Are the Prophetic Books for Me?, with Kim Erickson

Do you feel overwhelmed when it comes to reading certain books of the Bible? Dive deep into Scripture with guest Kim Erickson in this episode of Grounded.

Connect with Kim

Instagram

Twitter

Facebook

Author Website

Episode Notes

Predicting Jesus book by Kim Erickson

“Five Ways the Holy Spirit Helps Us Understand the Bible” blog post by Jean Wilund

Revive Our Hearts Podcast Family

-------------------

Portia Collins: The Gospels, the Psalms, the book of Proverbs, the Epistles, are you tracking with me so far? What if I threw in Revelation or Ezekiel, or the book of Isaiah? This is Grounded. I'm Portia Collins and today, we are here to help you open your Bibles to those books that can seem a bit overwhelming.

Erin Davis: I'm Erin Davis. I could not be more excited for this episode. Here's why. Because several years ago, I looked at the table of contents in my Bible, you know, this part that lists all 66 books. I put a mark by all of the books in my Bible that I'd never read. And there was a clear theme, the major and the minor prophets in the Old Testament and the book of Revelation in the New Testament, were books that I had avoided. 

I think I thought that if I read Revelation, it would actually happen, as if I have that much power. So, I got over that fear. I dove into those books I'd been avoiding. I found such riches. Today's guest is going to help you do the same thing.

Portia: Absolutely. I'm super excited that Kim Erickson is here with us. She's going to take us through the Messianic prophecies found in the book of Isaiah. And y'all know me, I'm a Bible girl. So, I am geeking out. I am ready. I got my Bible, my notepad. You know how much I love to dig deep into the Scriptures. And so, we are going to do that together today. But first, y'all know we need some good news, right? Erin.

Erin: Ain’t no geek like a Bible geek. I'll admit it. I'm the same. I think most of our Grounded ladies are too. This is a good time for me to remind you that we rely on you to share this episode. So, if you've got that friend who loves to dig, dig deep into God's Word or maybe that friend who's new to God's Word, this is going to be really encouraging for her. 

So, the only thing better than kicking off my week on Grounded with a deep dive into God's Word might be adding a cup of coffee to the mix. You always want to make your heart warm, make you feel good. Today's good news story combines those two ideas, coffee and Jesus. Jesus isn't an idea. He's a person, but you get the point. And that is such an amazing combination. I want to show you a picture. It might not look like much of anything at first glance. It is a photo that was snapped by a woman in the Starbucks line. That's not it. So, you're just gonna have to take my word for it. 

What's going on in the picture? I'll describe it for you. There's a Starbucks barista. She's leaning out of the window of Starbucks. She's putting your hand on the person in the car. Well, what you can't see is that that woman whose name was Kerry, she is a Starbucks barista, as I said. What she was doing was not just handing out coffee. She was taking the time to encourage and pray with a customer who is coming through the drive thru. 

Now, that customer was probably just there to order a grande something, but somebody in the line took a picture. And that photo went viral. Isn't that interesting? Mostly people said something like this, “This is just what we need.” In fact, the story got so much traction that news or news outlets other than Grounded, started covering it. And the woman who snapped the photo said this “This act of kindness and boldness and faith given out to others daily by people like Kerry gives me hope,” which of course we're all about here on Grounded. “It reminds me and hopefully others that by being kind and praying for someone, it doesn't cost anything. We never know when something we say can help and save someone, literally, so that's it.” 

That's the whole big somebody prayed for somebody else in the Starbucks line, somebody snapped a picture. And everybody got reminded that the little things really do matter. So, consider this your Monday morning reminder. God's people living out are called to be salt and light everywhere, including the Starbucks drive thru. In a culture that is so desperate for hope, those simple acts of kindness can have a big impact. And I think that's really good news. So, my encouragement to you is find somebody you can pray for today. Portia.

Portia: Amen. I'm gonna find somebody I can pray for today. I’m going to pray for you, today.

Erin: I love it. I’ll take it. I can't even tell when I'm looking at the right picture. So, I need somebody to pray for me today.

Portia: I’ve got you; I’ve got you. Well, I'm excited that Kim Erickson is with us this morning. She's a lady who wears a few hats. She's a wife, a mama, she has been an internee for a good number of years. And now get this. She's a kindergarten teacher. And to top off the list, which is, of course at the top of my list. She is a Bible teacher. Kim is the author of Predicting Jesus, a six-week Bible study through Isaiah. I'm excited and ready to learn. So welcome to Grounded Kim.

Kim Erickson: Wow, thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

Portia: Good deal. I'm the resident joy bomb. And so, I'm smiling, and I am ready to learn from you. Okay, I'm super excited, because I can already tell that you are a Bible girl too. 

I'm familiar with some of your books. I love your love for God's Word. But from what I've heard, that has not always been your story. Can you share with us how you became a lover of God's Word?

Kim: Oh, that is a good and hard story. So, I was living my best life. I had two boys and my husband and my perfect job and my dream car and living the life. And our three-year-old got sick. I got that call that no mom wants to get. The babysitter screaming, the ambulance. Gals, I did not even think to pray, like that is how far away from God, I was. 

He had really no part in my life. It didn't occur to me to pray. When I got that call, and we lost our three-year-old son that day. Believe it or not, God rescued me in that moment. In that very moment. I knew with certainty Heaven was for you and that's where my son was. And now I had to figure out how in the world do I get there? And what is this all about?

Portia: Amen. Praise God for His loving kindness even in the midst of such a hard thing. Wow. 

You know, as a Bible teacher, I have found and I love the fact that not only did you fall in love with God's Word, but it pushed you so much that you start teaching God's Word. It kind of does that to you. Okay?

And as a Bible teacher, I have found that many people, particularly women, because that's the group that I engage with the most, can be very intimidated by the Bible in general, but particularly when it comes to studying books in the Old Testament, like the prophetic books. 

And so, I want you to help us understand why it's important to study prophetic books, specifically prophecies, and even those that are found in the book of Isaiah.

Kim: Oh, I would love to tell you why you should study that, because that is our hope. That is where our hope lies. This life is so hard and seems so long. But the thing that I hang my heart on and the thing that really pulled me out of the pit of grieving a child is the fact that I discovered through those prophetic books that God always does what he says He's going to do always. 

And that is your hope. God said he's going to fix this. He said that there's a heaven. He said He's preparing a place for me. There are prophecies in Isaiah that are glorious, that have yet to come true. Some have already come true which is great about Jesus. But there are several that we're waiting for. It just gives me so much hope to see that these prophecies came true. And the ones we’re still waiting on, man those are going to be awesome.

Portia: So, it's interesting that you are guiding us this way in terms of the hope that we see in these prophecies. 

Typically, when we're in hopeless situations, or we're struggling, there's a temptation to reach toward the Psalms or some of the books that kind of give us that instant, warm and fuzzy. And so, why was Isaiah so pivotal for you in a seemingly hopeless moment?

Kim: It's because you need to know the character of God when life gets that dark and that hard. You need to know who God is. Not to put down the Psalms, because I do love them, but those can sometimes be surface and then David, or the psalmist, flips to praise. It's almost too fast for me. I need to dwell with my God in the hard places. I need to know who He is. And Isaiah did that for me.

The other thing that Isaiah did for me that was pivotable in my faith. I was not a believer when we lost our son. So, I did figure all that out. Somebody gave me my first Bible. I was like, really? Is this book just a book? Or is it the Word of God? I was really struggling with that. 

Then I got to the book of Isaiah. I saw how over and over again, God said it, and He did it. God said it, and He did it. He said it, and He did it. It just made me so confident about the character of God, and about the Word of God, and how powerfully He could use it in our lives.

Portia: Yes, amen girl, you are talking. You're talking my talk.

Kim: It’s a miracle. It's like our best favorite miracle.

Portia: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. It's beautiful to just witness how God has so radically changed your life and how the Word has been that balm to your soul, that soothing balm to your soul. I'm just loving being able to kind of sit on the sides and see the joy in your face from just talking about God's Word. 

And you know, one of the most valuable things that I've learned when it comes to studying Scripture is not only how the Scriptures reveal who God is . . . And you know how we really get to be with God by soaking in the Scriptures. But also how each book of the Bible works together to paint one big picture. 

That totally changed how I studied and understood the Bible. I think it's so important for us to be able to make those vital connections between the Old and New Testament. 

And so, I guess my question here is, how does your study Predicting Jesus, specifically covering select prophecies in Isaiah, how does that help us to better understand God's story on the whole?

Kim: Oh, I love that. I didn't know you were gonna ask that, this is awesome. Isaiah offers the whole human story of the Bible in his one book.

So, it pretty much reads like the Old Testament through the New Testament. The Bible study will take you from chapter one . . . And no, we do not study all 66 chapters. Don't be scared. I am picking just a few passages. But we do work our way through Isaiah pulling out the prophecies that look at Jesus. 

You can see the story build. You can see He's born. He's predicting His birth, then His coming. And the comfort of that in several chapters in forties, there's the comfort. Then we get to the fifties and sixties of Isaiah, here comes the revelation like glorious new heaven, new earth, new promises. It just unfolds in Isaiah. I would love for people to not be afraid of that. It's okay. We can study hard things. And actually, it's not that hard if you just take a bite at a time.

Portia: Oh, I'm so glad you said this, because that is exactly where I was headed. People sometimes say, “Isaiah, all right, this sounds all nice and fuzzy and warm and fun, but sometimes it is hard, you know?” 

And so, what encouragement would you provide to a sister that's watching now? How would you encourage her to keep going, to just stick with it even when you get to things in God's Word that you don't really understand?

Kim: Yeah, I would say this. A friend said it to me, and I've just picked it right up, and I'm gonna borrow it. I'm going to look you right in the eye. I'm going to say, “Listen, He is worthy of your work. He is worthy of the effort that it takes, girl. Come on, He is worthy. And so do it. And yeah, if you don't understand it the first time, guess what? Neither did I. Sometimes I would go, ‘I'd have to read it again. Or I'd have to get online and look at an article or Google a pastor.’ Like, you can do it. You just have to put in the work. You can do it.” 

Portia: Amen. Amen. What an encouragement! We can do it because God has not left us without the things that we need. We are indwelt with His Spirit. He's given us the work. He's given us community and other sisters and brothers that we can walk through the Scriptures with. So yes, we can do it. 

Kim: I put my email right in this book. Like if you have trouble, you can email me. We'll talk about it.

Portia: Precious. See, I love it. See, y'all she's not just telling you. She said, “Hey, you can even reach out to me.” That is a blessing. 

Well, I would love it if we could just wrap up our time by having you to pray for our sisters, to pray for us that we would not be intimidated or fearful of digging into all of Scriptures, even tough books like Isaiah. 

Kim: Oh, I would love that. Thanks for the privilege, Portia. Thank you. 

Father, we just come before You as eager daughters. Lord, show Yourself to us. That's what motivates us, Lord, as we dig into these tougher books, and we dive into the Old Testament and we want your whole story. God, we want to see all of You. We want to know everything that You want to show us Father God. Show us Your face. Show us who You are, Lord. Show us more of Yourself. Father, encourage us and give us the full measure of the Holy Spirit so that we can understand what you would have us learn from each and every book in the Bible. Lord, You've left it for us as Your gift, as Your tool, as Your love. 

So, Father, let us dive in knowing that You are worthy of any work that we put in studying the Scriptures. Meet us there, Lord, Bless them. Bless our work, Lord. We seek your face. You're an awesome and mighty God. In the power of Jesus’ name I pray all these things, amen.

Portia: Amen, amen. You are my new friend. I am grateful for your heart. Thank you for being with us today.

Kim: Thank you so much.

Portia: Well, as Erin likes to say, it is not time to get grounded in God's Word because we have already been there. But I know that Erin has a little more for us to chew on today. So E., tell me where are we going in our Bibles. I’ve got mine ready over here.

Erin: I hope my mic was down while you were in that conversation because it kept going boom, boom, boom. Like she was so good. He's worthy of our work is quotable. 

Portia: Quotable line. I can't see around the corner. But I can see the corner style, we just need to start a running tab.

Erin: He is worth us rolling up our sleeves, so to speak. He is worth us digging into God's Word and going into those books in the Bible that we don't fully understand. We're going to be sure to drop a link to Kim's study because you might just want to start with Isaiah, and let her walk you along. I also never saw the whole story of Scripture in Isaiah, so now I'm curious. I want to know that. 

Okay, where are we going next? We're going to 1 Corinthians 2:14–16. While you're turning there, I want to ask you some questions. Did you have this experience before you came to Christ? Did you ever try to read your Bible before you had submitted yourself to Him and it made no sense. In fact, did it ever feel like you weren't reading the English language at all? 

I can look back on my years before I knew Jesus. I did try to read my Bible sometimes, but it was like this fog rolled into my brain every time I did that. But almost immediately after I gave my life to Jesus, God did two things in my life supernaturally. First, He gave me a desire to read His Word. I was a teenager at the time. I had a student Bible that again I really didn't really care about, and then I became a Christian, and He immediately gave me that desire to do that. 

It's worth noting that in our flesh that will never happen. In our flesh we will gravitate towards all manner of things that will suit us or make us think about ourselves more, make us feel better about our situation. In our flesh, we're never going to reach toward the living and active Word of God. And so, God gives us that desire. 

The second thing God did very soon after I became a Christian, was He gave me an understanding of His Word. Those same passages that meant nothing to me before I became a Christian suddenly, well, that meant something to me. 

Now, of course, He didn't completely give me a full understanding of his whole Word. I often say he didn't give me a USB drive and just plug in understanding of all of the mysteries of His character. First Corinthians 13:12 tells us that we only know in part. The beauty of the second half of that verse is that someday we're going to know Him fully, even as we've been fully known. 

But there were definitely signs early on, and they've continued in the 25 years I've been walking with Jesus. He was giving me an understanding of Scripture that I didn't have before. 

So, both my desire to understand the Bible and my understanding of the Bible were supernatural works of God. If you desire to read the Bible, and I'm not saying you desire it perfectly, but if you desire to read the Bible at all, and if you understand the Bible at all, that is a supernatural work of God in your life.

In fact, described in that passage I told you, we're in 1 Corinthians 2:14–16. If you know your Bible, you know that this is Paul talking. 

He said, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them . . .” Not able to understand them, pay attention. “. . . they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.” Why? Because God is our judge. Verse 16, “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. 

Scripture often does this. It's using a literary device, comparing and contrasting. Remember that compare / contrast chart you maybe did in elementary school. Here Paul was comparing two types of people. He calls them the natural person or the spiritual person, some translations call them the natural man or the spiritual man. 

Now, what is the natural man? Well, we know from other places in Scripture that that is describing those who do not know Christ. And if you don't know Christ, you don't have the Holy Spirit living within you. 

Let me just say, if you're watching, Grounded and you're not a follower of Jesus, that's okay. We're really, really glad you're here. But we believe that those of us who surrendered our lives to Jesus, then we become indwelled with the Holy Spirit, which puts us in the second category, the spiritual man. That's those of us who have surrendered our lives to Jesus. And again, we now have the Holy Spirit living inside of us. 

So, the Bible Paul was affirming here in Scripture that those who do not know Jesus as Lord and Savior, and do not have the Holy Spirit living within them, he's saying, “Yeah, they can't understand the Bible.” Not only do they not want to, Paul is saying they cannot. It seems like gobbledygook to them. That's my translation of the word “folly” that Paul used. 

We need the Holy Spirit to help us understand the mysteries of God. But the spiritual person, that's me, I hope that's you, those of us who are in Christ. We have a superpower given to us by God. What is it? Well, look again at the passage just right there at the end of verse 16. We have the mind of Christ. 

What I want us to remember, today and every day, what I want us to never ever, ever, ever forget, is that we need the Holy Spirit to help us love and know God's Word. It's not just something we can drum up or talk ourselves into or study hard enough to memorize. This is not a textbook, and we can't approach it the same way we might approach something else. This is a living and active book. 

And the good news is a double dose of good news for this episode, we have the Holy Spirit. We're not left on our own, and the Holy Spirit, He is willing and able. In fact, this is part of His job, to draw us to God's Word, and to help us understand it. So, there's parts of your Bible that are hard to understand. That's okay. You have an advocate, you have a coach, you have the Holy Spirit living within you to help you navigate that. 

So, what I'd like you to do, I'm going to give you a little homework. I want you to do that exercise that I described at the top of this episode. All you have to do is open your Bible to your table of contents. Every Bible has one. Then I want you to pray. I want you to say, “Okay, Holy Spirit, I know you're living and active inside of me. Can You show me what parts of the Bible I've never read, I've avoided, or I haven't studied—whether it's the prophecies or Numbers. Numbers always gets a bad rap or Revelation or Job—giving you His Spirit to help you. 

I trust the Holy Spirit in you that He's going to give you what you need to understand, “Hey, hey, you've been avoiding this part of the Bible.” And then as He directs you to it. I trust Him. He's going to help you understand it to the degree that God wants to reveal it to you right now. 

So, tell me about it. Write to us in the comments. Leave us a comment on a future episode. Did you go to your table of contents? Did you ask the Lord to show you where you'd never been before? And did He do it? Did he help you understand something that before you couldn't understand? I bet He did. I want to know all about it. I'm cheering you on as you go. You've got the Spirit living in you. You've got the Word of God at your fingertips. You got everything you need: the love of Jesus and learning His Word. Portia.

Portia: Oh, yeah, Erin Davis. I got my marching orders. I'm gonna do the homework, too. 

Erin: Okay.

Portia: All right. Well, we also want to give you some more tools guys to help you stay grounded. I'd like to recommend a Revive Our Hearts blog post. It's titled, “Five Ways the Holy Spirit Helps Us to Understand the Bible.” It is from my sweet friend Jean Wilund. I really think you should check it out. I think that it's going to reiterate a lot of the things that you've heard today in our episode.

Erin: That's been such a game changer to me to realize that I need the Holy Spirit, and I have the Holy Spirit, and to ask the Holy Spirit to help me understand Scripture. He seems to delight to do it. So that's a really helpful post for you. 

We also want to recommend in case you didn't know, that Grounded is just one member of the Revive Our Hearts podcast family. Sometimes what we need to better understand Scripture is to take us to places in the Bible that we aren't familiar with a teacher, a friend, that comes along with us. And our goal for the Revive Our Hearts podcast family is that we would have a podcast for every woman regardless of where you are in your Bible study journey, or even your walk with the Lord. 

I love that Kim fell in love with her Bible as a byproduct of coming to Jesus. That's how it's supposed to work. 

You might be early on in that journey, or maybe you're saying I don't know. But we've got Revive Our Hearts, we've got Revive Our HeartsWeekend, we've got Seeking Him, we've got Grounded, we've got The Deep Well, we've got Expect Something Beautiful, we've got True Girl, all of them intended to drive you to your Bible and help you along the way. 

Now we are not the Holy Spirit, that is for sure. But you can have the Holy Spirit and us, and we can all fall in love with our Bibles together. So, we're going to drop the link for how you can find the whole Revive Our Hearts podcast family. What a fun episode, Portia. 

Portia: It was. What I'm thinking about Erin as we talked about all these amazing resources, the podcast family, and the blog, and even other tools that are on the website. All of these things are made possible in part by Monthly Partners. 

Erin: That’s true.

Portia: And so, just give a shout out to our Monthly Partners. Thank you for your partnership for helping us to continue gospel ministry. And if you're not a Monthly Partner, I encourage you to go to the website head on over to the Revive Our Hearts website and check it out. Browse around. Maybe you'd like to join our Monthly Partner family!

Erin: That's the perfect exclamation point for the end of this episode, because there's all kinds of things at Revive Our Hearts to get women into God's Word. We know your heart that that's something you want to be a part of. So, join us back here next week. Let's wake up together with hope next week on Grounded.

Portia: Grounded audio is powered by Skype. Grounded is a production of Revive Our Hearts calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.