99: Jen Wilkin | Women of The Word -

99: Jen Wilkin | Women of The Word

Jen Wilkin | Women of The Word

Jen Wilkin is an author and Bible teacher from Dallas, Texas.

She has organized and led studies for women in home, church, and para-church contexts.

An advocate for Bible literacy, her passion is to see others become articulate and committed followers of Christ, with a clear understanding of why they believe what they believe, grounded in the Word of God.

You can find her at JenWilkin.net

Jen Wilkin joins me to talk about diving into the Scriptures and the risk of a diet made up of mostly devotional reading vs. God’s Word.

Questions Jen and I Discussed:

(1:41) When did you come to know Jesus?
(3:15) What prompted you to begin leading Bible Studies and what did those early days look like?
(7:36) How would you encourage busy women who struggle to spend time consistently reading and studying the Bible?
(12:06) Your books, particularly Women of The Word and None Like Him, have been “go to” resources for me in my own time with Jesus. What led to the writing of those books?
(17:04) You recently wrote a piece titled, “Your Devotional Is Not A Bible.” Share a little about that piece and the importance of not using a devotional as a substitute for God’s Word?
(19:53) As we close, if someone is listening today and simply feels discouraged when they think about reading the Bible, what are a few simple steps that can take to begin?

Quotes to Remember:

“I remember [when] one girl showed up, because everybody else had something that came up. And so I taught one girl in my living room, and we just started going through books of the Bible.”

“There are things that will only happen in a living room, that will never happen in a big room full of learners.”

“I think there’s a myth out there that personal Bible study time is the sweet spot and the reality is the Bible is meant to be understood in community. There is a role for personal study time, but but it to be pointing us toward a shared conversation around the scriptures.”

“I think we have mythologized the quiet time as the highest and holiest form of approaching the Scriptures. I would argue that a quiet time format doesn’t lend itself to much more than devotional reading. It’s not that devotion reading is bad. It’s just that it’s not necessarily a growth plan with regard to learning the Scriptures.”

“That gave me the opportunity to write, None Like Him, which is the book, I feel like, if I never write another thing, I wanted people to have those ideas.”

“I want women to learn the Bible, but I want them to learn the Bible, because I want them to be just bowled over by a transcendent God.”

“One of the main limitations of devotional reading, is what we ask of it as readers. [We ask] that we would be able to sit down and have 10 to 30 minutes, where we read a passage, which we don’t have the context for, and then we ask it to deliver something to us… most often is to comfort or encourage.”

“There are plenty of passages in Scripture that are intended to comfort and encourage, but there are also plenty that are there to convict and exhort. And so one of the biggest limitations of a diet of reading that is predominantly or certainly entirely devotional is that we get an unbalanced view of the Scriptures.”

“I would say the most basic starting point, for those who are ready to make a shift is the most overlooked and simple tool of all, and that is repeated, repetitive reading. Not just taking your favorite passage and reading it a whole bunch of times, but taking an entire book of the Bible, starting at the beginning and reading to the end.”