Open Our Bibles Together with MFahring

Welcome back, friends! Be sure to listen in to today's episode as we dive right on into M's most favorite time of the year = Advent + Christmas.   With that in mind, did you know that Advent actually has two meanings? He has come + He is coming. The first Advent of Jesus as the baby in the manger, and the second Advent will be when He returns someday to make all things right and new. In the meanti...

Hey there OOBTers! Before we get started today, please know that this episode is coming to you from a place of deep heartbreak, loss, and grief mixed with a whole lot of thankfulness and gratitude. "Both/And." Hard and Good. Joy and Pain.   Truthfully, on this side of heaven, we seem to always live in the tension of having both joy AND pain in our lives in one form or another … all at the same tim...

LET'S BEGIN THIS EPISODE BY CELEBRATING OOBT's ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY ON NOVEMBER 3 rd !! 🎉 🎉 🎉   Eek! Can you believe it?! M is so over the top thrilled to reach this one-year milestone by the grace of God + alongside each one of you. Annddd she is EVEN MORE excited to see where our studies continue to take us together in the future! WOW! Just wow.   With all that said, please join M as we dig d...

In today's extended episode, M continues our study of Abraham's story together. M admits she struggles to stay within the allotted time frame for episodes as she finds so many things that she feels she must share. Guilty as charged! LOL!   With this in mind, our reading begins with Sarai taking matters into her own hands and her servant Hagar then running away to the wilderness to meet with the Go...

  Hello, again, OOBTers!   Join M as she takes us back to the beginning… well, the beginning book of the Bible anyway! Following our completion of the book of Job, we are heading back to Genesis. Specifically, we are diving back in at chapter 12 with a promise of God to Abram (who will later be renamed, Abraham).   Listen in as M discusses covenants, waiting, the unbreakable promises of God, and h...

Welcome back OOBTers! M is VERY excited to share today's BONUS + EXTENDED episode with you! You may or may not have noticed yet, but this one pulling some threads from the book of Job is 1 HOUR & 15+ MINUTES of content - now that's definitely BONUS + EXTENDED , right?!   M has a variety of perspectives to discuss in this episode as we determine how to struggle well… to suffer strong… in our own Jo...

God shows up in a very real way on today's episode of OOBT !! The God who speaks… Eek! We have waited so very long for this moment!!   Join M as she shares what she discovered in studying the last F I V E chapters of the book of Job. Yep. You read that right - we are wrapping up our first full book of the Bible in this episode! CUE THE CONFETTI , right friends?! ((Surely you are already aware that...

  Today's OOBT episode finds us meeting friend #4, Elihu, who, up until this point, has remained silent. He begins his speech by claiming God had "advanced his wisdom way beyond his years"… well friends, you'll just have to listen in to find out if he was right about that!   Truthfully though, are you exhausted by the ways Job is repeatedly misunderstood? Imagine losing all Job has lost, feeling d...

Have you ever found yourself whispering or even yelling these words out loud? Oh, friends, M has too.   Why God? Listen to today's episode as we find Job heartbroken as he remembers how good his life had been. We would have understood if this was Job's tipping point, right?! BUT Job still cries out to God. It is a despairing cry, but a cry nonetheless: "I cry out to you for help, but You do not an...

Life. Loss. Loneliness. Suffering. Heartaches.   All of these things confuse us and can lead us into dark places as we question over and over the things we can't understand. Like Job, sufferings in our lives often leave us desperately searching for answers. Searching for wisdom. Searching for God.   Join M as she continues to journey through the pages of scripture to see how these painful places a...

PLEASE NOTE:: Today's episode comes with a trigger warning as M speaks candidly of her experiences with miscarriage and depression.   Hey friends! This one is a definite switch in OOBT's typical content + format as M spends time openly sharing about a shattering Job season in her own life… and the ways God showed up to meet her in the depths of her despair as well as some "good" she now recognizes...

As M opens today's episode, there is really nothing left to say at this point except, "Oh, Job." How our hearts continue to break for him. In the loss. The grief. The physical pain. The accusations of the "miserable comforters" he is struggling to call friends still. How many of us have been or even are there right now? Oh, friend. And then there is this… Longsuffering. Not a word any of us would...

86,400 seconds. The length of a day.   Have you ever thought about that? Let that number sink in for a minute, OOBT friends, and then be sure to join M as she helps us consider the many ways God can (and often does) use the heartbreak and pain of walking through one more TODAY in the midst of our own struggles… the next 86,400 seconds… and the next and the next.   AND SPOILER ALERT HERE: M takes u...

Ridicule. Scorn. Reproach. Contempt. Criticism. Just saying those words makes our hearts heavy for Job. In today's episode, we hear from Job's third friend, Zophar, who lashes out at him in anger, saying that Job deserved more punishment, not less. Ouch.   Have you ever been devastated by the false accusations of a friend? Or misunderstood by someone you love and trust? Pretty sure we can all say...

In today's episode, M continues our study of Job's story together. Our reading starts with Job having to endure the bad advice, harsh words, and untrue accusations from the second of his three friends, Bildad. We then return to the courtroom so to speak as we did in the heavenly courtroom scenes between God and Satan, the Accuser, in chapters 1 + 2, but this time it is Job requesting a personal ap...

Welcome back, OOBTers!   In today's episode, M picks up where we left off last time…in the middle of a conversation between Job and one of his friends, Eliphaz. Oh, how devastated and hurt Job must have been by the barrage of words Eliphaz is attacking him with. Unexplainable and unimaginable grief with debilitating pain plus now accusation upon accusation of wrongdoing he did not commit coming fr...

Today on OOBT, join M as she once again returns to our study in the book of Job. Together we see Job had no sooner finished saying, "The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord" after losing his 10 children and all his possessions, when Satan, the Accuser, once more enters the heavenly courtroom to ask God for permission to take Job's health as well. Really?! Goodness...

Join M as she pauses our study in the book of Job to take a deep dive into all things related to Holy Week … just in time for Easter! As M discussed during our Advent studies, God is in the business of revealing new things constantly through His Word, and we just must have our hearts ready to receive by reading this story we've possibly already heard hundreds of times before with fresh eyes and a...

In today's OOBT episode, join M as she transitions us from Genesis to the 18 th book of the Bible in our chronological Bible reading plan – Yep - You heard that right - #18! Anyway, Job chapter 1 lands us about 400 years post-flood, and we meet a man named (you guessed it) Job.   Initially, Job sounds a whole lot like Noah -- he's blameless and upright and fears God. In Noah's story, things got re...

Did you know that the word for rainbow in the promise God made to Noah actually refers to a bow in some other Bible translations? As in a warrior's bow. God hung up His bow in the sky and promised to never again destroy the earth by flood. Pretty interesting perspective, right?! Or did you know that the events happening after Noah's family leave the ark clear up until the incident between Noah and...

Maybe you've heard the verse from the book of Genesis that says Noah did everything exactly as God commanded him.   But have you ever taken a closer look to see precisely what God commanded him to do? Join M as she does just that and discovers along the way Noah's everything + exactly = 100+ years building an ark in the middle of the desert when he had never even seen rain & over a year (371 days...

Today on OOBT, M dives right on into the first true crime story in the Bible. Yep. You read that right. The first true crime story in the Bible story is found in Cain's murder of Abel. This murder of one brother by another brother puts a whole new (and very disturbing) take on that phrase you often hear parents often say; "They fight so much I hope they don't kill each other." Yikes! Sibling rival...

In today's episode, join M as she backtracks a bit into Genesis 2 to talk about how dust and broken-off bone don't seem like the most promising of beginnings, BUT when the breath of God is added, these were nothing turned into the most glorious something. Moving on to Genesis 3, M considers how the serpent's deception in the Garden of Eden began with only four words. "Did God really say?" Discover...

Have you ever wondered just why the universe God created is so gigantic?   Join M as she shares what she learned when searching for an answer to this question as well as ties together multiple themes related to the creation account as found in Genesis 1+2. A Perfect Home. The Beginning of a Love Story. A Blank Page. Law and Order. The Trinity. A Trip Around the Sun. Rest. God-Blessed Rest. When no...

Isn't there's just something about beginnings, a new start, a new year, a new day even, a clean white planner page just waiting to be filled… Well, you get the idea, right?!   Join M as she begins a deep dive in the very first thin, crinkly pages of our Bibles… The beginning of all beginnings, the book of Genesis.   The true history of who God is, who we are, where we came from, how things went wr...