Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Can Christianity Handle the World's Big Issues? | Torah | Genesis 12:1-8

Episode Date: January 31, 2022

Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Can the Bible answer some of the world's biggest questions? Where should we look to answer questions about injustice, race, science, etc.? In today's episode, Keith looks at God's blessing to Abram in Genesis 12:1-8 to share how God responds to the world's brokenness. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so 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 Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Passages: Genesis 12:1-8 Related episode: How to Handle Uncertainty About the Future 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.

Welcome to Tim Minna Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. I'm Tanya Wilmeth. I'm Jensen Holmick-Nair. And I'm Patrick Miller. We're digging into the stories found in the first books of the Bible. They're not just some of the best stories in the Bible. They're some of the best stories in all of human history.

Right now, we're in the book of Genesis. Are you as much of a sucker for a good email newsletter as I am? I have to admit I love them because they keep me informed. Unfortunately, they don't really help me grow in my faith. What if you gave Jesus access to your inbox? 10-minute Bible Talks is starting a weekly email newsletter. It will have a variety of things inside of it. Each week will be different.

Sometimes it will have cultural background about the topics that we're talking about. Sometimes it will have insights into what it means to practice the spiritual disciplines. I think you're going to like the variety. All you have to do is go to the show notes and hit the link there. and you can sign up for the new 10-minute Bible Talk newsletter. If you listen carefully to commercials, sometimes you hear them ask and answer really important questions. Back near the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were two commercials that stood out to me because of the issues they were wrestling with. One was produced by ESPN.

The commercials showed a bunch of powerful moments in sports and then asked, where else can we all find something to believe in? Now, you're not going to be surprised to find that ESPN's answer to that question was, Sports. Sports is the thing we should all believe in, and you won't be surprised either to find out that my answer was quite a bit different than that. Pfizer also aired a commercial, and it asked this question, where do we turn when times are uncertain? Now, Pfizer's answer was science, because according to them, science is the most certain thing there is. Science will win. Science will fix our problems. Now I think every Christian should be pro-science. Science is a gift from God. It is a

a way to study the natural world. It's an important discipline in learning about the world we live in and how it is put together. Science and Christianity are friends, not enemies. A Christian scientist is not an oxymoron. And science is the right tool to search for medical treatments and vaccines. We're thankful for all the gifts that science and scientists have given to us. But when we ask the question, where should we put our hope in the midst of uncertain times? And the answer comes back, science. Well, then we're asking science to be something it never intended to be. Because you see, science answers how questions, not why questions. It wasn't designed to answer ultimate questions in life. Now, that's not a knock on science. No one discipline can answer every kind of question.

Don't go to the church asking about quantum physics and don't ask science about the meaning of life. So the Pfizer commercial rightly puts its finger on something we all want and need, hope in the midst of uncertainty. We need answers to the problems our world faces, and we know that we have lots of problems. So when things are uncertain, when there are huge problems in the world that we have to deal with, what should we do? Where should we turn? If Pfizer's answer was science, does Christianity offer an alternative answer? Is Christianity even participating in this conversation? Well, what do you think Christianity is all about?

Most people answer that question by saying that Christianity is about how to get your sins forgiven and go to heaven when you die. That's the core message. Okay, brace yourself. That's not what Christianity is about. I mean, Christianity definitely teaches about sin and forgiveness in Jesus and eternal life, but it doesn't stop there. Christianity is about more. More than that, it's about renewal. It's about transformation, healing of individuals, but also of a broken world. See, many people who aren't Christians won't even consider Christianity, not necessarily because they think it's false, but because they think it's trivial.

It doesn't seem to be dealing with the important questions that the world is facing. When the world is wrestling with important questions, maybe it's about climate or racial justice, or maybe it is about, masks and vaccines and mandates and how government should balance personal rights with personal responsibility and public safety. When the world is talking about important issues like poverty or hunger or freedom and liberty, does Christianity have anything to say? You see, if Christians are only talking about how to get your sins forgiven and to get out of this world so we can escape to heaven, it just seems as if Christianity doesn't really want to participate in the conversation that the world is having. If Christians are only talking about

privatized religion, then they're not going to be considered important players in the public conversation. But I think Christians are sitting out of this important conversation because they've misunderstood their own faith. And that misunderstanding has led them to privatize their faith, to narrow the biblical story so that it's only about being forgiven and going to heaven. that's strange because the Bible never teaches that kind of escapist approach to life. That kind of thinking sounds more like Plato than Jesus, more like Buddhism than Christianity. As sad and numerous as the problems that we face are, there's nothing terribly unique about the problems that our world faces today. They go back to the very beginning.

Remember, Genesis began with God calling creation good and human beings very good. Then sin entered the world and everything descended into chaos. It all falls apart. At the end of Genesis chapter 11, if someone had run a commercial and asked in times of uncertainty, where do we turn? I guess Pfizer's answer would have been science. But that sounds silly, doesn't it? Science can't solve the problem of human sin and evil.

There's no pill that ends injustice. There's no vaccine for selfishness. Science is great for viruses, but not the deepest problems human beings face. Now, the Bible gives a different answer, I would say maybe even a pretty strange-sounding answer. In response to a broken world, God made promises to Abram and his spiritual descendants. Genesis chapter 12, verses 1 through 3. The Lord said to Abram, go from your country, your people, and your father's household, to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you.

I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you, I will curse. And all people on earth will be blessed through you. See, when God said about this great project of world redemption, he didn't take people up to heaven. Instead, he called into existence a community of blessing. It started with one man and his barren wife who God then, miraculously transformed into a large family, and then a nation called Israel, and then through Jesus, a multinational community of believers from every tongue, tribe, and nation.

And it's through this community that God wants to bless the people of the earth. The whole thing sounds a little bit improbable, doesn't it? God responds to the world's brokenness by calling together a community of people who follow him and then promises that through them he will bless the world. The promise was first given to Abraham, and then it's repeated to Isaac and Jacob and Jacob's 12 sons, the 12 tribes of Israel. When Jesus chooses the 12 disciples,

it's not just coincidence. He's saying that here is the new people of God, the people that follow me, the people that I'm going to use to bless the world. through Jesus's death and resurrection, God is creating a sin-forgiven community through which he wants to repair the broken world. He wants to heal the hurting world.

We call that sin-forgiven community the church. And God is going to use the church to fix the world. When you look around at the world, that's hard to believe. But it's true. One day, this world will experience healing. Nations that have been sick with sin will experience international, worldwide healing, the kind of healing that we all long for. God promised that through Abraham, he would bless the whole world. And that blessing can only

be found in Jesus, who is both the judge and the Savior. He is the one who will break into our world and bring the healing that we long for. One day, Christians will join the angels and all creation praising God. And at that moment, I picture God turning to Abraham and saying, hey, look, remember what I promised to bless all nations through you? Well, I did it. I did what I said. I do. Mission accomplished. So one day, King Jesus will reign over a renewed earth. Until that day, what do Christians do? Well, remember that Jesus taught us to pray, that his kingdom would come, and that his will would be done on earth as it is in heaven.

But God calls us to do more than only pray. Jeremiah 297 says, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper. Not only should we be praying that God's kingdom would come on earth as it is in heaven,

but until that day we should be seeking the peace and prosperity of the world that we live in. That's why over the centuries, Christians have founded and promoted schools and orphanages and hospitals. It's why Christians have participated in all vocations, including science. It's why Christians fought to eradicate slavery because they know that God cares deeply about political oppression and economic injustice and social and racial oppression. God cares about unfair business practices, court systems that favor the rich. He calls us to speak up for

the week. You see, we are the Church of Jesus Christ. The church, of King Jesus. And through our loving sacrifice, we can announce the good news that King Jesus came, he died on the cross, and he is coming again to restore the earth. So our responsibility is to go tell it on the mountain, the mountain of human arrogance that Jesus Christ is born and that he is reigning. We get to go tell it on the mountain, the mountain of human despair, that Jesus Christ is born, and he is returning. We get to go tell it on the mountain, the mountain of human bondage, that Jesus Christ is born, that he is the Redeemer, he is our Savior, and he is our king.

He has come to liberate all those who will put their hope in him. Hey, before you forget, make sure you sign up for the new 10-minute Bible Talk newsletter. Just hit the link in the show notes.