Pastor of 18 Years Discovers His Entire Bible Study Group Has Been Reading the Bible with One Eye Closed
This simple 66-page guide has helped thousands of believers finally understand God's Word with clarity, confidence, and renewed faith.
The night before Jesus was arrested, He walked to a hill on the eastern edge of Jerusalem.
He had walked there hundreds of times before.
It was a ridge of limestone and ancient olive trees, rising 330 feet above the city. From its summit you could see the entire Temple Mount spread out below you. The golden gates. The white stone courts. The whole of Jerusalem laid out like an offering.
He had taught there. He had wept there. He had prayed there.
And that night, in a garden on its slopes, He fell to His knees and sweat drops of blood.
That hill — the Mount of Olives — is not just the backdrop to one night. It is the thread that runs through the entire Bible, from the Old Testament to the New, from the first rejected king to the final return of the King of Kings.
A thousand years before Jesus knelt in Gethsemane, King David crossed the Kidron Valley at the base of that same mountain, weeping and barefoot, fleeing from his own son who had stolen his throne. The rejected king of Israel, ascending the Mount of Olives in grief.
Jesus — the Son of David — stood on that same mountain a thousand years later and wept over a city that was about to reject Him too.
And when He rose from the dead and stood with His disciples for the last time, it was on the Mount of Olives that He was taken up into heaven. The disciples stood there, staring at the sky, until two angels appeared and told them: "This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go."
The same place. The same mountain.
The prophet Zechariah had written it centuries before: "On that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem."
And most Christians have read right past it.
Not because they don't care. Not because their faith is weak. But because nobody ever told them what the Mount of Olives was. Nobody ever explained that it was the place where a rejected king wept, where the Son of God sweat blood, where He ascended, and where He will one day return. Nobody ever gave them the context that transforms a single place name in Acts chapter 1 into one of the most staggering threads in all of Scripture.
That is the problem I discovered three years ago sitting in a room with my Bible study group.
The Night I Realized I Had Been Giving Them Fish Instead of Teaching Them to Fish
I've been teaching Scripture for 18 years.
And one Wednesday night I asked my group a question that changed the way I thought about everything I had been doing.
We had been studying together for months. Some of them for years. Faithful people with worn Bibles and highlighted pages and notes scribbled in every margin.
We were in Acts chapter 1. The Ascension. I asked them what was significant about the Mount of Olives.
They all knew the basics. It was where Jesus ascended. A place of departure.
Good answers. True answers.
Then I asked: "But why there? What happened on that mountain before? And what does the Bible say will happen there again?"
Silence.
They looked at each other. Looked at their Bibles. Looked at their notes.
One person said it was probably just where He happened to be.
Another said it was near Bethany, where Lazarus lived.
Nobody knew about David weeping on those slopes. Nobody knew about the Garden of Gethsemane nestled on its hillside. Nobody could tell me about Zechariah's prophecy that the Messiah's feet would stand on that mountain again at His return. Nobody saw the thread connecting a thousand years of Scripture to that single moment in Acts.
They had read it. They had highlighted it. They had heard it preached from pulpits for years.
And they had no idea what they were actually reading.
They understood my explanations of Scripture. But not the Scripture itself. And the moment I wasn't there to walk them through it, they were completely lost.
I'm a pastor. I've been teaching Scripture for 18 years.
And I had been failing them the entire time.
That night after everyone left I sat alone in that empty room for a long time. Thinking about that mountain.
My wife found me there at 11 PM still sitting in the dark.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"I don't think anyone in my Bible study actually understands what they're reading."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean they understand when I explain it. But they can't understand it on their own. The moment I'm not there to walk them through it, they're guessing. They're reading the Bible the way you'd read a novel in a foreign language — they can follow the plot, but they're missing everything underneath."
"Isn't that normal? Honey, you've studied for years. They have jobs, families."
"That's the problem. I keep expecting them to study like I do. But they can't. They don't have time. And nobody has ever given them the foundation they need."
She sat down next to me.
"So what are you going to do?"
"I don't know yet."
But I did know.
Why Most Christians Never Truly Understand What They're Reading — And Why It's Not Their Fault
Before I tell you what I did that night, I need you to understand something important.
If you have spent years reading your Bible and still walk away feeling like you're missing something — like you're circling the truth but never quite touching it — that is not your fault.
It is not a sign of weak faith. It is not a sign that you don't love God enough.
The problem is not you.
The Bible is not one book. It is 66 books written by more than 40 different authors over more than a thousand years. Each one was written at a specific time, to specific people, for a specific reason.
When you read Acts without knowing that the Mount of Olives was the place of David's exile, Jesus's agony, and Zechariah's great prophecy, you miss the staggering weight of what is happening in that moment.
When you read Zechariah without knowing the history of Israel's exile and the desperate longing for a returning king, the words stay flat on the page instead of thundering off it.
When you read Gethsemane without knowing that the name means "oil press" — that Jesus was being crushed in a garden of olive trees on the Mount of Olives — you miss the brutal, beautiful poetry of what God was doing.
Context changes everything. And that night, I decided I had to give my people that context.
What I Did Next — And the Three Months That Changed Everything
The next morning I opened my computer and started writing.
Genesis.
Everything someone needs to know before reading Genesis. Who wrote it. When. Why. What was happening in the ancient world at the time. The main themes. How it fits into the larger story.
Not a sermon. Not a devotional. Just the context.
I broke it down over and over until my teenage daughter could read it and understand it completely on her own.
Then I did Exodus. Then Leviticus. Then Numbers.
Every single book of the Bible.
Sixty-six pages. One page per book.
It took me three months. Three months of sitting at my desk after everyone went to bed. Three months of writing and rewriting until it was as clear as I could possibly make it. Three months of taking 18 years of studying and putting it into a format that any believer could pick up and use completely on their own.
No pastor required.
What Happened the Next Wednesday Changed 18 Years of Ministry in One Night
The next Wednesday I brought those 66 pages to Bible study and put a copy at every seat.
"Before we open our Bibles tonight," I said, "I want you to read the page on Zechariah. Just read it. Then we'll study Acts."
I watched them read. Then I said, "Okay. Now open your Bibles to Acts chapter 1."
And I watched something I had never seen before in 18 years of ministry.
Their eyes changed.
Not confusion. Not blank staring.
Understanding. Pure understanding.
One woman looked up at me with tears in her eyes.
"He's coming back… to the same place He left. The Mount of Olives. It's not just a random hill. It's a stage. It's where the story began and where it will end."
A man across the table said quietly: "I've read Acts chapter 1 my entire life. I never once knew what that mountain meant. That context changes everything about what the disciples were watching when He ascended."
The rest of that study was unlike anything I had experienced before. They were not waiting for me to explain it. They were discovering it themselves. Connecting David's tears to Jesus's tears. Connecting the oil press of Gethsemane to the crushing weight Jesus bore for us. Connecting Zechariah's prophecy to the angels' promise. Seeing the thread that runs through the entire Bible once you know where to look.
They were actually understanding Scripture.
At the end of the night one of the older men came up to me. He had been in my Bible study for six years and a Christian for forty.
"Pastor," he said quietly, "I have been reading my Bible my whole life. And I feel like I have only just now actually started to understand it. Thank you."
I went home that night and told my wife what happened.
"They got it. For the first time, they actually got it."
That was more than eight months ago. Since then hundreds of people have told me the same thing. "This is the first time I have ever understood what I was reading."
Not because I am some brilliant teacher. But because I finally gave them what they actually needed.
Context.
Introducing the Saints Label Bible Study Guide
That is exactly what this guide was created to do.
It is 66 pages. One dedicated page for every book of the Bible. Each page is carefully laid out to give you exactly what you need to approach Scripture with clarity and confidence.
Who wrote the book. When it was written. Why it was written. What was happening in the world at the time. The key themes God intended to deliver. And at the bottom of every page, practical steps to apply what you are reading to your real life today.
Not vague spiritual advice. Real, actionable steps.
The Mount of Olives is just one thread. There are thousands more like it woven through every book of the Bible. This guide helps you find them all.
Did you know that the 23rd Psalm — the one read at every funeral and memorized by millions — was written by David while he was being hunted by his own son, sleeping in caves, fearing for his life? That "the valley of the shadow of death" was not a metaphor to him. It was his actual situation. And that the path he walked through that valley led him back over the Mount of Olives and into Jerusalem as king?
Did you know that Revelation, the book most Christians find terrifying and confusing, was written by John while he was exiled on a prison island, writing in coded language to Christians who were being actively persecuted and killed? That the symbolism was not meant to confuse. It was meant to protect.
Written in plain language. No seminary terms. No complicated theology. Just the context that makes everything you have already read suddenly make complete sense.
Because here is what I know after 18 years of teaching Scripture. The Bible is not confusing because it is unclear. It is confusing because we are reading it without the foundation that made it clear to the people it was first written for.
This guide gives it back to you.
Here Is What Believers Are Saying After Using This Guide
How Much Does It Cost to Finally Understand God's Word?
I have watched faithful believers spend hundreds trying to find the understanding they were looking for. Seminary courses starting at $500 per class. Commentary sets costing $200 to $600. Bible study programs running $300 to $400. And after all of that, many of them still came back to me with the same questions and the same quiet frustration.
The Saints Label Bible Study Guide is regularly priced at $60. For a resource covering all 66 books of the Bible that you will return to for the rest of your life, that is already extraordinary value.
But right now during our Easter Sale:
And if you want to share it with a spouse, a family member, or your entire Bible study group, bundle discounts go even deeper.
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If you have ever sat in church nodding along while feeling completely lost inside…
If you have ever opened your Bible, read a chapter, and closed it with no idea what you just read…
If you have ever felt like you are the only one who does not understand while everyone else seems to get it…
You are not alone. And it has nothing to do with you.
You just needed context.
This guide is 18 years of studying condensed into sixty-six pages that any believer can understand and use on their own. It is my life's work. And I am sharing it because I refuse to watch another person sit in a Bible study pretending they understand when they do not.
Do not let a lack of context be the thing that keeps you at a distance from His Word.
Don't let another year go by feeling lost in Scripture.
GET YOURS NOW — Easter Sale: 35% OFF