Show Notes
In this episode of Peaceable and Kind, host Derek Vreeland has a conversation with Kat Armstrong, a Bible teacher and author. They discuss their love for the Bible and how they discerned their calling to be Bible teachers. They also talk about Kat’s newest Bible study series, the Storyline Bible Studies, which focus on the themes of mountains and valleys, sticks and stones, and saints and sinners. They explore the importance of seeing Jesus as the hero of every story and avoiding the trap of becoming a Bible thumper. Kat shares her insights on how to use the Bible kindly and avoid being overly harsh or judgmental.
Books mentioned in this episode:
The Storyline Bible Studies by Kat Armstrong
The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing: A Theological Commentary by Jonathan Pennington
Tell It Slant: A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers by Eugene Peterson
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Transcript
Narrator: Welcome to Peaceable and Kind, the podcast where we explore the transformation. Each week your host, Derek Vreeland, will delve into the stories, scriptures, and practical steps that help us embody these essential Christian virtues.
Derek Vreeland: Welcome back to another episode of Peaceable and Kind. I am your host, Derek Vreeland. Thank you for joining me for this episode. I am Looking forward to this conversation today. But before we get there, let me say thank you for all of the positive comments I’ve been receiving from people who are discovering the podcast. listening and enjoying the content. And if you are listening to this episode and you’re new to Peaceable and Kind, let me encourage you to subscribe. And if you leave a review on Apple, that would be great. I want to get into this conversation, but before I do that, if you would like to reach out to me, you can find me online. I am at Derek Vreeland. on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. You can also find me on Instagram, Facebook, I’m at Derek Vreeland and all of those places. Reach out to me. Let me know what you think about the content we are creating here at Peaceable and Kind. Today my guest is Kat Armstrong. Kat is a Bible teacher living in Dallas with her husband Aaron and her son Caleb. She has a master’s degree from Dallas Theological Seminary. She is the author of several books, including No More Holding Back. The In-Between Place, and the Storyline Bible Studies, a six-book Bible study which I am a huge fan of. She is the co-founder of the Polished Network, working to embolden working women in their faith and work. And she is the host of the Holy Curiosity Podcast. She is a fellow Bible nerd and I am happy to call her a friend. Kat, welcome to Peaceable and Kind.
Kat Armstrong: Derek, I feel like I need you in my corner every morning to introduce me.
Derek Vreeland: I can do that. I can do that.
Kat Armstrong: Thank you for having me on the show.
Derek Vreeland: I’ve been looking forward to this conversation because I am a self-admitted Bible nerd. I’m in my office and right there over my shoulder is my stack of like just personal Bibles. I’m never very far from a Bible. I’m a Bible reader. I’m a Bible teacher. And so I love connecting with friends that share uh that love for the Bible.
Kat Armstrong: Well, let’s nerd out together. I’m all about it.
Derek Vreeland: So tell us a little bit about your journey. Um, when did you Wouldn’t you fall in love with the Bible? How did you sort of discern this call to be a Bible teacher? Tell us your origin story
Kat Armstrong: Yeah, it was 1997 that I fell in in love with the Bible. Uh at 1996 I was 16 years old. I was a junior in high school. And my choir teacher and my cheerleading coach shared the gospel with me. I think they conspired together. They knew what was going on at home. They knew things were tough. They knew that I was Trying to perform my way out of a lot of generational uh drama and trauma and substance abuse and all sorts of things that were impacting my family of origin. So I just became a performer, meaning trying to make really good grades, do really good at sports, you know, go out for every team and leadership position and They shared the gospel with me, showed me a new way to live, to live loved, to live loved in spite of the way that I performed or didn’t perform. And I came to faith in Jesus, and I remember we were attending Houston’s first Baptist Church at the time as a family. And I remember going to the youth youth pastor, John Durham, who’s still a pastor today. And I said, hey, I just became a Christian. I don’t know the difference between Abraham and Moses. Never read my Bible. But I am no fun. So I am not gonna do skits, sleepovers, I don’t wanna do games, I you know, and to John’s credit, he said, you know what you need. May not be the youth group, you need to go to a Sunday school class that teaches the Bible line by line. And we’ve got a really southern lady here with really southern hair. And she just does she does just that. She goes line by line through the Bible I think you’d like her class. And he said, now it’s for adults only. But I think if you sneak into the back, I don’t think anyone will notice And I thought that was strange, Derek, but when I got into the class of 600 adults in the Sunday school class, and there was Bathmore at the front of the classroom. She was only a Sunday school teacher to me, the person that made handouts every single week that had front and back fill-in-the-blanks. She was the Sunday school teacher that cited all of her sources with all these theological um commentaries and word studies and she had all this supporting documents um to show you how she arrived at her interpretations and She taught the Bible with a infectious enthusiasm.
Derek Vreeland: Oh yeah.
Kat Armstrong: You couldn’t be in her orbit without literally looking at the binding on your Bible and being like, what kind of Bible is she reading? So excited about this and so invested in every single word and seemed to be so in love with Jesus. And I remember thinking, I guess that’s how it works. I didn’t have anything else to compare it to So her enthusiasm, her passion, her diligence to study, her intentionality to look beyond just what she was reading, but to study context and original language. And at a time when she wouldn’t have been allowed to go to seminary herself, she was there doing the hard work. And I would hole punch those fill-in-the-blank handouts and I would make binders and I would study them throughout the week and I remember going to Lifeway and buying all the commentaries. I didn’t know that there was a Christian trademar for books until I got to seminary and realized, oh, there are Christian books that aren’t, that aren’t commentaries or word studies or Because that’s all she quoted. And uh I fell in love with the scriptures and I don’t think that I would be who I am today or doing what I do now. had it not been for my Sunday school teacher.
Derek Vreeland: And and what a teacher to sit under. Uh sh Beth is such a gift to the body of Christ. She was here last year at our church. Uh we were the venue um for for her ministry and uh and I snuck in. It was funny when we were organizing it, her ministry people said, Now any staff in attendance, they have to get a ticket too. And I’m like, well, I have keys to this place. So I I kind of snuck into the back door and uh and just sat and just listened and soaked it all in. That’s more such a gift to the to the body of Christ.
Kat Armstrong: Agreed.
Derek Vreeland: So and it was a Baptist church at First Baptist Houston. That’s our background. My wife and I met in a Southern Baptist church, and I continue to say that that was the great um What I received from my Baptist experience, what was given to me, is this love for Holy Scripture. And when I when we were teenagers, we were in the midst of a little bit of like a youth revival. I mean, there were like 300 adults in the church and a hundred to a hundred and twenty students coming to the youth ministry and our youth pastor every Wednesday night just grabbed a Bible normally open to the gospels and just preach Jesus. And then our pastor on Sunday morning was an expositor and would go verse by verse and and yeah, as a teenager I I mean I enjoy I was a little fun. I like the fun stuff too.
Kat Armstrong: I can see you being fun.
Derek Vreeland: But I we would go we would go to early service and then Sunday school and come back for the second service and my mom would be like why are you going and hearing the same sermon and I was like because I don’t want to miss anything I was there for the Bible teaching. And so this was cultivated in your heart when you were young. When did you discern that this was really a calling? um to to serve in this area of Bible teaching.
Kat Armstrong: Well I remember at the end of high school I went to Beth and said, you know, I’m moving, I’m going off to college, I’m concerned about keeping up my studies, meaning my Bible study. And she said, Well, I think you need to go to seminary. And I thought that was a city. I’d never heard of this concept before. So I was ready to move wherever she told me to move. And she said, no, no, no. There’s There is graduate school for Bible study. You should consider that. And she said there’s one in Dallas. And that was it, Derek. That’s all it took. I didn’t look at other seminaries. I didn’t know what they stood for. I’d never heard of dispensationalism. Quite frankly, I didn’t care. It was right up the road. Right. And she recommended it. And I was like, okay, done and done. That’s how I’ll keep up my study. And I think When I went to college, I knew in the back of my brain that’s where I would end up. I would be studying more. I didn’t know I would be teaching the Bible until I was discipled for several years by my friend Carrie. She was the chaplain of our Christian sorority. And I remember when she graduated, she said, I want you to run. For officer, I want you to replace me as chaplain. And I said, absolutely not. That sounds horrible. Uh I would never want to do public speaking. I don’t know very much about the Bible. I’ve only been a Christian a few years. And she said, you know, I’ve poured everything I’ve got into you, and now it’s time for you to turn around and do the same. I think just run. And if you don’t get it, you don’t get it. And I did, and I ended up teaching the Bible every Monday night to four hundred women in our sorority for a year. Wow. And it again it was one of those things where it’s just what you do, there I didn’t it didn’t be it wasn’t elevated in my mind as something set apart or special. It’s just Carrie, my mentor, said I should run and I did, and then she said I should teach, and so I taught. And so there’s kind of a theme here, the women in my life. Have spoken truth and called me up and called me into the things that God has wanted me to do. And I think there’s a lot of power in that. Other people see in us what God’s given us. Because for us, it’s the air that we breathe. It’s it’s so normal for to watch my son invest himself in a Lego build and hours later have this creative masterpiece. And I think to myself What a genius brain you have. What an engineer you’ll be. What an architect I can’t wait to watch you become and what you could do for city planning. And I think all these things and I speak it over him. Wow, God’s gonna use this strategy, this creativity, this mind for building and fit. And I’m grateful that there were women in my life who said, You’re studying so much you need to share what you’re learning. And then when I would teach, they would also correct and train me. Hey, you could here’s how you could do it better. And um, so I think after that year Derek of teaching my sorority friends about the Bible, I was hooked. I remember telling people, I don’t have to get paid, I don’t need a title, I don’t care if they’re kids, adults, I it doesn’t matter to me the age This is what I want to do for the rest of my life. And um it’s looked differently in different seasons. It hasn’t always been a podcaster or um an author, sometimes it’s a Sunday school teacher to fourth and fifth graders at my church, but I do I love to teach the Bible.
Derek Vreeland: Oh, that’s awesome. And so let’s talk about your newest Bible study series, uh, the Storyline uh Bible Studies. Um, I said at the opening that I’m a fan, and that’s true, because we uh as a church have been going through in the summertime uh this Bible study series, six books, Mountains and Valleys, Sticks and Stones, Saints and Sinners. And so last summer, it would have been summer twenty twenty three, we did Mountains and Valleys. This summer we did Sticks and Stones. And uh as we were coming to the end of that uh this summer, uh someone said, Well, are we doing Saints and Sinners next summer? I said, of course. Go ahead and sign up. Um I’ve loved it as a resource. Um, because I of course do my own teaching, I do my own writing, but it’s helpful for me to hear outside voices and outside perspectives. And so the Storyline Bible studies have been such a great research r uh resource, and they’ve been so well researched. And and the commentaries That’s been really helpful. And it’s good for me as a pastor to know that this is some trustworthy material. This is well vetted And so I appreciate uh the resource. Let’s talk a little bit about it. So you have these there’s pairings, and where did that idea come from to have these kind of contrasting
Kat Armstrong: pairings for these six Bible studies I’ve been teaching small groups at my home for twenty-five years. You know, as soon as I became a Christian, I started hosting something. Lord only knows what I was teaching, but Uh, you know, I’ve done a million different curriculum. I’ve probably done every Bathmore and every Priscilla Shire and everything LifeWay puts out and all sorts of my theologian people that I love like N. T. Wright and Scott McKnight and At the end of the day, you just think, well, I probably need to pull something together over a May Mester or over the summer, over Christmas break. And so that’s really what led to writing Bible studies. And then I think the pairing and making them five weeks, Derek, was intentional because I’m a working mom. And I have found that with the women I host at my home for my Bible study, we’re really in it for about five weeks and then we need to come up for air. Or we have to travel for work or we have a school function And there was always a sense of if I got halfway through the Bible study, if I got to a six-week and a 12-week Bible study and had only done a half of it. It was so easy for me to just say, sorry guys, I’m not gonna be able to finish this thing with you. A lot has come up, my husband changed jobs or we’re moving and all of that would happen. And I started to see that there was a motivation for women who felt empowered to finish strong.
Derek Vreeland: Yeah.
Kat Armstrong: If and I’m not saying that we lower the bar At all, I would say my studies are still deep, but they still pull you in, they still make you read, they still make you spend time in God’s Word. But to give an end date that doesn’t feel so far away. Yeah. It also provided an opportunity halfway through semesters, whether it was spring, summer, or fall, to invite new friends into the group that didn’t feel like they were really interrupting. something, but it was saying, no, we’re re-upping. We’re totally starting fresh. So if you haven’t been with us for five weeks We’re gonna do dinner together and start a no a new one. And so I I figured out that if we made pairings, then churches could use the pairings to fill a whole semester. And then individuals could use them in their personal time and in small groups. So it’s just trying to make it, you know how it is, Derek. I want to remove every barrier to entry. I I want to remove anything that can keep someone from knowing Jesus or studying the word. And so it’s trying to remove those barriers, and that’s how we landed on five weeks and pairings.
Derek Vreeland: Yeah, and and the the day of the twenty four week Bible study or small group is over. Like I’ve been involved in small group ministry 20 plus years and there was a day, you know, 24 weeks. And but I we always joke that for most of our small groups, they start with a bang, end with a fizzle. Um, so the idea is, yeah, shape your small group experience around an end date that’s really attainable. And I think the five weeks is good. Six, even eight, eight for us is kind of a max. Sometimes we go longer, but um yeah, I think that makes it Easily accessible. And I think each of your studies are relatable. I love that you open with anecdotes at the beginning And uh so I’ve only been through four of them. Uh so mountains and valleys, sticks and stones, to drill down a little bit. You take So for mountains and valleys, you have five mountain passages in scripture, then five valley passages, and then uh sticks and stones. Similarly, you have five, well
Narrator: tree, bush.
Derek Vreeland: We we had a whole debate about what’s a tree and what’s a bush and is the burning bush a tree. We had this whole discussion because the group I’m was using your material with. They’re lively and and they’re all thinkers. That was fun. So five tree related or stick-related uh themes and then uh with stones then five stone and it’s interesting that yeah if you start searching out Like we wrapped up stones this summer. Um, if you just search the scriptures for rock and stone references, you could have created a 24-week Bible study. Yeah. Oh yeah. But how how creative to start with those images in scripture and then see the context around it. And so we encounter in stones, for example, Moses and Joshua, and of course, you know, the stone that was rolled away on that first Easter Sunday morning. And I love that you invite us to go deep, but then also make connections. And because sometimes we’ll read a certain passage in isolation. But I love that you invite us to make these these connections, and then of course to see Jesus in all of it
Kat Armstrong: You’re I need to bring you with me everywhere I go.
Derek Vreeland: I told you I’m a fan.
Kat Armstrong: F first of all, I just want to say what it means to have my brothers in Christ. affirm the work that I’m doing. I want to partner with my brothers in Christ to advance the kingdom. And it feels so healthy and so wholesome. to partner with someone like you and to say, if this would be a help to your group, I hope it is. If there’s anything I could do to serve you, let me know. At the end of the day, uh you don’t get into publishing Bible studies. to support your family, you get into it because it’s like this hobby, this passion that you can’t get rid of. And I’ll tell you, we were on a vacation when I was reading Dr. Pennington’s book, The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing. And he’s the first theologian that pointed out to me there were a ton of mountain stories in the book of Matthew. And he just casually said in this multi-hundred book, you know, hundred page commentary. He just one sentence said, there’s so many mountains in the book of Matthew. Jesus is tested on a mountain. Jesus is transfigured on a mountain. Jesus feeds. Thousands on a mountain, Jesus commissions his disciples on a mountain, Jesus is transfigured on a mountain. And it was like a light bulb went on. I mean, Derek, all I could do for six months was study mountains in the Bible. And that has just snowballed into what feels like I just zero in on the people, the places, and the things in a story and a narrative in scripture. And then I start to think about where else do these people, places, or things show up? And I think God is a genius storyteller. I think he has a masterful way of creating literary connections for us. And I think I’ve spent a lot of my time studying at a granular level, whether it’s the original language or the context or line by line or verse by verse or book by book. And that has helped been so helpful for me. And now I’m in a season where I’m zooming out a little bit to appreciate how this whole story of redemption is moving towards Jesus. And it’s been a lot, a lot of fun. And I’ve got four more coming out. So we’ve got two more next summer and two the summer after.
Derek Vreeland: All right, keep it going. All right. Yeah, I think for people, there’s fresh imagination when you begin to see the story that scripture is telling, where you take that narrative approach of the whole. I mean, yeah, I believe in drilling down deep biblical languages, verse by verse through books. But to see that there is this overarching story and it’s beautiful and the connections that take place in there. And then I love that you said and it’s in many of the Bible studies. That’s a story that’s leading us to Jesus. Because ultimately the Bible isn’t Lord and Savior. Jesus is Lord and Savior. And to see how these stories, because when you are in the Old Testament, it’s easy to get lost a little bit if you’re doing deep dives. Like, where is Jesus here? Um but if we’re following the apostles and the early church fathers, they were going into the Old Testament looking for Jesus. Paul and First Corinthians, the the rock in the wilderness, that rock was Christ. And I appreciate that you bring that out too, because I think that’s important.
Kat Armstrong: Thank you, Derek.
Derek Vreeland: What can we do to prevent ourselves as Bible lovers and Bible nerds from turning into Bible thumpers because it is easy in our social media world to wrap up a Bible verse in our sling and just fling it at people we disagree with. How how can we use the Bible kindly and avoid the Bible thumperism?
Kat Armstrong: Sure. This is such an important question. I think that the the first way would be to not read ourselves into the heroes of the narratives we’re s we’re we’re reading. I remember being in counseling for many years about something and she was a spiritual director, she was a theologian in her own right, and she was a licensed professional counselor. So she would toggle between these different specialties and I remember her saying, Could we turn to John chapter five and read about Jesus at the pool of Beth Seda? Would you read that story to me out loud? And I did, and she said, What do you think about this? And I said, I can’t believe that he didn’t have more friends help him to get into that pool. He’s been wait where are his friends?
Derek Vreeland: Yeah.
Kat Armstrong: His friends should have been better friends. And I feel like if I would have been there, I would have helped him get in that pool.
Derek Vreeland: I believe you would have
Kat Armstrong: I I hope I would have. And here’s what she said to me, Derek. Isn’t it interesting that you just wrote Jesus out of his own story?
Derek Vreeland: Oh wow.
Kat Armstrong: She said Jesus is the hero of the story. He needed Jesus to put him in the pole. I remember thinking, wow. Yeah. And she said We don’t need to find alternative heroes in these stories. Paul is pretty amazing at times. Peter does some pretty incredible things for the kingdom and the early church movement. Uh I’m obsessed with Lydia and Mary Magdalene. And uh there’s a lot of people in scripture that we can say, oh, these are some incredible people we want to emulate. And I don’t think there’s an issue with that. I think, I think though, I had been trained to look at a story, look for the good and the bad. Who are the good people in this story? And who are the bad people? Well, obviously these friends that didn’t help him into the pool. They’re the bad guys, you know, and I want to be a good, good guy. in the stories that I play in life. And it was interesting her breaking down that uh black and white thinking, the either or thinking. And instead enjoying New Testament characters, I know they were real people, but I’m saying from a literary standpoint, enjoying these new characters as complex human beings, like the people I know and love. That are not all good or all bad, that are very layered and have complex backgrounds. And so she helped me to see the humanness of the characters. So that I we wouldn’t become inflated about, well, I’m gonna be the good one and they’re gonna be the bad guys. And then I would say secondarily, letting Jesus be the hero of every story. And when we do that, Derek, how could you then just sling a verse at someone because we don’t see Jesus doing that?
Derek Vreeland: Exactly.
Kat Armstrong: Even in his harshest rebuke to the most religious people, um, he is he is saying things that um Are very convicting and very hard to hear, but he’s not beating them over the head with something.
Narrator: Right.
Kat Armstrong: And um, I think the second thing would be to avoid Trying to be the Holy Spirit. We are filled and sealed and empowered by the Spirit, and His fruit is evidenced in our life, and these are good things. but we will never be the Holy Spirit in someone else’s life. Really what we should focus on is is the Spirit evidencing fruit in my own life and how could he have more control over all of my decisions and my words and my actions So I could evidence more fruit, bear more fruit, as opposed to, well, I can see a big old plank in that person’s eye, and maybe I’ll be the Holy Spirit for them and let them know.
Derek Vreeland: When Jesus does speak harshly, I’m thinking of the woes to the to the Pharisees. Isn’t it interesting? Because you’re right, he’s not just slinging verses at them, he could do that. When he is critiquing them, one, he’s critiquing his own clan, kind of his own people, but he uses metaphor, you know, the whitewashed tombs and, you know, the glass that or the cup that’s dirty on the uh inside, not the outside. And and that’s just kind of Jesus’ way. It it reminds me of Eugene Peterson’s um book, Tell It’s Slant. That line comes from the Emily Dickinson um poem. But that’s what Jesus would often do, even though he’s speaking harshly, he’s not telling all the truth directly. He’s telling the truth slant using metaphor and imagery. It’s his parables, all of his parables, are storytelling as a way to tell the truth, but to tell it slant. And I think what it does, what metaphor and story and narrative does, I think it really works on our hearts and imagination more than just slinging verses at each other.
Kat Armstrong: Yeah, there’s definitely anger in his words and his rebukes, but I also think there’s a lot of grief. And I think even in the original language, the woes, especially from Matthew 13. You feel this guttural angst that isn’t just anger from Jesus. It’s this grief of it doesn’t have to be this way. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. This wasn’t what the law was intended to do. This this isn’t how it has to be. And uh you do get that sense, and I think it’s Knowing more of the person of Christ and the character of Christ and not isolating some of these moments, but putting in context of how many other times He did involve them to come to him even in the dark with their doubting questions, and how many times he did let them witness miracles, and how many times he did invite them to be a part of his following. and it was very rare that he would break down in these guttural groans in the Greek to say, Whoa, no, this is this is not how it’s supposed to be. And so I do think we should hear some harshness and directness. but also a more well-rounded Jesus of this makes me so sick. It makes me sad to see my people um, miss the essence of what this law was supposed to bring about, this covenant relationship. And so I’m with you. I think it’s I think it’s really hard to remain kind with the Bible the longer we’re in it because we feel so strongly about our convictions.
Narrator: Yes.
Kat Armstrong: And that conviction can come across very direct, very harsh, matter of fact, there’s no other way. I know. And I think there there is a point in which you do eventually arrive at, I think I know. I hope I know I think I know. And that’s where I am right now in my spiritual life. I I toggle between I think I I I do know. I think I know.
Derek Vreeland: Yeah.
Kat Armstrong: If I know That you know, and I’m not trying to work myself out of conviction or doctrinal, you know, things. It’s not that. It’s just trying to remain humble that I don’t want to be on the other end of his rebuke for that. I really don’t.
Derek Vreeland: So good. So good. We are out of time. Kat, I’ll have to have you back on for another episode. We’ll continue the conversation. But uh let the people know where they can find you online.
Kat Armstrong: I spend too much time on Instagram. So a lot of Instagram and then my website, catarmstrong. com, for all my free resources, Bible study tools, videos, you name it.
Derek Vreeland: All right, so go find Kat on Instagram. Check out all of the resources she has on her website, her books, the storyline Bible studies. Go check that out. Kat, thank you so much for joining me today.
Kat Armstrong: Oh, Brother Derek, you’re awesome. Thanks for having me.
Derek Vreeland: Alright, that’s all we have for today. Thanks for listening. Go in peace and be kind.
This transcript was generated with AI and may contain errors.