Andy Mason (00:01.058)
Hey, welcome to The Conversation. I'm Andy Mason and you're listening to the Heaven in Business podcast where we help you navigate the messy intersection of faith, family and business. Today, I wanna talk about how to understand the Bible for busy business people. That's you. You've got Bibles on your shelf, you've got apps on your phone and then you wake up on Monday morning and you say, what on earth do I do? How do I deal with these things? I'm gonna show you how to do this.
I'm gonna give you a simple framework that will help you understand scripture and apply it to your life. And then secondly, you can still access the 30 Day Rhythm. It's a Bible for business people. It's a online 30 day program that we're running with Coach Bill, who's a very successful, he's built a company, he's exited that company. He still is in love with his wife and his kids are healthy, strong.
and thriving, how does that happen? Well, he's spent so much time in the Word of God over the last four decades. We're unpacking that and walking that through together. You can access that, heavenandbusiness.com slash word dash at dash work. And you can get all of this there. I'm gonna put the notes there. You'll see the notes below and there's gonna be a bunch of practical tools that'll help you. So I'm gonna roll through this. It's like so many of us in the West.
have the word of God, it's called a sword. The word of God is like a sword. It cuts between flesh and spirit, helps you know what's right and what's not right. But if I just leave it on the shelf, it's useless. Or if I just leave it for my Sunday service, my Bible in a particular place, it's useless for the purpose that it was written. So why was it written? Why is this such a big deal? John 5, this is Jesus rebuking the religious leaders. He says,
You read the scriptures thinking that they lead you to eternal life and you miss me because the scriptures point to me. Revelation says, talks about Jesus whose name is the word of God. John one in the beginning was the word, the word was God. Jesus is the word of God. I read scripture not for more mental knowledge and assent. I read scripture to know
Andy Mason (02:28.43)
Him, John 17, this is eternal life that they may know you. This is what scripture is all about. And then the overflow of that, it corrects, it adjusts, it aligns, it leads, it guides, establish my steps, gives me wisdom, sanctifies me, makes me clean on the inside out, blesses my life. Joshua says this, you be established and you will prosper if I'll engage with the word of God. So how?
How do I understand scripture and why is this even practical? So first thing, I got a bunch of different things here. I've got a Bible dictionary, a concordance. I've got different version. I've got a grasping God's word by Zondavan. That's a Bible understanding tool that I got at a vocational Bible training program that I went to. Chronological Bible, we got the message by Peterson. We've got Psalms by, that's by Simmons.
That is Brian Simmons. That is the Passion Translation. I've got a Bible Dictionary. I've got a Business Bible. And then I've got the John Maxwell Leadership Bible. Surely with all of these things, I've even got the Bible in different versions. On my shelf, I've got a Bible in German. Now that's gotta be cool. Would they are useless to me if I don't understand how to use it? It's like I've got a F-150 2018 truck. It's so cool. I'd be stupid just to leave it.
parked in there. I'd also be stupid to hitch a trailer to it and focus on the trailer rather than on the truck itself. I've got a truck so I can drive it, not so that it just looks pretty and I can take photos of it and show you. So give me some understanding. Well, first thing, the way the Bible is structured, the Bible has 66 books. There's two major sections, there's the Old Testament and there's the New Testament. There's just sections separated in time.
The Old Testament points towards Jesus. The New Testament reveals who He is and how to live in Him. It's not arranged like a typical timeline. It's arranged more of a type of writing. So what does that look like? The Old Testament, that's the law from Genesis to Deuteronomy. That's called the law. Then there's the history, Joshua to Esther. There's wisdom and poetry, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon.
Andy Mason (04:54.304)
The major prophets, Isaiah to Daniel, the minor prophets, Hosea to Malachi. Now, there's the minor and the majors. That's just length. That all significant, all scripture is God breathed and useful for correction, for training, for instruction in the way to live. It's the way of life. Then the New Testament, we've got the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Really, really cool. Matthew was a tax collector that was one of Jesus' disciples. Mark.
was a traveling companion, we believe, of Peter. Luke was a doctor, like a medical physician that traveled with Paul, and he also wrote the Book of Acts. John was the disciple, the beloved of Jesus. Very different perspectives of the one story of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The church history is the Book of Acts, letters to the churches, Romans to Jude, and then the Book of Revelation, which we believe was written by John.
This all helps you know where to structure and where to go. I'd encourage you, learn your way around. Start with the book of contents. There's no shame in that. It's like, how do I know where to go? Well, look at the book of contents. It will point to where to go. But I'd encourage you memorize those. You're memorizing passwords, phone numbers, clients' names. Surely you could memorize the books of the Bible, which are eternal of value, and knowing these letters written to me. Learn your way around.
Start with the sections, then learn the books. Next thing, understand these different Bible translations. Have you wondered what they even mean? Not all of them are the same. So there's a range, word for word or literal translations. These are like ESV, the NASB and the New King James Version. I've got New King James Version, I've also got the NASB and the Business Bible here is the NASB. You see this,
So those are the more literal word for word translations. They're really, really good for study. There is a range. So good for study accuracy and comparing words and phrases. Secondly, there's thought for thought. These are more easily readable, but may not be as accurate in tying to the literal word. So these are NIV, the NLT. I've got a new living translation. It's really good.
Andy Mason (07:22.104)
for speaking from, it's like easier to understand. The good for daily reading, understanding the flow and for newer readers. Then there's paraphrased. So we've got The Message by Eugene Peterson. We've got The Psalms, Brian Simmons. Now I know Brian Simmons, I've stayed in his house. Godly Man, great. There's a bunch of stuff that's weird out there. Godly Man, great book. And I would call it a paraphrased version.
They've gone in and they have applied this. It's really, really good for fresh language and devotional reflection. It's passion, it lights you up. I don't use these for study. It gives me understanding, it's broader, it helps me. I don't build my doctrine from a paraphrase alone. I go back to the more version that is locked into the translation of the words themselves.
But what I'll do is I'll actually on my YouVersion app, I'll compare different versions. And actually you'll see a parallel Bible here. That's actually literally got, I think four different versions in the one book. So you can read it across and it gives you a really holistic view of this. So simple rule for you, read for relationship, study for accuracy, compare for clarity, obey for transformation. Next point.
Team translation for the individual versus the individual voice. Just to understand a little bit, some Bibles are translated by large teams of scholars, some are shaped by one person's voice. That doesn't make them good or necessarily bad, but you've got to know what you're reading. So Brian Simmons wrote the Passion Translation, but then there were teams of scholars that translated the other versions. So just understand that as you apply it, read it.
and lock into it. just enjoy it, understand what you're doing. Study Bibles and special Bibles. Many different, there's a study Bible, there's a leadership Bible, I got a business Bible, a chronological Bible, devotional Bible, there's even children's Bible. I used to study the comic book, it was so good, I'd read it over and over again as a child. Now, if I'm an adult still reading the picture Bible, we might have a problem. These can all be helpful, but remember,
Andy Mason (09:46.242)
The Bible text is scripture, notes, commentary. They are not scripture. They're helpful for understanding and application, but they're not scripture. A chronological Bible helps you put events in time. That's fascinating to read it through like that. The Bible in a year, you can get a book. A leadership or a business Bible, they're really good, but the application, they might have commentary or notes in them. Just remember the difference between the notes and the scripture itself.
Now, here's an interesting one. There's a bunch of interest in Apocrypha, Enoch, and non-canonical writings. So these are books like the Book of Enoch, early Jewish writings, early Christian writings, that ancient texts. They are not part of the agreed on canonical Bible. They've got historical and cultural value, but they're not part of the 66 book of scripture recognized like that.
Canonical means it's recognized as authoritative scripture. So don't get caught up in the minutiae and miss the major. You got 66 books to deal with. Why would you focus time and attention on one, two, or three that are not the major things? Spend your time where it matters the most. It's like if you've got a vehicle, you don't spend your time on the trailer.
Spend your time on the vehicle, get deep and lock in on that. Keep the main thing the main thing. The enemy doesn't always have to make you rebel. He makes you get distracted and people are getting buried in some of these side things that are not the main thing. Get back to the main thing and study it. Now here's some Bible study tools. A couple of things, a tool is helpful if it helps you obey.
If it's about you just getting a bigger head, bigger understanding so you can argue better, we've missed the point altogether. Scripture leads us to Jesus. Anytime it's leading me somewhere else, pause, come back and reconnect with Jesus in the most of it. Business people love tools, apps, dashboards, systems and frameworks, but the goal is not more tools. The goal is transformation. So what's a concordance? A concordance helps you find where words appear in scripture.
Andy Mason (12:06.078)
Example, if you search wisdom, it'll pop up throughout scripture and you can look at the exact word and then different versions of that wise wisdom and so on. A Bible dictionary explains people, customs and biblical words. So you can search what is a Pharisee? What is a covenant? Where is Corinth? All of those you can find both in a biblical commentary. I don't actually have one right here. I've got a Bible dictionary.
I've got a Bible handbook, this is brilliant. That's kind of got a bit of everything. Often in the back of a Bible you see a concordance, which is like a mini one. It's incredible how they flows and reads and cross references one another. So a commentary is other people study an insight on a passage. They dived into it in order to get it and it'll have a particular flavor and focus of the person that wrote that commentary.
Just be wise, it's helpful, but don't start there. Read the Bible first, ask the Holy Spirit first, then use commentaries to help. Hebrew and Greek tools, here's the cool thing, you don't need to be a Hebrew or Greek scholar to understand the Bible. You can read it, and the beauty of it is so many different languages now, you can read it in your own language. I can even have the audio Bible. I can listen in the middle of the night if I wake up, fall asleep again, listening to the audio Bible.
Hebrew and Greek tools are useful for understanding original words, but don't be intimidated. You don't need to be a scholar to understand Jesus. Online resources, here's some great tools. use, so on my phone, I use every single day a You version. That is just brilliant. That's got multiple versions and multiple tools and some little devotionals. Again, a devotional is like a commentary. It's gonna help you grow, but it's not the main thing.
Make sure you keep the main thing, the main thing, which is the word of God, which leads you to Jesus. Anything you do leads you to Jesus and living a life of Jesus in the earth. So YouVersion, great Bible app, and it's free. We financially support them because I use them all the time. I'd encourage you to do the same. A second one is Blue Letter Bible. I have that as an app as well on my phone. Again, it's free.
Andy Mason (14:30.508)
but that's all of the tools and resources. You can also find these on a desktop or laptop. You can find that, search them, great tools. And I'm sure there's a ton of different things that understand the Bible. I love Bible Project. That's a YouTube channel and that's people that have give you an overview of each book. Go in there, read those. I love them. I'll go back. I'm diving into Romans right now. So I went to Bible Project and it gives me an overview in a
that is presented so you can understand it in concept, then you dive in. So we've touched on that. Blue Letter Bible, Logos, powerful Bible study software. Use the tools, but don't get lost in the tools. I can get so distracted. It's like, oh, what about this? What about this? Keep coming back to Holy Spirit. What do you want me to know? And what are you letting me in this? The tool serves the relationship. The tool is not the relationship. Next point, Bible for kids and families.
I said already, I used a picture Bible as a kid. I loved it. Actually, as a teenager, I read the Bible multiple times, cover to cover, as a comic. It was the coolest thing. It's like it's a heavy, big book. I've lost it. But it's a brilliant resource to give to your kids, to help them get into the Bible. There's other ones, the children's Bible, the audio Bible, a Bible storybook.
There's a bunch of things, search those online. Look at the ones that got bunch of different reviews. You can do your homework on that, but I'd encourage you, there's so many great resources to become Bible literate. Here's some simple questions to even do this with your kids. Ask them, what does this show us about God? What does this show us about people? And what is God inviting us to do? I was reading my Bible, a children's Bible, so picture Bible to my four year old son.
He picked the verse and God spoke to me out of that. So really encourage, read with your kids and let them see you reading the Bible as well. Model it. Do not outsource your discipleship. If we can teach our kids sports, school, manners, money, we can certainly teach them and model for them how to engage with scripture. And so let me give you a framework that you can use on a daily basis. And jump onto that link I've put below, The Heaven and Business.
Andy Mason (16:50.976)
word-at-work and you can download this there. Plus you get the 30 days of these devotionals or Bible studies that we've been doing with Coach Bill. There's a bunch of different resources and it's entirely free. Just jump into that link below. But once the SOAP framework, S-O-A-P, it was developed by a pastor in Hawaii and I use it, it's really helpful. As you read a passage, now when you read a passage,
read the passage, read it three times, I'd say. Read it once out loud is what we're encouraged to do. Read it three times and be aware, is there a particular verse that jumps out? So what's the scripture? So grab this scripture, write it down, because when you write it down, God reveals more and I'm starting to remember it. So it comes back again and again and again. Meditate on it. I have hidden your word in my heart. So scripture is what's the passage?
Observation, what does this scripture say of itself? Holy Spirit, what does this mean? Who, where, when, why, how? Give me understanding, what's the historical cultural context? This scripture was written to a people in that day, it's not today. What did it mean to the original readers? So you can take time to unpack that, but I'm looking for John 6 63. Your words are spirit and they are life when Holy Spirit is speaking through the word.
It just comes alive on the inside of you. A, application. This is really, really important. Give us this day, our daily bread is what Jesus taught us to pray. Not tomorrow, not for you. I'm reading for me. So with what I read and how it applies, what does that mean to me today? This is where you pause and reflect and think deeply on this. Say, Holy Spirit, what are you saying through this to me today?
We read a scripture this morning, John 5. You read the scriptures hoping that they'll lead you to eternal life and you miss the very one they point to which is supposed to lead you to Jesus. Don't get filled up with information. Get it led to the person of Jesus Christ who is the word of God as I'm reading the word is reading me. So that's the application today is Andy. Don't get caught up in information. Don't get run into these AI tools.
Andy Mason (19:18.862)
The tools are a vehicle to get you to grow with Him, not a means of itself. Application and then prayers. P, talk to God about it. Dialogue. Prayer is not me talking to God. Prayer is more importantly listening to Him. One of the most successful business people that I know of was asked, what's the secret of your success? And he says, I spend an hour to an hour and half a day listening to the voice of God, just sitting.
and quiet and listening with the word of God, dialoguing over his word with God himself and allowing that to shift and shape me as that applies to business. So open the Bible, start 15 minutes a day, keep it simple, read slowly, ask questions, write something down and then obey one thing. If you would document that, you'd be astounded how much you grow. Finally, don't just own a Bible, engage in it.
Don't just collect translations, read them. Don't just admire scripture, obey it. The goal is not Bible trivia. The goal is to know Jesus and become like him. Read for relationship, study for accuracy, obey for transformation. Join us in this Word at Work, heavenabusiness.com, word-at-work. You can access that now, at least for the next 20 to 30 days until we finish that.
All you need to do is jump in and you'll get that soap tool. There's a scripture meditation framework. There's all of these recordings that's gonna help you read and understand and apply the word of God to your daily work. I just pray, Father, everybody watching this right now, everyone listening to this would get gripped with a fresh love of the word, the Rhema word, the God breathed word of God that is useful for equipping and connecting and training and correcting and.
and developing us into the fullness that you paid for. So Father, let your grace come upon them. Where we've been distracted, forgive us. Let us bring us back to the main thing that would keep the main thing the main thing, which is knowing you.
