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

Speaker 1 Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

Speaker 1 Today, we're going to be talking to Lee McDermott, pastor of New Spring Church in Greenville, South Carolina.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 I still count that conversation as one of the most important ones of my life.

Speaker 1 If it weren't for him, I never would have launched Degroup, the discipleship and Bible study ministry I lead, which has now touched every populated continent and is even in Spanish.

Speaker 1 And I definitely wouldn't have started the Bible recap because I never would have fallen in love with God and his word.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 So, let's jump into the interview now.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 I think, you you know, just, you know, to introduce myself to your listeners, I've been

Speaker 3 on staff at New Spring Church for a little over 18 years.

Speaker 3 And I was, for 15 years, I was the worship pastor. And then a brief stint is our creative arts director, which is over, you know, worship and production, all the rest of that stuff.
And most recently,

Speaker 3 I've been the Greenville campus pastor. uh for New Spring Church for a little over a year now in my beloved city of Greenville.

Speaker 3 I've been married to my wife, Allie, for a little over seven years, and we have two kids, Gray, our son, who's three, and Lucy,

Speaker 3 who is our daughter, who is a little over one. And they are awesome.
So, you know, it's an honor to

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 Just honored to get to share with you today.

Speaker 2 Well, we're glad to have you so why don't you tell us um when did you first read the bible and what prompted you to read through it for the first time

Speaker 3 well you know i think growing up uh you know i i grew up in a in a believing family in a christian family so i was around the scriptures a good bit you know growing up but had never really kind of you know taken a spin through it on my own

Speaker 3 And it wasn't until after I'd called into ministry and,

Speaker 3 you know, finished up my music degree. I'd actually been leading worship at our church for a couple of years.

Speaker 3 It wasn't until

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 But he basically said, hey, what if God's going to hold you more accountable for what you say from the stage than me?

Speaker 3 And that shook me up in that moment because, you know,

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 So the idea of being more held more accountable for what I say than the preacher was kind of staggering for me.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 They're just, everything you say is kind of just falling right into their, into their heart. Are you comfortable with what you're telling them about God, speaking for God? You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 And he was like, How much of the Bible have you read?

Speaker 3 And I admitted to him there, you know, I've read most of it, but there's, you know, some sections of the minor prophet or of the prophets that I hadn't really dug into.

Speaker 3 There's other sections I'd only read like once in my entire life.

Speaker 3 And he said, maybe, maybe you should consider limiting what you say and maybe only saying, like you know welcome stand and sing and then you may be seated uh maybe consider only saying that stuff until you've actually read the whole bible and it really you know it just

Speaker 3 i was so wonderfully convicted uh in that moment to to dive more into the scriptures you know he he kind of brought the whole thing down to seismary by by basically saying look The Bible is not some mountain that's too, that's beyond you, that's too difficult for you.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 And that way, you know that, you know, you're really giving the most accurate picture of God to other people as humanly possible.

Speaker 3 So later on, you know, after that camp is over with, I just got a little pocket Bible, put it in my back pocket, and would read it at stoplights.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 And I was transformed after

Speaker 3 that first reading. I mean, it truly was a life-changing experience.
God did things in me then that I just,

Speaker 3 you know, didn't think were possible at the time. So, that's my real first encounter with reading the entirety of the scriptures.
After that, Terry Lee, I just got hooked.

Speaker 3 My appetite increased for it like crazy, and I just, you know, never looked back. I mean, it's just been such a source of faith and inspiration, and it's just been amazing.

Speaker 2 Well, I don't know who that camp pastor was, but I want to thank him because

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 Because you said something very similar to me.

Speaker 2 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 tour of the new church offices and things like that.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 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.
Wow.

Speaker 2 And that changed everything for me and increased my appetite as well. And so, just the trickle-down effect of that camp minister's words to you.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 3 Well, Adrian Dupree, if you're listening, listening, then thank you.

Speaker 3 Thank you, homeboy, because you've done it for all of us. So, yeah.
But that's right. Thank you, Adrian.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 So, what struggles did you have? Because I had my own struggles the first time I read through.

Speaker 2 Were there any things that were difficult for you or challenging for you or made you want to quit or things like that?

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 So, did you have anything that you recall that you want to share with us?

Speaker 3 Yeah, it was, you know, I think obviously the first time,

Speaker 3 it was primarily an intellectual challenge at the very beginning, really just more of a mental capacity challenge, because I think that I'd never tried to read

Speaker 3 a book. like that that fast before.

Speaker 3 And obviously, you know, the scriptures themselves, it's a book of books.

Speaker 3 It's a library in and to itself and and for me reading at that cliff i mean it was kind of like mental crossfit to some degree i mean it was it was it was challenging for my intellect just to take in that much um in that in that span of time um and uh to be able to comprehend it and you know all the rest of that stuff so there really was a stretching of my mental capacities as i as i read it the first time and especially through some of the more obscure passages of scripture that that um you know there's genealogies and repetitive laws and prophecies about the things that I had no historical context for.

Speaker 3 Those things were the most,

Speaker 3 they were drier for me.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 That promise certainly was fulfilled in my life at that particular point in time. Reading through the scriptures,

Speaker 3 it was making me smart, you know what I mean,

Speaker 3 in one way or another.

Speaker 3 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 the way along in that in that first that first round.

Speaker 3 I don't know that I necessarily struggled with,

Speaker 3 you know, there are some difficult and hard to understand passages in the Old Testament, even in the New, about, you know, sometimes the severity of God's judgment, or, you know, there's just questions about his character.

Speaker 3 Why would he allow this or that or the other? These laws seem harsh or strange or exclusive or whatever.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 I mean, the, 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

Speaker 3 was

Speaker 3 so many of my doubts completely perished in my first reading through the Bible.

Speaker 3 Just because I 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 man-made joke?

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 I mean, I did, there were doubts that I just never ever struggled with again after reading through the Bible in its entirety.

Speaker 3 I know that's not everybody's story, but that was certainly the case for me. The struggles for me were

Speaker 3 way more on the just mental capacity side, the staying committed to it, staying disciplined in it,

Speaker 3 more so than

Speaker 3 struggling with doubt or

Speaker 3 struggling even to believe that it was true,

Speaker 3 honestly.

Speaker 2 That's, 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.

Speaker 2 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

Speaker 2 the God that I read about

Speaker 2 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

Speaker 2 and like who he, 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.

Speaker 2 I didn't really have peace until after my second trip through scripture.

Speaker 2 But I was so grateful. I had, you know, 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.

Speaker 2 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. Um, is that that

Speaker 2 the fact that you would answer a lot of my questions about the character of God was so helpful to me.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 So that we're always looking for who God is in this and not getting lost in

Speaker 2 some of the minor details of things, which I think are easy to get tangled up in.

Speaker 3 Yeah. One of the things, Terry, I love that you said that.
And I know you can probably resonate with this. Reading through the scriptures is a fundamentally humbling experience because

Speaker 3 in many ways, you are coming face to face with your own kind of rational limitations because the Bible is

Speaker 3 the revealing of the mystery of mysteries,

Speaker 3 the most wonderful person in the universe who is so mysterious.

Speaker 3 that someone who has a you know a 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 the

Speaker 3 you know the 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 what happens is if you can just suspend.

Speaker 3 suspend your own disbelief long enough to let that those words wash over you, what you find is that God is in the process of lifting you up to be where he he is and to draw you in closer to himself, which is, which is, I mean, that's the treasure.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 And the Bible is, is, I think, honestly, the primary vehicle for that in the continuing life of a believer. So for anybody who's listening, and I just, like,

Speaker 3 I'm just over here with big pom-poms cheering you on because, because God is, he's wanting to bless you.

Speaker 3 He's wanting to give you more of himself and it's just a it's just such an amazing and wonderful journey yeah

Speaker 2 and then making wise the simple exalting the humble yeah

Speaker 2 that's such encouragement for anybody

Speaker 3 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 you know that i've that i picked up in my reading through it in my those 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, something just sits sideways, you get twisted up in your soul after something that you read.

Speaker 3 The thing that I've encouraged folks to do is to go back to Exodus 34, verse 6 through 8. And remember what God's eternal name that he revealed to Moses is.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 If you can hold that, hold that truth about that's God's character, that's his revealed character.

Speaker 3 If you can hold that 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 whatever your little box was that you had him in,

Speaker 3 you know, in all your thought processes previous to that. So, you know, that's the thing I'd encourage people with.
It's like, go back, Ezekiel 34.

Speaker 3 And when you have a hard passage that you are finding difficult to understand, remember, God is compassionate.

Speaker 3 he's gracious, he's slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, he forgives, he just, and, and, and ultimately, all wrongdoing gets poured out on Jesus at the cross.

Speaker 3 The gospel is all threaded through all the way through the scriptures because it's a part of, you know, who God is, you know.

Speaker 2 That's so good.

Speaker 2 Um, I know you've touched on this a little bit in some of your answers previously, but can you just summarize like why you think it's important to read through the whole bible

Speaker 3 yeah so you know honestly two two main reasons come to mind initially number one there there's a promise in scripture uh in romans chapter 10 i think verse 17 that says um faith comes from hearing and hearing the words of christ the the idea there is that you know and this is wayne grudem's definition about you know about the words of scripture.

Speaker 3 He basically says, all the words of scripture are God's words. Therefore, to disbelieve or disobey any of of the words of scripture is to disbelieve or disobey God.

Speaker 3 So I take all those words of scripture from Genesis to Revelation as Jesus' own words.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 I want it. And so that's one encouragement that I would say to people.
Another one is,

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 So if you think about this, and I know, Terry Lee, this happens to you literally all the time.

Speaker 3 Anytime you're having a conversation with somebody or something like that, you've just been talking to them and boom, a... a scripture that you haven't read in a couple of years maybe or a year.

Speaker 3 I know you read the Bible every year, but like a scripture you haven't read in months pops into your head.

Speaker 3 You can't even remember the reference or anything, but because you've read it all, you part like the Holy Spirit is now

Speaker 3 able to access that and bring it to your mind for the encouragement of other people, for your own encouragement. Yep.

Speaker 3 That's why I say it's so important to read the entirety of it.

Speaker 3 Another reason, honestly,

Speaker 3 and this one is just important too: reading through the whole Bible keeps you from going to unnecessary extremes.

Speaker 3 You know, when you just think like that, you know, cults and

Speaker 3 stuff like that have started based on one or two scriptures taken way out of context. And

Speaker 3 the Bible is a book full of some pretty amazing paradoxes because it is not a human invention.

Speaker 3 It is the, you know, is the very is the very word of God, not the invention of any man. Right.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 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

Speaker 3 or another.

Speaker 3 And, you know, I think lastly, like

Speaker 3 God loves each and every one of us who are his

Speaker 3 so

Speaker 3 volcanically

Speaker 3 and so dramatically.

Speaker 3 These are his revealed word 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

Speaker 3 the most beautiful, mysterious, powerful being in the universe. I mean, you know, he's right there in those pages.

Speaker 3 And, you know, so that's, that's my big encouragement to everybody is that there is, there is treasure on every page

Speaker 3 for someone. So just, you know, such great encouragement to

Speaker 3 really persevere and to find every page of the scriptures valuable.

Speaker 2 Man, that's good. So talk to the person who doesn't yet have a relationship with God.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 2 What words of encouragement do you have for them or words of challenge either way?

Speaker 3 Yeah. You know, the thing that I would say is.

Speaker 3 You know, to anybody who is listening to this podcast, reading through the scriptures, but maybe you're just kicking the tires on the Jesus thing

Speaker 3 or whatever.

Speaker 3 I just want to say

Speaker 3 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

Speaker 3 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,

Speaker 3 if you're...

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 It's not worth it. I can't understand it.
The thing I would just like, pause.

Speaker 3 And before you give up, keep going, keep going, keep going.

Speaker 3 And just open yourself up.

Speaker 3 Ask God this question. And just

Speaker 3 say this in your heart or out loud somewhere, like, God, if you're real, would you speak to me through this book?

Speaker 3 And I feel like that's just a good prayer for somebody who...

Speaker 3 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 uh and through those pages uh because he's he's not looking to hide from you and uh so i i just so much encouragement to keep going and you know just a just a you know a

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 2 That's so good.

Speaker 2 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 like i said my first trip through scripture was where the tension really mounted for me

Speaker 2 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 keep in it.

Speaker 2 And so I, you know, I talk to people all the time who are trying to pursue a relationship with the lord read through scripture um 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

Speaker 3 yeah i i could i couldn't 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 reading the whole thing, what you may find, what you may bump into

Speaker 3 is that you have been taught some things about God that might not line up with what you're reading on the page.

Speaker 3 And that can be emotionally

Speaker 3 difficult. There can be some grief attached to that.
There can be, you know, it can be a, that can be a tough thing. And so I completely agree with you.
The best advice for anybody is just keep going.

Speaker 3 Even with, you know, one of the things 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 Highlight, underline, put a star beside, put a question mark beside, and just keep going.

Speaker 3 And sure enough, like if you have a question that arises in Leviticus, you may find that God answers it in Hebrews later on.

Speaker 3 And so, you know, that's just that's a good thing to help everybody understand. It's like, persevere, keep going.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you're definitely, you got it right.

Speaker 2 Well, Lee, we are so grateful for your time and your insight here today.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 So thank you for your time. I'm like, I'm asking God to give weight to your words as they land on people's hearts.

Speaker 2 and to bring those words to mind again when they encounter those struggles or when they feel disconnected want to quit. So I'm praying that your words bear fruit.

Speaker 2 I'm praying that our listeners are encouraged the way that I was when you first challenged me in this way.

Speaker 2 And I look forward to seeing all of the fruit that comes from this conversation in the future.

Speaker 3 Absolutely. Me too.
Me too. You know, I just speak a blessing over you, Terri Lee, and all the things that you guys are doing, both through

Speaker 3 this podcast and through Degroup, and for anybody who's on this journey. I just, you know, I bless you in Jesus' name.
And I hope you experience truly the fullness of just a wild journey in this and

Speaker 3 revelation of the mystery of God.

Speaker 1 Amen.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 I believe you are going to love the Bible too.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 If you haven't subscribed to the Bible recap yet, do that now. It's just one click.
Get ready to read through God's Word and love it, because I promise you, he's where the joy is.

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