Today, welcome Josiah Auerbach, another member of your 2023 Alumni Service Team! Here are a few quick facts about Josiah.
- Age: 19, as of around two weeks ago
- Home state: Ohio
- Fun fact: Josiah is the oldest of eight kids, and his family lives in an old brick church building that they converted into a house.
- Hobbies: playing piano, learning about aviation, playing chess, playing with his siblings, and discussing theology.
- College and work: Josiah just finished his first year at Moody Aviation (a Moody Bible Institute program). This school is specifically for prospective missionary pilots. He says “my dream is todo missions work in a remote area and someday be integral in reaching an unreached people group with the Gospel. This fall, I will begin the mechanics portion of the program. I will be doing school full-time and working part-time insofar as possible.”
- What you should know about Josiah: “My favorite way to connect with people is just by spending quality time with them. I am a deep thinker, so I especially enjoy conversations that include things like considering the morality of debatable issues, discussing theology, and contemplating ideas about the future.”
- Three words Josiah’s friends use to describe him: friendly, enthusiastic, and loyal
Hello Josiah, and welcome to the NBB blog! Your passion for the Lord and for His Word is inspiring, especially your heart for missions! Given that you’re planning your life around sharing the Gospel, it’s clear that you have a serious passion for the Word, and I’m sure that passion plays into your involvement with the National Bible Bee. How did you hear about the NBB and how long did you participate? How did participating in the NBB impact your life?
- My family heard about NBB at a homeschool conference in 2016 in Sandusky, Ohio. We met Hannah Leary, and after hearing a little bit about it, we decided to give it a try mainly because my sister and I were so excited about it. I competed in NBBC for seven years from 2016-2022. I first did the summer study in 2016 when I was 12 years old. I would summarize my time participating in the National Bible Bee in two words: life-changing. I’m not the same person I was when I began NBB. The Word of God is living and active, and my personal testimony is that internalizing the Scriptures has led me to a more genuine relationship with God. I’ve seen the Holy Spirit use the Scriptures that I have memorized to help me in my journey of sanctification and striving to become more like Christ.
It’s wonderful that the Lord used His Word to shape you and draw you closer to Himself, especially through the process of internalizing it. Speaking of that, how do you usually approach memorizing and reviewing Scripture?
- My method for memorization is rote. I repeat a phrase over and over again until I can say it effortlessly, and then I move on to the next phrase eventually tying both phrases together. Properly reviewing the things that you’ve memorized is a critical part of preparing for the competition. If you can’t keep the things that you’ve memorized current, then you’re not going to be able to perform when the time comes. I find that it’s essential to review often after initially memorizing a passage, and then once I know it well, I’m able to space the review out so that I’m reciting through everything about every four days.
That is a lot of work, and I know it took diligence, consistency, and hard work, even though you probably didn’t always feel like being disciplined in spending time in the Word. Why did you consider it worthwhile to invest so much into studying and memorizing, and what would you say to encourage others to do the same?
- Studying and memorizing God’s Word is an investment. Many NBB competitors primarily see it as an investment in the national competition, and it definitely is, but it is also so much more than that. The grass withers and the flower fades but the Word of our God endures forever (1 Pet. 1:24-25). We are to lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven. (Matthew 6:20). God’s Word will not return void but it will accomplish all that He purposes (Isaiah 55:11). There is nothing better that you could invest your time into than the pursuit of the knowledge of God from a young age (Hosea 6:2), and the Scriptures are our primary means of doing so because God has so graciously chosen to reveal Himself to us through them (2 Timothy 3:15). Each verse memorized, and each moment spent in God’s Word is important and worthwhile. Don’t ever take for granted the privilege that we have through our access to God’s Word.
Amen! We should never take for granted the blessings available to us through the Scriptures! The opportunity to spend so much time studying and memorizing the Word of God while you’re young and have fewer responsibilities is also a blessing that shouldn’t be taken for granted. Now that you’re in a different season where you’re busy with school and work, and you probably don’t have the same amount of time to study and memorize, what is one of the biggest lessons you learned from your time as a participant?
- The more I study and memorize Scripture, the more I long to study and memorize it; the NBB has given me a hunger for the Word of God. Participating in the National Bible Bee is by no means an end in and of itself, nor is God’s Word the ultimate end. Christ Himself is the end; He is the author and perfecter of our faith and the one we should be striving for (John 5:39; Heb. 12:1-2). As awesome as the National Bible Bee is, we are only eligible to participate and compete in it for a short time. It’s really just a training ground; It’s a mere time of preparation for the rest of our lives. I’m confident that the National Bible Bee has given me a foundational Biblical literacy and love for God’s Word that the Holy Spirit will use for the ultimate glory of God. My biggest takeaway from my time competing is that the National Bible Bee has taught me how to study, love, and treasure the Word of God, and that is truly invaluable to me.
Absolutely, it’s all about Christ, and His glory as the incarnate Word! What a treasure that we have this revelation that points us to Him, the Creator and Redeemer of our souls! Could you share a verse or passage you’ve memorized during your time in the competition that you’ve come to treasure?
- One of my favorite verses is Psalm 42:5,11 which says, “Why are you cast down oh my soul and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God for I shall again praise Him my salvation and my God.” When I first memorized it, I didn’t really feel like it directly applied to me, but for some reason, it really stuck with me. In the coming months and years though, I went through several seasons of grief, and this verse was one that became especially important to me!
How beautiful and powerful that God used Scripture you memorized years earlier to encourage you much later in completely different situations. Not only does God’s Word comfort us and point us to Him, but in the Bible there are also so many stories of people living out or failing to live out God’s truth that we can learn from. Are there any characters or stories in Scripture that have stuck with you and encouraged you by their example?
- One of my favorite Bible characters is David because of his response and example when it comes to dealing with sin. He, a man after God’s own heart, so accurately demonstrates the reality that we are all prone to falling into sin. Even when he committed such an overtly egregious offense against God, he showcased in Psalm 51 what biblical, Godly repentance looks like. His example helps me to recognize that no sin is beyond God’s forgiveness. The beauty of the Gospel is that Christ’s sacrificial, propitiatory atonement on behalf of all who believe is fully sufficient to cover all sin whether past, present, or future. As Christians, we do not hold to a gospel of legalism, but rather a Gospel of repentance and forgiveness.
I love that even in an example where David initially failed to live out God’s way, we still see the sufficiency of the grace of God, to lead him to repentance and bring David back into alignment with the truth. What have you learned about the sufficiency of the Gospel in your own life?
- The Gospel is not man-centered, it’s Christ-centered. It’s not about us, it’s about Him. It’s not about who we are or what we’ve done, but it’s about who Christ is and what He’s done. The only thing we contribute to our salvation is the sin that makes it necessary. So often, I found that my walk with God and my time at church before I started National Bible Bee only led me to feel guilty about my sin and try to fix myself on my own. I was focused on how I’m not good enough and I thought that if I would only do better and not sin as much, then I could be a good Christian. Through the Scripture that I studied and memorized while participating in the National Bible Bee, I learned to focus on Christ and recognize that He is good enough, in fact, He is all-sufficient. It is through the National Bible Bee that I developed a true framework of what the Christian life and the Gospel are really all about.
Thank you so much for sharing your testimony, Josiah, and for pointing all of us back to the One of whom, through whom, and for whom are all things! It was such an encouragement to hear how the Lord has worked and is continuing to work in your life.
- Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share about how the NBB has impacted my life! If you would like to stay updated on what the Lord is doing in my life and how he’s leading me through my schooling and into mission work, please sign up for my newsletter here.
Interview by NBB Alumna: Janese Hurst
