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The Bible in Small Steps

The Bible in Small Steps

Written by: Jill from The Northwoods
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The Bible in Small Steps is a gentle, chapter-by-chapter walk through Scripture for anyone who wants to understand the Bible without feeling rushed or overwhelmed. Each episode lingers over a single chapter or passage, taking time to explore its meaning, historical setting, and place in the wider story of God’s Word. Rather than hurrying ahead or pulling verses out of context, the show moves at a steady, thoughtful pace—inviting listeners to slow down, listen closely, and grow in understanding one small step at a time.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Christianity Ministry & Evangelism Spirituality
Episodes
  • 1 John 5 - How to Actually Know You Have Eternal Life

    1 John 5 - How to Actually Know You Have Eternal Life
    Jul 6 2026
    How do you actually know — not hope, not assume — that you have eternal life? That question has haunted sincere believers for as long as the church has existed, and in this closing chapter of 1 John, John gives us something better than either arrogant certainty or perpetual anxiety: grounded, evidence-based confidence.One Integrated Test, Not Three. Belief, love, and obedience aren’t separate hurdles to clear — they’re a single coherent reality. Genuine new birth produces love for God’s other children, and that love naturally expresses itself in obedience. None of it feels like a burden when it’s coming from a transformed nature.Water and Blood. John insists Jesus came “by water and blood” — His baptism and His death — directly countering false teachers willing to accept Christ’s baptism but not His physical, bloody death. The Spirit, the water, and the blood stand together as a threefold testimony, echoing the biblical principle that truth is established by multiple witnesses.From Lesser to Greater. If we accept human courtroom testimony as sufficient for ordinary matters, how much more should we trust God’s own testimony about His Son? To reject it isn’t a minor disagreement — John says it makes God out to be a liar.Eternal Life Is Located in the Son. Not a separate reward handed out alongside faith, but something found entirely in relationship with Christ Himself. Have the Son, have life. There’s no alternate route to the same destination.The Hard Passage: Sin Unto Death. I walk carefully through one of the most debated sections in the letter — the distinction between ordinary sin (which we pray for one another about) and a settled, hardened, unrepentant rejection of the truth. This isn’t meant to create anxiety about run-of-the-mill struggles; it’s about something categorically different.Guard Yourselves From Idols. The letter’s startling final line. After chapters on truth, love, and assurance, John ends with a warning about substitutes — anything false we put in the place of the true God.If you walk away with one thing from this chapter, let it be this: this letter wasn’t written to make you doubt. It was written so that those who believe in the Son could rest in settled confidence — not based on performance, but on what God has already testified to be true.Download blank templates, schedules here:https://schmern2.notion.site/Downloads-Template-Word-and-Excel-Schedule-67439d14449d4c20bfe00efe069f78b8Logos RAMPS Workflow - RAMPS Bible Study - The Bible in Small Steps in Logos WorkflowsJill’s Linkshttps://jillfromthenorthwoods.com/https://www.youtube.com/@smallstepswithgodhttps://www.buymeacoffee.com/smallstepspodhttps://twitter.com/schmernEmail the podcast at jill@startwithsmallsteps.com“Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language.”Scripture quotations marked CSB have been taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.“The Scriptures quoted are from the NET Bible® http://netbible.com copyright ©1996, 2019 used with permission from Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. All rights reserved”.Bible Maps and images used with permission from https://www.bible.ca/maps/ or https://www.freebibleimages.org/illustrations/bj-ot-world/Copyright 2014 Faithlife / Logos Bible Software. Free for non-commercial use by individuals or organizations. May be presented before live audiences; may be posted on social media; may be re-distributed. May not be used commercially. May not be modified or included in published works without permission; contact permissions@faithlife.com. Attribute as: “Copyright 2014 Faithlife / Logos Bible Software ()”.By choosing to watch this video or listen to this podcast, you acknowledge that you are doing so of your own free will. The content shared here reflects personal study, faith perspective, and opinions and is intended for informational and inspirational purposes only. I am not a licensed pastor, seminary-trained theologian, or biblical scholar. Any scriptural interpretation, commentary, or reflections offered should not be considered a substitute for guidance from your own pastor, church body, or faith community. Theological understanding is a lifelong journey — I encourage you to study alongside your own tradition and trusted spiritual leaders. You are solely responsible for any decisions or actions you take based on this content.
    Show More Show Less
    22 mins
  • 1 John 4 - What “God Is Love” Actually Means

    1 John 4 - What “God Is Love” Actually Means
    Jul 3 2026
    How do you actually know if something is from God? Not whether it sounds spiritual, not whether the person delivering it is polished or persuasive — but really from God. That’s the question 1 John 4 answers head-on, and it leads straight into one of the most quoted lines in the entire New Testament: God is love.Testing the Spirits. John doesn’t ask us to evaluate sincerity or stage presence — he gives a concrete test rooted in what someone actually believes about Jesus’ bodily incarnation. I talk about watching talented, polished communicators say things with zero scriptural grounding, and why presentation was never the test.You’ve Already Overcome. For anyone worried about being deceived, John offers real assurance: the Spirit of God within the believer is greater than whatever spirit animates false teaching. This isn’t about being flashier or holier-acting — it’s about whose power is actually present.God Is Love — Not Just Loving. This is the heart of the chapter. Love didn’t start with us and get projected onto God; it started with Him and flows outward. I unpack why that distinction matters and use an electricity-through-a-circuit picture to describe how God’s love moves through us into other people.Loved While Unworthy. God didn’t wait for us to become lovable. Christ died for us while we were still sinners — this is the opposite of love as a reward for good behavior, and it’s what makes the love genuine rather than transactional.Perfect Love Drives Out Fear. As trust in God’s finished work deepens, fear of punishment fades — not because mature believers never feel fear, but because that fear no longer has the same grip when you actually believe the price has already been paid.The Visible Test. John ties it all together: you can’t claim to love an invisible God while failing to love the visible people right in front of you. It’s one love, two objects — and the visible one is usually the harder test in practice, even though it sounds like it should be easier.If you take one thing from this chapter, let it be this: God’s love isn’t something you have to earn or perform your way into — it already started with Him, while you were unworthy of it, and it’s meant to flow straight through you into the people right in front of you.Download blank templates, schedules here:https://schmern2.notion.site/Downloads-Template-Word-and-Excel-Schedule-67439d14449d4c20bfe00efe069f78b8Logos RAMPS Workflow - RAMPS Bible Study - The Bible in Small Steps in Logos WorkflowsJill’s Linkshttps://jillfromthenorthwoods.com/https://www.youtube.com/@smallstepswithgodhttps://www.buymeacoffee.com/smallstepspodhttps://twitter.com/schmernEmail the podcast at jill@startwithsmallsteps.com“Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language.”Scripture quotations marked CSB have been taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.“The Scriptures quoted are from the NET Bible® http://netbible.com copyright ©1996, 2019 used with permission from Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. All rights reserved”.Bible Maps and images used with permission from https://www.bible.ca/maps/ or https://www.freebibleimages.org/illustrations/bj-ot-world/Copyright 2014 Faithlife / Logos Bible Software. Free for non-commercial use by individuals or organizations. May be presented before live audiences; may be posted on social media; may be re-distributed. May not be used commercially. May not be modified or included in published works without permission; contact permissions@faithlife.com. Attribute as: “Copyright 2014 Faithlife / Logos Bible Software ()”.By choosing to watch this video or listen to this podcast, you acknowledge that you are doing so of your own free will. The content shared here reflects personal study, faith perspective, and opinions and is intended for informational and inspirational purposes only. I am not a licensed pastor, seminary-trained theologian, or biblical scholar. Any scriptural interpretation, commentary, or reflections offered should not be considered a substitute for guidance from your own pastor, church body, or faith community. Theological understanding is a lifelong journey — I encourage you to study alongside your own tradition and trusted spiritual leaders. You are solely responsible for any decisions or actions you take based on this content.
    Show More Show Less
    16 mins
  • 1 John 3 - God Is Greater Than Your Guilt

    1 John 3 - God Is Greater Than Your Guilt
    Jul 1 2026
    I’ve said before that 1 John doesn’t let you stay comfortable for long, and chapter 3 is a perfect example — it opens with some of the most tender language in the whole letter and within a few verses turns into one of the most demanding. This week I’m walking through what it means that we are actually called children of God — not honorary members, not metaphorically adopted, but genuinely identified as His own — and what that identity produces when it’s real.An Identity, Not a Title. John’s opening line is practically an exclamation point in the Greek — he wants the reader to stop and actually absorb what’s being said. Being called God’s children isn’t aspirational; it’s a present, settled fact with real consequences, including not fitting comfortably into a world running on a different value system.Hope That Purifies. We don’t yet know what we’ll fully become, but John ties that future hope directly to present behavior — not as a way of earning anything, but as the natural response of someone who actually believes the hope is real and is already living in light of it.The “Cannot Sin” Puzzle. This chapter has language that can sound like it contradicts chapter 1’s honest admission that we all sin. I unpack what John actually means by “sin” here — a settled, characteristic pattern of life, not an isolated failure — and why that distinction matters for how you read your own struggles.Love That Shows Up With a Checkbook. John gets uncomfortably practical: love that doesn’t act when it sees real need isn’t love, it’s sentiment. I talk through why this lands close to home for me personally, including my own wrestling with generosity versus financial anxiety about retirement.When Your Own Heart Condemns You. For anyone who reads this chapter and walks away feeling like they don’t measure up — John has an answer for that too: God is greater than our hearts, and He knows all things. That’s meant to be comforting, not terrifying.If there’s one thing to sit with from this chapter, it’s this: our identity as God’s children isn’t something we have to prove or maintain through perfect performance — it’s something that’s already true, and it shows up naturally as love in action when we actually believe it.Download blank templates, schedules here:https://schmern2.notion.site/Downloads-Template-Word-and-Excel-Schedule-67439d14449d4c20bfe00efe069f78b8Logos RAMPS Workflow - RAMPS Bible Study - The Bible in Small Steps in Logos WorkflowsJill’s Linkshttps://jillfromthenorthwoods.com/https://www.youtube.com/@smallstepswithgodhttps://www.buymeacoffee.com/smallstepspodhttps://twitter.com/schmernEmail the podcast at jill@startwithsmallsteps.com“Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language.”Scripture quotations marked CSB have been taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.“The Scriptures quoted are from the NET Bible® http://netbible.com copyright ©1996, 2019 used with permission from Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. All rights reserved”.Bible Maps and images used with permission from https://www.bible.ca/maps/ or https://www.freebibleimages.org/illustrations/bj-ot-world/Copyright 2014 Faithlife / Logos Bible Software. Free for non-commercial use by individuals or organizations. May be presented before live audiences; may be posted on social media; may be re-distributed. May not be used commercially. May not be modified or included in published works without permission; contact permissions@faithlife.com. Attribute as: “Copyright 2014 Faithlife / Logos Bible Software ()”.By choosing to watch this video or listen to this podcast, you acknowledge that you are doing so of your own free will. The content shared here reflects personal study, faith perspective, and opinions and is intended for informational and inspirational purposes only. I am not a licensed pastor, seminary-trained theologian, or biblical scholar. Any scriptural interpretation, commentary, or reflections offered should not be considered a substitute for guidance from your own pastor, church body, or faith community. Theological understanding is a lifelong journey — I encourage you to study alongside your own tradition and trusted spiritual leaders. You are solely responsible for any decisions or actions you take based on this content.
    Show More Show Less
    16 mins
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