From Intimidating to Exciting: Jean’s Bible Journey

Dannah Gresh: What causes lasting change in your life? Jean Wilund reminds you transformation isn’t something you can manufacture.

Jean Wilund: It’s not the effort of doing the Word of God. lt is knowing the God of theWord, and responding to Him out of true belief—because true belief always overflows into action!

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of A Place of Quiet Rest, for January 14, 2026. I’m Dannah Gresh.

If you’re walking through the 2026 Bible reading plan with us, today we’re finishing up Genesis, reading chapters 48–50. Nancy?

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: We’re in the very early stages of an exciting journey as the Revive Our Hearts community, reading the Bible together in 2026. And it’s not too late for you to join us! Visit ReviveOurHearts.com/Bible2026 for more information about how you can start on this journey with us.

Now, maybe reading the Bible, especially longer chunks of it, seems intimidating to you. Maybe you sometimes feel that the Bible just seems too hard to understand! Well, today you’re going to get some help from Jean Wilund. She's a good friend to Revive Our Hearts and she’s written a book I highly recommend called Ease into the Bible—get into it easily.

Jean will help you understand the Bible better. For instance, she’ll help you know how to read different genres included in Scripture, like the difference between history and narrative or poetry or epistles. You read them differently. She’ll also help you know how to start reading and stick with it when the Bible seems daunting. 

Dannah talked with Jean not long ago, and we’re going to hear the conversation today and tomorrow.

Whether you’ve barely read the Bible before or you’ve spent years reading it, I think this conversation will help you appreciate in a fresh way the wonder of God’s Word!

Dannah: Jean, you’ve written a book about the Bible, so you must feel pretty confident when you open the pages of the Bible. But was there a time when you felt intimidated or overwhelmed by it?

Jean: For many, many, many years, yes. And even when I open it now, the word “confident” is more like “excited,” because I’m growing so much still in understanding! Just the other night at our ladies’ event, our pastor was speaking about the name, “Immanuel.” 

He shared some truths from Isaiah that I’d never heard—the name Immanuel preached from the exact perspective that the text said. I was just overwhelmed and excited of how much more . . . I will spend my whole life studying the Bible, and I will not finish . . . and I love that!

Dannah: That’s actually kind of a relief, isn’t it, for those of us who feel like we have so far to go? That’s good news!

Jean: Yes. 

Dannah: What about those who are just starting out, though? It can feel so insurmountable!

Jean: Exactly! Because it is massive! Bottom line, it is a very big Book! We don’t know how to read it; we don’t even know how to come to it. Because if we know anything about the Bible, we know it’s not like a novel where you just start at the beginning and go to the end.

But you don’t know whereto go. I didn’t know where to go. I wasn’t raised in church, so I wasn’t raised around the Bible, but when I started going in high school, they would tell us where to open the Bible. 

So I kind of taught myself that the Bible is a book that you bounce around in. I wasn’t really sure what the rhyme or reason was. I assumed it was chronological, because it takes a long time to get to Jesus and the manger. 

In my mind the Old Testament was the introduction to the real story. Since we really just need Jesus for salvation, the Old Testament is there for background, but you don’t really need it. You go straight to the New Testament and that’s where you live as a Christian. I was never told that. I just made assumptions.

Dannah: Well, and lots of people today—even pastors—are saying you only need the New Testament. Some of them are even saying you only need the Gospels. 

Jean: Right! 

Dannah: The Old Testament . . . you don’t need that, and you don’t need the letters; they’re just letters. What would you say to that kind of thinking? You’re shaking your head, “no” right now. You’re like, “Tsk, tsk, tsk!”

No! My mom kept telling me, “Jean, you will never, ever understand the New Testament—I know you love it, but you will never understand it—until you understand the Old Testament.” Outwardly I was respectful; inwardly I was thinking, “Aww, that can’t be true, because I’m understanding what I’m reading.”

But then, what really happened . . . I get emotional whenever I tell the story. Years and years later I just wasn’t reflecting Christ, as the New Testament promised me. I felt that I would be transformed with the abiding peace, the abiding joy.

And yet, I fell apart at the simplest things! I’ll never forget driving with my mom in the car. I was about to have my third baby and I wanted to paint the walls with chalk paint. Wouldn’t that be a fun thing for the girls’ room?

So she went with me, and we went to buy the chalk paint. I didn’t have enough money; it was a lot more expensive than I thought it would be. So the whole way home I was just in despair.

And my mom was like, “Jean, you are going to have to figure out how to handle disappointment!” And that just cut me to the core, because as a believer, who falls apart over chalk paint? But I was truly in despair!

I know that was the moment where I began to realize, “Something better change! I can’t keep doing this; I cannot keep living this Christian life this way!” I remember after she left and being at home alone (my husband was out of town with the other two, because I was about to give birth and couldn’t travel with him) and I just was talkin’ to the Lord and wonderin’, What is wrong with me? Why can other people have abiding peace and I cannot?

Because I can’t! I am trying, and I am sick and tired of trying! I'm done! I’m done trying. I don’t care anymore about another lesson from the Bible about how to control your temper, or how to do this and that. It didn’t work for me!

And then–—t had to have been the Lord, because it was definitely not from me—the idea came, “Maybe read the whole Bible. You’ve been a Christian for about twenty-five years; you’ve never read the whole Bible. Maybe what you’re missing is on one of those pages.”

And so I made a commitment: “That’s it! I am going to read the Bible from cover to cover. I guess that’s how you read the whole Bible. I don’t know. But that’s what I’ll do. I’ll just start in Genesis 1 and I will not stop until I’ve finished the maps! I will read everything in my Bible. I will not look for a single lesson, because I don’t care anymore. I’m just done! I’m tired of that. I’m tired of one step forward, two stumbles back. I’m tired; I’m exhausted! I will just find out who God is!”

So I woke up, it was like 5:30 in the mornin’, and I was sitting in the kitchen alone, I opened up my Bible and I just cried, “Show me You, God, on every page. I’ve got to see You!” And so that was my one singular goal: I would read. . .and on every page I would see, “What do You teach me about Yourself in this? Just show me You. I just want to know who You are!”

And every morning I would wake up early, excited to see the next thing that I would see about God. I didn’t care about any of the other characters; they were just other players. I would just look for God.

I remember one morning I was reading in Deuteronomy 6, 7, and 8, and that’s when the thought came to me, Wait a minute . . . I’m different! I am not the same person! I feel differently, my joy is different, my peace is different, and I never even tried!

That’s when Hebrews 4:12 finally came to light to me, because my mentor—whom I had just started to get to know—she would read Hebrews 4:12 to us:

For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

And so the way that she would read it was, she would always say, “The Word of God is living and active . . .” And I would just shake my head like, “Yes, that’s true,” but I really didn’t understand what she meant, and I didn’t want to admit that I didn’t understand, because it’s black and white paper and ink. So how is it “living and active?” But that day, I understood. It is! It’s living and active and it changes you from the inside out.

It’s not the effort of doing the Word of God, it is knowing the God of the Word and responding to Him out of true belief, because true belief always overflows into action. 

I remember hearing a pastor say long ago, “Your beliefs and your actions will always agree! You will either change your actions to agree with your beliefs, or you’ll change your beliefs to agree with your actions.” And so, that was what I was discovering as I came to really know God and trust in who He is. My actions started to agree with what I believed about Him. I didn’t have to be despairing. I didn't have to panic.

Dannah: Beautiful! I had an experience like that in college, when I started to get very serious about reading my Bible. I remember my emotions changed, too. My behaviors changed, my emotions changed, my thoughts changed. I was different.

I’m wondering, because you said you started at the beginning of the Bible. You just said, “I’m going to read it. I’m going to understand who God is.” In your first run-through, did you start to see how it’s one big story, instead of silo-ing it off to just the Gospels or the New Testament? Did you start to see what some people call “the metanarrative” that was happening? What did you learn from that?

Jean: Yes! Even reading it straight through, I’m so glad I did it that way, because it became so clear to me that the whole Bible points to Christ and His salvation! The whole Bible is revealing God and His plan that He started in Genesis.

All throughout the Old Testament He reveals and reveals and reveals in ways that they didn’t really understand. And we on the other side of the cross, get to see . . . Like the Passover, oh, how clear could it be? It couldn’t be more clear . . . unless you’re living in it! You don’t know what the Cross is going to be like. You don’t know those things. 

Our pastor, when he spoke at our ladies event, he was talking about prophecy. He had three cups; he put them on the table. When you see the cups from the side, you see all three cups, but when they’re in a line, you just see the cup that’s in the front. When they were living in the Old Testament, they were seeing and hearing from God and all of the prophecies that were pointing to Christ, but they’re seeing them in a line. They didn’t know which are near and which are far. They probably didn’t even know that there was “near” and “far.” I don’t know exactly what they knew at that time. 

But we on this side of the cross know that when God is talking about Passover, it’s not just about getting out of Egypt. It is exactly about getting out of Egypt, but even more, it’s about Christ. That’s the ultimate goal: pointing us to Christ. So when you’re going through the Old Testament and you’re looking for God—not necessarily for lessons—Christ pops off the pages in ways I was not expecting! 

It’s amazing how you can read something continually a hundred times, and when you read it the hundredth and first time, and you go, “[Gasp!] Whoa!” When Paul said to Timothy . . . I don’t know where it is. I think I do know where it is. [turning pages in her Bible]. Almost there, almost there . . .

Dannah: I love that sound, Jean, I love the sound of the flipping pages! 

Jean: So, Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:14 and 15:

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed. You know those who taught you, and you know that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 

The Scriptures they had were the Old Testament. Those are the Scriptures that were able to give him wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. So even the Old Testament leads us to salvation in Christ. It was sufficient. And we know how Jesus started with all the prophets and He went through and described how all the Old Testament points to Him. (see Luke 24:27)

When I read the Old Testament all the way through, I was astounded! I didn’t know this yet; I hadn’t studied this yet. I was discovering it as it was popping off the page. So I came to it unprepared; I did not have any training whatsoever in how to study the Bible.

Now, I had the basics. Our mentor would say these three Bible study steps (which are right): “What does the Scripture say? What does it mean? How does it apply to my life?” And so, in this whole journey of reading through the Bible myself for the first time, I discovered something about myself and that last step.

I had always turned that into a self-improvement exercise: “Okay! This is the Scripture. This is what it says. This is what it means. Now I take it from here. God has given me His Word, but now it’s my job, and I am going to go improve myself! “I am going to master “love,” and then tomorrow we’ll work on “joy.” I’m doing so much better on the love, and then I start on the joy and the love’s gone! It’s just a spiral; you just can’t do it all! [Dannah agrees.]

But because I had decided, “No more lessons, no more doing. I’m done with that because it doesn’t work for me. It works for other people, I get that, but it doesn’t work for me. I’m just reading to know God.” I started to realize that I was responding to His Word. “What does it look like to believe?” When I know what it looks like to believe and my response doesn’t look like that, then something’s off-kilter with my faith.

Dannah: Well, I feel like what you’re describing is—and I think it’s important to note this—you started responding to the Living Word, the Person of Jesus Christ. You started being relational with the words in the Bible. You started having relationship not just with the words, but with Jesus, the Living Word! And that changes everything, doesn’t it? 

Jean: Oh, it does! 

Dannah: There are secular theologians who teach at major universities—New Testament, Old Testament survey and the Bible as Literature, etc., but aren’t changed by it. Some of them may know the Bible as literature better than I do, but they don’t know Jesus like I do.

Jean: No. It’s a spiritual book, and it can only be understood through the Spirit, yes.

Dannah: Yes! There you go! It’s only understood through the Spirit. Just this morning I was like, “Lord, I don’t feel like reading my Bible. It’s too early!” I have a goat that kept me awake all night in the barn because she’s about to have babies, and I was a little grumpy with the Lord this morning.

I said, “Jesus, I’m sorry I’m grumpy, but I just can’t do it. Can You draw me, can You pull me in? Can You do this? Because I can’t today.” 

Jean: Yes, right.

Dannah: And He did! 

Jean: He did, right!

Dannah: I had the most glorious day in the Word. And that’s what you’re talking about, you’re talking about relating to Christ through His Word.

Jean: Yes, knowing His character and His nature and His ways. In my book I talk about a Bible study method that came out of this journey of reading through the whole Bible for the first time, that just kind of fell into place. 

But over time it all came together, the first step being really understanding the culture. Because it is an ancient Book and we're modern people. So, I don’t understand what it is to be up all night with a goat. I have no idea what that’s like! (laughter)

And so being able to understand the context, those were the kinds of things I did not understand at all. I was guilty of twisting Scripture to fit the context that I understood: “Uh, He must mean that because I have no idea what He’s talking about!” 

People say that the God of the Old Testament is an angry God. And I’m like, “Have you really read the Old Testament? Because that’s the most patient God. I can’t even imagine a God so patient, because I cannot imagine being so patient with the Israelites!” Like, I would have destroyed them. They were so frustrating! 

Dannah: Yeah, “Kids, don’t make Me come down there!” That would be me! Which I think the Lord might have said once with the golden calf thing, maybe. 

Jean: Yes, exactly! But so patient. So as we read through the Bible and we come to know God’s true nature, His character, His ways, that’s what changes us. You know, I wrote an article for Revive Our Hearts, and it’s still one of my favorites because it was a powerful moment for me when I was studying in Exodus about Moses.

I was reading through that and God comes to him in the burning bush in Exodus 3. God is saying to him, “I want you to go to Egypt, and you’re going to tell Pharaoh to let my people go.” And Moses says in chapter 3, verse 11:

But Moses asked God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” 

We are so focused on ourselves. That’s our nature, that’s just the way we are. That’s definitely what society teaches more and more, it seems more intent on: “It is all about us!” 

So [Moses], “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh?” And God did not pump him up with all kinds of self-belief, like, “You can do this! You’ve got this! You’ve got the skills! You don’t need to be afraid!”

This is His response,“I will certainly be with you.” (v. 12) That’s the answer. “I will be with you. It doesn’t matter who you are. It matters who I AM.” Moses didn’t part the Red Sea, God did. 

He obeyed God’s Word. God said, “Do this.” The Nile River turns to blood, the waters parted, the frogs come, the locusts come. All these things happened, but not because Moses did them. Moses was God’s spokesman and through him God worked. But it was all God’s power. It’s not about us.

And because God had me look only for Him, I started to learn to take my focus off myself. It doesn’t matter who I am. Because it mattered so much to me—so much that I be the best mom I can be. If I can be the best mom, then my children will know and believe in the Lord all the days of their lives. And so if they’re not walking with the Lord, it’s all my fault. I’ve got to be the best . . . I’ve got to be this . . . I’ve got to do that . . . And I wear myself out with all this internal focus, even when it looks like it’s all good stuff!

I’m not saying I want this or that thing. I want good things. But I was so focused on myself instead of on God and His glory. That’s just a trap. But when I’m focused on Him, it doesn’t matter what the results look like. It can look like a failure.

Okay, so this book is an example, Ease into the Bible. How it started was, a friend of mine, we were working out together and she said, “I have a couple of girls who want to study the Bible, but they don’t have a clue. Like, how do you start reading the Bible? You’re in the writer’s world; do you know of a book?”

I said, “I really don’t, but I’m going to ask around.” So I asked so many friends, so many relatives. I put it out there on Facebook, in several different places. Every book I got was either massive itself—which that’s intimidating!

“You want to understand the Bible? Read this book as thick as the Bible!”

Dannah: Or four volumes of books that are as thick as the Bible.

Jean: Yeah, exactly! Or it was a commentary, and that’s not what they want. “I don’t even know how to start!” So I told Karen, “I don’t have a book for you, but we could write one. I will write it if you will help me.”

So while we were walking on the treadmill, we started coming up with ideas of, “What kinds of things do you want to know about the Bible when you’re ready to dive into it?” Like, “How do I start?”

Dannah: I think that’s a good place for us to land today, because I want to ask you some specific questions from that book if you could come back and be with us tomorrow. 

Jean: Yes.

Dannah: Because what you’ve done today is, you’ve ignited a fire in us, a fire that takes the Bible from words on a page to a living relationship with a loving God. And I’m just wondering. There’s probably someone listening right now who’s like, “The Bible has just been words on a page. I can identify with Jean. I wanted to throw my Bible out. I was just done with all the lessons and all the to-dos. But today you’ve made me want to try again.”

Nancy: We’ve been listening to a conversation between Dannah Gresh and Jean Wilund. Jean is the author of a book called Ease into the Bible: How to Wade into the Water of God’s Word with Confidence!

Jean has a passion for getting women into God’s Word, but she knows the Bible can be, well, a little overwhelming. Let me give you a suggestion from someone who has loved God’s Word for a very long time: just start reading it! The more you taste God’s Word, the more you’ll want. Your hunger will grow.

The book Ease into the Bible will help you learn how to digest and savor God’s Word. You’ll find an easy and effective way to read and study the Bible. You’ll read about the Bible’s overarching story and main point, and why we can trust the Bible, and how the Bible’s organized.

You’ll find some helpful Bible study tools. And here’s one thing you’ll love: short, Christ-focused summaries of each book of the Bible. We’d love to send you a copy of Ease into the Bible when you support Revive Our Hearts with a gift of any amount.

And your gift is important! Here’s why. As I speak, our team is busy preparing for Wonder of the Word, a year-long teaching series through the Bible. You’ll be hearing that on Revive Our Hearts beginning next January 2027.

Now, while that may seem a long way off, teams around the world are in the process of translating that teaching right now! Our goal is to reach the languages that are spoken by 80% of the world’s population.

Your gift will help us continue this massive undertaking! So, would you pray about how the Lord would want you to participate? If you’re prompted to make a gift to help, you can visit us at ReviveOurHearts.com.

And when you make your donation there, be sure to ask for your copy of Jean’s book Ease into the Bible. It’s our way of saying thank you for helping us get the Word of God into the hearts and minds and lives of thousands and thousands of women around the world! 

Dannah: That’s right! You can also donate by calling 1-800-569-5959. Now, if you relate to Jean’s story, and opening your Bible right now feels a little intimidating, would you let us pray for you? You can visit ReviveOurHearts.com/prayerand submit a request.

We’d love to ask the Lord to give you both understanding and the light as you read His Word. Tomorrow, you’ll hear part two of this conversation with Jean Wilund. This next episode is for the woman who is new to the Bible. We’re going back to the basics!

Now, maybe this sounds like something you need, or maybe this is an episode you need to send to a friend. Either way, I hope you’ll come back for that. Now, here’s Jean to pray.

Jean: Father God, You are a relational God. Lord, You started the whole Bible with that, with Your name Elohim. But then when You talked about creating man out of the dust You called Yourself Elohim Yahweh. LORD, Yahweh, the relational name, the covenant-promise-keeping God. This is who I am crying out to, Lord. You care!

You care about every soul, Father. You have given us Your Word. Of all of the ways that You, the God of all power, could have chosen to reveal Yourself and Your salvation to us, You chose to through the Bible, through the written Word.

Lord, we know that this is the way to know You, and You want to be known, or You would not have given us this Bible. Father, You have given it to us so that we can know You. So Father, we thank You that Your Spirit loves the prayer from the heart that cries out, “Show me You. I want to know You!” 

Lord, and You are faithful. You will hold her hand and walk her through as she turns to Your Word to see You, to seek You. You promised if we seek You with all of our heart, Lord, we will find You (see Jer. 29:13). 

We will find You on every page. You will be there because You are. We thank You, Lord. And so I pray that you would fill her with passion, an unquenchable thirst to know Your Word. I pray if her schedule is crazy, that You will wake her in the middle of the night, that You will call to her in the middle of the night, and I pray that You will give her rest and peace in those hours that she does sleep so that she’s awake.

Lord, I ask that You will open up time in her schedule and You will call to her—Your Word will call to her. Lord, I know she will find You as she reads through the whole Bible, because it is not possible for Your Word to fail. You have promised in Your Word that we will find You! We praise You and we thank You for Your Word and for prayer, that we can cry out to You. In Your mighty and strong and precious name we pray, amen!

This program is a listener supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness and fruitfulness in Christ!

All Scripture is taken from the CSB.

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