The Bible Recap - Prep Episode 3: Why Reading the Whole Bible is Important (Interview with Lee McDerment)

Episode Date: December 18, 2023

SHOW NOTES: - Head to our Start Page for all you need to begin! - Join the RECAPtains - Check out the TBR Store - Show credits FROM TODAY’S RECAP: - The Bible App + The Bible Recap plan - Lee’s album: The Hour PREP EPISODES (in case you haven’t listened yet): Let's Read the Bible in a Year (Chronological Plan)! How I Learned to Love (Reading) the Bible Why Reading the Whole Bible is Important (interview with Lee McDerment) Preparing to Read the Bible Avoiding Common Mistakes: What to Look for When You Read the Bible Reading the Bible in Community SOCIALS: The Bible Recap: Instagram | Facebook D-Group: Instagram | Facebook TLC: Instagram | Facebook    D-GROUP: D-Group is brought to you by the same team that brings you The Bible Recap. TBR is where we read the Bible, and D-Group is where we study the Bible. D-Group is an international network of Bible study groups that meet weekly in homes, churches, and online. Find or start one near you today!

Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. Today we're going to be talking to Lee McDermott, pastor of New Spring Church in Greenville, South Carolina. If you listened to Prep episode 2, you heard the story of how Lee challenged me to read the Bible all the way through and how it changed my life. At the time, I'd been in full-time ministry for a few years as a musician and a writer and a speaker, and Lee had mentioned that I should say very little on stage until I'd read the whole Bible. I was deeply convicted by the challenge to fill my head and my heart with all of God's words before

attempting to say much about it on stage. I still count that conversation as one of the most important ones of my life. If it weren't for him, I never would have launched D-Group, the discipleship and Bible study ministry I lead, which has now touched every populated continent and is even in Spanish. And I definitely wouldn't have started the Bible recap because I never would have fallen in love with God and His Word. So of course, I'm incredibly excited for you to hear from Lee and catch his passion for the Word of God because it's definitely contagious.

We did this interview over the phone, so it's not the best quality, but I promise you what it lacks in audio quality, it more than makes up for in wisdom quality and quantity. So let's jump into the interview now. Lee McDermott, welcome to the Bible Recap. We are so excited to have you. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Well, first of all, what an honor. And Terry Lee, I'm just so grateful for you. You and I have been friends for so long. I think, you know, just, you know, to introduce myself to your listeners, I've been on staff at New Spring Church for a little over 18 years. And I was for 15 years, I was the worship pastor. And then a brief stint as our creative arts director, which is over, you know, worship and production, all the rest of that stuff.

And most recently, I've been the Greenville campus pastor for New Spring Church for a little over a year now in my beloved city of Greenville. I've been married to my wife Allie for a little over seven seven years and we have two kids. Gray, our son, who's three, and Lucy, who is our daughter, who's a little over one. And they are awesome. So, you know, it's an honor to jump on this thing to talk about my favorite book in the whole wide world with you. I know that's how you feel about it too. And just honored to get to share with you today. Well, we're glad to have you. So why don't you tell us, when did you first read the Bible

and what prompted you to read the Bible for the first time? Well, I think growing up, I grew up in a believing family and a Christian family. So I was around the scriptures a good bit growing up, but had never really kind of taken a spin through it on my own. And it wasn't until after I'd called into ministry and finished up my music degree, I'd actually been leading worship at our church for a couple of years. It wasn't until I had this encounter at a camp

that I was leading worship at with an evangelist there. And he posed a question to me that just, I mean, it spun my world around. I will never forget this. But he basically said, hey, what if God's gonna hold you more accountable for what you say from the stage than me? And that shook me up in that moment

because he was the evangelist, he's preaching, for what you say from the stage than me. And that shook me up in that moment because, you know, he was the evangelist, he's preaching, I'm just leading worship and, you know, kind of leading people through songs, just guiding them by saying a few things in between one song and another. The idea of being held more accountable for what I say than the preacher

was kind of staggering for me. But this is how he explained it. He basically said, look, when I'm preaching, people are seated, their minds are closed, they're weighing every word I say, like maybe I don't believe what you're saying. He said, when you say something from the stage, music is playing, people's hearts are wide open,

their emotions are engaged, everything you say is kind of just falling right into their heart. Are you comfortable with what you're telling them about God, speaking for God? You know what I mean? And he was like, how much of the Bible have you read? And I admitted to him there, you know, I've read most of it, but there's some sections of the prophets that I hadn't really dug into. There's other sections I'd only read once in my entire life. And he said, maybe you should consider limiting what you say, maybe only saying like, you know, welcome, stand and sing, and then you may be seated. Maybe consider only saying that stuff until you've

actually read the whole Bible. And it really, you know, it just, I was so wonderfully convicted in that moment to dive more into the scriptures. You know, he kind of brought the whole thing down the side for me by basically saying, look, the Bible's not some mountain that's too, that's beyond you, that's too difficult for you. It takes about 40 hours to read from cover to cover. Why don't you just do it as fast as you can

so that you have the whole scriptures inside your brain. The Holy Spirit can use them at any time. And that way you know that, you know, you're really giving the most accurate picture of God to other people as humanly possible. So later on, you know, after that camp was over with, I just got a little pocket Bible, put it in my back pocket and would read it at stoplights

and, you know, just here and there, just tried to get through it as fast as I possibly could. It took me about four or five months to do it at first, and I was transformed after that first reading. I mean, it truly was a life-changing experience. God did things in me then that I just didn't think were possible at the time. So that's my real first encounter with reading the entirety of the scriptures. After that, totally, I just got hooked. My appetite increased for it like crazy, and I

just never looked back. I mean, it's just been such a source of faith and inspiration, and it's just been amazing. Well, I don't know who that camp pastor was, but I want to thank him because what he said to you obviously impacted you in huge ways, but in ways that trickled down to everybody you encountered in your own life, because those words that he said to you are so similar to words that you said to me

when I was a traveling musician that made me want to read the Bible for the first time. Because you said something very similar to me. And I remember, I think it was like August, one year when I was on tour in South Carolina, and we were at the church, and you had just given me a tour of the new church offices and things like that, and you said something very similar to me, as what he said to you,

and the next day was when I started reading through the Bible the first time. And that changed everything for me, and increased my appetite as well. And so just the trickle-down effect of that can't minister his words to you. And then all the people that are hearing this today and all the people they're going to impact throughout their life, that man has probably no idea how far reaching his words have been. Well, Adrian Dupree, if you're listening, then thank you. Thank you homeboy, because you've done it for all of us. So, yeah, but.

That's right, thank you, Adrian. Yeah. So what struggles did you have? Because I had my own struggles the first time I read through. Were there any things that were difficult for you or challenging for you, or maybe you want to quit, or things like that?

Because I know our listeners are probably going to encounter some measure of struggle their first time through, or even if this isn't their first time through. So did you have anything that you recall that you want to share with us? Yeah, it was, you know, I think obviously the first time it was primarily an intellectual challenge at the very beginning, really just more of a mental capacity challenge, because I think that I've never tried to read a book like that that fast before. And obviously, you know, the scriptures themselves, it's a book of books, it's a library in and to itself. And for me, reading it that clip, I mean, it was kind of like mental crossfit

to some degree. I mean, it was challenging for my intellect just to take in that much in that span of time and to be able to comprehend it and all the rest of that stuff. So there really was a stretching of my mental capacities as I read it the first time, especially through some of the more obscure passages of scripture that there's genealogies and repetitive laws and prophecies about the things that I had no historical context for. Those things were the most, they were drier for me. And from an intellectual standpoint, it was just, it was tougher to get through the first time around just because I hadn't seen that stuff before.

What I realized was happening, you know, there's a promise in Psalm 19 that says, the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul, the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. That promise certainly was fulfilled in my life at that particular point in time. Reading through the scriptures, it was making me smart, you know what I mean? In one way or another, the idea of the power of the scriptures themselves, that they have the ability to make a simple person wise,

that was happening to me all the way along in that first round. I don't know that I necessarily struggled with... There are some difficult and hard to understand passages in the Old Testament, even in the New, about sometimes the severity of God's judgment, or there's just questions about His character, why would He allow this or that or the other? These laws seem harsh or strange or exclusive or whatever. Those things, I didn't encounter that as much on the first time because I was so overwhelmed

with the consistency of God's character from front to back. I mean, you know, so I don't know that I had struggles of faith. Honestly, the biggest benefit to me in that first run all the way through of faith. Honestly, the biggest benefit to me in that first run all the way through was so many of my doubts completely perished in my first reading through the Bible. Just because I'm like, you know, I would wonder, you know, very often before I did this reading through the scriptures, like, is God real? Is this all just kind of a manmade joke? You know,

honestly, when I got to the end, I just found that there was this ground for peace and faith inside my heart that I didn't even know was possible. I mean, there were doubts that I just never, ever struggled with again after reading through the Bible in its entirety. I know that's not everybody's story, but that was certainly the case for me. The struggles for me were way more on the just mental capacity side, the staying committed to it, staying disciplined in it, more so than struggling with doubt or struggling even to believe that it was true, honestly.

Hmm, I love how our stories are so different in that regard because I feel like a lot of our listeners maybe come out on your side of things. For me, it was, and you and I have talked about this, I, the first time I finished reading through, really had a hard time because I was like, I don't know that I like this guy that I'm reading about. I don't know, like the God that I read about

was hard for me to stomach in certain places. And so when I read it through the second time with a lens to just understand who he was, and like what he loves, what he hates, why he does, what he does, like the motives behind his things, that was when I really fell in love with him. I didn't really have peace until after my second trip through Scripture. But I was so grateful. I had you and Kemper and a few other people in my life that were resources to me to bring my questions to in that time. And that's, that's kind of another thing I'm hoping this podcast will serve as a

resource for our listeners who maybe don't have people like that in their lives. Is that that the fact that you would answer a lot of my questions about the character of God was so helpful to me. And one of the things we're going to do in this podcast is every day sort of draw out the character of God as we saw it displayed in that day's reading. So that we're always looking for who God is in this and not getting lost in some of the minor details of things, which I think are easy to get tangled up in. Yeah. One of the things, Terri Lee, I love that you said that. I know you can probably

resonate with this. Reading through the Scriptures is a fundamentally humbling experience, because in many ways, you are coming face to face with your own kind of rational limitations because the Bible is the revealing of the mystery of mysteries, the most wonderful person in the universe who is so mysterious that someone who has a massive intellect, who's someone who's very, very smart, very, very sharp like you are, I mean, it's a... You come face to face with things that you just simply cannot comprehend. They seem to just kind of war against everything that's on the inside. And what you find is that the faith that the Bible creates, the awakening, the challenge that's in there, it does something humbling to you. And the promise that's revealed in the scriptures is that God lifts up the humble.

I mean, he exalts the humble. And so anyone who's willing to yield to that process, like any of the listeners who are like, you know what, I just feel like I need to do this. I need to dive in every single day for this year and read through the scriptures. You know, there's a war inside your soul, you know, humility versus pride in some way, shape, or form. And what happens is if you can just suspend your own disbelief long enough to let those words wash over you, what you find is that God is in the process of lifting you up to be where He is and to draw you in closer to Himself, which is, I mean, that's the treasure. He is the best of all his gifts, of all the things God could possibly give us. He's the best of all those gifts. And the Bible is, I think, honestly, the primary vehicle for that in the continuing

life of a believer. So for anybody who's listening, I'm just over here with big pom-poms cheering you on because God is wanting to bless you, He's wanting to give you more of Himself. It's just such an amazing and wonderful journey. Yeah. And then making wise the simple, exalting the humble. That's such encouragement for anybody, anybody on this journey. And also those things reveal to us something about God's character. The fact that he makes wise the simple, the fact that he exalts the lowly. Like that tells us something about his heart. Yeah. One of the things that I've picked up in my reading through it, and that's hard

to understand places, and the thing that I've encouraged other people who are really having a hard time with some of those things. I may even said this to you a long time ago, is when you bump into something that makes you feel like you can't trust God because of something you read in the scripture, like you don't, something just sits sideways, you get twisted up in your soul after something that you read.

The thing that I've encouraged folks to do is to go back to Exodus 34, verse six through eight, and remember what God's eternal name that he revealed to Moses is. He is the Lord the Lord, compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin. But who does not leave the guilty unpunished? He is a God who is unbelievably merciful and who is just and righteous,

and he poured all that out on Jesus at the cross. If you can hold that, hold that truth about that's God's character, that's his revealed character, if you can hold that in, in your heart, while you read these difficult passages all the way through, what you begin to find is that God is far larger and grander and more mysterious and more loving and more gracious but also more pure and holy and perfect than then whatever your little box was that you had him in you know in all your thought

processes previous to that so you know that's the thing I'd encourage people with like go back Ezekiel 34 34, and when you have a hard passage that you are finding difficult to understand, remember, God is compassionate, he's gracious, he's slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, he forgives, he just, and ultimately, all wrongdoing gets poured out on Jesus at the cross.

The gospel is threaded through, all the way through the scriptures, because it's a part of who God is. That's so good. I know you've touched on this a little bit in some of your answers previously, but can you just summarize why you think it's important to read through the whole Bible?

Yeah, so honestly, two main reasons come to mind initially. Number one, there's a promise in Scripture of Romans chapter 10, I think verse 17, that says, faith comes from hearing and hearing the words of Christ. The idea there is that, you know, and this is Wayne Grudem's definition about, you know, about the words of Scripture. He basically says, all the words of scripture are God's words. Therefore, to disbelieve or disobey any of the words of scripture is to disbelieve or disobey God. So I take all those words of scripture from Genesis to Revelation as Jesus' own words.

And so connecting that to the promise in Romans 10-17, what I feel like happens is regardless of what page I'm on, if my eyes are hitting the page, then faith is being created and increased in my heart in one way or another. And so that I feel like is such a motivator for me because I need more faith every single minute of the day. And so I want to have the whole Bible and all the faith that it generates for me, I want it." And so that's that's one encouragement that I would say to people. Another one is, you know, there are of course so many, but another one is, you know, when you read the

entirety of the scriptures, what you're doing is engaging with the promise that Jesus made to his disciples about the Holy Spirit. In John 14, I think it's verse 26, where he says, part of the Holy Spirit's job is to bring to your remembrance all the things that I have told you. And if all the words of scripture are Jesus' very words, what you're doing is partnering with the Holy Spirit, because when you read the scriptures, all of that stuff, all those words are getting inside your head,

and they're therefore available for the Holy Spirit to bring to your mind at any time. So if you think about this, and I know, Terri Lee, this happens to you literally all the time. Anytime you're having a conversation with somebody or something like that, you've just been talking to them and boom, a scripture that you haven't read in a couple of years, maybe, or a year, because I know you read the book through the Bible every year, but like a scripture you haven't read in months pops into your head. You can't even remember the reference or anything,

you haven't read in months pops into your head. You can't even remember the the reference or anything, but because you've read it all, you part like the Holy Spirit is now able to access that and bring it to your mind for the encouragement of other people, for your own encouragement. That's why I say it's so important to read the entirety of it. Another reason honestly in this one is just important too, reading through the whole Bible keeps you from going to unnecessary extremes. You know, when you just think like that, you know, cults and stuff like that have started based on one or two scriptures taken way out of context. And, you know, the Bible is a book full of some pretty amazing paradoxes because it is not a human invention.

It is the very word of God, not the invention of any man. And so from that perspective, reading the whole thing gives you the ability to kind of stay in the middle of those mysteries and hold them and steward them well instead of like going too dangerously off to one extreme or another. I think lastly, like God loves each and every one of us who are his so volcanically and so dramatically. These are his revealed words to us. I mean, I'm kind of like, if you knew how much God loves you,

why wouldn't you want to get all these words inside of you? I mean, this is the expression of the most beautiful, mysterious, powerful being in the universe. I mean, he's right there in those pages. And so that's my big encouragement to everybody is that there is treasure on every page for someone. So just such great encouragement to really persevere and to find every page of the scripture is valuable.

And that's good. So talk to the person who doesn't yet have a relationship with God. Like, what words do you have for those people who are listening, who are maybe trying to do this and trying to figure out, is Scripture true? Is God real? What words of encouragement do you have for them? Or words of challenge, either way. Yeah. You know, the thing that I would say is, you know, to anybody who is listening to this podcast, reading through the Scriptures, but maybe you're just kicking the tires on on the Jesus thing or whatever,

I just wanna say welcome and wow, you have no idea how much God loves you. And the fact that you would even want to look at some of his words is an exciting signal to me that he is up to something really beautiful in your life. And so the thing that I would say is, you know, if you don't have a relationship with God, but you're reading the Bible,

and you bump into something that you're just like, yep, I knew it, it's not worth it, you can't understand it. The thing I would just say is like, pause, and before you give up, keep going, keep going, keep going. And just open yourself up, ask God this question, and just say this in your heart or out loud somewhere, like, God, if you're real, would you speak to me through this book? And I feel like that's just a good prayer for somebody who wants to know if God

is real and who is looking in the scriptures to kind of go on a treasure hunt, you know, to some degree, just ask him to reveal himself to you and through those pages because he's not looking to hide from you. And so I just so much encouragement to keep going and, you know, just a, just a, you know, a, you know, just a statement that I'd love to make to anybody who is in that place. Wow. God loves you so much. Something wonderful is right around the corner in your life. That's so good, man.

That's, you know, I feel like that's good advice, not only for people who are questioning whether God is real or not, but even people who are professed believers. Because like I said, my first trip through scripture was where the tension really mounted for me. And if I hadn't pushed through that obstacle of really being frustrated with what I was reading the first time, to get through the second time reading through, to just keep going, to just keep going, to keep in it. And so, I talk to people all the time who are trying to pursue a relationship

with the Lord, read through scripture, dig into church, and then they hit a wall. I tell them the good stuff is on the other side of this struggle. Like, you've got to persevere through this struggle because that's where the good stuff is. Don't stop now. Yeah, I could agree more with that. I think one of the things, especially for somebody who is a believer who might have grown up in church, when you take a spin through the Bible, through the whole thing, what you may bump into

is that you have been taught some things about God that might not line up with what you're reading on the page. And that can be emotionally difficult. There can be some grief attached to that. There can be, you know, it can be a tough thing. And so I completely agree with you. The best advice for anybody is just keep going.

Even when, you know, one of the things that Adrian told me a long time ago in that first encounter was, you know, he was like, that Adrian told me a long time ago in that first encounter was, you know, he was like, here's the deal. The Bible is its own best commentary. It answers most of its own questions. So as you go through, don't get hung up on any one. Put a question mark beside it as you're going through.

Highlight, underline, put a star beside, put a question mark beside, and just keep going. And sure enough, like, if you have a question that arises in Leviticus, you may find that God answers it in Hebrews later on. And so, you know, that's just, that's a good thing to help everybody understand is like persevere, keep going.

Yeah, you're definitely, you got it right. Well, Lee, we are so grateful for your time and your insight here today. I have zero doubt that the things that you've said have struck a chord in the hearts of every listener at some point and probably is going to be used to change the trajectory of a lot of people's lives out there. So thank you for your time. I'm asking God to give weight to your words as they land on people's hearts and to bring

those words to mind again when they encounter those struggles or when they feel disconnected and want to quit. So I'm praying that your words bear fruit. I'm praying that our listeners are encouraged the way that I was when you first challenged me in this way. And I look forward to seeing all of the fruit that comes from this conversation in the future. Absolutely. Me too. Me too. But you know, I'll just speak a blessing over you, Terri Lee, and all the things that you guys are doing both through this podcast and through D group and for anybody who's on this journey. I just bless you in Jesus' name and I hope you experience truly the fullness of just a wild journey in this and revelation of the mystery of God.

Amen. Wasn't that awesome? I love how much our experiences were so different, yet we both ended up at the same place of loving Scripture. If you feel discouraged about Bible reading and you feel like you can't relate to his story or mine, take heart, because I believe you're going to land in this place too. I believe you are going to love the Bible too. By the way, if you want a good tool for your time in the Word,

download Lee's album, The Hour, which is great background music for prayer and Bible reading time. It has honestly become a staple in my life. I'm not kidding. I use it all the time. We'll link to it in the show notes. There's one other thing in the show notes that I want to point out to you, our Patreon family.

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