Answering your questions... Q&A | Ruth Hovsepian

answering your questions

How often should I read the Bible?
What do I do to overcome my partner's sexual past?

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Transcript

00:17 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
Welcome to Out of the Darkness with Ruth Hovsepian. This is your first time here. Welcome, and I hope that you enjoy this episode. If you've been around for a little while and you haven't subscribed, make sure to subscribe so that you are notified on all new episodes which come out every week on Mondays. Today, I decided to do something a little bit different than I've done in the past season, and that is to take some questions that people have been sending me and answer it here on this episode, and I picked out three of them because these were the ones that I've been asked several times. The one that I've been asked the most of is how often should I read the Bible? Well, now, this one is easy for me to answer for myself. 

01:14
With the journey that I've taken, I went through most of my life reading the Bible sporadically. I really struggled with it. Really, I didn't understand the importance of reading the Word of God for myself on a regular basis, and I remember as a child, being forced to do it. I had seen my parents reading together. I would see my grandparents read together, but there was no point to it for myself at that time. I just didn't. I loved to read. I was a voracious reader. I would take out all the books that I could the maximum amount of books from the library. And yet when it came to reading faith-based things, even books that my parents would tell me to read, my dad would get a lot of books given to him or gifted to him and he would turn around and say, here, read this, you'll like this. I might start reading it. Honestly, I think it comes down to one very simple thing If you do not have a personal relationship with Jesus, if you do not have a personal relationship to the point where you want to know more about that person, which in this case is Jesus Christ, then there's. You don't have that initiative to read and find out more. 

02:53
So in the last nine years, as I have grown in my faith, as I've gone down this new path, this new journey, I've come to understand for myself the importance of reading the word of God on a regular basis. Now, what does regular mean? It may be different for everyone. Nowhere in the Bible does it say you need to read the word of God every day for an X amount of time. But I have found that the more that I have grown in my faith and in my relationship with my Lord and Savior, the more I have wanted to know and the more I've wanted to please Him and the more I've wanted to change my life to better reflect me as a child of God. 

03:43
So, having said that, I went from reading sporadically and studying the Word of God sporadically to now having a daily time of study and of reading, and I separate those two and I've talked about this on the podcast before, where I personally look at reading the Word of God and studying the Word of God as two separate things. The reading of the Word of God is when I just go through it and read it as I would any other book, and the studying of the Word of God, for me, is when I sit down and I you know I carve out that time specifically for studying and I will read a chapter or a book, depending on the size of the book, and when I say book, I mean a book in the Bible. So, for example, jude is a very easy one to read through in one sitting in a very short period of time. I'll read it through and I really encourage you to do that. When you're studying something, read the full book before studying a portion of it because it gives you, you know, the framework of where the author of the book is coming from. You're not just studying, you know, like a little portion out of context. So when I study, I will read the full book. I'll come back to the section that I want to study because, you know, maybe in my reading I found that, wow, I really want that, or I'm doing a thematic type of study and I'll read at least the chapter that, that versus in, or the surrounding. I really don't want to take things out out of context. So this is what studying to me is, and then I'll go into it and I'll look at it verse, word by word, verse by verse. It depends what I'm studying. So those are the two things that I differentiate. Reading just read right through. 

05:46
Studying is, you know, taking it apart, trying to understand the word why are they, why is the, the author, using that word and not this word? Or why are they using this? You know a word in this context? And what is the Lord saying? What is the Holy Spirit saying to me? So this is what I have come to at this point, where I have set aside time where I read the word of God and I also study it, and you know, a lot of people use the daily bread or or some other devotional, and there are so many great devotionals that that I would consider reading the word of God, not studying the word of God. And I really encourage you to study the word of God, not just read the word of God. The reading is great, studying is even better. 

06:42
So let's go back to how often I should read the word of God or read the Bible. As I said, I went from being very sporadically reading it whenever I remembered and very shamefully having to dust off the cover of my Bible, to now putting it into my daily schedule so that I can do this. Now I've been hearing a lot about this study online. The study was done by the Center for Biblical Engagement. I've seen reels on it on Instagram and I'm sure it's on TikTok and many other areas. You know how it is one person uses a study or uses a quote and it's used over and over. 

07:28
But it really fascinated me to hear the statistics that came out of this 2009 report, and it was in 2009,. As I said, the Center for Biblical Engagement issued a report that concluded that people who read the Bible at least four days a week, experienced the following benefits. And let me tell you, if you don't read your Bible one day or a week, or a season, you're not going to hell for that. The point of reading the Word of God is to grow in your faith. And, yes, we go through seasons, it doesn't matter. Someone is sick in your family, your caregiver, something happens. God is understanding, he's all knowing, he knows everything that's happening to you and he knows your heart. But let's look at this so it says. 

08:20
Statistical analyses reveal that, controlling for other factors such as age, gender, church attendance and prayer, christians who are engaged in Scripture most days of the week have lower odds of participating in these behaviors. Getting drunk is 57% lower. Because outside of marriage 68% lower. Pornography 61% lower. Gambling 74% lower. Any of these habits 57% lower odds. 

09:06
And that's interesting, and I thought about that. How can this be? Well, you know, I think it goes down to even in my own life, as I got sober and as I started to follow the Lord and go down this journey in my life, where I went from someone who had addictions to studying the Word of God, the more I focused in on to what the Word was saying what the Holy Spirit was telling me. I knew I had to have behavioral changes. And that's where things started to change for me, because I really couldn't go, you know, to the feet of the Lord and pray and, you know, bring my my, my gratefulness and my you know my worries and my needs to him when I knew that I had this whole part of my life that I was ashamed for and that I couldn't really talk about to the Lord. So therefore, I had to change it so I can see how reading the Word of God at least four times a week brings these statistics down. 

10:19
And reading the Bible at least four days a week also made it more likely for the average Christian to engage in evangelism and discipleship. More scripture engagement also produces a Christian who was more involved in spreading the good news. Controlling for other factors, those who read or listen to the Bible at least four days a week have higher odds of participating in these behaviors. Sharing faith with others it goes up by 228%. Discipling others goes up 231%. Memorizing scripture 407% higher. That that is amazing. So when it comes to spiritual practices, christians need to get their priorities straight. Paul says the scriptures are profitable for instructing you in righteousness in 2 Timothy 3, 16. 

11:27
I mean, I'll put the link to this report in the show notes. Read for yourself. It's very interesting. I mean it's a report, it's all statistical, and if you're not interested in it I'll put my notes that I got out of it in the show notes, but it was. It was eye opening. I, you know, I I knew intellectually and personally how it had changed my life. But looking at these percentages, wow, I'm, I'm, I'm floored by it. It's amazing and it just goes to show the power of the word of God. So I encourage you, make it a habit, put it into your daily schedule. I'm a scheduler, I like to put things in my calendar and notes and once I started to do that, I that's, that's my personality, I I need to check things off. So I started to really focus in on reading the word of God and studying the word of God. So I hope that helps. 

12:32
If you have any other questions or if you have your own suggestions and ideas about this, please put it into the comments and share it with us. That'll be amazing to do. All right. So for the second question now, this one, I I kind of debated if I should answer it or not. But I was asked it a couple of times so I thought, okay, if a couple of people are asking, that means there's a desire for this answer. And the question was what do I do to overcome my partner's past sexual past or my, my partner's sexual past? So this one is a little bit. It was interesting. I. I had to really think about it and pray about it to answer this in the right way, in the right spirit. 

13:28
I, as you know because I've been very open about it on this podcast and other people's podcasts and my books I have a sexual past and I have often thought about this that if I were to meet someone, and now that my past is out there and it's for everyone to to hear about, how will a future partner look at me and will my future partner accept me for who I am today and not for who I was? And this has given me pause because I I had to think about this. But was I expecting or am I expecting a partner to do more than I am willing to do? That's a tough one. It really is. I, I made certain choices in the past and that I need to live with the consequences. Does that mean that perhaps I will, you know, never meet someone who can be understanding of my past and understand who I am today? Well, this is what I came up with because I had to think about it with myself. Uh, you know, if I was in that position where I found out that my partner has a sexual past, how would I overcome that and move into this relationship? And first of all, this is what I I I thought about. 

15:01
First, if you are dating someone today, I recommend you pray and fast and ask God if this is the person for you, because if you can't get over their past, I'm telling you, getting married to them in the future and living with them, you will only keep bringing up their past. Whenever you have disagreements, whenever there's a falling out, whenever there's a situation, the first thing that will happen is you're going to bring up the past. So my recommendation is, if you are dating someone, then you need to pray about it and ask God if this is the person for you. Maybe they are not graced for you and maybe you are not graced for them and there is someone out there for you. I believe that there isn't just one person for you Every season of your life. There is someone for you out there, or multiples. It's just the person that you get to know that you build a relationship with. 

16:17
So if you cannot get past that person's past right now, don't get into that relationship. Don't go further in that relationship because when you get in, your feelings and your emotions are going to prevent you from seeing clearly. You need to get out of it for their sake and for your sake. It's the right thing to do. It doesn't make you a bad person. You are just being honest about what you can overcome and let go of. It could be anything else. It doesn't have to be sexual. It could be some other thing that the person doesn't bothers you. 

17:01
I've told my kids, as they've gotten into a relationship and as they've gotten married, that if there are things in your partner that you cannot overcome and they bother you today, let me tell you, when you get married and you live with them and you have children with them and you go through difficult times with them, those little things that bother you today will become bigger and more difficult and they'll become a thorn in the flesh after a while, and those are the things that you are going to constantly nag your partner about. So do yourself a favor. If you cannot overcome your partner's sexual or any type of past, step away. Better to have a bit of a heartbreak right now than later on in marriage. Now, on the other hand, if you can overcome it and that's why I say, pray and fast and have this conversation with the Lord for him to give you discernment about it If you can get over it and you don't see it as an issue, then have a conversation, a really deep conversation, with your partner about it. 

18:20
Ask all the questions that you may have Put. Some of you know. If you have concerns, put them out there and see where that goes. That's my answer. I'm not going to tell you, if you should, what. You know how and what. This is the basis. This is what I've come up with. This is how I see it. I'll leave it at that. So the most important part of it is pray and fast and ask the Lord for discernment. I think that that is an important part of who we are and what we do. You know what. I'm going to leave it at those two. 

19:05
If you like this my answering questions let me know I'll do this again. I've had other questions as well. Actually, I have a few more here, but I think this is enough for today, and let me know. If you have questions, put them in the comments. I'd love to help you and answer them if I can. And if I can't, I'll be honest and tell you about that. I've always done that. If somebody asks me a question and I don't have the answer or I don't think I have the right answer for them, I'll pause and I'll say I'll come back to you with an answer on that. So I thank you for being here today. Leave a comment below, tell me what you think about this episode and if I should put in some of these here and there throughout the season. I appreciate you, my friend, and I'm praying for you and, as I said, go ahead like this. Subscribe to this. If you're watching this on YouTube, bring the bell and you'll be notified with new episodes. Have a wonderful and blessed day.