Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - BONUS: 2024 Wrap Up and What's Next in 2025

Episode Date: December 28, 2024

You made it through The Writings! Join the TMBTeam as they discuss their biggest takeaways from a year in The Writings and unpack what TMBT is studying in 2025. Thanks for an awesome year, and we'll see you in 2025! Read the Bible with us in 2025! This year, we’re exploring the Historical Books—Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here.

Hey, we're glad you're joining us for this bonus episode today. We're going to do something a little bit different. Instead of having a 10-minute devotional, we've brought together a few members of our team to talk about what we will be doing in the next year. What we hope you, as a listener, will be joining us for over the next year. So I've got Jensen and Jeff, who you already know from the podcast. And we've also got Annalin Frazier, who if you subscribe to our newsletter, which if you don't, why don't you subscribe to that? It's fantastic. You'll learn a lot about what we're discussing in our podcast episode. you kind of go a step deeper. But she writes the newsletter, and we like the joke. This is her annual opportunity to join the podcast. So, Annalin, thanks for joining us. It's my favorite time of the year.

I'm very excited to be here. It's Christmas time, and it's not her favorite because of Christmas. It's because of podcasting. We're delighted. So here's what I'd love to do to start the episode. For everybody, thinking about the last year, we've gone through the writings,

which is kind of this grab bag in the Old Testament of the Psalms and a bunch of other books that if you've been listening along, you know what's included. But for you guys, what's been your favorite part of going through the writings this year? I love wisdom literature. I got to teach a class on it.

Keith and I for our local church, got to teach a class on it a couple years ago. And for me, I saw this is really exciting opportunity to get back into wisdom literature. So wisdom literature, that's Proverbs, ecclesiases, Job,

and Song of Solomon, Song of Songs, depending. We did that one in one episode. I got stuck with that. I got to give some time in the newsletter. It was a lot of fun. So for me, yeah, wisdom literature is just so practical. It's like these books that kind of take a break from the normal narrative of like the story of God's people and instead gives you these really practical, relevant bits of advice on what it looks like to walk with God

in a fallen world that doesn't know him. That's good. All right. No one else can say wisdom literature. I'll go last. Okay, well, I was going to say whenever we went. Okay, you can't. No, no, no, no, no. something different. Okay, yeah. When we went through the Chronicles. Oh, yeah. The genealogies? That was your favorite part?

Yeah, you did give me some. Yes. We went through the genealogies, and I did get one. And I really did like that. And I think what I love about narrative is being able to understand more about who God is and his bigger story. And I think narrative is fun because you're reading a story. But you also get to see how it connects to the larger picture.

And you can see, like, the threads of God's redemption and his justice and his whole plan to like bring the gospel to the world through Jesus all the way back through the way that he cares for Israel. And so I just love that. That's great. Yeah, it's great for next year. It is. Yeah, yeah. It's like it's almost a teaser of next year, but let's not sell the hot too soon. Yeah, I think for me, I've loved all of it. I've had a special affection for the Psalms, our time in the Psalms. And I've just been blown away with the way that the Psalms are this unique space in scripture where God meets his people where they are, and he takes them where he wants them to go. And I feel like the imagery, the language of the Psalms speak so much to the

human experience to my experience. I feel like a lot of us are just trying to get through the week, trying to get through the day. And so the Psalms hit there, but also they hit at the proactive movement of God for his people and drawing them into a bigger story. And at the heart of that is his steadfast love for his people for his story. And so that's been blowing my mind, like me. I've loved it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is why I went last because I was going to say the Psalms, but I won't repeat. I'm sorry. I will say a funny story. When we were deciding what to do at the end of 2023, we were deciding what to do for 2024. We had a meeting with everybody. We were discussing these different options. It's always a big deal meeting. And Jeff, I remember you

had just joined the team and weren't saying much. But at one point you go, man, I just love the Psalms. I think that was your contribution. And you know who doesn't love the Psalms? And we can make fun of them. because he's not here. Keith. Yeah, I was going to say. Keith is the one who said. I think Jeff did say that in response to Keith. He said, you guys are going to regret this. Oh, poor God.

Haven't regretted it yet. You can find his email on our website and can tell him why he's wrong. He'd be happy to hear it because he was wrong. The Psalms were delightful. I'll go ahead and say the exilic literature. So, you know, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, all of that. We covered a lot. Those were good.

Those were great. Those were great. And similar reasons to Jensen, but what I love about those stories is that they're about people who are living in a time of exile where they're outsiders in their culture, where they don't belong. And, you know, anybody's listening to the podcast might know that we're writing a book called joyful outsider. So I've been thinking a lot about this idea of what it means to be an outsider. And in fact, the idea that it's an identity God's called us into because we talk a lot about identity in Christ. That's kind of a buzzword people love to discuss. And I think it's

beautiful. Like, you know, we're children of God and we're united with Christ. And those are parts of our identity, but in the Bible, there's this whole other element of being an outsider. And it's something we don't talk enough about. And I think if we don't talk enough about it, we get surprised by life, where it's like, oh, why don't I fit in here? Why don't people see the world the way I see the world? Maybe I'm doing something wrong. And when you read the exilic literature, all of a sudden you're realizing, oh, actually, all this tension I'm feeling is a sign of God working in my life and God helping me live into an identity. It's not a problem. And so that's why I loved those passages. Okay, next question before we hop into next year.

What is one thing that you are excited about learning about right now that has nothing to do with your work on 10-minute Bible talks? I didn't prep anyone for this, so everybody has to think about it for a second. I have something. Oh, go. I recently moved to a home. I'm glad it was a home. It was something because I moved into a home and we're painting.

And we had intentions of maybe getting someone else to paint so that, it didn't look as bad as it looked in our last house. Then we realized that's expensive. So my husband and I have been watching lots of YouTube's and videos and learning how to paint correctly. Oh. How to cut in, when to cut in. It's a sand.

You're supposed to sand between every coat of paint that you put on your wall. Wow. Did you know that Jeff used to be a professional painter? You were a... I painted all through high school and college. Would you like to come over and help me cut in? I'm in the same neighborhood. I'll swing by.

That's true. Jeff's my neighbor now. I'll pull a little wagon down the street. to show up. Jesus actually calls you to be a good neighbor, and one way that you can do that is through painting my living room with me. Thank you. Anyways, I'm learning a lot about painting. Nothing to do with 10-minute Bible talks. That's great. Yes. Yeah, can I say like another ministry thing? I don't know. I want to have something as cool as painting. Well, it could be more uncool than painting. That's the most exciting thing in the way.

Okay. It is therapeutic. You can be a good book going or something like that. Wow. Okay, I've been learning a lot. I feel like maybe you guys have taken the deep dive into this stuff, but a lot of stuff I've been exploring at a personal level, but also with the ministry team I get to work with. And it has implications for my personal life, family life, things like that. But the intersection of theology and people call it like systems theory, bohem theory, but like the way that like people's relationships form part of their lives. And it's impacted some of the ways that some of the 10 minute Bible talks have actually fleshed out for especially some of the Psalms.

But I've just been thinking a lot about how this feels like such a nerdy, weird thing to say. It's all connected. You're not to explain it more. Is there like systems theory? Yeah. But like it's essentially the interrelationship between people. So it started with like somebody who's counseling family therapy. Instead of just working with the identified patient, they'd work with the entire family

because this person's behavior is really just a symptom of other things at play behind the scenes under the surface. And so there are ways in which this happens. This gets played out organizationally within family systems. Even so it was a book that came out recently by Steve Cuss called The Expectation Gap. And he kind of even explores how there's like an element of the systems theory within your own personal life. And so for me, I think it's just been really a formative time for me, even at a spiritual level, relational level of there's way more at play than I tend to recognize. So it's been very humbling, but also really encouraging to, like,

dig a little bit deeper into the different relationships of play. That feels so lame compared to, like, getting to paint an house. Well, I was going to say nobody else can talk about Jesus, because then it'll be really clear that I'm the only one ear who has not gone to seminary yet. And I talked about painting, and you guys all talk about systems theory. It's weird. I'm sorry. It's a staircase, right? Yeah. Can you talk about knitting, Patrick? Don't go any higher. I took a step down. I'm sorry.

I was going to say, so for my work at our church, a lot of what I do for time in Bible talks, I do for our church as well. So I'm the creative and content director. I think of a lot of content to go out on the internet. I help people make that, edit it, writes and stuff. But a lot of my job in ministry, in full-time ministry in church, is behind a computer. It's working with a team of people that I really enjoy, but I'm a little bit removed from working with people in our church, like in person. I used to do that, and I miss it. And so I got the opportunity this year to lead a group that's like developing leaders for our 20s ministry, kind of our young adult ministry. And it has been so life-giving.

I'm trying to think how I'm learning. But in this small group of women, you have these women who are really, really, really, really connected to our church, really committed to growing in their faith and leading others well. That's why they're in the group. And to hear them talk about their faith and their experience of God and their experience leading others, I've felt just revitalized in what the Lord's doing in our church and just really admiring the sorts of things that are going on outside of my little bubble of typing up stuff on a computer. So a big holistic, happy heart learning this semester. That's great. Now you're making me think, about how much I love being in small groups of people who have just become Christians.

It's like, I just become a Christian again. Because when you hear their passion and their excitement about what Jesus is doing, you're like, oh, I remember when I felt like that. And I remember, you know, and it's revitalizing. That's beautiful. I'm going to get out on the Jeff train and do a little bit of nerddom here. Well, I could say lots of things. We just got a dog.

So that's been interesting. No. That's on par with painting. Thank you. I have watched lots of YouTube videos on, you know, crate training and potty training. and we're doing great. Puppies been in our house for five days

sleeping through the night, so I don't want to brag, but pretty sure I've got something figured out. That's pretty good. Don't ask me, I think we just got the right puppy. No, I've been learning about metamodernism. Whoa. Yeah.

Okay. So have you guys heard this phrase metamodernism? This is new to me. I love this. Yeah. Okay, so here's the short version. So modernism, you know, is kind of the philosophical movement

that has characterized most of, you know, American history. And it's the idea that look, Like we should be individuals who reject the traditions, and there's a capital to truth that can only be found through science, and that's the way, right? And then postmodernism is saying, hey, actually, this modernist system you've created, it only benefits a certain group of people, namely white men. And so we need to deconstruct it and tear it down and be cynical about it because that's the only way we're going to find, you know, true justice. And there really probably is no such thing as truth because all big narratives are, you know, a way of colonizing and controlling other people. And metamodernism is what people are saying is the next thing.

That's why I'm interested in it. And it's a synthesis of modernism and postmodernism. It's this bizarre way of kind of oscillating between sincerity, like modernism and irony, between deconstructing things and the need to build new things. And so you can look at art and there's lots like Wes Anderson's movies are a great example of this or everything everywhere all the time is another example. When you start seeing it, it's one of those cool things. You're like, oh my gosh, this is metamodern.

So I've been learning about metamodernism. By the time this airs, I will have done an episode where I don't use the word metamodernism, but I definitely talk about it. Interesting. Are there like specific thought leaders or people, like you mentioned some like Wes Anderson and art, but any other manifestations? No, it's very much so like not a philosophical movement that started it in the academy and kind of drizzled down to everyday people.

It's kind of bubbled up from, I think at the end of the day, if your culture, if all it's giving you is you need to tear things down, you need to deconstruct, you need to find the oppressor, you need to find the person who's in control. and deconstruct. It doesn't leave you with anything about nihilism. It's really depressing. And so I think that's what metamot is like, this is unlivable. Like modern life is unlivable without a story to make sense of my life. I'm not saying that I'm metamodern, but it is fascinating as I've learned about it. I was like I'm way more metamodern than I thought I was. So I won't say metamodern. It is kind of fun to say though. Yeah, so fun. You can say it, Jensen.

Metamodern. There you go. Think about that while you're painting. It sounds like you believed it. That was good. I'm a metamormonist. Yes. I know nothing about it. Met a modern painter. So I want us to talk a bit about what we're going to be going through in 2025. And let me say up front, if you look in the show notes or you go to our website, you can download a Bible reading plan that will take you through this whole year alongside us. You'll get five Bible reading sections a week, which is very manageable, I think. And the podcast for that day will correspond to whatever you're reading.

And so we have a lot of listeners who will actually read the Bible passage and then listen to the podcast episode, which you don't have to do. You can also just listen to the podcast episode, but I think God's word is better than my word. So it might be a good idea if you think about it to read it or, you know, read it at least as much as you can. But before we do the big reveal and talk about it, I want to share a story that will set us up for what we're discussing. Several years ago, I read The Chronicles of Narnia to my daughter. For the parents, do you guys read books to your kids? Oh, yeah.

We're doing Chronicles of Narnia right now. Oh, you are? Oh, yeah. I want to come back to that. We're really into Little Blue Truck right now. Yeah. came down the road. My oldest is three.

So we're, yeah. It's so good. You said blue to a big green tip. We started Chronicles of Narnia, I think around four. Okay, well, I'm not there yet. Well, I'm just saying you might be shocked what your kid will roll with. Also, your kids probably know what metamodernism is. No, they don't.

I don't have little wonderkins walking around the house. I can assure you that. So, Jeff, did you read Chronicles of Narnia in chronological order or publication order? Publication order. Okay. Okay. Can you tell our dear listeners the difference between, those two? Yeah, so C.S. Lewis came out with the books in an aura that's different than

happened chronologically, not super different from like Star Wars, but in the sense that, you know, The Lion in the Writorylake came out as the first one, but then later in the series, you get to Magician's Nephew, where you find out the origin story behind Narnia, which is amazing. But it can throw people off because you feel like you're doing something insincere if you're reading it in the order that he published it. But I, I don't know what you think, Patrick, I'm a big fan of the publication order, not the chronological order. I've got some of the rumors that are probably good and probably some of their length. But that's my hot take on it on what you think about it.

No, I'm with you. I'm publication all the way. So if you go out and buy The Chronicles of Narnia, it'll come in a numbered box set by Harper Collins. It's a beautiful little box set. I have it. And it's the only way to get it. You guys are laughing at me, but it is.

It's a wonderful little box set. And like Jeff said, it's in chronological order of the story. And C.S. Lewis, when he originally wrote it, wrote it out of order. And there's a lot of reasons to believe he did that intentionally, that he actually wanted it out of order. but publishers being publishers decide they'd correct his error. So anyways, when I was reading this to Iris,

and we got to the magician's nephew, which is the prequel to the Chronicles of Narnia, which is not technically the first but chronologically, I told Iris like, hey, everything we're about to read happened before the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe. It all happened before then. And she looks at me and she's like, well, why would we read it?

Like we already know what's going to happen. What's the point? And I thought it was kind of a funny question. I didn't actually have a great answer at the time. I was like, well, don't you want to know what happened in this story? It's interesting. Yeah. But as I thought more about it, I began to realize that understanding where the story came from,

where the world of Narnia came from, was part and parcel of appreciating what you already knew to have had happened. And I think that's really true in life. And I think it's an experience a lot of Christians have as well, right? Like, hey, why should I read the Old Testament? I already know the conclusion. I know this all points to Jesus. and he's kind of the end of the story.

So why do I bother with the Old Testament? All right. I love the Chronicles of Narnia set up, though, because it tees up why the Old Testament matters. Like, when you're reading The Chronicles of Narnia, you get to the magician's nephew. Part of me is understanding the plot, understanding the story,

understanding the character. So Aslan isn't just this random line that came out of nowhere. He is the one who's saying Narnia into existence. And you realize how glorious, how powerful, how beautiful, his figure, his character, is in the story. And so in a lot of ways, for me, going to the Old Testament, even though we know

that Jesus is going to come on the scene, going through the Old Testament in such a thoughtful way helps me appreciate that Jesus doesn't just come out of nowhere in the gospel accounts, but people are anticipating him. He is, you don't have to play too much with the words, but he's like Aslan, who's saying creation should do an existence. That's why him coming onto the scene, him coming on to the stage is so meaningful and important. Yeah, I mean, I think about there's one specific thing that I learned. I've learned many things in the last seven years, hopefully, but I remember one time someone was teaching me about how Jesus connected to the Old Testament and how he was like bringing the Jubilee, which is there's so much context there that we don't

have to go into, but it was a piece of whenever you understood what the year of Jubilee was in the Old Testament, when you understood what that meant for the people of Israel, and then to know that Jesus was coming and he was bringing this new Jubilee, like that meant so much. That meant so much more. Jesus wasn't just some guy who came and offered to like, Diana Cross for my sins. It's like, oh, cool, but like why? And what does that even mean? You know, like, Patrick, if you died tomorrow and then somehow you wrote me a note and said, I died for you, that would literally mean nothing, you know? I mean, like, great. It would freak you out. Yeah, exactly. But like, Jesus is just some guy unless he isn't. And whenever you know that he's not just some guy, you know, that he is Yahweh, he's the creator of the

universe, he has this whole story. He's connected to the creation of the world, to the God who created everything. It means something. The gospel story has to have what comes before it to even matter to us today. Yeah, I think another thing I'm thinking about the magician's nephew, which is the prequel to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe for you, Narnia, it's out there. It not only tells the origin story of Narnia, it also tells the origin story of the White Witch, who's the villain in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. And it turns out that she's this alien invader from a different world who doesn't even belong in Narnia in the story. Sorry, spoilers.

But in the same way that the story in the magician's nephew cues you up to understand who Aslan is, it cues you up to understand who the enemy is and what the problem with the world of Narnia is. And I think in the exact same way, one of the striking features of the Old Testament is it's constantly putting me up to a mirror. And I'm seeing, oh, that enemy, that problem that existed for the ancient Israelites, that existed for Adam and Eve in the garden, that's a problem that I have in my own heart, and it's a problem that pervades my own world. And again, I can get into the depths of it by reading this long

story that shows how deep our idolatry is, how deep our wickedness, our evil, our sin is. And I need that because the New Testament's really short, so I need lots of other examples of sin. To show me my own sinfulness. And so without further ado, I think we can, in 2025, we are going to be sticking in the Old Testament, and we are covering a portion of the Old Testament called the historical books. So that's why history, why is it important? Why are we spending our time with it when we know that Jesus came? We know the good news. We know what we're looking forward to. And William Faulkner once wrote, The past is not dead. It's not even past. So kind of like what everybody's saying, we're going to be looking at the narrative, the story portion covered in Joshua, judges, First and Second Samuel,

first and second kings, and we're going to end up in Isaiah, and we'll let Patrick tell us why in a little bit. Because we ran out of chapters. No, we have a good intentional on-purpose reason. But this portion of Israel's history is this time from when Israel conquered the promised land. So we went through three years ago, I guess it was, we went through the Torah. So Genesis until Deuteronomy. And so this is picking up historical books with Joshua, the next portion of the story. So Israel has gone through the wilderness, they've gotten to the promised land, they find people already living there, they have to trust God in that. And it goes up until the point of being exiled from that promised land. So a lot happens in those years. I think it's about a thousand years, gets covered there,

and you see these ups and downs of God's people. Gosh, guys, this portion of the Bible, it gets messy, it gets problematic, it gets really challenging for us, particularly as modern readers, I think, to be like, why is this even in the Bible? Why are some of these horrible stories in God's word? And the answer is, because they happened, because human beings are horrible and wicked. And for some reason, God doesn't leave us to that wickedness. It makes the gift of Jesus all that more powerful, all that more compelling and just awe-inspiring whenever he's not coming for people who have their act together for this really clean, clear story. He didn't die for people who have always loved him and always shown them his devotion. We see the real rawness

of God's people, the brokenness, the devastation, and Jesus still came. Yeah, yeah. Going back to this idea of why the past matters for the present, you know, Alan had that great quote from William Voltaner, the past is not dead. It's not even past. And I don't think that's how we think about our lives for most people, you know, like unless you're really into ancestry or something. You probably can't even tell me who your great, great-great-grandparent was. Certainly not your great-great-grandparent. My guess is, unless you're super into that kind of thing. I'm a nerd.

I could tell you. No way. Wow. You got a bunch of Scottish people in your background, right? I'm married into that family. Yeah, we went to Scotland and found this family tree in a castle that was like... Was it an elm tree or... No, it was big tapestry.

I know. No, my husband's my last name's Frazier. That's Scottish. and yeah, we went on a bit of a journey to the homeland, and I did some work. Back to, like, William the Conquer. Wow. That is amazing, man.

Well, Annalent's not normal. Yeah, no, no, I agree. That's unusual. No, I love it. I think the problem with being disconnected from the past is what Faulkner said. The past is always with us. And so it's like walking around with, you know,

a backpack on your back, and you don't know what's in it. You don't even realize that you're carrying it, but it's weighing you down. And so digging into the past is really important personal work that I think everybody needs to go through, but it's also important work when it comes reading the Bible.

When I think about trying to, like, analyze the present without the past, this is a weird metaphor, but I think about chopping off my toe and just analyzing my toe apart from the foot. Like, imagine you've never seen a foot before, and all you had was a toe, and someone was like, hey, I'd like you to tell me what this is. Like, can you explain this to me?

You'd be like, you'd say so, like, lots of interesting things. Like, it's got bones in it and some muscles, and there's, like, a little toenail there. if it's my toenail, I've got really big toes. We don't want to know. There's a little toe print, you know. But if I said to you like, hey, well, what's it for? Like, what's it mean?

They'd be like, I don't know. It's like a little flesh worm thing. Like, what is it? You know? And to know what a toe is, you have to put it on the foot. And the foot is the past. Like, to know who you are as a person right now, you need to understand the context of both your personal past,

your family past. But I would think God would say, like, your sacred past. Yeah, I mean, I think about in the context of Sam and I had a fight last night, in the context of my marriage, in the middle of this fight, we realize what we're really just having is a difference of backgrounds, of how we communicate, of the families that we grew up in, of the expectations. Well, not going to answer the question. All of our families listen to this podcast. We're all right. But we understand each other better when we realize the context from which we're coming from. Things that I do that shock-s-same. feel normal to me. And whenever he understands that they're normal to me, they don't seem so shocking. And vice versa. You know, like, I think it really helps to understand your family background, where you come from, what your history is. It helps you make sense of what's happening in the present.

Yeah, it makes sense also, like when we think about the flow of the biblical narrative, when we get to the New Testament, like in Matthew's Gospel account, he starts not with, hey, Jesus was born in a manger, happy day. He starts with recounting the story of the historical era. preceding Jesus's birth. So in that time, Israel exists in this special relationship with Yahweh, with their creator, with their king. And, Anne-Land you talked about the time of exile, which is this horrific period. You see humanity at its absolute worst. And like you said, Patrick, that's also like a mirror for us. It's not just them. It's like, how do I see myself in this? But throughout those times, they are going through the conquering of Canaan and Joshua,

going into the loose tribal coalition throughout the judges. And then eventually, that gave way the monarchy, which we read about in First and Second Samuel, the Temple era, and then they got this really tragic move of the Civil War, the kingdom splits and divides. And you have two nations, Judah in the South, and Israel and the North. And we see that in First Kings. So after that, several hundred years, the foreign empires, Assyria and Babylon come in and they conquer and exile both of the nations and second kings. To make sense of how much Jesus matters, Matthew wants to bring us through this period and bring us into the bigger story. And kind of like you were saying, and there is a context for why his arrival on the scene matters so much.

And so it's just interesting to me that even in the gospel accounts, to even appreciate Jesus' arrival, we have to appreciate where the people of God are being coming from. That's right. And we chose to call this series the historical books, because it's telling the history. That's one way that we describe this portion of the Old Testament. But for ancient Jews,

they actually called this part of the Old Testament the former prophets. So you had the former prophets and the latter prophets. The latter prophets are Isaiah and Jeremiah and the prophetic books that we might think of today. But these history books, they also saw as prophecy, not because they were predicting the future in the way that, again, we conceptualized prophecy, but because they were saying something prophetic, they were representing what God needed to say to his people. And they were doing that through story, through history, through narrative. So they were looking backward and dictating what had gone before in order to tell the current readers something they need to know for their present day. That's really interesting because, like, we have to remember these books were not probably written while the history was happening. I think sometimes we read these books and we think, oh, like there was a- Like a scribe, like following them around. You know, following them around. Now, that was happening, and the people who wrote these books were probably drawing on some of those written accounts. So it's not as though that wasn't occurring.

what happened in reality was the Israelites got sent to a different country right and they're living in babylon they don't speak the language they're basically living as slaves they don't choose what they want to do they're told what they're to do and they're not living in a culture that they understand it's polytheistic it doesn't match anything that they recognize right and they're trying to make sense of how could god after all these huge covenant promises to love them to care for them to be with them to walk with them how could he have allowed this to happen. And the obvious answer is he's not God. Yahweh isn't God. Marduk or Bell or these Babylonian gods. They're the real gods because they conquered us when we won. And the work of the historical books was to explain to those Israelites, this is why we are in exile. And this is why God is actually still

faithful to his promises. And this is why we can look forward to a different future. So it's very much so a message about the past that was prophetically speaking to the present. Yeah, and that way, I think your image of a mirror is really helpful because I tend to to think of prophetical literature as like a crystal ball that's just going to tell me what's going to happen like a kind of future-oriented sense. And with there elements of that, it's a lot less like a crystal ball, more like a mirror, and showing in stark, sometimes like really hard to read imagery, but the evil, the injustice, the idolatry, and explaining this is how we got here, people, and you have to examine your heart. And in that space, that is where the space where the steadfast love

of God, the relentless, covenantal love of God shows up. But you have to be willing to look in the mirror to understand it. You're making me think this might be a child of the 90s thing. I don't know that's existed in the 2000s era. We'll find out. Yeah. That's why I'm here. In my elementary school, there was this anti-smoking ad. I don't know what to call it. And it was a poster of this woman who was like this beautiful supermodel on one side. And it said, what you look like on the outside when you smoke. And then next to it was another image of this like keeper of the crypt, like decrepit, like face falling apart, like burned out. Powerful imagery. Right. It's the same woman, but like everything's all messed up and disfigure. And it says, and this is what you look like on the inside if you smoke.

This is in your elementary school? Oh, yeah, 90s. The D-Dare program, man. We were getting after it. I remember a lot of stuff like that. Shock factor. I won't do drugs. Turns out that didn't work. Right next to the Got Milk poster. There was the anti-smoking. I remember the got milk posters too. They were side by side. I didn't say that don't do drugs. I'm saying that program didn't work historically, just to be really clear. I was wondering if this is a confessional. Look in the mirror. I did not personally do drugs.

However, back to the main point, I think that's what these books do, is they're telling these ancient Israelites are like, why are we here? Why does this happen to us? They're like, hey, you think you look so beautiful on the outside? Well, here's what you look like on idolatry.

Here's what you look like on sin. And that's what these books show us. And like, again, this is where we see ourselves because we look like the exact same thing when we're sinning. Yeah, I mean, I think there's also the aspect of when you're sitting in the mess, when you're sitting in the brokenness, when you're an Israelite sitting in exile, you want to blame other people. You want it off of you. You want to say this is so unfair. Why am I here?

We would all love to just throw a pity party for ourselves. And I think these books show, hey, there's a reason why you're here. There's a bigger story going on. And I think I tend whenever I'm sitting in the mess to say, how do I get myself out of here? What's the answer? What do I need to do? How do I need to get back on my feet? How do I problem solve this? And I think what these books tell you is God's been in control from the very beginning. God is writing a story and God is the one who's going to get you out of this. And so rather than get back on your feet and get working and get out of exile, it's put your hope and your trust back in your father back into God because he has a plan. And I think that for the Israelites, they then looked forward with hope to the expectation of the coming Messiah for us. We know, spoiler alert, Jesus.

Yeah. We can look back and we can remember we're saying. still living in exile in a way, and we look back and we know that Jesus has redeemed us and he's coming back. And it pushes us to put our hope whenever we feel like outsiders, whenever we feel the pain and the difficulty of exile, we have to look to Jesus because we see how God has continually been faithful to his promises, continually rescued his people. And so I think it's just a beautiful picture of who God is and what he does for his people and what we can expect of him today. Yeah. And going back to that question, not only do we see how

much we need Jesus and how sinful we ourselves are and how hopeless we are without Jesus. But kind of thinking about that question, end of the story, we know Jesus comes. So what's the point of looking back? We actually learned things about Jesus through the Old Testament. Like, different elements of who God is are highlighted in ways that are different than the New Testament. So we get a fuller picture of everything that Jesus is. We get to know him better. So, you know, we're not really going to understand our need for a king until we see the people of Israel murdering and raping in the name of their own personal autonomy because they're doing what felt right in their own eyes. We're not going to see our need for a good king until we see these

stories of human kings who say they follow God, who are tempted with power and, you know, end up sacrificing their children to other gods, murdering others in order to get the wives they want in the land they want and the power they want. You see their susceptibility to sin and power and temptation. You don't understand a need for a temple, for truly being able to worship God in the New Testament, the way we can approach him and be indwept by the Holy Spirit. We don't see that until we see the way the temple in the Old Testament was corrupted and defiled by humanity, by human hearts. And so again, like we can't see ourselves clearly without this story lifting up a mirror to show us ourselves.

We also don't see Jesus fully. We don't see God fully. And again, we might get those questions of what's going on here. Why is God permitting this to happen? And again, the challenge for us is to keep reading to see the end of the story, to see what is it that God calls good and what is it that he condemns? What are the things that God warns us about that we go ahead and do anyway? And so we see God in his sovereignty and his justice still allowing us to make choices and to be these autonomous people who get to decide whether or not to follow him and live with consequences when we choose ourselves instead of him. but we also see him making promises to his people and promises that we know are fulfilled in Jesus that he's not going to abandon the brokenhearted or leave the oppressed behind that all of those things are going to be made right again yeah so let me say this if you're listening to this episode and you know you're hearing us talk about history and we're talking about exiles and the conquest and you know at the time where there's tribes and then there's kings there's a civil war and you're like

oh my gosh i didn't even know any of this ever happened in the bible or are like maybe i read it one time, but I've totally forgotten. Am I going to be lost? Am I going to be confused? Quite the opposite. My goal for you, by the time you get to the end of this, is everything we've already said. I want your own heart and soul to be refurbished by God's word, to be renewed by it, and for you to be able to see your sin, repent of it, and to grow in holiness. That's what we're trying to do in this podcast in general. Also, I want you to know your Bible better. I want you to get to the end of this year and go back to that section in Matthew that Jeff talked about earlier. and it's this long list of names

and Matthew expects you to know all those names he's got like hyperlinks in his head like I'm going to name Saul and then I'm going to name Ahab and then I'm going to name he's going through all these different kings right? He doesn't say Ahab, Ahab isn't in Jesus's line anyways That was a quick catch I wonder it was a good catch man Rayhab Rayhab, I could put her in there

Rayhab there you go see we got it You're going to go through those names and I'm not saying you'll recognize every single one in the list But if you stick with us You're going to go back to your New Testament And you will hear echoes of what you learned over this last year. And it's going to bring a richness to your faith, a richness to your Bible reading that I don't think you can have otherwise. So I hope that you will join us on this fantastic journey

through the historical books, or if you want to feel really cool, you can call them the former prophets, but we'll stick with historical books, much to my chagrin. And if you want to do that, make sure to click the link in the show notes, to download the Bible reading plan, read alongside us, listen alongside us, make this yet another year that you are committed to being in God's word on a daily basis. We're here for you. We want to help you grow, and we're excited to see what God does in your life over the next year through the historical books.