How to Read the Bible with Cross-References (and Understand It Better) | Ep. 128

One verse can shape your week—but it can also mislead you if it’s taken out of context. In this episode, we walk through how to read the Bible using cross-references so Scripture explains itself. Learn how to connect passages, grow in discernment, and understand the Bible more clearly without relying on guesswork. If you want to study Scripture with more confidence and avoid common misinterpretations, this conversation will give you a simple, practical way to start.

Continue the reflection in Hello Virtue: The Scarlet Thread

Transcript

Welcome And Quick Housekeeping

Let Scripture Interpret Scripture

Deuteronomy And The Bread Lesson

Jesus Answers Temptation With Scripture

Manna Points To Spiritual Food

Practice Tips And Stronger Discernment

Weekly Challenge And Study Tools

Free Guardrails And Closing Charge

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is episode 128, and I'm your host, Satoya, and this is Equip the Next, where you get equipped to lead, disciple, and move the mission forward. So, are you allowing Scripture to lead the way? You don't want to miss this. If you are new, thank you so much for joining. If you are returning, hopefully you have left a review that would be so helpful. If you haven't, feel free to leave a review if these episodes have been a blessing to you. And also don't forget to share. I'm gonna get right into it without further ado. We're gonna talk about scripture and making sure that you allow it to lead the way. It's a first step to making sure that when we're viewing scripture, we are studying it correctly from an exegetical view instead of an ejetical view. I talk about that in previous episodes. Um, but it's very important that we know that. It's very important that we allow scripture to interpret itself. You see, one of the most helpful ways to understand the Bible is allowing scripture to clarify scripture. So ask yourself, what happens when we let the Bible explain itself? Hmm. That's a loaded question, but it's a very needed question because a lot of times we don't. We just take a scripture, take a verse, and we misinterpret it, unfortunately. And so we have to understand that even Jesus quoted scripture when responding to temptation. We're gonna talk about that. We also have to make note that scripture often interprets earlier passages. So reading across the Bible helps clarify meaning, it opens so much um questions or answers, rather, so many questions. And it just kind of connects the pieces of the puzzle. If you allow the Holy Spirit to move and to get out of your way and allow scripture to interpret scripture, there are so many great resources where you can do that, especially if you have a really good study Bible. They usually have um cross-reference scriptures and stuff like that. That's a great starting point. We're actually going to do this today. So I'm gonna grab my Bible. And I got one hand almost, because I got all kinds of stuff on my desk. Anyway, so we're gonna we're gonna do this today. We're gonna talk about it. So if you're able to grab your Bible, feel free. If not, that's okay. I'll read it to you. Um, and then later on you can read it on your own. And we're gonna start in the Old Testament, and we're gonna go to Deuteronomy. We know that Moses wrote the Pentateuch or the Torah, the for the first five books of the Bible. And so we're gonna be reading chapter 8, verse 3, where it says, And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did you did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Now, where do you remember that passage from? Yeah, you're right. Jesus said that. Let's go there. Let's go to Matthew 4, 4. Actually, Matthew 4, 3. Um, and the tempter came and said to him, If you are the Son of God, command these stones to come, be I'm sorry, command these stones to become loaves of bread. But he answered, It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Here we see Jesus quoting Deuteronomy. Isn't that beautiful? This is actually an echo if you look at these two, Deuteronomy and uh Matthew. This is actually an echo or echoes the first temptation in the Garden of Eden. So we learn that the devil doesn't change his tactics, he just packages them differently. But he's not original at all. This is another thing you can if you man, if you if you can get this down, it'll just help, you know, a little bit. He tried to be sneaky, but we know, and we because we serve an awesome and mighty God. Now let's go back to Deuteronomy and kind of look at this passage. So we see, we see how you see how that you see it in um Matthew, you see it in Deuteronomy, and then it's like echoing the um first fall. Okay, and so what we're seeing here is that the the Lord ordained that they, the children of Israel, experienced physical hunger, and then he supernaturally gave them manna. So he did this to provide what their physical bodies needed and to emphasize that man does not live by physical bread only, but also spiritual food. The spiritual food is what he needs. So when we look at this, I can put my Bible down now so I can talk. This is an example of how we let scripture interpret scripture. There's a load of other script fat passages I can give you. This is ex especially helpful when people misinterpret scripture, misquote scripture, take it out of context. Allowing scripture to interpret scripture helps to put the pieces together. We see here let me bring my Bible back up. We see here that it's the physical I mean, sorry, it's the spiritual food. It's the spiritual food that we need. Yes, we need physical food, but the point wasn't the physical food, it was the spiritual food. This is why the word is so important. I'm now I'm shifting, okay, and trying to get some application and some practice. Listen, if you um are not familiar with um the equip method, which is just a just a study method that you can use, a simple study method, feel free to check out my bonus episode. It says bonus episode, the equip method. Um, because I'm gonna be using the practice part here or the application part, and say that that's why the word is so important when you read it, because we're going to have temptations and trials of all types of stuff gonna is are are gonna happen and we're gonna experience in it because we live in a fallen world. But the more you know scripture and it's in you, and the more you have a relationship with the Father, the more you have a relationship with Jesus, the more you understand and you tune your ear to the Holy Spirit, the better your discernment will be, I believe. Because we don't live by physical bread. We live by spiritual bread. Matter of fact, Holy Spirit just re just pointed me to another. Um where is it at? Uh no, it's in Ephesians. Ephesians Yeah. Ephesians uh 6, 12 is a good example. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. The Holy Spirit just remembered just reminded me of that. You see what I'm saying? How you start somewhere, and how we just kind of allowed scripture to interpret scripture, and the more you do that, the more it'll start to connect the dots, the more your faith will be strengthened, the more you'll understand who God is. Allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture, understanding the Christ thread, the faithful son, the living bread, and the fulfillment that Jesus made. These are the things that will allow you or help you rather, I should say help you, um, to grow in confidence when you're studying and reading the word. So I want to challenge you. When you read or when you encounter a passage this week, I challenge you to look for another scripture, a verse, that sheds light on that passage. I want you to use that today this week to allow scripture to interpret scripture. If you don't have a study Bible, that is fine. There are a lot of um online resources, Bible resources. Um, the Bible hub is a very popular one that you can use if you need to cross-reference scripture, if you have access to the internet. It's a good starting point. But I want you to do that this week. Okay? I want you to allow scripture to interpret scripture. Well, listen, did you get them guardrails yet? Because if you haven't, please do grab those free study guardrails, the Bible study guardrails. Bless you. Look forward to you connecting. Don't forget to subscribe or follow this podcast for up and coming future episodes. Bless you. Can't wait to hear from you soon.