Olaolu Adewole - Developing a Lifelong Bible Reading Habit (Encore)

Jacqui: 2:21

Ladies and gentlemen, you are in for a treat. Not only is Olaloo an extraordinary Bible teacher, he's also the love of my life, so this conversation is very exciting for me, so let's jump right on in. Before we start talking, though, about tips and strategies for developing and maintaining an effective Bible reading habit, tell us a little bit about how you, young Olaolu, got involved or began engaging with the Bible.

Brother Ola: 2:54

Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, whatever time you are listening to this podcast, I'm delighted to be a guest on this program. Yes, this is Jackie Adola, my lovely wife, and I'm pleased that I got a targeted chance to be interviewed on the podcast and look forward to providing the benefit of my life experiences with the Word of God on this interview. My earliest engagement or contact with the Bible is probably maybe before I was born. Both of my parents were Christians. They had killed their life to Christ as young people got married and they committed to making their home a Christian home. So I imagine that while it was even in the womb they prayed for me and all that. But my cognitive recollection of being engaged in the Bible is having daily devotions in our home.

Brother Ola: 3:58

My dad would go to church maybe at 5 am and when he got back at 6 or 6.30, he would wake the family up and would have family devotions.

Jacqui: 5:18

That's amazing. That's wonderful. A lot of us didn't have that benefit. I grew up in a Christian home as well, and church was a big part of it. But a lot of our listeners may not have grown up that way, may not have had that early exposure, particularly from our parents, and that contributes somewhat to people not having experience with the Bible, with regular reading the Bible. I've seen some statistics on Bible engagement and they show that only about 39% of Americans engage with the Bible more than once a year, and this is outside of church services so 39%. And there are a lot of reasons why people say they don't. They don't complicate it, they don't understand it, they don't understand the language, the Bible itself, even as a physical documentist intimidating because of its size or I don't have time lots of reasons why people don't engage with the Bible, in addition to not having that early exposure. What might you say to encourage people to pick it up and start looking at it?

Brother Ola: 6:37

I think and this probably biased response I think parents have a role in that process. I think, as parents, we need to help our children get an early start. Unfortunately, we have a situation where the television and entertainment and the internet and social media has replaced some of the more wholesome, informational foods that children should eat. What I also had to mention was that even for school, I went to a Christian preschool and a Christian primary school. That is increasingly becoming less of a common experience in our time. So I think parents have a responsibility or an opportunity.

Brother Ola: 7:33

Let me know, because I cannot be prescriptive for every family, but it's an opportunity that every parent has to offer their children. Just like we give healthy food, physical food, to our children so they can be healthy young people and healthy adults, I think every parent has an opportunity to expose their children to healthy information that will help them and shape their personality and character as they grow into young people and young adults. So, in terms of what I would suggest to people who ask how can they get started, for an adult it's a different prescription, but for a family I would recommend that parents consciously expose their kids to that. What I would also suggest to someone who doesn't have the benefit of that parental beginning or the opportunity for that kind of parental beginning, is to seek to associate with people who have values that you think are helpful to you, because most of the time the company that we keep also influences the choices of physical food and information and experiences that we pursue.

Brother Ola: 8:55

If my friends like rap music, eventually I would consume rap music Either in riding in the car with them or when I visit them. The relationships we have greatly influence several aspects of our lives. So that's what kind of a true path for family. I think we have an opportunity to offer this to our children so that as they grow older, the Bible will not be a strange experience for them. For people who didn't have that start, or even people who have that start, being conscious about the kind of friends that we keep will be helpful in helping us to see the value of the Bible, because if we have friends who read and live their lives by the guidelines of the Bible, we will be able to assimilate those practices and apply them in our own lives.

Jacqui: 9:54

Amen, amen. That's good, that's good. Love that Particularly love the advice that you gave for parents. That's particularly helpful and I feel like it's never too late, even if you don't have biological children. We're exposed to other children that are within our circles Nieces, nephews, grandchildren, children of our friends. We should be setting a good example, be good role models for all of them. So that's great wisdom and, as adults, to be associated with people who have those values and are participating in those practices that we would like to gain. The one we're talking about today is this habit of reading the Bible. It doesn't take away from the intimidation factor, though the Bible's mere size can be intimidating. How would a person just get started opening up this Bible and reading it or engaging with it, at least on some level?

Brother Ola: 11:03

I want to use a parallel example to answer that question. So I don't swim, I don't know how to swim and that's because I was never introduced to swimming as a child. By the time I realized that swimming was a possible activity, I had already learned to be afraid of water. So I think I couldn't say enough about the benefit of an early introduction to the Bible. A lot of people, yes. So if we have an experience when our habits are already formed, the odds of us being afraid of those experiences are higher, especially their new experiences. So somebody has never been exposed to the Bible.

Brother Ola: 11:56

The Bible can be intimidating and that's why I use the swimming example. I mean, when I see my friends who swim and they make it look so easy, I tell them when did you start swimming? And almost invariably they told me yeah, I learned how to swim as a child. I mean, if you take a child who's not afraid and throw them in water, they're not afraid. If you take a 18 year old teenager and you throw him in water, he thinks you want to kill him. So the same thing.

Brother Ola: 12:24

I'm trying not to make this overly spiritual, because there are scriptural verses that speak to like train up a child in the way you should go. There's a lot that the Bible says about the rule that we have to help children experience and learn things before they are afraid, before sin becomes a habit or before other things occupy the freshness of their minds. When the internet and Facebook and social media has occupied the space that biblical nutritional instructions should have occupied, then it becomes harder. But let's be practical. Many more people have the intimidation that you speak about. All I would say is use life to kind of take it. Don't think that you can go from zero to a hundred in two days. Take, even if it's just a small piece of the Bible that you find relevant to you. Apply that.

Brother Ola: 13:33

I have friends who their introduction to the Bible was when they faced a certain situation in their lives, maybe when they were afraid. They read a passage of the Bible that told them don't be afraid, I'm with you, and they believed that and because that was comforting, it created an appetite to go seeking for more. So, yes, the Bible can intimidate them, but it's also a book that can be digested in small chunks and that can be digested in chunks that are beneficial. So, if you like poetry, for instance, there's a lot of poetry in the Bible.

Brother Ola: 14:16

If you like history, there's a lot of history in the Bible so you can take something that interests you or a life experience that you are having and find aspects of the Bible that addresses that. So if you didn't get an early education through some parents or some adults that exposes to it, another opportunity to engage the Bible is to find something in the Bible that helps your current interest as an adult and take it in that chunk. So don't try to take the whole Bible in at once. Just take the parts of the Bible that you can relate to based on where you are at that point in your life, and you'll find that you keep coming back for more. That's what I can tell you about the Bible that once you taste it, once you take a little bit of it, and you see that it really works and it's helpful, almost invariably you'll come back for more and that's how you can begin to grow in approaching the Bible.

Jacqui: 15:25

I love that and the idea about once you try it, once you taste it, you'll come back for more. For those who haven't tasted it or who haven't tried it and say why is the Bible even relevant to me today? What do you say to them?

Brother Ola: 15:43

I would say that the unique thing about the Bible is that there's almost no human experience that you won't find a parallel for in the Bible. If you are looking for people who are mean, there are plenty of stories of mean people in the Bible. If you are looking for people who are kind, there are plenty of people who are telling stories about kind people in the Bible. If you are looking for people who are business people who are wise in the use of their resources, there are plenty of that in the Bible. If you're looking for a love story, there are love stories in the Bible. So most things that we that are part of our lives as human beings. The Bible offers such a wide range of those narratives about how to do them or how to enjoy them or what to avoid. In fact, in human relationships, it tells you how to choose your friends. That's probably one experience that we can already relate to. You know, you see, how people made the right and wrong choices. So it's it's a very good guide that offers you.

Brother Ola: 16:56

One of the best ways you can learn is to learn from other people's experiences. That's the opportunity the Bible offers you. You can actually, for free, read what other people's experiences are, and while everybody has a unique experience, but, as you can, in reading the Bible you see what's a possible result of a choice you are about to make and that informs you and guides you as you make your own choices. So that's what I would suggest that don't try to.

Brother Ola: 17:28

It's probably a heavy lift to ask somebody to try to take in all the 66 books in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, at once, but you can take it in bite size, bit size chunks that's relevant to your, that you find interesting or that you are curious about, even if it's not personal. If you are looking for what's wrong with society or what's right with society, you can find those kinds of things in the Bible. The Bible offers a lot of information, a lot of history, a lot of advice, a lot of encouragement, a lot of. It's just a unique book, as I'm sure many people have found that. It's unique in that it addresses pretty much every area of human experience and it introduces you to a relationship that better experience than described.

Jacqui: 18:37

Is there a particular verse or portion of the Bible that's particularly inspiring to you? Do you have a favorite verse or a life verse?

Brother Ola: 18:48

Definitely I have a lot. I have a lot, but one that comes to mind readily now is 1 Corinthians 10: 13, which says that there is no situation that you are facing that is not common to man, but that God is faithful and he will not allow you to be tempted or tried beyond what you can handle, but he will, with every situation, make it wherever a scripture can be. I say that because, as a person, when things happen to me that are unpleasant, it's easy for me to think why me? And so when I read a verse like that that says check, you are not alone, you're not the only one that's having this experience, that helps me to put a break, or put the breaks on my emotions, because if we think that something is happening to us and we are the victim, and we are the only victim, it's a lot harder to recover from, because we keep thinking that we have no hope and no way to turn things around. But the Bible says no, a lot of people have had this experience, so you're not alone, which again helps me to say, okay, fine, if other people have had this experience, maybe I should find out how they dealt with that experience to help me.

Brother Ola: 20:08

But more than that, it also, in that same verse, tells me that God will not allow me to face something that I can't handle with His grace. That's also very helpful because that tells me that, even though I don't like what's happening, but it tells me that I'm not helpless, that God is going to calibrate that experience so that it doesn't consume me. So that's offers me hope, offers me help. And the third thing is that that's not gonna be the last chapter of my life. It says he will make a way of escape. That means I can encore my hope in the fact that that's just a phase, it's a process and there is going to be a better, there's going to be a sunrise after that. So again, like I said, the Bible addresses human experience in a unique way that most many books, even motivational books, cannot even touch the level at which it helps the average person to deal with life. Amen.

Jacqui: 21:26

Listeners, you heard it 1 Corinthians 10: 13. That's one to keep in our bag of coping skills, in our bag of being able to get through life successfully, our ability to trust God using that particular scripture. So thank you so much for sharing that one, Brother Ola. Well, this has been great. We could actually sit here and talk for hours, but in the interest of bite-sized chunks, we probably want to bring this to a close. But what I thought I would do before we close is have a quick round of this or that. So what that means is I'll give you two things and you tell us which one is your preference and why. If you want to elaborate on it, Okay, this is the easy one Old Testament or New Testament.

Brother Ola: 22:29

That's a tough one because I have found very helpful information in both sections of the Bible the Old Testament and New Testament. I, frankly, the honest answer is I don't have a preference, because at various points in my life on a daily basis, I find very helpful information in both sides. I really don't have a preference. I tend to look at the whole Bible as my tool kit, as my resource kit for life. So I don't know if that's an answer. I don't know if it's an option to say I don't have a preference.

Jacqui: 23:13

It's a great answer. It's a great answer. Okay, here's one. Would you rather have dinner with Moses or Paul?

Brother Ola: 23:24

That's I do have a preference with. I would rather have dinner with Paul, and the reason is because he comes across to me as an intellectual person, and also an intellectual person with heart, which is a personality that I see myself as. I mean, I like to think that a human being should be smart and also have compassion. So Paul comes across to me as someone who is very smart but who also cares about people. Not that Moses doesn't care about people, but as much as I read about him in the Bible, he tends to have a short rope for people. He gets easily frustrated when people don't do what they're supposed to do. So I would rather have dinner with Paul than Moses.

Jacqui: 24:17

I would also describe you as smart and compassionate, so that makes sense to me. But let's give Moses another chance. Would you rather be stuck in the wilderness with Moses or John the Baptist?

Brother Ola: 24:30

I would rather be stuck with Moses in the wilderness, because at least he has some experience in leading people out of the wilderness. John the Baptist made his house in the wilderness. He was eating and feeling comfortable in the wilderness. So if I'm in the wilderness, I'm thinking how do we get out of here, you know, and I'd rather go with somebody who has experience than somebody who thinks it's okay to stay there.

Jacqui: 24:57

Wow, ladies and gentlemen, I hope you all got as much out of this conversation as I did. Brother Ola, thank you so much for coming and sharing and pouring into us, and I want to extend an open invitation Anytime you want to come on to the Bible Basics Podcast, you are absolutely welcome. Thank you so much, thank you.

Brother Ola: 25:24

Thanks, it was a very nice experience and glad to be a part of this podcast series. Thank you, bye.

Jacqui: 25:30

Bye. You're very welcome. Bye, bye, bye. Thank you for tuning in. If this has been beneficial to you, please share it with others, subscribe or follow, and all of you Apple Podcast listeners, drop us a review.