Seeing God's Love in His Word with Mary Wiley
Today we get to hear from Mary Wiley about the big story of the Bible, and specifically discovering the Bible for ourselves and for the kids in our lives. We got to talk about reading the Bible for ourselves, asking questions of the text, and giving the children in our lives the rich truths from Scripture that will actually last.
NOTES & QUOTES
“When you look at it as one big story God is telling, you're able to see that God is not calling us to be like David, although there may be transferable principles or to be strong like Samson again, although there may be cautionary tales in that story, but that he is showing us that Christ is the strong one that always obeyed, that Christ is the king who would never have fallen into sin like David did, that Christ is the one who fulfills every promise across all of the prophets and every law across all of the first five books of the Bible.”
“If we have the big story of Scripture and we can understand some of the context, we can see he's not giving strange laws so that we might dutifully keep them. He's actually helping us understand how to live wisely.”
“God is good to work through his Word, whether you know the details or not. God is good to not allow the reading of his Word to return void.”
“God welcomes your questions. God is big enough to handle your questions and your doubts.”
“It is such a healthy thing for us to honestly confess like, Hey, I don't understand this. This is beyond my comprehension. Can you, can you help me? We are better together.”
“And something that I think was so beneficial for me as a child is I caught my mom with her Bible open in her lap time and time again. And she wasn't, we weren't sitting down and having family worship. She wasn't necessarily even talking about what she was reading, but just the act of knowing that she really did believe what she told me she believed. She really did believe that the Bible was the source of hope for the day, was instructive to me and has been something I thought about time and time again.”
“Often we think about quiet time as carving out 30 minutes to an hour to be by ourselves, maybe in our closet or in a room with the door closed, possibly locked to keep the kids out. And I think what is actually more beneficial is for it to be a not-so-quiet time and to bring your Bible out while your kids are playing and running around. And they can come to you and say, what are you reading? You can read a single verse to them, and they run back off and keep playing. But to see parents who love God's word will teach kids more than any resource ever could.”
“I've been thinking so much about Psalm 1 and how, you know, the psalmist lives the blessed life by delighting in the law of the Lord day and night. And such a challenging question for me to be asking of myself is where is my delight? Because that's what the kids are going to see, right? They're going to see when mommy lights up. Is it when she grabs her phone or listens to a voice memo from a friend or is mommy's true delight in the law of the Lord and is that in front of her day and night? That's just been such a good reminder for me as a parent. Where am I finding my true joy? It does and yet it also simplifies everything, you know, on the heels of a conversation.” (HB)
“There may be someone listening who's like, this sounds great, but I missed it. I missed the opportunity. I failed. The encouragement was passed along to say, God is present in every moment. He is not surprised. He is not absent from your days, even if you feel as though you failed. You have not failed because the story is not over. There are opportunities to continue to shepherd even adult children in the ways of the Lord and that God truly does love them. Jesus truly does love them more than you ever could.”
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Does the Bible feel unapproachable or confusing to you? What are some specific difficulties you have when trying to study Scripture?
Do you feel the freedom to ask questions of the biblical text? Do you believe God is comfortable with your questions and doubts?
What is one way you can disciple the next generation?
Where is your delight? Is your true delight in the law of the Lord?
What might you do or implement based on what you learned in this week’s episode?
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IMPORTANT NOTE
Journeywomen interviews are intended to serve as a springboard for continued study in the context of your local church. While we carefully select guests each week, interviews do not imply Journeywomen's endorsement of all writings and positions of the interviewee or any other resources mentioned.
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