Felicity & Sarah introduce their brand new podcast, chatting through the Bible over a cup of tea and a biscuit.

Whether you’re parenting small children, commuting to work or heading out for a run, join us for our Bible based podcast as two sisters do a 20 minute bible study, on the go, going through a book of the Bible week by week.

Whether you’re parenting small children, commuting to work or heading out for a run, join us for our Bible based podcast as two sisters do a 20 minute bible study, on the go, going through a book of the Bible week by week.

This first episode of Word Fuelled Hearts was all about introductions - both of the hosts, Sarah and Felicity, and the book of Habakkuk.

Cup of tea in hand, and biscuit (the one more like a cookie than a scone) at the ready, conversation turns to the purpose of Word Fuelled Hearts, and why we’ve chosen to record our conversations. It is the conviction that God works through His word, by His Spirit, that gives us the reason to open up the Bible. And it is, therefore, the fact that God is at work as we read, discuss and apply His word together. We love doing it in an everyday, easy and accessible way and would love for our conversations to help others feel able to dig into the Bible with others and see God at work.

Habakkuk took centre stage for the rest of the episode as we got our bearings in Bible history, considered the prophet’s context and dwelt on verses that have impacted our hearts so far.

Helpful Resources and Tips

• We love The Bible Project and the way they give brilliant illustrated overviews of different books of the Bible. The Habakkuk one can be found here and is a really good introduction to the structure of the book and it’s context.
• We mentioned that we both use journaling bibles as we dig into a book of the bible. This is like the one that Sarah uses. The one that Felicity uses is here, and here if you’re in the USA. Sadly the NIV one is only available in the UK.
• Felicity talked about using a study bible to help with understanding the context to books, and for other information. She likes this one which is available in the UK and USA.

Tea and Biscuit Chat Footnotes

• Sarah was eating a homemade Christmas biscuit. Do get in touch via email or social media if you’d like the recipe
• Felicity was eating a costco butter biscuit which she was underwhelmed by...looking for a stronger biscuit choice next week!
• Yorkshire Tea was the hot drink of choice to accompany the biscuit and Bible action.

In Other News…

• Connect with us on Facebook or Instagram
• Sarah blogs here: https://sarahdargue.org
• Felicity blogs here: https://boysbooksandthehomeofthebrave.blog/
• Email us: podcastingsisters@gmail.com

Sponsorship Details

This podcast is sponsored by 10ofthose.com. 10ofthose.com hand pick the best Christian books that point to Jesus and sell them at discounted prices. The more you buy the cheaper they get! Check them out at 10ofthose.com.

10ofThose operates in both the UK and the USA.

Tea, biscuits and some big questions from Habakkuk today.

It seems that the prophet is witnessing violence, corruption and wickedness all around him. The mention of the ‘law’ being ‘paralysed’ makes it clear that this ‘iniquity’ is not just in the surrounding nations but even amongst God’s people. He sees the righteous being surrounded by the wicked, and he is deeply troubled.

Habakkuk, therefore, asks God:

• Why are you not listening?
• Why are you not saving or doing anything?
• Why do you not see what is going on?

Underneath all of these questions is Habakkuk’s concern that justice is not being done, and is even being perverted. He wants right and good judgement to fall on what he sees before him.

We want to be careful when we draw the lines between this book and us. It was written for a particular audience back then, and we are sitting here right now. But, while being careful, we can begin to see some similarities between our context and Habakkuk’s context. We are this side of the cross, but we are living in a similarly broken world where injustice is on display. We are also speaking to the same God as Habakkuk. As we read Habakkuk’s heartfelt prayer, are our hearts in this place? Are we lamenting like Habakkuk? Do we really pray like this? Big challenges to our hearts as we see and hear Habakkuk’s heart posture.

Helpful Resources and Tips

• We talked about how we begin to get into a bible book, and both of us talked about reading repeatedly and slowly through the whole book. Sarah is big on having colours and highlighters to hand while she reads; Felicity has a simple pencil, and then a piece of paper on which to jot any questions that arise as she’s reading it through. Have a look at our instagram/facebook to see the differences in approach!

Tea and Biscuit Chat Footnotes

• Felicity was drinking Earl Grey tea, Sarah was having a cup of hot water. Felicity’s favourite tea is actually a mixture of Earl Grey and Yorkshire Tea - she calls it Yorkshire Grey.
• Sarah was broaching a small-ish (3cm) chocolate chip cookie, while Felicity was enjoying a petit beurre chocolate-covered biscuit

In Other News…

• Connect with us on Facebook or Instagram
• Sarah blogs here: https://sarahdargue.org
• Felicity blogs here: https://boysbooksandthehomeofthebrave.blog/
• Email us: podcastingsisters@gmail.com

Sponsorship Details

This podcast is sponsored by 10ofthose.com. 10ofthose.com hand pick the best Christian books that point to Jesus and sell them at discounted prices. The more you buy the cheaper they get! Check them out at 10ofthose.com.

10ofThose operates in both the UK and the USA.


Whether you’re parenting small children, commuting to work or heading out for a run, join us for our Bible based podcast as two sisters do a 20 minute bible study, on the go, going through a book of the Bible week by week.

Habakkuk’s lament meets a surprising answer today

• In this episode, with expected cup of tea and biscuit in hand, we hear God speak of the surprising way in which He will begin to bring justice upon the scene that Habakkuk has previously been lamenting.

• The surprise is that He is going to use the Babylonians to bring destruction upon God’s people. ‘I am doing a work in your days’, He says, and that work is to bring the fearsome, terrifying power of the Babylonian nation to bear on His people.

• We’re given a colourful picture of the horrific, destructive habits of the nation and ultimately see that ‘their own might is their god’. They have no concept of the mighty, sovereign God that Habakkuk is in dialogue with.

• As the book unfolds, we will consider more what it is to read Habakkuk this side of the cross. But before we do that, we want to make sure we sit with the original hearers and readers and grasp their situation. There’s no doubt that they would have been horrified at the thought of God using the terrible Babylonians to sort out the mess of injustice before them.

• Sometimes we can feel the same in that God’s means of working out His plan don’t seem to make sense, or even worse, seem to be bringing more pain. As our thoughts move with Habakkuk’s towards further questions in the next verses, we are reminded that God is in control and we are to listen and wait on His word and action, trusting Him with the bigger picture even when the immediate feels confusing.

Helpful Resources
Both Sarah and Felicity talk about how and when they first started reading the Bible for themselves. Both of them speak of having seen others do it, and therefore being made to think that it was important and where one could find answers. Felicity shared about a friend sitting down and reading Mark’s gospel with her. This book ‘One to One Bible Reading’ by David Helm is really helpful if you wanted to start reading the Bible with someone else.


Tea and Biscuit Chat Footnotes
• Felicity is drinking Yorkshire tea, & Sarah fully embraces the ‘Yorkshire Grey’ hybrid by putting one each of a Yorkshire Tea and Earl Grey tea bag in a tea pot.

• Sarah is eating a chocolate covered shortbread, and Felicity was nibbling on a caramel stroopwaffel which is perfectly softened if you use it as a lid for your steaming tea before eating it.


In Other News…

• Connect with us on Facebook or Instagram
• Sarah blogs here: https://sarahdargue.org
• Felicity blogs here: https://boysbooksandthehomeofthebrave.blog/
• Email us: podcastingsisters@gmail.com

Sponsorship Details

This podcast is sponsored by 10ofthose.com. 10ofthose.com hand pick the best Christian books that point to Jesus and sell them at discounted prices. The more you buy the cheaper they get! Check them out at 10ofthose.com.

10ofThose operates in both the UK and the USA.

While a posh cup of tea and a hot Ribena are being sipped, in this episode we dig into Habakkuk’s second question.

God has answered his previous question regarding his apparent inactivity in relation to the rampant injustice, and surprisingly justice is coming through the horrors of the Babylonian nation. Naturally, Habakkuk comes back with almost disbelief that his holy, pure God would use such wickedness to bring about his purposes. It doesn’t seem to fit with who God is, and what we might expect him to do.

The Babylonians are compared to a fisherman and his unendingly full net. Habakkuk is wondering whether the Babylonian destruction and capture of people is going to go on forever, just as a fisherman would keep filling up his net.

As before, Habakkuk takes his question directly to God. His question is bookended with statements of who God is: ‘my holy One’, ‘O rock’ and then his ongoing posture of waiting on His God to answer: ‘look out to see what he will say to me’. It’s a reminder to us that it is right and good bring our laments and our questions to God, but while doing it we need to have Habakkuk’s listening, waiting posture and so have hearts that are soft to whatever God says and what he is doing.

Helpful Tips & Resources

Tea and Biscuit Chat Footnotes

Sarah was drinking hot Ribena, which is a brand of juice in the UK. Add hot water to the concentrate, and you have a delicious drink, hot or cold. Felicity was drinking Earl Grey made using tea leaves and a tea strainer, and was enjoying feeling like she was in a smart London cafe with such tea-making habits.

Felicity was eating a delicate chocolate-dipped shortbread, and Sarah was eating a classic custard cream. For our American listeners, a custard cream is a staple biscuit - cheap but reliably good. Check out social media for clarifying pictures.

In Other News…

• Connect with us on Facebook or Instagram
• Sarah blogs here: https://sarahdargue.org
• Felicity blogs here: https://boysbooksandthehomeofthebrave.blog/
• Email us: podcastingsisters@gmail.com

Sponsorship Details

This podcast is sponsored by 10ofthose.com. 10ofthose.com hand pick the best Christian books that point to Jesus and sell them at discounted prices. The more you buy the cheaper they get! Check them out at 10ofthose.com.

10ofThose operates in both the UK and the USA.

Discussing the heartbeat of the Christian faith over tea and a biscuit

Episode Summary
In this episode, there is no doubt that it is God speaking as the passage kicks off with ‘Then the Lord replied’. Habakkuk twice over has asked God why injustice prevails, and why he lets the Babylonians run riot in their merciless wickedness, and God says wait.

Habakkuk is instructed to listen, watch and write down the ‘vision’ that God will give him. God is doing something, and it is going to happen at the right time - no delay - and exactly as he intends. We hear more of what God will do after v5, but we do hear again how puffed up, arrogant and greedy the Babylonians are. Habakkuk, and us, long for justice to come but what about those in the midst of the scene? How could anyone be safe as God’s judgement falls?

2v4 is the heartbeat of the book. It is a verse that is quoted three times in the NT (Romans 1, Galatians 3, Hebrews 10) and as we read those writers, we have a more fleshed out picture of what is being said in Habakkuk. ‘The righteous person will live by his faithfulness’ - not by works and not by the law, but only by faith. Faith that is a gift from God. Faith that will mean that we can endure as we’re urged in Hebrews. Wait in faith that God will judge, but also save - as the NT writers make clear.

Wait, says Habakkuk, and this side of the cross we are privileged to have the cross and Jesus in full view. The object of our faith is clear, and so we wait with confidence. As we look at the cross, we know the reality of judgement but also refuge and rescue.

Helpful Resources
Rather than recommending a physical resource, we would recommend people! We’ve both benefitted from people getting alongside us and good churches investing in us and teaching us how to read the Bible for ourselves. We’ve sought out opportunities over the years to get better at understanding and teaching the Bible.

Felicity currently teaches the Bible to the women’s bible study at her church.
Sarah recently wrote a book that teaches through Colossians in relation to expecting a baby and those first newborn days. You can find the book, Bumps, Babies and the Gospel’ here if you’re in the UK, and here if you’re in the USA.

Tea and Biscuit Chat Footnotes
Felicity was delighted with a delivery from England that meant she was feasting on a milk chocolate hobnob biscuit, and Sarah was disappointed by a fake Jammy Dodger from Aldi. Tea leaf Earl Grey filled Felicity’s cup, and Yorkshire tea was Sarah’s choice of drink.


In Other News…

• Connect with us on Facebook or Instagram
• Sarah blogs here: https://sarahdargue.org
• Felicity blogs here: https://boysbooksandthehomeofthebrave.blog/
• Email us: podcastingsisters@gmail.com

Sponsorship Details

This podcast is sponsored by 10ofthose.com. 10ofthose.com hand pick the best Christian books that point to Jesus and sell them at discounted prices. The more you buy the cheaper they get! Check them out at 10ofthose.com.

10ofThose operates

Exploring God’s complete justice over tea and biscuits

Episode Summary
A longer passage this week, and it is jam-packed with precise, deliberate judgement from God that reverses much of the wickedness and iniquity that the Babylonians have enacted on others. We noticed that the verses are marked by ‘woes’, and each woe signals devastating judgment from God on these people who have been acting as if there’s no reference point outside of themselves. They have plundered others, and now they are plundered. They have poured shame on others, and now they’re shamed. There is an awful symmetry to what is going on.

As we watch judgement fall, we speak of being relieved that justice is being dealt but we also talked about how it might strike fear into us. We’re not like the Babylonians but we do deserve judgement. The ‘cup from the Lord’s hand is coming round to you’ says v16 and we thought of other mentions of the cup of God’s wrath in places like Isaiah, and then were reminded of how Jesus takes that ‘cup’ according to Mark’s gospel. Terrible wrath is coming, but Jesus takes it for us. How wonderful to remember 2:4 and the faith we live by as we know we are safe through the judgement because of him.

For the people listening at the time, they were thinking of the immediate justice that needed to be done, but it is a picture of the bigger judgement day that both them and us are waiting for. As we see it in action, we are pointed to that bigger day, and are all the more thankful that as we live by faith in Jesus we are safe.

We speak of how our hearts are relieved to see justice come, but also challenged to long for justice like this because God, through his judgement is dealing with sin in all it’s rottenness. Conversation moved onto how we are, therefore, all the more thankful for Jesus and so can freely cry out for justice to come because we know we’re safe in Christ.


Helpful Resources
- We’ve enjoyed reading Nancy Guthrie’s really helpful Even Better than Eden which fleshes out the big themes of judgement and salvation through the story of the whole Bible
- Go deeper on the theology of ‘the cup of wrath’ here
- Part 4 of this podcast is also particularly helpful on thinking about the cup of wrath


Tea and Biscuit Chat Footnotes
Felicity was delicately sipping pure Earl Grey, and Sarah was on the hot water for this episode. Sarah had reverted to the trusty custard cream after the disappointment of last week’s Jammy Dodger, and Felicity was enjoying a very American chocolate chip cookie.


In Other News…

• Connect with us on Facebook or Instagram
• Sarah blogs here: https://sarahdargue.org
• Felicity blogs here: https://boysbooksandthehomeofthebrave.blog/
• Email us: podcastingsisters@gmail.com

Sponsorship Details

This podcast is sponsored by 10ofthose.com. 10ofthose.com hand pick the best Christian books that point to Jesus and sell them at discounted prices. The more you buy the cheaper they get! Check them out at 10ofthose.com.

10ofThose operates in both the UK and USA.

It’s time for our first GIVEAWAY! Follow us on Instagram and/or Facebook to enter, for a chance to win a mega-bundle of Habakkuk themed books from 10ofthose.com.

Episode Summary
This episode paused to dwell on just three verses, but they expose the root cause of the Babylonian behaviour, and so the reason for the formidable judgement that has been described in the previous verses.

We noticed in these few verses that the Babylonians are described as trusting in a man-made, silent and lifeless idol. They look to it - whether it be their own strength or construction - for guidance. And so they are subject to the ‘woe’ of judgement from the living, active, speaking God. They have no regard for anyone outside of themselves, and such a position is foolish idolatry according to Habakkuk’s description.

The Lord, in contrast, is in his holy temple - alive, relational and very much present. And so the earth should be silent before him, rather than worshipping silent idols.

While we are secure in Christ and have no need to fear as we wait on the Lord, we talked of how we need to guard our hearts so that we don’t go down the path of foolish idolatry.

Google, Siri and apparently ‘wise’ advice can take the place of God’s word, so we want to make sure we’re listening to God first and seeking to obey him. It can be telling what we do with our rest time, our phones and whatever else we use to run in the right - or the wrong - directions.

Useful Resources
- Counterfeit Gods’ by Tim Keller, which can be found here if you’re in the States, and here if you’re in the UK, is an excellent way of exploring the danger of idolatry more.
- Another very good book on it is ‘Idols: God’s Battle for Our Hearts’ by Julian Hardyman
- This article helpfully shows us the age-old problem we all have with idolatry

Tea and Biscuit Footnotes
- Sarah was drinking Yorkshire Tea Biscuit Brew, which meant an actual biscuit seemed surplus to requirements.
- Felicity’s cup was filled with Twinings Earl Grey, and she had a chocolate biscuit in hand.
-General consensus was that a ‘good’ cup for drinking tea is thin-lipped, although there’s always place for a builder’s mug of tea.

In Other News…

• Connect with us on Facebook or Instagram
• Sarah blogs here: https://sarahdargue.org
• Felicity blogs here: https://boysbooksandthehomeofthebrave.blog/
• Email us: podcastingsisters@gmail.com

Sponsorship Details

This podcast is sponsored by 10ofthose.com. 10ofthose.com hand pick the best Christian books that point to Jesus and sell them at discounted prices. The more you buy the cheaper they get! Check them out at 10ofthose.com.

10ofThose operates in both the UK and USA.