The Context and Color of the Bible
Episode 1 – Welcome

Veronica: Hey. Welcome to our podcast. Thanks for joining us. I’m Veronica.
Erika: I’m Erika.
Veronica: And this is The Context and Color of the Bible podcast. Our goal – we’re two sisters
– we want to bring back the context of scripture because we want to add color to those black and
white pages of the text. We both have spent years teaching about the Bible and love to study it
and share with others what we’re teaching and learning. So join us as we discuss what we’ve
been learning and studying lately because let me tell you something, this is a book we are to
spend a lifetime meditating on because there’s no book out there like it.
So, Erika, I think the first thing we need to establish for our listeners –
Erika: Yes.
Veronica: Is that you will never call me Veronica.
Erika: I won’t. I’m going to mess with all of our listeners because I have always heard – and
talked to her – as Ronnie.
[laughter]
Ronnie is my older sister. Veronica is a woman I don’t know.
[laughter]
So, she –
Veronica: That’s not true.
Erika: That isn’t true. She refers to herself as Veronica but I call her Ronnie, so –
Veronica: And anyone who knows our family –
Erika: — calls her Ronnie.
Veronica: — calls me Ronnie.
Erika: But people who know her as an adult call her Veronica.
Veronica: Yes, so –
Erika: We needed to just establish that –
Veronica: — baseline right now. And I’m glad you brought up, I’m the older sister.
Erika: She is. Yes, and that will become quite obvious because she won’t let any of us forget it.
Veronica: Well, I bring the organization to this duo right now.
Erika: You do. You do, very much so. I am indebted to you.
Veronica: But, a year ago we got this fun idea of teaching together.
Erika: Mmhmm.
Veronica: We did a couple of Facebook Live studies.
Erika: We did.
Veronica: We’ve taught on parables.
Erika: Yep.
Veronica: Which, sadly, if anyone wants to watch those, they’re –
Erika: You can find them.
Veronica: They’re lost. On Facebook.
Erika: Oh, are they?
Veronica: They’re on there but I think it’s incredibly difficult.
Erika: Yea – they’re Facebook Live videos, so it’s really hard to find them. So maybe we’ll do
podcasts, in the future, of them —
Veronica: That’s exactly what I was thinking, that —
Erika: — to bring back what we learned.
Veronica: Yes. We also taught about the temple. Well, you taught that.
Erika: Yes, Fascinating study! I did [an] eleven week study on the temple and it was amazing
what God showed me.
Veronica: And that’s actually on YouTube and Facebook.
Erika: Not the whole eleven weeks; just like, four weeks? Five weeks? Yeah.
Veronica: Yeah, I think you got five weeks.
Erika: Five weeks?
Veronica: And then I taught on the Fall Feasts and then the Spring Feasts.
Erika: Yep.
Veronica: And then you interspersed with four Hebrew words.
Erika: Right.
Veronica: And so here today –
Erika: We are now starting something completely new.
Veronica: It’s been a busy year for us.
Erika: It has been!
Veronica: But, we’re starting this podcast, and I thought the first thing we should do is just
kinda share with our listeners what our purpose and goal is; what do we want – why are they
joining in?
Erika: What do we have to offer people?
Veronica: Yes.
Erika: Why did we start one more podcast –
Veronica: — when there’s a plethora –
Erika: –a plethora –
Veronica: — of podcasts?
Erika: Yes. [laughter] You’re probably wondering the same thing, so we want to share just for this first episode just a little bit about ourselves and why we’re starting this podcast. Um, I have a undergraduate degree in Bible Theology from Moody Bible Institute, and then I had the blessing of going to Israel and studying the Bible in Israel with many different types of professors. And I have a graduate degree now in Historical Geography and Archaeology. And basically all that is is taking the Bible and placing it back in its culture and its context. And in Israel I found a love for the word of God and a depth and beauty of this word that I didn’t even know existed. And the God of the Bible became amazing and alive and real. It’s like, somebody took a highlighter or magic markers and all of a sudden started coloring all over the Bible. And the life and the reality of the Bible just leapt off the pages and this book came to life for me. And so I was so excited to come home and share it with my family and my friends and tell everybody, “Oh my word, this book is amazing!” And my sister, older sister that she is, heard me teach on it.”
Veronica: Okay, but let’s be honest, in there you also got married to a Brian.
Erika: In there, I did get married – we both are married to Brians – so
Veronica: Yes. And they even spell it the same way.
Erika: They do. They do.
Veronica: But so you and your Brian started teaching –
Erika: Yeah.
Veronica: — and it was like, you would take parables, or you would take a common story and you’d – you just would flesh it out and it was like, there is so much in there that I never even knew, but if you live in that culture, if you live in that area of the world, if you lived during that time frame, just by saying one little thing, the listener, the audience would know, and it was like, “oh, we’re kinda missing out.”
05:00
Erika: Kinda missing a lot sometimes, we realized.
Veronica: So I finally – ‘cause, at the time we lived three thousand miles apart.
Erika: In Alaska – She lived in Alaska.
Veronica: Well, I lived in Alaska. You lived in – well Michigan and Israel, so, more than three
thousand. But it – I was always like, “oh, I’m missing out. I want to hear their teaching!” And so,
often I would beg for recordings.
Erika: Mmhmm.
Veronica: But it was never enough.
Erika: No.
Veronica: So I finally went to your husband and I’m like, “I want to learn. Teach me.”
Erika: Yeah.
Veronica: So he handed me a stack of books – actually it was my Christmas gift.
Erika: Yes.
[laughter]
Veronica: “Here’s some books.” And it was like, “Okay.” [laughter]
Erika: We’re a nerdy family.
Veronica: We are.
Erika: And we’re okay with that.
Veronica: Yes. But so he handed me books and I think he’s now learned not to give people
those books to start with?
Erika: Right.
Veronica: I kinda learned the hard w – I was trial by error.
Erika: Yeah, pretty much. We started her off on some heavy-hitters.
Veronica: Yes. That –
Erika: But it was fascinating work.
Veronica: And then it was able – to me – to take and go to my own church and the people I would teach, and the Bible studies I would teach and bring it in and it just – it opened up a whole new world to so many of us.
Erika: Right.
Veronica: There’s so much more than you can re – and we know this – How many times have you read a verse or heard a sermon and it’s like, it’s hitting me in a new way for – almost completely new, like I’ve never heard it before.
Erika: Yes. Good point.Yeah. Mmhmm.
Veronica: But this way, you go: Oh, there’s stuff that I just – I read it as a white woman in
America in the twenty – twenty first century —
Erika: Twenty first century.
Veronica: [laughter] I stumbled on that one. But it’s fascinating to go: if you go back to the color – the context, the culture there’s things that the writers included that we — didn’t include — because they knew their audience would understand it.
Erika: Right. Right. Right.
Veronica: So that’s our goal – is to bring that to you. To give you those nuggets. But also to teach you so that you can start to apply this for yourself.
Erika: Right, so that you don’t always need somebody sitting here teaching you. That you can go, “okay, here’s a book I can read and here’s how I can study it. Here’s some clues to help me