they became Catholics because they were Messianic Jews two, three generations before me.
We were Jewish, we were Polish Jews that came over to America for a new life, male orde brides. And wow. I think back to those women who barely even understood English, who would go to like mass and not understand what was going on. I think about my grandfather who always wanted to be a priest, but had to pay the bills.
You know, I think about all those things and I, and I wonder, am I even being a faithful. Child, child or granddaughter. If I don’t use these resources, these, these, this time I can just throw my laundry into the washing machine and I get back in an hour of my life and I’m not sitting there scrubbing the [00:16:00] laundry.
Or I all, I can spray a stain and it magically disappears. The dishwasher gets loaded and boom, I got three hours of my life back. I have no excuse. If I can sit and scroll on the toilet or if I can read, you know, some something in the checkout line off a tabloid, then how much more do I have no excuse to be in the word every single day, especially if it’s true.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. Such a good word. Yeah. And I remember as, so I came to Christ at 17 years of age, and I can remember my pastor, you know, this is in the ancient days pre-internet. He would consistently preach things like, hey. No bible, no breakfast, you know? And, and and I kind of took that to heart and he was constantly saying, Hey, less newspaper, more bible, less sports page, more bible.
Because it is true, and it is not only true, but it’s transformative truth. And there’s nothing that’s going to be more helpful and more healthy in shaping your perspective on everything that you’re thinking about. And yeah, just [00:17:00] such a, a great word. Your book has a lot of testimony and personal story, vulnerability in the early part that kind of explains a little bit of your faith journey and how you came to this.
Talk a little bit about how your childhood experience informed the creation of this tool and, and also your desire to just understand scripture at a, at a greater level. Tell us about that.
Faith Womack: Yeah, so I grew up in a household where scripture was misused. My parents were very nominally Christian, actually Catholic when I was born.
And they were like we probably ought to go to like mass because we have kids now. And so by the Lord’s mercy and grace, I was actually raised in the church. We jumped over to a Southern Baptist church here in the Dallas area, and they told me it was no big difference from mass LOL. But I grew up in the church and by God’s grace, you know, grew up going to VBS, grew up going to Sunday school.
And I, there was this weird tension where we would go home and bible verses would be used outta context [00:18:00] and because of mental illness and my dad started just spiraling and believed God called him not to pay on the mortgage anymore. But to live in that house believed God called him to stop working, believed God called him to not pay for the electric.
Bill believed God called all of us to, you know. Live basically as homeless people, you know? It was a very interesting time in my life because it seemed holy. He was using Bible verses like, why was it not matching up with what everybody else lived? If everybody else was Christians, why did they still pay on their house?
Why did they get to buy a prom dress? You know, just all those things. And my, you know, my parents eventually split over those things and I decided to stay with my dad because he seemed more righteous. He, he was the one quoting more bible verses, you know, he was the one who seemed to be pursuing God, but there was obviously this big disconnect because he was misusing scripture, taking random proverbs outta context and using them as justification for his laziness for his mental illness.
And it didn’t take me long. I went off to college and by God’s grace I was like so [00:19:00] hardheaded. I was like, I wanna understand this Bible thing. And there’s this big disconnect at home. So if I’m gonna have to take out student loans, my parents are forcing me to get a degree, the only thing that makes sense for me to have to pay to study is the Bible.
So that’s what I’m gonna do. And by God’s grace, I went off to Covenant College and studied biblical and theological studies, and it was week one. I’m sitting in chapel. He was the dean at this time but is now the president, Brad Voyles was giving a chapel talk. Something just basically about the way we handle scripture.
And I remember it just completely contradicted my dad and what he had taught me and how he was using scripture. So I ran back to my dorm. I hadn’t even fully unpacked at this point. He was still driving home from dropping me off. At this point, like this is how early on it was. I get on my little cell phone.
My flip phone and I’m like, dad, I gotta tell you what I’m learning. This is how we’re supposed to handle scripture, not this way. And he was so hard headed, he would not have anything of it. You know, he would not, he knew what he wanted scripture to mean to him. He knew what he wanted outta the Bible and how he was gonna twist it.
And so years past, I eventually realized, you know, this is not, this is not healthy. This is not [00:20:00] okay. The more I study the Bible, the more I saw that. And it got to the point where he did not agree with what I was saying. And eventually wrote me this letter that said, essentially he took Genesis 20, the blessing.
If you honor your father and mother, you’ll live long and happy in the land, guys give it to you. And he took it and he misused it into a curse. And he said, you’re cursed to die young because you’re not honoring. Wow. Wow. And you know, at this point, I finished my degree and it just hit me, you know, if this man is willing to take a blessing and turn it into a curse, you know, there, there’s nothing stopping him.
He is just going to misuse scripture. Period. End of story. And that made it very clear for me to take one of God’s blessings and turn it into a curse That just, it, it just, it was like the lights went off in my brain and I was like, you know, not that he’s a lost cause, but this is my cause. I cannot let this happen to another woman.
I cannot, I was postpartum at the time and just struggling with my little baby and, you know, just life had changed. And I was like. I deserve, you know, thank the Lord. I have a [00:21:00] heavenly Father who doesn’t do this to me. But I, I will fight that no other woman hears those words, come, come outta her father’s mouth to misuse her real father’s promises and blessings and turn them into curses.
And I think that’s why I’m so passionate about this. You know, if we really believe it’s true, we’re not gonna misuse it. But at the end of the day, my father doesn’t believe it’s true because he is willing to misuse it. He is willing to twist it. And you know, I can’t have mercy. I do think there’s a lot of mental illness mixed in there, but that doesn’t mean that this isn’t something that I can try and redeem and change in the church.
Educating believers on how we rightly and faithfully handle scripture because we do believe it’s true.
Dr. Mark Turman: Hmm. Wow. Yeah. That’s amazing. Thanks. Yeah. Thanks for sharing. And yeah, sorry that that happened to you, especially at such a young age, I think. Yeah, I think that’s a, an indication of how a lot of people misuse scripture.
Have you seen some other ways more broadly out of after your own experience about just how the culture misappropriate uses the Bible? As I was kind of [00:22:00] thinking through that idea and through that question, it’s you know, are there some other ways that you see the devil making the Bible boring and making it and, and even abusing it and, you know, making it boring is one way to abuse the Bible, but not the only way.
Have you seen some other things as you’ve gone down this adventure further?
Faith Womack: Absolutely. I think we have so many different, it’s almost like a kaleidoscope of different ways that this happens. You’ve got like the health and wealth, prosperity gospel people who are like, oh, give to God, treat God like a vending machine and get back wealth.
And really all they’re doing is misusing Bible verses to buy their private jet, right? To fill up another stadium. Then you’ve got the atheist who take bible verses outta context to say, oh, see it’s flat earth. This is a ancient document that doesn’t, you know, apply to us anymore and it’s just outta date and wrong, right?
Or slavery passages or things like that. Then you’ve got other Christians who, you know, will just slap a Bible first in their Instagram bio, which there’s nothing wrong with that, but if we don’t actually know what it says and we’re just [00:23:00] doing it as some kind of social status, I’m a good girl or good guy and I, I’m a Christian.
Lemme just put a Bible verse in my bio that then we, we lose the the handling of scripture to be, it’s like a sticker. It’s not. Something that does transform us from the inside out. It’s just a status or a, or a placard instead of something that’s actually rucked us from the inside out. And we take it outta context.
You know, we, there’s one bible verse, but it’s best understood, you know, in the paragraph it’s best understood when we read the whole book, when we see it in light of the cross, when we see it in light of pointing to heaven. You know, all those things. And I think honestly the main theme across all those different.
Options that I threw out there of scriptural misuse is we are lazy with the text. And we live in a very consumeristic generation where you, everything is like a vending machine. You know, you put in time, you get back whatever. And we wanna treat God that way. We wanna be like I’m gonna put in five minutes of my Bible study Lord, and then you’re gonna tell me what college to go to, what man to marry, what house to buy.
And if I [00:24:00] don’t get that back, I might try again tomorrow, but eventually I’m gonna quit because it’s just not worth it. Same thing with the gym. That’s why so many people start gonna the gym and quit, right? Because they don’t see those immediate results. Similarly, with our Bible studies, we expect to kind of treat God like a vending machine.
I’m gonna put in prayers and you better give me back the answer to that prayer. Lord, I’m gonna put in five minutes. And if I don’t get immediate fruit or immediate reassurance of your presence, if I don’t feel a certain way afterwards, then it was wasted time. But we’re not wired to be consumeristic beings.
We are inherently. Empty without the Lord, and we just need to be filled with him. And that may not, at times even be something you feel. Hebrews four 12 tells us that it’s alive and active, so it’s working on us even when we don’t feel like it’s because feelings are just, feelings are not reality, right?
Yeah. It’s cutting deep to our soul. Maybe even two weeks from now, the Lord will bring that Bible verse to mind when you’re having that random conversation with that lady at the coffee shop. You know, you just never know what the Lord’s doing and how it’s working on us. And so I think we often do [00:25:00] that with scripture.
We, we get real lazy. We just take one Bible verse, we try and make it for ourselves and we’re, we’re not treating it how it’s intended to be read. And it’s really important to acknowledge here on the onset that scripture I summarized the Bible and I got this from somebody else that did not make this up, but I dunno who it’s, and I cannot track down that quote, but the Bible is a story of God redeeming his people for his glory.
So it’s a story of God redeeming his people for his glory. No matter where you are in the Bible, it’s part of that story of God redeeming his people for glory. Now what you’ll know is it’s a story about God. It’s not about us now, it’s totally for us. It’s totally for us, but it’s not about us. And so often we open up the Bible and we’re looking for us.
What man should I marry? What car should I drive? What house should I buy? What degree should I make or do whatever, whatever the verb is there. Yeah. We’re looking for ourselves. When we open scripture, we’re not looking at God. And you know, we’re lazy. We’re looking for ourselves. We’re looking for the end game.
Instead of making it a worshipful exercise, looking [00:26:00] at what this declares about God and his redeeming his people for his. Yeah,
Dr. Mark Turman: it’s, yeah. So well said. You know, that our founder talks about this on a regular basis, that so many times, especially western Christians, American Christians have a transactional view of faith and of the Bible.
Instead of a, of what you described beautifully as a covenantal view, that this is about a covenant relationship that is centered on God, not centered on us. We’re, we’re obviously a part of the story, but it’s, we’re not the primary character or characters. He is the primary character, and as you said, redeeming his people for his glory.
And but we come to it transactionally. You know, I’ll put in this, if you gimme that, and and that very quickly becomes disappointing because God won’t be manipulated that way. He, he won’t be used that way. And the story of a. Truly meaningful, loving covenant relationship with God is a much better story.
And that’s what the Bible’s [00:27:00] trying to teach us, right? Yeah, I think it’s a beau beautiful way of describing it. Faith, one of the things you talk about is the important tool is just understanding the importance of Bible translations. And you know, I’ve been a Christian now for a little over 40 years and I kind of have seemingly passed from, you know, an early introduction.
The first Bible that I was ever given was the Living Bible. And a really great friend of mine, I was having spiritual questions. He said I’m gonna give you a Bible. Start reading at Matthew one. Read a chapter a day. Let me know when you have questions, which I thought was a really great thing. One of the things you pointed out in your new book is, Hey, start with the gospels and read the story of Jesus.
He’s the center piece, the linchpin of everything. You need to know the story of Jesus before you worry about any of the rest of this. And I thought that’s a very, very good piece of advice. But let’s talk about translations. You know, linguists have really done us a lot of great service. I remember when I was in [00:28:00] seminary, I could tell they pushed us all into studying Greek and Hebrew because they wanted to see if any of us were gonna really take to it and become the next Bible translators.
And there are really great Bible translations to work from, but a lot of people wondering okay, what Bible should I read? How do you guide people in that first kind of early step of getting into their Bible?
Faith Womack: Yeah. Most people misunderstand Bible translations as you know, interpretations.
And while they do have an interpretive layer to them, we a lot. Okay. I should put it this way, more so they are definitely, they do have interpretive layer to them, but a lot of people villainize them as that’s the bad bible. And for the most part, like the popular ones, I’m thinking of like NIV, NES, VES, VRS, VC, SVK, JVNK, JV those like popular whatever it is, like 10 all for the most part are not trying to fool you, are not trying to [00:29:00] present falsehood, but are to their best ability trying to faithfully interpret from the same manuscripts that most of them come from.
So really what it is, is there’s a spectrum of translations. I’m so long-winded this morning. There’s a spectrum of translations. So on one end of the translation spectrum, you’ve got word for word. On the other end, you have thought for thought, and that is the problem with translation is how do we faithfully translate something that has an idiom in it?
There’s actually surprisingly a lot of idioms in the Bible. So like for example, the word for patience in the Old Testament in the Hebrew is an idiom for long nosed, meaning like you take slow deep breaths, you’re very patient, you’re slow to speak, slow to anger, essentially somehow, sometimes how it’s translated, right?
So you do translate it as God is long nosed or do you translate it as the common understanding that it’s an idiom, God is patient. You know, how do we translate these things? If I was to say today in this podcast and it was being translated into German, if I was [00:30:00] to say, oh yeah, it’s reigning cats and dogs outside, do you translate it as it’s literally raining cats and dogs? Or do you say it’s raining a lot outside? We understand these literary elements today, but what we forget is the Bible too also has those literary elements. And the Bible also need you have to consider the intention of the authors versus the literal words that the authors used.
And so that is why there’s a spectrum. Do you hold really tight to those original words or do you translate more the thought? And so for example, like NLT, that’s very easy for young people to read and that’s because it’s more on that thought for thought translation end of the spectrum. I encourage people to read all over that spectrum.
I like reading the NKJV, which is a little bit more word for word, mixing it in with the ESV and NIV, which are more in the middle of the spectrum. And also throwing in the NLT when I need to Now. The message isn’t a translation. The message is a paraphrase, and so I [00:31:00] wouldn’t consider a translation.
I wouldn’t read it like a translation. Excuse me. My husband sometimes uses it with the youth group when they’re really lost in the passage of scripture. If they’re not understanding, he’ll read it to kind of as like a sort of commentary of sorts, a paraphrase of it, right? So that then they can go back to scripture and re-understand it with fresh new eyes.
You know, all of these things are tools. They’re not things to be feared, they’re not things to be villainized. And I think, well-meaning pastors and teachers at times did villainize translations and that hurt more than helped. I think we should use multiple translations, not just stay in one translation lane, not because there’s one translation that’s bad, but more so because they’re tools that give us a greater understanding of the passage.
I, like I said, I use three to four translations whenever I’m sending any passage. And then what I do is I look for the differences. Because the differences tell me, oh, there’s one Hebrew or Greek word or phrase that’s really hard to translate into English and I need to dig a little bit deeper, do a little bit of a word study and to greater, more faithfully understand that passage.
[00:32:00] There’s a lot to be said there, but I, we really need to understand the translation spectrum so that we can make these better decisions, not just faith says this translation.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. And really, really helpful to know just some basic tools and understanding around that. Again, I can go back, I can go back 40 years and remember my pastor talking about, you know, why do we keep having new translations?
And he ex, you know, he explained it, you know, that linguistically in our language language drifts about 18% a year. Yeah. And you know, more recently than last, last five to 10 years, I’ve. Been using the Christian Standard Bible, which is a fairly new Bible translation, really reliable, more toward the word for word.
Yes. Not totally down that way, like the ESV, but, but in that direction. But part of the reason, you know, he explained in the, in the King James Bible, the word conversation meant your lifestyle. Your overall lifestyle. But the word conversation to us means [00:33:00] what we’re doing right now, which is two people talking together.
And it’s just that over time in every language the meaning of words drifts and changes. And so that can be why periodically, you know, the people that are serving the kingdom of God by, by continuing to do the linguistic work really do serve us well. And you know, and that’s something that God seems to be passionate about.
God is seeming to really accelerate the translation of the Bible into every. Language on the planet, something that the Museum of the Bible is working on very diligently that every person could have the Bible in their own normal language is just an amazing that’s, that’s never happened before.
Yeah. And you gotta wonder what God is preparing us for because of that being able to happen. Lemme ask you this do you feel like it’s better to study the Bible by yourself or in a group? What are the pros and cons of that, do you think? Ooh.
Faith Womack: I mean, okay, so we are, this is a very [00:34:00] modern concept to think about.
Reading the Bible by yourself over a cup of coffee. This wasn’t happening. You know, not that long ago, like this is a very modern, new concept. Especially for newer believers, it can be a lot easier to study with other people to be trained in how to, you know, read and interpret and understand the text, but we should not be afraid of reading it ourselves or in, in a lot of people fear they’re gonna do it wrong.
They feel intimidated, they’re scared of what they’ll do wrong. They’re scared of not understanding things. And you gotta remember this is our father. This is his story of him redeeming his people for his glory and for generations for thousands of years. God is only, this is how he works. He always works in, through and despite people.
So even if you do the wrong thing, God’s gonna work in through and despite it. Think about my dad misusing scripture like I talked about earlier. God worked in through and despite that because here I am today on this podcast, and it wouldn’t happen there if my dad didn’t misuse scripture, you know? God is constantly working in, through and despite us, and I think we are not called to a spirit of fear around [00:35:00] our Lord, like our father and his word, but rather to faithfully return back to it and to ask, Lord, will you help me understand this?
Will you open my eyes? You know, don’t be so confident to just, you know, I don’t know, jump into misusing a Bible verse or something like that, but read it then Don’t be afraid to read it. He actually, if you, I, I believe if you have a Bible. You’re called to read it. Read, I believe if, especially if it’s sitting on your nightstand, dusty, you are called to read that thing, and the Lord is inviting you into this lifelong journey of loving the word and studying the word.
So that intimidation thing, I think is just a, a tool from the enemy.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I would agree. Let me take that thought one step further, which is some people would say, I mean, obviously as a pastor’s wife and being in ministry, you know that there are a lot of people, particularly in our part of the world that are like, Hey, I’ve got my faith and I got my Bible.
I don’t need to go to church. How would you, how [00:36:00] do you respond to those believers who are like, look, I, why would I go to church? I can read the Bible on my own. And we, and you and I would absolutely affirm, you can read the Bible on your own. You should read the Bible on your own. But how would you respond to that person of, Hey, where does the church fit into this?
Faith Womack: Yeah just like we have to. Have checkups of the doctor. I think the church is a wonderful God ordained tool to check ourselves at orthodoxy. So a lot of people understand there’s a denomination, capital O Orthodox, but there’s the lowercase o Orthodox word, which means like a faithful historical understanding of Christianity.
And I think people like my father can easily he did not go to church for a long time, I don’t know about now, but he would misuse scripture because there was no one holding his feet to the fire. Do you believe that you’re This is true because you’re misusing it. There’s no teaching, there was no discipleship and I think we need the church as much as I have been so [00:37:00] hurt by the church as much as there are times where I do not wanna go.
And that is me confessing that to y’all. We need it. We need the fellowship of believers, we need the preaching of the word, we need the sacraments. And, and scripture is really clear about that lifeline that it is to us. It, you can’t read. There’s one like kind of phrase of sorts that are theme that is repeated.
And at the end of Acts two and Acts four, I’m gonna butcher it. But basically they shared all things among themselves. The, the teaching, the preaching of the word was their lifeline. Like they were, they were each other’s community, family, lifelines, backbones, right? We need that. And from the very beginning at Pentecost, the church was that for each other we need that friends.
And this isolated like Christianity take Jesus even leave behind the Bible at times. I’m good. All I need is me and God. You know that, that’s a very selfish, consumeristic thing again. And, and we’re belittling what the capital C like the universal church. It’s a gift from the Lord. Not something to be, to view as a [00:38:00] burden.
I mean, that’s who, like Revelation seven gives us this picture. That’s who we’re gonna be standing arm in arm with in heaven one day. Why are we running from them today? We, we need them as our brother and sisters in the fight.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think, I’m not sure, but I would think that at the top of the list of the most important things that God would say characterizes a healthy faith is humility.
And and one of the ways we demonstrate humility is by saying, I need, I need the Bible, but I also need the community of faith. And that’s a place for me to give my accountability away and to be in accountability with each other of saying, you know what, it’s pretty arrogant to say that God is going to reveal things only to me.
Yeah, yeah. And, and I can have the sole authority of understanding. That’s, that’s a pretty arrogant way to respond. And the church is not perfect. The church has a lot of problems. Sometimes the church, it’s just made of a bunch of, of a bunch of broken people who are hopefully being redeemed [00:39:00] consistently by the power of the Holy Spirit and the word of God.
That’s what we hope. So we need to give ourselves to that environment in a, a humble and, and hopeful as well as clear way. Faith, one of the things you talk about in this book is understanding the story arc of the Bible. And I really love this conversation is to have what I would call a a scaffolding.
To kind of understand the movements of the story if there were scenes. Yeah. And I want you to talk about that. You, you kind of outlined three or four words. I’ve kind of boiled it down to six words. Okay. That kind of describe, you know, for me it’s I, because I’m a preacher at heart, I iterate everything.
As you described earlier, it is God’s redemptive story for his glory. And it comes down to me for about six things. Creation, catastrophe, covenant, Christ, church, and consummation. I love that. Talk, talk about how having just that basic kind of [00:40:00] story framework can help us understand the Bible better when we’re reading it and studying it.
Faith Womack: First off, we’re wired for story. We, I mean, this can be scientifically, sociologically proven. Like there, there’s all different ways where we are clearly wired for story. Our bodies, our emotions, our minds fire off like firecrackers when we hear a story with a character facing an obstacle and conquering that obstacle.
We, we love, we are wired for stories. Look into branding and how brands use stories. So even story affects the way we spend our money and the brands we love and the food we eat and all those things. We are wired for story and God has wired us for his story. It’s so beautiful. So in my book I talk about creation, fall, redemption, consummation.
So what I do have to clarify that term real quick because a lot of people think of consummation as a bedroom, wedding night kind of situation. But in legal terms, consummation is when everything in the legal transaction has been fulfilled. [00:41:00] Everything has been, accounted for and done. Completed. And so when I say consummation, that is heaven.
That is when every tear has been wiped away, our full ransoming and the atonement and completed, and we are there in heaven. That is what we’re talking about when I say consummation. So we start with create creation, and then it comes to fall. We know those two stories very, very well. Then we have redemption, which is Christ on the cross making the atonement for our sins, who sub substitutionary atonement.
And then we have redemption or, or consummation, I’m sorry. And when we understand those four, what I would call like chapters in the story, for lack of a better term, we understand where the story of the Bible is moving and where we’ve been. So one thing you’ll, you’ll find no matter where you are in the Bible, Bible’s constantly kind of like oddly referencing back to creation.
It, it’ll use like, it’ll quote like John one, one quotes, Genesis one. It will quote or reference creation, heavens and earth as like language of the Psalms uses all the time. Romans five references Adam and how Christ is the new [00:42:00] Adam. Like scripture’s always looking back at creation. That’s because it’s informed by the Theology of Creation.
Then it’s also informed by the theology at the fall, and we’re looking back at those two things when we’re at the cross and looking forward to heaven when we’re at the cross. And so knowing where you are in that storyline, you can be informed by that and understand where scripture is moving. You can understand how it’s foreshadowing Christ or prophesying Christ in the cross.
You can see how it’s looking forward to heaven and looking back at the cross of fear and in the New Testament, like understanding where you are in the timeline. And we have a bunch of like graphics in my Bible to show this. Understanding where you are in the timeline means no matter where you are in the Bible, no matter what random book you open up, whether you’re in Jew or, or Obadiah or what, you can quickly figure out, okay, where am I?
What is this pointing to? It’s. Typically, if you’re in the Old Testament, it’s always pointing forward to Christ. And if you’re in the New Testament, it’s unpacking the person and work of Christ. And, and then you just have a really great starting point for what you’re supposed [00:43:00] to be looking for, what you’re supposed to find outta that passage.
Now, of course you wanna be aware of who wrote it, when, why, all those things. But just those little tools of, okay, I’m in the Old Testament, so this is looking forward to Christ that can really help you no matter where you are.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, yeah. And I said, I think, I think you’re exactly spot on that we, we are just drawn to story.
That’s why we buy that’s why we buy novels, that’s why we like films. We’re just, we’re drawn to being caught up in a good story. And this is the best story of all which is again, another great reason to study it for all that it’s worth. We are privileged, as we’ve already mentioned, that we live in the digital age.
Do you have some favorite two or three digital tools that you really have found helpful?
Faith Womack: I love Bible Hub. There’s also resources like Blue Letter Bible but I love being able to click on hyperlinks and do a Greek or Hebrew word study. Now, I had the privilege of studying those languages, but not [00:44:00] everybody does.
And through these amazing tools, you can look up your favorite Bible verse and quickly look at the Greek or the Hebrew, whether or not you can even pronounce it. You can see quick little definitions of that word. You can click on the hyperlinks and see where else it’s used. And that changes the game for believers today.
If you’re struggling with the way that your pastor understands that word or says that that word means something, you can, you can check him. You know, you don’t have to just believe what he says. The lexicon says it’s right there for free online, and you don’t even have to learn how to navigate a lexicon anymore.
When I was learning how to navigate Strongs I was lost, you know? But now it’s all hyperlinked. It’s done so seamlessly. It’s so helpful. So I love those two resources. I obviously love Bible Gateway because I can flip in between multiple translations really easily online there. And then they also typically have free commentaries there.
So I’m not a fan of using commentaries like as a crutch. Like I can’t read scripture without them. But I do love that I can check myself on commentaries. What they are is [00:45:00] just typically as a pastor summarizing that passage of scripture and at times really exing it for us. Depending on the commentary, it depends how, you know, lofty and hard it is to understand it or how simple and easy it is to understand and apply it.
But they’ll be free ones like Matthew Henry free online, you know, and that we, I can read and check myself even when I’m on the go and I don’t, I can’t invest in a book, whatever. There’s a great free resources online.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. And lots of, lots of great tools. You gotta be cautious and and wise about what you choose.
Yes. But there are a lot of good tools and like what you said about commentators commentators should not be necessarily the first place you go. But they are a good place to go. And as one of my teachers told me years ago, you know, God revealed this to them and it was for them in some ways for that moment.
But there are also timeless elements that they understood if, if you just were more willing to go spend the time to to hear what God said through other people and other times that can be valuable to [00:46:00] you. Yeah. So many great things to talk about here. Got, I got a few minutes before we wrap up, so I had a couple of questions to kind of help people get started.
Yeah. But before I wanna come back to this idea of humility faith, one of the very first times I ever got to teach a group of people from the Bible I ended up picking a, a text out of John five. And one of the things as a pastor and Bible teacher that’s always kind of, just kind of sobered me up, if you will, is that Jesus had so much tension with the people who knew the, the scripture the best in his day.
It was the religious leaders who drove the whole process of Jesus getting to the cross. And John 5 38 says this speak, Jesus is speaking to the religious leaders of his day, the people who knew their Bible better than anybody. He says, you pour over the scriptures because you think you have eternal life in [00:47:00] them, and yet they testify about me.
Gimme a little bit of a thought about how we guard against growing into spiritual blindness, even while we’re studying the Bible.
Faith Womack: Yeah like we said, with commentaries, you have to check yourself, but also check them, you know, read multiple commentaries, like you read multiple translations. Keep this forever studenthood.
I think so many of us, especially if you’ve grown up in the church, you’re very familiar with Bible passages and you’re like, I know Ruth. I know Jonah, I know those stories. I’ve known him since PBS, even V was it Veggie Tails? They did a series on it, you know? Yeah. I got that story down right. And we act like we have conquered that passage.
I call it in my book, familiarity Poison. We’re so familiar with it that we forget to look at it with fresh eyes. We act like we know it completely. We never scratch past the surface. Rather, we’re invited on a lifelong journey of studenthood. You can return back to Ruth time and time again, and you’ll find a new, beautiful chiasm or just like [00:48:00] cool literary element or a new rich word that she repeats, you know, or the book repeats.
There’s so much richness found in scripture if we’ll just dig, if we’ll just trust for it to be there and continue digging and continue returning back to it. And so we’re not called to master a book or a Bible verse, or we never really will. But rather we’re called to lifelong studenthood. And that’s really good news because there’s always gonna be more the Lord has for you in his word.
If you’ll just trust him and, and continue turning back to it. There will always be ways that the Lord will meet you in his word and convict you and, and change your life and rock your world, right? If only we’ll come back to it. Keeping that humility. Coming back to scripture and trusting the Lord by just digging a little bit deeper, looking up that word looking in a Bible dictionary.
What is this person, place or thing? I’m not gonna act like I know everything about this mountain or this region, or whatever it is. Coming back like a student, like a child and saying, Lord, what is going on here? Help me to see this with new eyes. You’ll be amazed at how much richness is in scripture.
You know, all the [00:49:00] scholars in the world have been studying the Bible and we’re standing on their shoulders of all their research, and yet we still haven’t even scratched past the surface of the richness in scripture. And I love that. I love that. We’ll never tire of all the beauty and the gems and all the greatness in God’s word.
And praise the Lord for that. It’s, it’s a lifelong rich study that we get to do.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. Yeah. I was talking with a professor at Rice University, a scientist. He said, he made a pretty bold statement. He said, you know what? If you, if you pick up the Bible and you ask God in humility to show you the truth, it will change your life.
It’ll transform you. He went so far as to say, in less than a year you will become a Christian. If you simply pick up the Bible and you say, God, if this is true, show me. Reveal it to me. Yeah. And I thought that was a really great, great insight and a great challenge. So faith, this is our conversation’s coming out early, early in this new year of 2020.
I grew up as you did [00:50:00] in the part of the Christian community that said, you can’t handle the Bible on your own. You, you have to go to somebody else. Hmm. Somebody that I can just imagine somebody listening to us going, I need, I want. To step into the Bible, but I’ve never read the Bible. You know, with any kind of consistency and with any kind of an awareness of its story.
How would you, beyond just saying, Hey, start with Matthew chapter one, which is a great place to start the, the biographies of Jesus. What other guidance would you give to somebody who just hasn’t ever been able or hasn’t chosen until now to say, I’m going to step in and I’m going to learn more of the story of the Bible by at least just reading it.
How would you help them get started?
Faith Womack: I would say set your expectations, not on yourself, but on the Lord. When we have our expectations on ourself. I’m gonna read the Bible every day this year. I’m gonna make it through the Bible this year. Whatever it is, I’m gonna conquer this. Task, [00:51:00] they’re tied up in ourselves.
It’s no longer worshipful. It’s performative. But when our expectations are set on the Lord, I’m gonna pursue the Lord. And every day he’s gonna be me in His word. It becomes so much less performative task oriented. Check the box and and centered around ourselves. And all of a sudden it becomes, I’m just pursuing the Lord.
I’m just setting this lifelong habit of every day I wake up. And the most important thing, which is my relationship with God is at the forefront of my mind every single day. I’m not gonna start my day. Without getting right with the Lord, without repentance, without holding ripley to truth, without prayerfully entering into my damning, what are we doing if we’re not praying over the decisions we make?
You know, like what? I would say I would encourage you at the beginning of 2026. There’s no better way to live this year than to pursue God every single day in the best place to pursue him. The place to pursue him is in his word and in his revelation in his truth, capital T truth. And so turn to it every single day and not for, I need God to make it super clear what job I take this year, or what else I buy, or what man, I mean, or what [00:52:00] degree I, you know, not any of those things, but rather, or how do I parent and how do I parent these grandkids or whatever it is.
But rather, what are you revealing to me today in your word? What do you have for me today? And it takes, again, the pressure off of ourselves and puts it on the Lord where it rightly belongs. Lord, I believe you can work in through and despite me and his word today for five minutes before my kids interrupt me with their complaints and their fights and their Legos.
I believe you can meet me here, Lord, today. Meet me. Just fully expectantly, hands open. I don’t have to do necessarily any tasks or performance or measure up and be enough and do more that’s the whole reason why Jesus came is ’cause we’re not enough and we can’t measure up and be more and do more, right?
Because we are failures. That’s the story of the Bible God working in through and despite us. And watch as he does meet you, watch as he meets you in his word and makes you see it in so new fresh eyes. And so yeah, start in Matthew one and just look at what this reveals about God. Get your head off of yourself.
Don’t look for yourself and the answers to your problems. Those will definitely come, but look for what it reveals about [00:53:00] God. You’ll see the gospels in a whole new way. If your eyes are just glued to Christ and seeing how Matthew presents him. Then compare it to how. Mark and Luke do stories show, pay close attention to how there’s comparisons between Christ and the Pharisees or the disciples.
Faith, you know, look at what this is revealing about the person and the work of Jesus Christ. Then read John as this magnum opus of theological depth and metaphorical richness and go wowsers and have it rock your world. And when you’ve made it through the gospels going paragraph by paragraph, little day by day, your world will be rocked.
And you’ll see Jesus when you fresh eyes. And I guarantee the Lord will light a fire within you to love the word and to love his truth. And yeah, just pursue your, pursue the Lord be in the word. And, and for God, not for yourself, but for more of the Lord.
Dr. Mark Turman: Now put the relationship first. Yeah.
That’s a great, a great step. Absolutely. And, you know, ask your church, a lot of churches will [00:54:00] have a Bible reading plan that they can study together, follow together throughout the year. My church here in my town does that. And so there, there’s lots of great ways. So I’ll, I’ll I’ll give you the opportunity here.
Favorite gospel? Ooh. Favorite other New Testament book and favorite Old Testament book?
Faith Womack: Okay. My favorite gospel right now. Is Luke. Okay? I mean, I go through seasons, you know, there when I’m in a tough season, I love Mark because Mark really highlights the persecution and hardship of Christ and how he was so lonely and persecuted right?
Then Luke really shows how Christ came for all people, the lowly and the pious who think that they’re so awesome, like they call Luke the gospel for the little people. And I just feel that in the season of my life where I just feel like a nothing in God’s hands. And I love seeing yeah, how he just came for everyone in Luke.
Wait, but what was your other question? What my, that’s my favorite gospel right now.
Dr. Mark Turman: Favorite so favorite gospel, which is for now is Luke favorite [00:55:00] other New Testament book and then a favorite Old Testament book.
Faith Womack: Hmm. I love Philman. Love of love. So short. You can read it in one sitting. And just the way that Paul so pastorally, I mean, I’m sure you giggle as a pastor reading it.
He’s just yeah, you owe me a favor. Free your slave for the sake of the gospel. You owe me a favor, just do it. And it’s just so cunning and brilliant and a little manipulative, but it with a righteous manipulation, right? Maybe manipulation is probably problematic, but like he is rightly saying you owe me a favor.
Free the slave for the sake of the gospel, who’s now a brother in the faith. And I just love it. It’s just so beautiful. It’s so redemptive. It’s just, it gets me so on fire. And then my favorite Old Testament book, it’s a tossup. Really, honestly, I’d probably say Ruth, because there’s so much richness, because it’s so much more than what so many people, you know, [00:56:00] oh, be a good daughter-in-law.
Oh, go find your boas. It’s so much better than that. And it’s so much richer. It’s such a great gospel picture for how Christ fills us with our arms full of a harvest, even when we’re the most empty and bitter. I mean, I just think that book is be.
Dr. Mark Turman: So great. So great. Alright. I I’m gonna put you on the spot here if I can.
Okay? The first part is not gonna be hard. Tell us tell our folks where they can find more of your work, and then would you offer a prayer for folks that will listen to this that they might be just led in a fresh way by the spirit to engage their Bible as they begin this new year?
So I would Absolutely. Where can we find you? Yeah, yeah. Where can we find you
Faith Womack: everywhere? It’s Bible Nerd Ministries. So whether you’re an Instagram girly Facebook person, I really haven’t grown my Facebook that much. It’s really small, so you might even think it’s a fan page. But I’m more of Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
And then of course, my website is bible nerd ministries.com. You can find my book everywhere. Books [00:57:00] are sold. Right now we’re in Walmart Barnes and Noble. Amazon for sure. Mardel. I love Mardel because it’s here in the Dallas area. It’s owned by Hobby Lobby, so you got like all the cute home goods and stuff.
Yeah. Anyway and then I would love to pray over the listeners. I guess I’ll do that right now.
Dr. Mark Turman: Please,
Faith Womack: father God, thank you so much for this time and we pray that it has just been honoring to you or that everything we said and did was just honoring and glorifying to you. God, we pray a blessing over whomever’s listening right now.
We ask for you to meet them and today exactly where they are, whether they’re driving down the road or doing their dishes or whatever it is. God. I thank you for the ways that you have been working on their heart and calling them to yourself for however many years it’s been. But God, I thank you that because they’re listening to this podcast, I know that you are working in them a greater love and fire for your word.
And that’s something only you do that doesn’t come from the world. And so I thank you for that. God, that’s a life-changing desire to wanna know you greater and to know, love your word deeper. And God, I just ask for you to bless them abundantly [00:58:00] in 2026 in their Bible studies. Father God, we ask for you to meet them to transform them day by day and Holy Spirit overwhelm them with a.
Of your presence and conviction and guidance. But most importantly, God, we just ask for, for scripture just to sit there and resonate in their hearts and minds every single day after to transform not only their lives, with their families lives and everyone that they will touch God as lights in this dark world.
We pray that scripture won’t just stop with us, but transform the way that we even buy groceries or drive down the road, that we will be lights in this dark world screaming from the rooftops, your glory and your goodness, Lord, because it is revolutionary, transformative that you would come incarnate living so to die for that we might have life in you.
And Lord, we pray all these things because of your work on the cross, and we pray all these things looking forward to heaven. I’m so excited to stand hand in [00:59:00] hand with this brother and sister on the other end of this technology praising you one day, God shouting at the top of our lungs, your praise.
I’m so excited for that day. But until then, Lord, maybe run this race faithfully unto your glory and your kingdom. Come Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
Dr. Mark Turman: Amen. Amen. Thank you for that faith, and thanks for the conversation and for the good work that you’re doing. Let’s, let’s plan to talk more in the coming year and find ways that we can partner and if you wanna check it out, as we said, bible nerd ministries.com.
And if you’re looking for more information, more tools from Denison Forum, you’ll find [email protected]. And since we’ve been talking about the Bible, let me leave you with one of our favorite passages, A prayer out of Philippians chapter one. Verse nine says this, Paul is inspired to pray for his friends, and we pray for you.
I pray this, that your love will keep on growing more in knowledge and every kind of discernment, so that you may approve the [01:00:00] things that are superior and may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
Thanks for being a part of Faith and Clarity and we’ll see you next time. God bless you.
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