BibleProject - The Abraham Experiment - Generosity E3

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

Starting point is 00:00:17 and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

Starting point is 00:00:36 Hey, this is John Collins from The Bible Project. In the last two weeks of this podcast, we've been discussing the theme of generosity in the storyline of the Bible. How God is the generous host of all creation, and there's enough for everyone. So why don't we live that way? The first few chapters of Genesis show humanity's propensity to mistrust the generous host. We want to protect ourselves, and we think we have the best strategy for how to do that. Unfortunately, our self-protection leads us to shame, broken relationships, and violence. So what's God gonna do?

Starting point is 00:01:10 Well, it turns out, his plan is to ramp up his generosity. It's God choosing one family to give the supreme gift. I'm gonna choose one family and give them like the ultimate gift. In fact, the gift I'm trying to give all humanity, I'm just gonna give the one family and do something with this family that will restore the gift to everybody else. But here's the problem. So far in the Bible, the portrait of humans isn't very flattering. No one has been able to trust the generous host. So today, we look at the successes and failures of the family of Abraham in their calling to extend God's generosity

Starting point is 00:01:46 to others. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Okay, we've been talking about generosity as a theme. Yes. And you're going to walk us through the story of the Old Testament through the lens of generosity. Yeah, a real way to think about key moments in the storyline through the, yeah, the lens of gift giving and how people respond when they're given great gifts and parties. Yeah, how do you respond when you've been given a great gift? And the way you've set this up, which is really nice, is that God's economy, essentially, as he's created the world, is one of generosity.

Starting point is 00:02:29 If you are a person who has spent a lot of time meditating on the scriptures, like Jesus was, you get this radical sense of living in a place that's hosted with generosity. Yeah, every day you're met with many gifts. Yeah, which is a great, abundant way to look at the world. Some might say naive, but if you believe in a generous God who created, it would make sense. Yeah, you watch the squirrel gathering nuts, and you see abundance, and you see God sharing life and goodness with that creature.

Starting point is 00:03:11 And just the same is when you sit down for a good meal with people that you like or love, hopefully both. Yeah. So God, the generous host is then the setting, but then we talked about the problem of evil and the problem caused by abundance or the potential problem. The potential problem with abundance. Yeah, liability. The liability of abundance is it makes you want to then for whatever reason

Starting point is 00:03:40 protect its store up and fight others for your portion of the abundance. That's right. But under that is a scarcity mindset that enters in to say maybe there's not actually enough. Maybe there's not actually enough. And so that was our our way. It's a new way of looking at what the snake says to the woman. God can't be trusted as a judge. Yeah, I can't be trusted. Yeah, memory says, so you can't eat from any tree here. He's like, yeah. Which is the exact opposite.

Starting point is 00:04:10 The generous host said I could eat from any tree. That's right. But it enters the idea like, oh, maybe. Oh, well, I guess there is that one tree we're not supposed to eat from. Yeah, and why is that? Can I actually trust? Then you fixate on that as opposed to the much that has been provided. That's the strategy at work in that conversation.

Starting point is 00:04:30 And we talked about that tree symbolizing the problem of... The choice. Yeah, the choice, how are you going to handle abundance? Correct. That's right. How are you going to handle an abundant gift? Yeah. It requires great moral discernment and ethical discernment knowing good

Starting point is 00:04:45 evil to know what to do in response and you can ground your definitions of good evil in your own wisdom or you can surrender them to a higher wisdom. And then we talked about how in the Canaanable story God was showing favor when I was thinking about that. It seemed like God was being more generous. And we discussed that and it's helpful. Yeah, I actually just realized I forgot one of the most key things I discovered about that story that I don't think we've ever talked about.

Starting point is 00:05:21 Oh yeah, tell me. It actually has to do with, you have to look at all of Genesis 4, which is... The Canaanable story. Yep. The Canaanable story, and then the city that he builds and the violent poets, the Leimeck, who murder's a man. So there's two large halves, two large panels to Genesis 4, and it's punctuated by an

Starting point is 00:05:42 opening, statement, a center center transition statement between the two halves and then a concluding and all those three are coordinated. Adam knew his wife and she became pregnant and you get the story of Kane and Abel. Then you have Kane knew his wife leading to seven generations, the building of his city and leading up to Leimack, the violent warrior, and he's not good. And then it ends with saying, in Adam knew his wife again,

Starting point is 00:06:11 and bore a new son that replaces the murdered son. The new second born. The new, yeah, the new second born who is treated like the first born. Yeah, the new second born is treated the first born. Yeah, Seth. So, but what's important is that in the opening and final notices, Eve speaks about her sons. And her posture is very different in these

Starting point is 00:06:36 two statements. And this is often true in birth accounts in the Hebrew Bible. The circumstances of the naming and the names given are always packed with word plays and puns connected to the story, helps you see the meaning. So in the first one she says, she names her son Kayan, that's Kayan and Hebrew, because she says Kaniti ish et adonai. Kaniti is the same letters as the name Kain or Kain. And the word Kaniti, so a whole long debate here, it's a related word for create. It can mean acquire, but in certain contexts, it primarily means create. And so what she seems to say, there's actually probably about two or three possible ways to

Starting point is 00:07:23 translate that, and I think that's on purpose. This is the verse one. Verse one, this is what Eve says. Our most translations are going to say, I have acquired. And I've, Eve says, I've brought forth a man. And then in the footnote says, I have acquired. So yeah, this is super nerdy. We're already.

Starting point is 00:07:40 Thank you in too much time on this. It's one of the standard words for create to bring into my possession by making. In Proverbs 8, this is what God does to creation. He can, he can also do the same verb. What seems to happen, be happening, is that she is equating herself with Yahweh as the creator of man. Oh, well. I've created a man.

Starting point is 00:08:05 You won't get that from most English translations. If you dive into the history of Jewish interpretation of this line, they understood what was going on. This is a similar song of boasting that Lehmack is going to give later on. She says what the hell of the Lord have created a man. Exactly, so that's also every single word of this line. The only word that has a clear meaning is the word man. So there's four Hebrew words and three out of the four. Oh, this is extremely problem.

Starting point is 00:08:36 This is four Hebrew words. Four Hebrew words. So you could translate her line as I have created a man translate her line as, I have created a man. And then the next word is the preposition with, which has a really flexible meaning, depending on context. So depending on how you interpret what's going on here. One of its common uses is in comparative statements. So we've talked about Cain Abel so long. So much, yeah.

Starting point is 00:09:02 And I realize I've never- Is a new and so- Told you this thing that I found. Okay. Oh yeah, okay. So that word with, it's at in Hebrew, it's commonly used in comparison statements. For example, in the 10 commandments, don't make any gods with me, literally in Hebrew. Don't have any gods with me.

Starting point is 00:09:23 Namely, don't have any gods in comparison with me. Exodus 20 verse 20. So in English, we don't use with that way. We don't, but in Hebrew. You can't. In Hebrew, you can. Yeah. In Genesis 39, Potaphar left all of his belongings in the care of Joseph, and he didn't know anything with Joseph. He didn't know anything with Joseph. In comparison with Joseph. Oh, okay. He put Joseph over basically facilities and maintenance and doing the books for his property.

Starting point is 00:09:52 And he didn't know anything about his own property anymore with Joseph, in comparison with Joseph. So it's a Hebrew way. It's a Hebrew word to say in comparison. Or alongside. So on that reading, what she's saying is, look, Yahweh created all things. I have created a man along with or in comparison.

Starting point is 00:10:13 Why does NIV have the word help? They're interpreting what they think the meaning of with is there. Literally in Hebrew it's, I have created a man with the Lord. I see. That's what it literally reads. So it could be I've created a man with the Lord. I see. That's what literally reads. So it could be, I've created a man with the help of the Lord. With the aid of the Lord. Or I have created a man in comparison to the Lord.

Starting point is 00:10:31 That's right. Problem is with the help of is never, there's other Hebrew prepositions. There's actually multiple words for with Hebrew. To indicate like agency or that kind of help for agency. And at does not, it's not that one. It's actually never used that way. Okay, okay.

Starting point is 00:10:50 So if she's making comparison, what then is the significance of that? The significance is you have someone, well here, let me just, this is Umberto Kasuto, an Italian Jewish commentator from mid 1900s. His paraphrase, he has two pages unpacking. Anyway, he says, the first woman, in her joy at giving birth to her first son,

Starting point is 00:11:14 boasts of her generative power. Yeah, that's a lot of power. Create a human in your body. Yeah, which in her estimation approximates the divine creative power. Yeah. The Lord formed the first man, Genesis 2.7, which in her estimation approximates the divine creative power. The Lord formed the first man, Genesis 2.7, and I have formed the second man.

Starting point is 00:11:33 Literally, I have created a man with the Lord by which he means I stand together equally with the creator in the rank of creators. So why I think that's significant, actually it's relevant for our conversation. Is it a portrait of a human whose existence is a gift to them and whose power to do anything productive to create is itself a gift,

Starting point is 00:11:56 but the psychology of the gift is that you can forget. You can begin to take for granted the thing that you've been given and treat it as if it's yours. And that's what we're supposed to be seeing here. I think that's what we're supposed to be seeing because can I think of any stories in the rest of the book of Genesis where you have humans who take for granted the divine gifts and opportunities they've been given makes stupid decisions. And what God does is flip their world upside down.

Starting point is 00:12:24 Because they took the gift for granted. Yeah, totally. And think of, let's go with the first born son, theme. Can I think of any stories where people are irresponsible trying to choose or create sons, trying to create a family? Yeah. And it actually... Jacob and Esauji, I mean one more time.

Starting point is 00:12:42 Yeah, totally, right? The favoritism between. But also Abraham and Sarah and Haggar, right? And so... Oh, like, I'm gonna take this in my own hands and make a first point for some reason. Yeah, Sarah, right? Sarah, they try to create their own promise, son.

Starting point is 00:12:56 Yeah. And so they abuse Haggar in the process and generate a first born who Sarah then hates and rejects. It's gonna happen again in the Joseph story. Genesis 4 is actually setting up for us the first act of screwed up parents who distort the gift of reproduction, of productivity that they're given, and then what God promptly does is turn upside down the normal order of things. And so he chooses favors the gift of the second born and not the first. So you think there's a direct narrative link between

Starting point is 00:13:29 Eves kind of her own psychology in this and the choosing of the second born. I think it's part of how the story is designed. That once you read through the whole book of Genesis and you realize every time parents act in arrogance, right, or pride or favoritism, God promptly works in their life to upend their whole value system and bring about the opposite of what they hoped for. In the language of Paul, it's God turning human wisdom into foolishness and using foolishness to shame the wise. This upending of human value systems.

Starting point is 00:14:07 And another detail in the chapter that confirms this is Eve's the last line of the chapter, is Eve has another son. Seth. Seth. And if you look at her response, how she names, Adam knew his wife again, and she gave birth to a son. It's the opening line of Genesis 4.

Starting point is 00:14:28 What verses is that? Chapter 4, verse 25. She gave birth to a son and she named him Seth saying, God has sethed me. The word Seth means to grant or to set. God has granted me another child in the place of able since Cain killed him. So here she explicitly puts herself in the recipient role. The son is not something I created. It's something that God has given me as a gift. So she gets it this time. She gets it this time. So there's a transformation in her own character in the course of the chapter.

Starting point is 00:15:03 This is the Jacob story, in miniature, in one chapter. He explained that because... Oh, a mother and a son. And the mother. Favors. Yeah, but the mother wants to, what Rebecca wants to do, is secure the divine blessing for herself through human scheming.

Starting point is 00:15:20 And the whole thing is replay of Genesis 3. It's like with this deceptive food, and Isaac is blind. It's an opposite of Genesis 3 where your eyes will be opened when you eat. And here his eyes are closed because he's blind and it's all about this deceptive food. And Jacob and his mom are the deceivers. They're the role of the snake. It's fascinating. There's all these hyperlinks going on there. And the whole point is that once Rebecca

Starting point is 00:15:47 has tried through human scheming to get her own blessing, introduces ruin into the family. And so God promptly just upends the whole system. That's what sends Jacob into exile for 20 years, where he gets deceived by his uncle and anyway. So Genesis is amazing. Yeah. But once you read through Genesis, you come back to Genesis 4,

Starting point is 00:16:11 and you see a mom boasting of her power to create a man. Now, I would be boastful of the ability to co-rule with God. Yeah, that's pretty legit. Yeah, that's right. But that's not what she's doing. On a possible and I think likely translation and interpretation of her words were meant to see her opening words and contrasts her concluding words. Her concluding words are, God has granted me as a gift another child. Her opening words are, I have created a man in comparison with Yahweh.

Starting point is 00:16:43 Now there's this whole first born, second born theme. It's also weaving through here. Yes. So how is that connected to then this theme you're picking up on of and I think the way you summarized it was a human trying to... Achieve their own blessing.

Starting point is 00:17:00 Achieve their own blessing. Well, yes, I think in Genesis 1, God grants the gift of blessing abundance and it's connected to essentially, like reproduction, fill the earth, right? Fill the earth and do it. That's part of the blessing. So actually farming and family.

Starting point is 00:17:17 Yeah. Abundant farming with a responsive piece of land that grows lots of crops, and then abundant children with responsive, male and female bodies. I mean, they're paired in terms of generativity and productivity. And so, both of those are the gift in the blessing. And so, what you see in Genesis primarily is humans.

Starting point is 00:17:40 Every generation is scheming to create their own blessing instead of trusting that God will give them the blessing as a peer gift. And how is that connected to the first point, second point of the game? Oh, because the first point, son, represents the first moment of the blessing of children. Children are a gift, a gift, the blessing. But God continually chooses the second born. Oh, in response to how the humans distort the gift. So she gets pregnant and has a son, and instead of saying first, oh God has given me the son. She says, I created a human.

Starting point is 00:18:19 So God chooses the second born because of humans inclination to always primarily to try to use their first born to distort the gift. And then that's connected to the idea of using the weak to shame the strong, using the foolish, shame the wise, because the second born is the weaker. And the second born, that's right. So in the sense of, in that culture, that's right. The second born is not as favor does the first. If you're going to protect your Your family generationally. Yes. You hook up your first born. That's right. You give them double inheritance They represent mom and dad. Yeah, and they're the first incarnation of the next generation

Starting point is 00:19:00 So that's interesting in that. So if family and childbearing is one of the ways that God showed His generous abundance. Correct. Yeah, that's right. Then it's interesting to think about then the system that we would create to benefit one person in that family over the rest. It actually kind of feels like a type of hoarding and a type of scarcity mentality in a way. Yeah, and it's funny because there's a law in Deuteronomy that says, you know, the first born is the one who should always get to double inheritance. It's actually written into the Torah. It's written into the laws of the Torah, and yet God is the one subverting that principle in every single generation of the Book of Genesis. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:19:47 That's good. That's good. Yeah, and I think it's actually, it's as if that law in Deuteronomy is winking at you. Because the law, like a lot of the laws, there's Paul says in Romans 7, like it's a good point, but what humans do with that good thing is super screwed up.

Starting point is 00:20:07 And so what God's doing if every generation of Genesis and the firstborn is subverting human wisdom and human practice and so on. I forgot to say that in our last conversation about Kane, but it's relevant to our theme of people receiving a gift and immediately attributing it to their own power and wisdom. So in this, we're supposed to see Eve receiving the gift of childbearing. It's really powerful, beautiful gift. And for her first inclination is, I'm going to use this to hook myself up and seize blessing for myself. Yeah, or attribute to myself the power to make the gift.

Starting point is 00:21:16 When in fact, it's like what Paul says in the first Corinthians, what do you have that you haven't been given? And if you've been given it, why do you boast as if it's yours? It always is confusing when you read the narrative of Canaanable of why God favors Canaanable. Correct. This is the first narrative logic I've heard to explain it. Yep, it occurred to me some time in the last six months

Starting point is 00:21:38 and then I went hunting in the interpretation history and lo and behold. Oh, I thought you were gonna say you literally went hunting and I was out in the woods and I was thinking about this It's about to shoot an elk and it occurred to me. No my version of hunting is to go to my library It's like what did you go hunting? Yeah, no it turns out this is the Jewish readers This has occurred to Jewish readers for thousands of years. Because that's an interpretive tradition

Starting point is 00:22:05 that really honors the cyclical design pattern nature of Genesis. And so later generation story is unfolding, things that were already laid there in seed form in the earlier generations. I want to understand the significance of this. And I think we're there. I just want to make sure I get it.

Starting point is 00:22:21 We're talking about generosity. God's a generous host. He wants to give everyone blessing. And he doesn't want this abundance to make the humans decide to define good and evil in their own terms and then misuse the abundance. And that's represented in this idea of the choice of the eating of the tree. Correct. And what we find is that the human inclination is to actually do that thing. That's right. And there's two features. One is the fear of a scarcity mindset that enters in, that then motivates hoarding. And me and my tribe.

Starting point is 00:22:58 A mistrust of the host. And a mistrust of the host. Mistrusting the host leads to, maybe there's not enough, leads to, I need to store up some for myself and if it's at your expense, I'm sorry. Yeah. And then that's winking at you in Genesis 4. And then it's you're watching it in action. Because you're supposed to see Eve

Starting point is 00:23:17 doing the same kind of thing, having the, not trusting the host. Yeah, it's actually almost a step forward where it becomes a fourth thing in that humans forget that they're very existence. Ah, that's a gift. And you begin to think it's actually you and yours. That you're the one in control.

Starting point is 00:23:36 And that this is your stuff and your power to make it. What I really loved about the parable we were discussing last time was I had this mental picture of going into the pool house where the people were hoarding the food, showing up at the party and being like, guys, what's going on? And for them, just to logically explain to you, well, there's a bunch of food here,

Starting point is 00:23:56 but we don't know, we don't know if we can trust the host is actually gonna keep giving it. It makes sense for us to make sure that we're taking care of the people that I love the most. And so we got to figure out how to do that in our best way. We know how. And this is the best way to know how. And it's not that bad.

Starting point is 00:24:12 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then the Genesis 4 step would be enough time goes by. Yeah. That you've forgotten you're in somebody else's house. And the original stuff that you got is somebody else's food that they gave you.

Starting point is 00:24:28 You begin to think it's yours and that you made it. Well, because you can go in the kitchen and make more too. Yeah, or maybe, yeah, that's the idea. And now you think it's like your kitchen and your food. It's my place and my energy. And I formed a human alongside Yahweh. Yeah, that's the point. Like I'm throwing this party there.

Starting point is 00:24:46 Right. And again, the way you get that reading of Genesis 3 and 4 is actually by reading the whole rest of the Hebrew Bible. And then coming back, you'd be like, I see what's going on here. And so every one of these steps is gonna get repeated in all of the stories to follow in the Hebrew Bible and develop even more.

Starting point is 00:25:03 So God's seeming favoritism to kind of come back because the favoritism is hard to deal with. If you come from a sense of let's be fair, God can you be fair? Yeah, sure. It seems like you could have blessed both Cain and Abel. Mm-hmm. And God says that there is exaltation for Cain. Yeah. He does the right thing.

Starting point is 00:25:24 Yeah, the plan is to make sure that everyone has a place at the table. But he is choosing one to be the vehicle through whom he's going to. And he's choosing one to do that to thwart the inclination of the human heart, which is to scheme and hoard and devise your own plan. And so it begins a whole separate motif that should be at its own theme video we've talked about. The first question to the board. Choosing the unlikely one to be the vehicle of his purpose in the world. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:25:54 Specifically the week, the poor, the rejected. He has a special pleasure in exalting them in his purpose. Is what gets him killed? Yeah. God's election is what ends up causing the suffering of the righteous, so to speak. Which makes you think maybe that wasn't the smartest move. Well, if you have... If you have more violence.

Starting point is 00:26:15 If you have humans around. Anyhow. So, as we wave goodbye to Genesis 4, we have a portrait of humans who don't know what to do with God's many gifts. They attribute the gifts to their own power like Eve or like Cain and his descendant, Lamek. They in their selfishness, take life, take the lives of others, Kane kills Abel, Lamack kills some unnamed person, that he sings the song about.

Starting point is 00:27:15 And so you walk away just going, oh no, this is, those people in the pool room are violent and shortsighted and this is not going well. And so we've been through Genesis 3 to 11 many times. So I just want to land us with the Babylon story and observe something similar that we saw in the story of Eve and Cain and Abel. And then they'll launch us into Abraham. So Genesis 3 to 11 gives us a spiral, all these portraits of humans and spiritual beings in rebellion. We don't have to go down that rabbit hole today. The crowning story is the

Starting point is 00:27:52 building of the city of Babylon in Genesis 11. Yeah, look what we can do. That's right. And it's very similar, just like Eve took the first part of that blessing of generativity, you know, be fruitful and multiply, and she attributes it to herself, right, her ability. In Genesis 11, the thing about go out and fill the earth, that part of the blessing, what you see here is people saying, hey, let's build a city and a tower, or else, we'll be scattered all out there, we'll all be out there. So it's another effort of humans instead of the propensity of life is to go out. But they want to focus the blessing and harness its power for themselves in one place as one people. So to speak. And it's connected to their desire to let us make for ourselves a name.

Starting point is 00:28:42 And that for ourselves, it's the people in the pool room again. Let's protect ourselves. Let's protect ourselves and let's use the resources that we've forgotten their gift and now create a new pool room that has our name on it because it's ours. It's all ours and it's about us and our and this story is a parody of Babylon and its exaggerated claims about itself. It's this is an Israelite parody on the, the self, a grandizing claims of Babylon. Yeah, this is like a political humor. Yeah, it kind of is. Yeah, yeah, many layers to the story. It's similar in that it's a portrait of humans having forgotten that their existence is a gift.

Starting point is 00:29:25 Their ability to reproduce is a gift. Because if you're in Israelite during the exile to Babylon or before, and kind of worrying about the superpower, to explain it that way of like look what happens when humanity has this inclination to misuse power because they're misunderstanding abundance. Yeah, yeah. But here on the scale of an empire, it's almost like a diagnosis of the liability

Starting point is 00:29:53 of abundance on a corporate empire terms. What's happening in Babylon is what happens to every human heart. Yeah, Eve's self aggrandizing of her power to create a human is a microform and Babylon is the macro form of it. Look at what we can do for our name in our power. And so God's response again is to do something very similar. He upends the thing by bringing about what they fear, which is to scatter them and decentralize their power. You know it's tough from this perspective in human history in which we

Starting point is 00:30:29 have already scattered the globe and now there's kind of this new trend of urbanization. That's a good point. Like gods command to spread out and multiply. Yeah, it just doesn't register as much. That's true. Yeah, in a global age, we almost have to take our solar system as like the next frontier. To try and recreate the mindset of a time when being a human on earth, it was perceived that just the land itself is an undiscovered frontier. Yeah. Like what would it be like to have that mindset? Well, that's probably similar to how we perceive the solar system right now. It's out there. You're blowing my mind. Oh, really?

Starting point is 00:31:13 Well, you're giving a, you're giving a, like a biblical foundation for like space colonies. Oh, totally. Why not? I love it. Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the universe and subdue it. I had to tell me that's not a logical extension.

Starting point is 00:31:31 Totally is a logical extension. The biblical narrative. It's the biblical narrative. You're saying Mars colonies are biblical. I'd be on a SpaceX rocket for sure going out to be on Mars colony if it were possible. You know, I'd love that. A good friend of mine who was a mentor in my life for a long time, we were talking about sci-fi books

Starting point is 00:31:48 and things we would want to write. And he said he had this sci-fi story idea of basically you're living in new creation and your job is just to explore and expand into the universe, space exploration. Oh yeah, yeah. And that was the first time I ever even thought about. Putting those together.

Starting point is 00:32:04 Well, you know, when you think about a new creation and new life and a new earth, it's just like, what are the categories? You totally. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, to like, be thinking about space exploration as part of that, sounds awesome. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Isn't that how in the Narnia series, in the after the last battle, the further up and further in, they're just running on into the new creation,

Starting point is 00:32:33 endless discovery. Endless discovery. Yeah, it's like the last few pages. It's beautiful. That's cool. Okay. Anyway, the point is we're trying to recreate what's a modern equivalent of the undiscovered frontier.

Starting point is 00:32:45 But no, we don't want to go there. Let's centralize here for ourselves. Let's make a name for ourselves. And a crew, power, honor, and self-glory and that kind of stuff. That's the portrait of Babylon. Hmm. 1.5% So here's what's wonderful. Well, I guess if you're Babylonians not wonderful. God scatters Babylon, that's His response.

Starting point is 00:33:37 And then what He does in the next story is call one family that's generated out of that region, out of the scattering of that region, right, the family of Shem, right on down, and it leads to Abram. And then in the opening lines of Genesis 12, and many readers have caught this link here, it's God choosing one family to give the supreme gift. So humanity from Eve to Babylon,

Starting point is 00:34:02 just they're abusing the gift. I'm gonna choose one family and give them like the ultimate gift. In fact, the gift I'm trying to give all humanity, I'm just going to give to one family and do something with this family that will restore the gift to everybody else. That's the meaning of the opening words to Abraham and Genesis 12. So the Lord said to Abraham, go forth from your country, from your relatives, and from your father's house. So leave your your social web. Yeah. You believe the known. Yeah, leave your this is your ancient life insurance. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:34:36 Was your extended family. Sure. Yeah. Ancient healthcare. Yeah. Everything. Was everything. Was your extended family. Yeah, so leave your whole framework for security Mm-hmm and meaning and go to the land. I'll show you There I'll make you a great nation. I'll bless you. It's Genesis one. Mm-hmm. I'll make your name great I'll give you the great name Mm-hmm and so that contrast between I'll give it to you. Yeah, you don't need to go find it and take it. You don't have to make it for yourself. You don't have to make it for yourself.

Starting point is 00:35:07 I want to give it, I'm trying to give it to you. This is the party host coming to the pool party, being like these people don't get it. So I will just choose a random person at the party and give them what I'm trying to give to everybody else. If I can get one family to understand an abundant gift, then that's how it can start. Yep, start with one family. So he gives to one no name person, so to speak, the great name that Babylon was trying to create for itself.

Starting point is 00:35:35 It was very similar to Genesis 4 in the Eve stuff. She's trying to attribute divine power to her own abilities to create the blessing. And so God upends that. But then in his generosity gives her another son in return. Here it's God gives the no name, a great name to shame the wise who want to create a name for themselves. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:36:02 Genesis 11 and 12 create this neat kind of portrait. It's worth a long walk on a cup of tea. To think about that. And then you keep reading. Okay. And so I'm gonna bless you and make your name great. Why? And you will be a blessing. That is to others. Yeah. I'll bless those who bless you. The one who treats you as cursed, I'll curse. And in you, all families on the land will find blessing. This thing will snowball. It's going to snowball.

Starting point is 00:36:28 That's the whole point. And then matching that a few verses later, Abram goes to the land and then God says to your descendants, I will give this land. So he's giving a name, he's giving the abundance of the blessing of family and he's giving a land. It's the same gift given on page one. Blessing with abundance of family and land. Except now it's just one human family out of all the others.

Starting point is 00:36:54 So it's the generosity theme of Genesis one now being reapplied in the new post-Vablon world. Yeah, and so what does Abraham gonna do with this abundant gift? Correct. You've watched all these other people not do well. post-Vablon world. And so what is Abraham going to do with this abundant gift? Correct. You've watched all these other people not do well. Yeah. With the gift. So what's Abraham going to do? That's the fingernail biting tension.

Starting point is 00:37:15 If you don't have to wait long. Actually, it's the next story. It's his first failure. Yeah. He tries to seize the gift himself. The next story is there's a famine in the land. You know that's interesting. Is there going to be enough?

Starting point is 00:37:32 That's a test of his trust that there will be enough, even though it seems like there's not enough. Some days there's not enough. Yes. That's the tough thing that keeps going through the back of my mind as I'm talking about this. God is a generous host. Yes. God can be trusted. Okay. But some days there's not enough. Some days, yeah, or some years. Yeah. The land doesn't. Some people experience a lifetime of not enough. Of not enough. Totally. And that's what all the way back to that teaching of Jesus that we started with.

Starting point is 00:38:02 That's part of the, is your listening to Jesus? Look at the raven and the flowers and be like, there's enough. God's generous and you're like, is there really enough? Correct, yeah. Because there's a lot of suffering. Yes, there is. Connected to the lack of resources.

Starting point is 00:38:16 Yes, connected to not having enough. And so, yeah, the biblical portrait of why there's not enough in reality I think is fairly nuanced. Sometimes it's human-caused. Horting. We're not sharing. Yeah, injustice.

Starting point is 00:38:31 Injustice. And then sometimes it's because of Tohu-vavo, chaos. The creation, we're in creation 1.0. But was it Eden full on good creation in the narrative logic? Correct, that's right. Yeah, Eden is a spot of complete abundance and divine gift, but Eden's just one spot in the land.

Starting point is 00:38:55 And I think that's why... Earth got downgraded, was what you're saying. Well, it's more, it's actually similar to the logic of Abraham. God chooses one spot to start with. Yeah. The garden. And then he appoints the humans to join him in filling the land and spreading the garden. Yeah, and that's why there's such a narrative link

Starting point is 00:39:13 between the garden and the promised land. Correct. It's because it's the same idea. Let's give, let's start it somewhere. That's right. Yeah, Abraham. Start the abundance. And his family art is a promised land

Starting point is 00:39:23 is an iteration of the first humans in Eden. Yeah, Abraham, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family,

Starting point is 00:39:32 and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family,

Starting point is 00:39:40 and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, and his family, There's actually not enough. The ground doesn't produce. That was God's sad warning in Genesis 3 to the humans after they're banished from the garden. What he says. You're going to work the soil, it's going to suck.

Starting point is 00:39:52 Yeah, it's going to, the grounds won't yield its strength to you easily, thistles and thorns, and then you'll die. Go back. But God's on a mission to recreate the garden. That's the whole point of the story. Yeah. And so, yeah, the lack of abundance that Abraham experiences becomes a test. I just feel this tension between the guys. We live in a universe hosted by a generous god, and sometimes there's not enough. Sometimes there's not enough. Yeah. It just feels really at odds to me. I hear it. It is. I think you're right.

Starting point is 00:40:25 I think it's attention, the whole biblical narrative is working out. For the simple reason that within the view of the world, within the biblical view of the world, like in the creation poems that we saw about the well-ordered creation, there is still the chaotic sea out there that will kill you.

Starting point is 00:40:43 There's still Leviathan and Behemoth, right from Job, and there's still earthquakes and famines. Things that will kill people that are a part of the world, and these two are at the stage of the story, those are still two realities in God's world. Yeah, because God could have, I mean, as a thought experiment, I suppose, God could have just started with new creation. But for whatever reason, he started with Tohu Vahu, creates a spot of generosity with and then with co-rulers to work with him to spread that.

Starting point is 00:41:20 And that strategy is what got us into this place. Yeah, right. That he's recreating through Jesus. That's right. It's like his obsession to co-rule with us. That's right. That's driving this. He wants humans.

Starting point is 00:41:35 He desperately wants us to mature. Yeah. Yeah. Apparently the higher value is that humans mature to become the glorious co-rulers that he purposer them to be. And that way of then framing, post-Eden, the whole post-Eden experience of goodness and horror, of abundance and lack. This is all the testing grounds for maturing humans to become what he destined them to be.

Starting point is 00:42:05 And then the point of the biblical story is, yeah, and we don't do it. We can't do it. That's the point of the incarnation, I think. But the other point of the incarnation is, now we can do it. Yeah, so you have Jesus walking around, talking as if he's living in Eden. There's enough. The kingdom of God has to be the only evidence. Enough for the, it's like Jesus enough. The kingdom of God has saved the Lord. That's true. Enough for the, it's like Jesus believes

Starting point is 00:42:27 that the kingdom of God has really come. Yeah. Yeah. And so. And he wants you to act that way too. He wants you to foster that mindset that even though it's not always reality as we experience it, the ultimate reality

Starting point is 00:42:40 and future destiny is of the life of Eden permeating Earth. So let's start living as if that's true right now. Which makes you look like a radical countercultural kind of person. Or stupid. Or stupid. Right. Right. The way is that we're objecting to G.S. is teaching. Yeah. Or naive. Naive. Naive. It sounds stupid. Yeah. What do you mean there's enough? There's not enough. Yeah. I was suffering yesterday. Yeah. Totally. I mean, it's not. There's not enough. Yeah. I was suffering yesterday. Yeah. Totally. I mean, it's not hard to stack up arguments against Jesus saying there's enough for the Ravens and the Flowers

Starting point is 00:43:09 and for you. Like, there's not enough. And I think Jesus would have a lot more to say, but he's at least trying to mess with you, mess with your categories. And for Jesus, it's not like some like, life hack, where now all of a sudden, you're gonna have an amazing abundant life. Oh, no

Starting point is 00:43:27 He got killed. Yeah, and he was homeless I'm serious. Yes. Yeah, yeah, but But he lived he lived he fostered this and and life came out from around him. Yeah Yeah, okay, so this is important. I think in the video, we want to capture all these tensions of the generous kinds of humans that live by this story. Believe in the abundance mindset. But they also were able to look squarely in the face, the lack of abundance, created by humans

Starting point is 00:44:01 and created by chaos and death and all that and the finite resources of our of the land and yet still looking at all that Trust that the new Eden has broken in in Jesus and that there is enough And that ultimately and ultimately there will be enough there will be enough And so I'm going to choose to live like that in the present and choosing to to live like that in the present is the best kind of life you could have. Yeah. Yeah. Life that is truly life. Correct. That's why Jesus, I think, talks so much about money and generosity. Because that's the natural, it's one of the natural outcomes of believing that the Kingdom of God has truly arrived. It's so easy to poke holes in it because I were to just give away everything right now. Would I really have a better life? Yeah, I guess depends on your definition of better.

Starting point is 00:45:38 Yeah, right. Yeah. Is that what Jesus says at the end of his musings about the Ravens and stuff, sell everything and give to the poor? Correct. Did you say everything? Sell your possessions. Sell your possessions.

Starting point is 00:45:51 And give to the poor. You know, Jesus often taught through riddles and hyperbole exaggerated statements that shake you away. Right. Forced you to think about a new reality. His whole mission was funded by generous people who didn't sell everything and give to the poor. Right. Forced you to think about a new reality. His whole mission was funded by generous people who didn't sell everything and give to the world. Right.

Starting point is 00:46:09 They had Jesus and the disciples on payroll, right? In Luke 8, remember that group of women? And he was with you with that. That group of women we talked about that are mentioned in Luke 8. Yeah, the patrons. He's wealthy women who funded the Jesus mission up in Galilee. It's so cool. It's totally cool to think about.

Starting point is 00:46:24 So they didn't sell everything. Yeah. and there's the guy basically funded Luke to write Yeah, right? Gospels and yeah, yeah, totally who owned the upper room? Where the last upper two points? Yeah, yeah, some property owner in Jerusalem proper. I mean, that's it's expensive now and it was expensive back then Yeah, so however, Jesus still wanted to get in your face and really push the issue and shake your value system with the core. Yeah. It really makes you go like, yeah, why am I keeping this?

Starting point is 00:46:50 If you are going to keep some possessions. Yeah. Why are you keeping it? Why? What are you keeping it for? Yeah. So Abraham, his family and the land are God's gift to the family, to Israelites.

Starting point is 00:47:02 Yeah. And that's the whole portrait of it. And every generation is its God's generosity, just like in Genesis 1, it's God's generosity now to the family of Abraham. So I'm gonna give you the land. And then he says to Isaac, Abraham's son, I'm gonna give you in your descendants the land,

Starting point is 00:47:16 keeps passing on. They end up exiled in Egypt for a long time, many generations. But then finally, God liberates them from the oppressive powers of Egypt to bring them into their own land. And actually, the story of Egypt is very important because it's a portrait, it's like the Super Babylon, and Egypt represents a group of people who instead of trusting that if we give these immigrants their own responsibility and share in the resources of Egypt.

Starting point is 00:47:46 Will all be better off? Will all be better off. Instead, what he says is, oh, here's an ethnic group that's becoming more powerful. And there is threat to our power and safety. And so he scapegoat to them and then begins to enslave and kill them. And so that becomes, once again, an uber Babylon. The uber Babylon. Yeah. It's another human response to the gift,

Starting point is 00:48:09 which is to be fruitful and multiply. And then the Israelites do. And then here's what humans do with it. They try and destroy it, because it feels threatening to them. And so egypt and slavery in Egypt, and the lack of ability to own land, or to have your own place in land, it becomes the anti-god thing, the anti-generosity thing.

Starting point is 00:48:29 Slavery is an anti-generosity. Correct. Yes, yeah. In a way. At a systemic level, especially. This person doesn't deserve to have their own place in the world and generate and be productive on their own terms. They have to do it in service to me and for my benefit.

Starting point is 00:48:48 So interesting, the Bible doesn't come right out and like say, slavery is bad. In fact, like in the, you know, Paul's kind of like slaves, so better masters. But you get this crazy indictment of slavery. It's like the fundamental, one of the fundamental portraits of God

Starting point is 00:49:06 and the Hebrew scriptures is of crushing the slave owner and liberating the slave. Yes, it's right there. It's crazy. Yes. These are not the stories being emphasized. When you're trying to colonize the world. You're trying to colonize the world.

Starting point is 00:49:21 Nope. You'll go to stories in the New Testament. Yeah. You'll find a way around. Versus Nepal, take them out of context, and then justify. But it's hindsight, it's 2020, right? If slavery is as woven in to your society, as electricity is to ours. Yeah, how do you talk against it, or how do you disrupt it?

Starting point is 00:49:39 Yeah, it took centuries. And it's still a reality. It's still a reality. It's still a reality. Yeah, totally. But your And it's still a reality. It's still a reality. It's still a reality. Yeah, totally. But your point's a good one. Slavery in the Bible is depicted as a compromised, ultimately oppressive and anti-God,

Starting point is 00:49:54 anti-human institution. So Abraham's family is in Egypt, they're slaves. God gives another gift of generosity and rescue them from slavery and they're giving them the land. Giving them the land, totally. So let me just two passages out of Deuteronomy that just summarize the generosity theme. This is on page 7.

Starting point is 00:50:16 So one is in Deuteronomy chapter 11, starting in verse 8, Moses says, Israelites, says after the Ten Commandments and all this, keep all the commands that I'm commanding you today. This is the covenant stipulations between God and Israel. So that you may be strong, go in and possess the land, have long days on the land, which the Lord swore to your fathers to give to them. There it is, again, the gift of the land. A land flowing with milk and honey.

Starting point is 00:50:41 A generous gift. Yes, cows and bees. The abundant gift. Yeah. Milk and Yes, cows and bees. A abundant gift. Yeah. Milk and honey is cows and bees. Yeah. Let's just think about how Eden like the land is. The land you're entering to possess, it's not like Egypt,

Starting point is 00:50:55 where you came from, where you had to so seed and then water it with your feet, like a vegetable garden. Water with your feet. This is like subscribing, farming in the Nile deltas. Oh, where's your this trejing around? In irrigation. It's all about foot pumps, irrigation, and moving water around this flat, completely flat land.

Starting point is 00:51:19 Verse 11, but the land you're crossing into possessa, it's a land of hills and valleys, and how do you water? How do you get water? It waters itself. Drinks water from the reign of heaven. So that means the land's productivity is also a gift. It's a land for which the Lord your God cares, the eyes of the Lord your God are on it from the beginning, the ray sheets, the same word of Genesis one. Wink, wink, to the end of the year. It will come about, if you listen and obey my commands, and I'm giving you love, shema, love the Lord, you

Starting point is 00:51:55 got it with all your heart and soul, he'll give you the rain for your land, early the rain, the late rain that you may gather the grain. This is the portrait, the lands a gift. Yeah, and it's going to produce. It's going to produce. It's going to be about it. But notice here now, similar to Eden, similar and dissimilar to Eden, obedience to God's wisdom and his definitions of good and evil, that in the garden we're embodied by the tree,

Starting point is 00:52:18 here it's embodied by the Torah, and your ability to flourish in the land is completely dependent on submitting to God's wisdom about good evil. So fast forward to us in this story. What's the test? What's the, um, yes, I put this before you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't, don't choose to define good evil yourself. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Well, as you walk into the laws in the section of Deuteronomy, what most of the laws are going to be about is about economics, economic relationships. You get laws that are all about every seven years, all debts are forgiven. Yeah, what's that? It's a bad economy.

Starting point is 00:52:59 Bad economic system, if you want to gain a lot of power. At least in a modern version of market capitalism. That would screw up capitalism. But that's so, this is an ancient farming network of tribal farmers, leagues of tribal farming communities. And so for them, actually every seven years, you have a bad crop and so it assumes that everybody's going to hit hard times. Everybody's going to have, right, these ups and downs of years of farming. And so every seven years we just equalize the playing field.

Starting point is 00:53:32 I thought that was every 40 years. Well, so every seven years, it's a debt release. Okay. Every seven of seven. Yeah. So the, is the Jubilee year. And there it's another debt release. And on top of that, if anybody had to sell their land,

Starting point is 00:53:50 because of debt poverty, the land is restored back to its original tribal family unit. So the whole point is it's an economic system that is trying to recreate the Exodus generation coming into the Promised Land. It's every seven years, and then every seven sevens, we hit the restart. That's the Jubilee. It's recreating Eden in the land, and everybody gets a fresh restart. It's remarkable. So all these laws like that, they have all these laws about when you're harvesting the field and you miss a row.

Starting point is 00:54:26 Leave it. Leave it. When you are beating your olive trees. Leave it for other people to come and take. Yeah, that's right. Leave it for the immigrant, the orphan, and the widow. When you're beating your olive trees, don't maximize profit. Let the first beating be enough.

Starting point is 00:54:43 Yeah, be enough for you. And then leave the rest for them for the immigrant, the orphan in the widow. Actually, that law ends. That law ends. It goes through with if you miss a row, don't go back and get it. If you beat the trees the first time, let the immigrants and the orphans come do the second. When you harvest grapes, don't go over the grapes again. Leave it. And then the last line is remember that you were slaves in Egypt. That's why I command you to do this. Deuteronomy 24, 22. And the logic there. I'm doing this so we don't enslave yourself the way you are slaves in Egypt. Yes. So you don't maximize profit and you create opportunities for people who are in difficult life situations

Starting point is 00:55:25 to work and provide for themselves. Why? Dude, we were slaves in Egypt. That's why we live like this. Because we know how this ends if we don't live generously. Correct. Yes, totally.

Starting point is 00:55:37 I'll just end this part with a quote from a book I recently read. It's so fascinating. This is on how the law codes in the Pentateuch represent a real break from ancient Near Eastern political and economic systems and a critique of them. He's a rabbi and a biblical ancient Near Eastern scholar Skyrim Joshua Burman did.

Starting point is 00:56:00 We'll put the book in the show notes and then just search the Sky in Amazon and read everything he's written. This guy is unbelievable. Joshua Burman. Yeah, so he has whole chapter on these debt release laws. Okay. And he says, a key theological claim at work in these laws is that of God's identity as the liberator of slaves. He forms a people out of those who were deemed to be people of no standing at all by the political and economic leaders who oppressed them. The egalitarian streak in the Pentatucal law codes, he'll go on to explain what that means.

Starting point is 00:56:35 He said, it accords with the portrayal of the Exodus as the prime experience of Israel's self-understanding. Indeed, no Israelite can lay claimed any greater status than another, because all emanate from the Exodus, a common, seminal, liberating, and equalizing event. The notion of God's sovereignty, as creator and liberator, animated the biblical laws, aimed at preventing Israelites from descending into the cycles of poverty and debt. He's a good writer. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:57:07 The whole book's about what he calls the egalitarian politics of the Book of Deer Rani. Ancient egalitarianism. And by egalitarianism, you mean that everyone is equal? Everyone, yeah. Every Israelite commoner is an equal participant. And actually, he even, he says, in ancient Israel

Starting point is 00:57:25 at context, which is still, is a patriarchal context. But to say that every man in Israel is on equal ground, including the king, including the priests, including the prophets, there was no community living like this in the ancient areas. This is a direct outflow of image of God theology. And arguably ancient Israel never really lived this way. No, even they didn't live up to this calling. But the experience of Exodus and what happened at Mount Sinai as a friend of mine puts it was this family sticking their fork in the light socket.

Starting point is 00:58:00 What? Something happened to this family in human history that produced a worldview and a people with an idea set of ideals that no one had ever thought or talked this way before in human history. Something happened to this family. Yeah. And in the way they tell the story, in what we call the Hebrew Bible, is that they encountered the being called I am, who rescued them from slavery. Yeah, who rescued them? Slavery.

Starting point is 00:58:28 Yeah, and who made known his will to them that he wants all humans to be liberated from Babylon and Egypt. So this seems like two different ways to get at God's generosity. One is that he already is hosting a party that, you know, the Eden thing. But the other one is we find ourselves as slaves. And this generous God rescued us. And now that should form the way we just think about how to live in the world as rescued slaves. Are those two ideas connected? Yeah, I think they actually, I think the biblical story assumes the post-Eden reality. How did we get here? Who are we? And how did we get here?

Starting point is 00:59:16 Well, first of all, know who you are. You were not made ultimately to live in post-Eden reality. You're made to be glorious co-rulers who share in the divine life, ruling over an abundant world of life and beauty and goodness. That's what you're made for, and that's why you're so bothered living in a world that's not like that. So here's Genesis 3-11. Here's how we got here. And then Genesis 12, Abraham and forward, here's what God has been up to in history to recreate an even greater Eden for the human family and it begins with Abraham coming out of Babylon and then Israel coming out of Egypt is a another moment. And here the way Joshua Berman talks about it, it was the Seminole moment.

Starting point is 00:59:58 Seminole? Oh yeah, in terms of Israel's self-identity. Yeah. Correct. in terms of Israel's self-identity. Yeah, correct. But shouldn't their self-identity go back to Eden and the fact that they were created as co-rulers who need to trust God, not that they were just strictly rescued as slaves? Well, but in a way, the story of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob living in the land and having to trust God but doing fine there,

Starting point is 01:00:24 that becomes the Eden part of Israel's story. Oh. Jacob living in the land and having to trust God but doing fine there. That becomes the Eden part of Israel's story. God gave the gift of the land to our ancestors and there was enough. They had to trust and there were many tests. But they had to trust and God provided and blessed them in the land of Canaan. Then we were exiled from the land of Canaan, suffering in Egypt, but now we have the chance to go back to Eden, and then of course when they finally get there, they do what the first humans did to Eden,

Starting point is 01:00:49 which is just grew it all up. So I think those two go together. We're made for Eden-like creation, and that's where the story is ultimately going, but every human that reads the Bible is waking up and not Eden. How do we get here? And what is God doing in history to get us back to a creation permeated with God's life? And you get to Jesus and he's talking like it started. It's here. You even survived. The Eden's arrived.

Starting point is 01:01:16 Touchdown. He calls it the Kingdom of God. Yeah. Exactly. So here, we're going to do a quick jump that's skipping most of the Old Testament. Yeah. Which is not typically what you like to do. Yeah, no, but so the Exodus and the laws are trying to set you up for another opportunity for Israel

Starting point is 01:01:34 to go in the land and experience some form of an Eden-like existence in the land. And you read the stories, Joshua, Judges Samuel Kings, they don't do it. They just create another Babylon. They create a metaphorical Babylon in Israel and then they end up in literal Babylon in another exile.

Starting point is 01:01:53 And so the whole story is again of squandered generosity. And so both for all humanity and now for the family that God chose to spread blessing to the world. What's gonna happen now? Yeah. And chose to spread blessing to the world. What's going to happen now? Yeah. And that leads us right to the doorstep of the story of Jesus announcing the kingdom of God has arrived.

Starting point is 01:02:13 Hey, thanks for listening to this episode of the Bible Project Podcast. We've got one more episode covering the topic of generosity and abundance in the Bible. So as our custom will then host a question and response episode. So if you've got any questions that have come up through this series, we'd love to hear from you. You can send us your questions to info at jointhebipelproject.com. And if you're able to keep the question to about 20 seconds, let us know your name and where you're from. That would be perfect. Again, it's info at JoinTheBipleProject.com. Today's show is produced by Dan Gummel.

Starting point is 01:02:52 Our theme music is by the band Tents. As we've talked about generosity the past few weeks, we want you to know how extremely grateful we are for you. You've been incredibly generous to this project, to us, to the whole team here who are making these videos, and we want to be generous in response. We believe that this is a movement of generosity, so whether that's been helping us fund new videos by sharing what's going on here, praying for us, we want you to know how grateful we are for you. Bob Project is a crowdfunded nonprofit,

Starting point is 01:03:27 and we're in Portland, Oregon, and all of our resources are free because of the generosity of people like you. So thanks for being a part of this with us. Hi, I'm Rebecca from Waco, Texas. My family and I have loved the Bible Project for years. We enjoy watching the videos together. The art and complex ideas made

Starting point is 01:03:46 simple are so masterfully done. And I personally have used the Bible reading plan and I so appreciate the way themes and threads are woven throughout scripture. They come alive thanks to the conversations Tim and John have on the podcast. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. We're a crowdfunded project by people like me. Find free videos, study notes, podcasts, and more at thebibelproject.com. Yes. For now, over.

Starting point is 01:04:18 Whatever. For now, over. That was fun.

BibleProject - The Abraham Experiment - Generosity E3

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