Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's the WallBuilders Show. Hope you had a fantastic weekend on this Monday. We're going to be talking about the importance of getting the Bible back into the culture and how important a role it played in the first 250 years of the country and how we can lead into the next 250 years with public readings of the Bible and getting people to read through the Bible, and just getting it back into the culture in all these different ways. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. Thanks so much for listening to the program. Be sure and visit the websites, wallbuilders.com and wallbuilders.show. Later in the program, Bunni Pounds will be with us from Christians Engaged and America Reads the Bible. And you guys are headed to DC to read the Bible and to talk about the influence of the Bible in America this upcoming weekend, just a few days away. 

David Barton [00:00:54] Yeah, we are. It's a it's interesting there used to be an annual tradition for a number of years I don't know probably 30 years ago I think Tim you you even were part of this back much younger where that they would read the Bible on the I guess there's the steps of the capital, wasn't it Tim? 

Tim Barton [00:01:12] It was. I Remember, as you're alluding to, that this was something we did, I think more than once. And I feel like one time it wasn't the Capitol. I don't know if that would be right or not. I feel it was one of the other buildings. I feel seeing the Capitol while we did it, but I was a child and probably don't remember. But I do remember one time, as there was this effort to read through the Bible, and they had a shorter time frame. And so they were reading 24 hours a day. And I remember we were there in the middle of the night, we hours of the morning, to read through. As a kid probably, everything feels like it was some kind of genealogical list. Even though I don't know what you're reading. But I, man, I definitely remember partaking in one of these events at this point, at least 30 years ago, at least. Up in DC and I think we did it more than once, but yes, there used to be stuff like this happening in DC, really cool stuff. 

Rick Green [00:02:12] Are you saying that you heard the word begat a few times? 

Tim Barton [00:02:16] I don't know, with the thees and the thous, what actually was happening. I, I, again, I couldn't tell you, I remember feeling like it was tough to read and, and it could have been because King James was still kind of fresh at this point in my life there's not as much of a challenge, although There will be more of that conversation later after we talk to Bunni. I do want to talk about that the chapters she's let kind of a sign for us to read. Which is a major blessing. But there is some genealogical lists in there, which is gonna be interesting as well. So, I don't remember the begats, thees the thous. I don't know what was challenging as a kid. I do feel like there were some names involved and It wasn't like Ruth and Boaz. I feel like it was more complicated Whatever it was 

Rick Green [00:03:02] What you're saying is, in God's sense of humor, he's bringing you full circle. 

Tim Barton [00:03:08] Absolutely. 

Rick Green [00:03:08] So you listened to it back then, and now you're going to be reading those very same passages. That's great. 

David Barton [00:03:14] Tim, I've got to think it was probably 35 years ago, because I think you were single digit in age, whatever that was. I think it was back fairly young for you guys. And I, I remember doing it at the Capitol and we did it for several years as you alluded to. And then it kind of went away. And I don't know that this has been done at the Capitol in, in literally decades. And so, Bunni Pounds has organized this. It's going to be great. Read the Bible. Now this is not going to be around the clock. It's gonna be 12 hours, I think nine in the morning to nine at night. And there's going to be she selected hundreds of folks to read. Some, your, I'm sure she'll tell us later who some of those folks are. But I know there's cabinet level folks and there's generals and there are all sorts of cool people reading. So, it's going be fun to get the word of God going again. And there really is a lot of significance to doing this. Just in thinking about it and I know you know we have chosen the name WallBuilders out the book of Nehemiah. And Nehemiah and Ezra, what was interesting is they were trying to rebuild the nation back then. It was Ezra that built a wooden platform and got up on it and said, okay, everybody gather around. If we're gonna rebuild the nation, we gotta go back and read the Bible, know what it says from cover to cover. And back then it was the five books of the law pretty much. And so, it got them together and that's part of what led to the national revival was people hearing God's word again and saying, oh my, well, I don't remember.... I don't think we've been to oh! And it was kind of like shocking for them in many ways. And so, the first reaction was, oh man, have we really goofed up? We haven't been doing the stuff we should be doing. I didn't realize all that was in God's Word and that he told us to do that. We haven't done that in generations. And so, it was really a wakeup call that was really cool. And there really are several times in the Bible where you have public Bible reading and it serves as a wake-up call in so many ways to bring people back to their roots. To help them remember what was really significant, what was real important. And here we are on the 250th, trying to remember back at the beginning of the nation, the Founding Fathers, the Signers of the Declaration, the Declaration of Independence itself. But also remembering that these guys did it on Christian faith, on God's word. They did it on the Bible. They were very familiar with it. That's the most cited source in the early founding was the Bible, and that's not by us, that's pointed out by professors and massive research project at the University of Houston. So, it's gonna be fun getting back to that and I think it's an appropriate time with what's going on now after Charlie Kirk. There's a lot of spiritual interest, there's a lotta renewal, a lotta people going back to church and starting to get interested in religious podcasts. I think this is a perfect time. 

Tim Barton [00:05:52] Well, I think it's also important for us, I mean, Dad, as you mentioned, all of the reasons that we can point to historically the significance of the influence of the Bible in America, that if it wasn't for the Bible, the pilgrims don't even really come to America, right? If it wasn't for the bible, you don't have the Roger Williams and the William Penns, et cetera, et cetera. America was founded by people, influenced by the Bible coming to America to find religious freedom to worship God according to the dictates of their conscience. The early... Colonies all pretty much all have some kind of covenantal idea with God of what they're doing in the colonies, the early state constitutions influenced by the Bible. Again, you can just go down this incredibly long list, whether it be education in America or government in America, law in America etc. etc. etc. Influenced by the Bible, but part of why guys, I think too, it's even as significant now as ever and maybe more significant than sometimes in our history. That there is a resurgence in return to the Bible is because I am hearing more crazy talk today than I can recall maybe ever in my life. And much of it coming from, from professing Christians and whether they be anti-basic biblical ideas or really distorting some of what's in the Bible, not to derail this at all, but one of the things that I think happened this last week with Tucker Carlson talking about Franklin Graham, when he prayed there where President Trump was and Franklin Graham in his prayer was acknowledging that when the Persians, the Iranians had targeted the Jews back under Queen Esther, that God raised up someone to save and rescue the Jews. And he felt like that God was doing that today with President Trump. And Tucker Carlson says, wait a second, like, this is a book of the Bible that maybe wasn't even supposed to be included Martin Luther thought it shouldn't have been in there and this was about the genocide of these innocent Persians etc. etc. And he's really just slamming the book of Esther and you're like wait a second that's not what the book investor is at all. But I say this not as a dig at somebody specifically right now as more of an open acknowledgement that there's a lot of people forming a lot of opinions on things culturally, politically, and even biblically when it seems like they might not be as familiar with the Bible as they should be to be making some of these claims. And I think one of the things that we are really missing in our culture are Christians who spend more time in the Word than they do in the world, who spend time in the Word than they on social media and are more influenced by the word than they are whatever the world surrounding things are around them, including their friends. And this to me is one of reasons that getting back to the Bible is so important. The Bible has the answer for every question we could possibly ask in life. And I say that knowing there's, you know, probably some science nerd or somebody out there being like, well, actually the Bible doesn't speak to this. Look, I understand what you're saying, but God gives us guidance on every issue we deal with in life, and even though the Bible doesn't tell me what t-shirt I should put on in the morning, I get that, but God give us guidance for the life we are living, the daily decisions we are making. The Bible gives us guidance and sometimes very specific commands. And too often as Christians that profess to be students of the Bible, we have overlooked or ignored or not familiarized ourselves with enough of what is actually in the Bible. And so this is something to me, again, seeing a lot of stuff on social media. In fact, even some of, and I'm trying not to call out specific people or I, kind of big movement ideas right now, just for the sake of time, but I see a lot of really good-hearted, well-intentioned people that are at times using the Bible more as a sword and as a club than as an invitation. Although certainly the Bible speaks of judgment and all these things. I get it. There's context, there's nuance, but it seems like what would be really helpful for much of the Christian world and the church in America is to have a return and a resurgence of the Bible. By the way, guys, last, last tidbit and I'm going to turn it over to you guys for comment. Even when the Pope is like, God doesn't answer the prayers of people that make war. And you're like, what Bible have you been reading or maybe not been reading is the problem. There's just so many things like that that are being said. And for people that have some basic Bible knowledge, they're like that's not right. Again, this is why we need the resurgence of the Bible, the return of the Bible, the familiarity with the Bible. And it's why it is encouraging to me that there is a movement for this very end happening right now and super happy that we could be part of it. 

David Barton [00:10:43] And by the way, just to drive home, Tim, what you said for anybody who may not know the Bible, if you think God doesn't answer the prayers of people who go to war, then what do you do with Moses? What do you with David? What do do with Samuel? What do with so many of the prophets who were involved? It just makes absolutely no sense to make a claim like that when there are dozens and dozens of examples in the Bible that are contrary. And so, if for some reason you think, well, that sounds right, you shouldn't. God won't bless people who are making war. It depends on what the war is all about. He's not gonna bless people who make unjust war. But if you do it for the right purpose, the right reason, for the result, and the right way of doing it, He's blessed many, many, many, many people throughout the Bible, perform miracles for them in the midst of war to help them win that war. So that was, Tim, as you said, crazy talk. 

Rick Green [00:11:34] Well, Bunni's going to be with us when we come back from the break. We'll talk about what's happening in DC and the length of the reading and how people can be listening in as you guys are reading this weekend and everybody else over the next few days after that. Stay with us. You're listening to the WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:12:55] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Bunni Pounds back with us from Christians Engaged and America Reads the Bible. Starting in just a few days. Bunni, you got to be excited. You got a big week ahead of you. 

Bunni Pounds [00:13:07] We're so excited, Rick, we're going to see almost 500 of our national leaders read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. It's going to be epic from our nation's capital. 

Rick Green [00:13:19] Americareadsthebible.com is the website. Countdown clock is on there. David and Tim Barton headed out there. You got people from all over the country coming in. I'm going to be on the opposite side of the country in Washington state and Montana, but I'll be cheering you on and watching online and, and everybody can do that, right? They can watch wherever they are in the country online live as you're doing this. 

Bunni Pounds [00:13:40] Yes, we are so thankful for our production company. Great American Pure Flix has come in to do the production. April 18 is our opening celebration, guys. David Barton will be speaking. We're going to have testimonies from leaders, cabinet secretary, members of Congress, Patricia Heaton from Everybody Loves Raymond, Candice Cameron-Barre from Full House, Cameron and BJ Arnett from The Forge Movie, so many people from different spheres of influence, telling their testimony of the power of the Bible in their life, and then calling the American people back to daily Bible reading and discipleship for the well-being of our nation. And then we go 9 a.m. To 9 p.m., Eastern Standard Time, for seven full days, our national leaders reading Genesis to Revelation. It makes me weary just thinking about it. 

Rick Green [00:14:30] I was going to ask you if you were going all night because man to get through are y'all going, are you going literally cover to cover? Are y'all going to try to do the whole thing? 

Bunni Pounds [00:14:39] We're doing the whole thing. 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern time, 500 readers. We got six cabinet members, six governors, 20 members of Congress, tons of actors and producers and everybody from Dallas Jenkins to Andy Irwin to, again, great actors like Superman and Kevin Sorbo. And we got so many! It's just a blessing! And a hundred and twenty-two ministries, Rick, a hundred and twenty-two ministries that are partnering with us on this. It really is a John 17 moment of denominations coming together, demographics, generations, and I think we have people from all 50 states as well 

Rick Green [00:15:21] What is the best way for someone at home to participate? 

Bunni Pounds [00:15:25] Guys, go to americareadsthebible.com and sign up for the live stream and plan how you're using this in your church. Walk this to your pastor, say, let's stream it in our sanctuary. We have 1,500 churches and universities now that are asking to participate through the live-stream. We also have the opening celebration on tons of radio stations around the country, Bot Radio, American Family Radio, Salem, Hope Media, Way FM. But yeah, use the live stream in your life, in your company, in your church, in your family room, expose your kids and grandkids to this national moment that frankly we're never going to have again in this way. It is just a miracle that this has even come together like this, Rick. 

Rick Green [00:16:12] I gotta ask, since the, I guess the reading part starts on April 19th, the shot heard around the world was fired on April 19th, so this is literally a shot heard around the world of the Word of God. Did you plan that?

Bunni Pounds [00:16:28] Amen. And you know, I did not plan it, Rick, but I didn't know that April 18, when we're doing our opening was Paul Revere's ride too. Yeah. And, and so yes, Paul Revere's warning "the British are coming". And then we go into the shot heard around the world on April 19. So yeah, I think we've got some big announcements coming of, of what God's doing with this event and people that are reading outside of who's on the website right now. But just know that God is moving and is really going to be an amazing global moment for the proclamation of scripture around our country. We're going to say firmly to the world that America cares about the Bible and the foundation of our Constitution, you know. And our gratefulness that our Constitution is outlasted every Constitution in world history and because of the fabric of scripture. And we're going to say leaders, we need a new generation of leaders that will arise, that care for the Bible, that have a biblical worldview to impact every sphere of influence. Rick, it's gonna be a powerful moment. 

Rick Green [00:17:33] Americareadsthebible.com. Americareadsthebible.com. And you can just click on schedule and you can actually see the schedule, not everybody's on there yet but you can get a good idea of what's going to happen when. Bunni it's kind of like a you know all through the Bible you get; remember the former days; remember the former days. You have all these moments throughout the Bible where there's just a recounting of all of the things that that God did. That's what this feels like to me it's like a It's a recounting and its a, it's remembering the former days. And it's, it, it a way to set the country in the right direction before we have the, the big celebration next month, all of this, of course, part of the 250th, but the big celebrating next month for, on the, on the 17th. So, is that, you know, it, is it kind of like that to you? Just says, this is remember the former days. I mean, we're going to do just like Joshua did, just like Moses did sit down and let everybody listen to the whole thing. 

Bunni Pounds [00:18:23] Exactly, Rick. I mean, every time in the Israelites history where things were shifting and revival was breaking out, whether it was Joshua, King Josiah, Ezra and Nehemiah, the public reading of scripture was a key part of that. And that was what the Lord put on my heart two years ago, that we needed an Ezra moment before we could see a generation of Nehemias arise on the earth. And we, you know, you and I both know, because we spend most of our time trying to get people to be leaders for our country and stewardship, that there's just not enough internal fortitude in a lot of people, because we're not with God every day. And so, this is a very loud statement, you know, a very aggressive offering to the Lord to say, you know what, there's nothing that matters more than Bible and scripture for our life as leaders. And we're gonna be poor in spirit and come with a humble attitude and say, we need the Bible every day and we need His wisdom and His discernment. And God wants to be with us more than we wanna be with Him. And I hope it's a moment of breaking off complacency for the body of Christ. And I help it for the American public that they say, hey, maybe there's something in this book that could save my marriage or break off depression or change my life, and we're hoping that both those audiences get deeply impacted by this national moment. 

Rick Green [00:19:47] Love it! Love it! It's gonna be amazing. It's americareadsthebible.com is the website get on there folks. Look at the schedule figure out the times you can watch figure out the times you could be praying for all the readers that are going to be there Bunni Pounds. God bless you! Thanks for coming on.

Bunni Pounds [00:19:59] Well, thank you, Rick. And we're so thankful for WallBuilders being a major partner with us on this. We're very thankful. 

Rick Green [00:20:06] You bet. God bless. Stay with us, folks. We'll be right back with David and Tim Barton. 

Rick Green [00:21:17] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Thanks to Bunny Pounds for joining us today and for America Reads the Bible. You can listen, you can watch. So, go to those links and David and Tim will be, let's see, did she say you guys are, y'all are helping to lead it off, right? So y’all be there the first day that it's done. 

Tim Barton [00:21:34] Well, yes, and actually, Rick, before we get into my dad being one of the opening speakers kicking this off, let me do a point out, you mentioned as you were closing out the interview, you know, hey, for those around the nation, if you're not able to make it a person as God lays it on your heart, right, you can pray, I do want to say we're going to be reading the Bible Wednesday morning of next week and I do have some genealogy. So, I'm gonna ask Wednesday morning of next week that God would lay it on your heart to pray for us as we are reading. Now it's really cool because at the time we're reading. 

Rick Green [00:22:11] Tim, no we should ask for everybody to tune in. Like, let's game this thing let's get more people to listen to the genealogy as you're reading it then all the famous stories that everybody's used to reading wouldn't that be great? I think we should.

David Barton [00:22:25] I'm going to go further than that, Tim I'm going to say that probably one out of 10,000 Americans can't speak Hebrew, so you could fake it and do it in Russian and nobody would probably know the difference 

Tim Barton [00:22:32] Well, yeah, you know, as long as you say it with authority and you say it quickly and keep moving, then nobody questions it. But what is cool? So, so Dad, you, my mom and I are all going to read Wednesday morning. Dad, you have Nehemiah chapters one through three, Rick, my mom has Nehemiah four through six and I have Nehemiah seven and eight. And so, the genealogy that I have is actually the genealogy of some of the people that were very involved in rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem. So, it's actually it's kind of a cool genealogy in a sense that it's going through some of those individuals that are doing literally what we believe God's called us to do here at WallBuilders that were rebuilding the wall. Obviously, they were rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, we want to rebuild the walls here in America. It's still very cool that we get to be part of that. And as she mentioned, you can tune in and you can see this when it happens on Wednesday morning or any time it's going on. And one of the cool things too, that Pure Flix is doing, they're going to make this available and in perpetuity. And so, this is something that just like you can listen to James Earl Jones, you're reading the Bible to you, which by the way, pretty cool. I have multiple different versions of Bibles that I've downloaded on my phone. I had to purchase some of these, like through Audible, other apps, where I listen to the Bible when I drive periodically, and it's wonderful. And it is sometimes fun to have different people reading. This is one of the cool things that's going on is there's going to be a lot of really noted people reading, and so just like people might listen the Bible on whatever kind of You Version, Bible Gateway whatever app they might have they listen to. This is going to be available for people listen to. You can go on YouTube multiple places. It'll be Accessible and available for them to listen to but super cool but they are starting off with a big event on Saturday night and then Sunday they're going through reading the Bible and not only do we get to be part of this which is super fun, but there's a lot of stuff happening in DC. And also super convenient, Dad, is we're in the middle of doing a pastor's briefing as well. We're doing a capital tour for our pastors Tuesday night. The Wednesday morning, we're going to read the Bible. Then we're gonna be with the pastors Wednesday after that. So, there's a lot of stuff that we are doing that's going on. So, it's going to be a very full week for us. And now I've kind of derailed some of where Rick tossed initially to find out more about the week, but Wednesday morning next week, we do want to encourage you to pray for us as we're reading that we will do well with those names. None the less. It's a really cool opportunity. 

David Barton [00:25:05] And you know, it could be a real significant time because we mentioned how that even back in Nehemiah that they read the scriptures. And by the way, it's the same thing. Moses had the scriptures read out loud to all the people so they'd know what God wanted. King Josiah did. Jesus read from the scroll of Isaiah in the synagogue at Nazareth. I mean, there's all this public reading that's going on but there were some really good results that came out of it as well. And so, in the book of Nehemiah, which is what we've so often pointed to with WallBuilders, is when they got back to publicly reading the Word of God, it resulted in greater worship of God. The worship level went up among the people because they understood more about who God was. It gave them a much deeper understanding. The Bible says that as Ezra read the scriptures, that the Levites were out among the people explaining, hey, this is what that means. And they go, oh, that's what that is. So, the understanding went up. There was a time of celebration. They just, they were so happy to have God's word back fresh for them. They committed to obey it and they renewed a covenant out of it. And all those things, hopefully we can do this at the same time, do the same thing with this reading, is renew the covenant, get God's obedience back, have greater worship and respect for God. There's a lot of good stuff that can come out of this. 

Rick Green [00:26:23] Americareadsthebible.com, that's the place to go sign up, that is the place to make sure that you're watching when Tim is doing that genealogy on Wednesday. But you've got to go to the website so you get the exact times to follow along and who knows, they may be ahead or behind or whatever. So, you want to be watching online. Americareadsthebible.com. Thanks so much for listening today. You've been listening to The WallBuilders Show.