Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Jesus Teaches a New Way to Be Human | Who Is Jesus? | Daniel 7

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. Before we hop in, I want to tell you what we are going to start doing in January. Starting right at the very beginning of January, we are going to read through the Gospel of Mark together. And our goal is that people who are setting goals would join us. I just find that at the beginning of January, a lot of people say, I want to start reading my Bible for the first time, or I want to start reading it again, or I just want to read it more. And that's a great

Starting point is 00:00:38 aspiration. Maybe you're thinking that for yourself. And so I hope you'll join us as we read through the Gospel of Mark. We actually will have, it's really cool. It's called a guided Bible reading plan. It's a little devotion. It has three devotions in every single week, and it walks you through questions that not only explain Mark to you, but help you apply it to your life. But here's the key. If you're listening to this, you're doing something already in your life to get the Bible into your life. But my guess is that you have a friend, or maybe a spouse, or a parent or a coworker who would love to be in the Bible, but they're not going to do it unless they have a friend to

Starting point is 00:01:11 do that with. Why don't you think about that person and invite them to not just listen to 10-minute Bible talks, but to download that little devotional and begin making this a new habit, a new goal in their life starting right at the beginning of the year? We have links to that in our show notes. I'm not into horror movies. Unfortunately, advertisers don't seem to know that because they keep showing me ads about these movies that I don't even like. And so every now and then, I find myself unwillingly subjected to a minute-long horror movie, or I guess horror trailer,

Starting point is 00:01:43 designed to give me nightmares every time that I shut my eyes. But one thing I've noticed about these movies is that the scary baddies, and a lot of times they look kind of human. In fact, they're usually like little girls. What the heck is wrong with us that we're turning little girls into monsters? Anyways, they are made to look and move like animals. crawl on the ground like spiders. They raise their shoulders like a lion ready to pounce. Their nails are always long, like their claws or something. They move unnaturally too fast. They're just too animalistic to be human. And the point is clear. Evil makes humans less human. Evil makes humans

Starting point is 00:02:17 animalistic. The lizard brain takes over. Evil defaces what sets us apart from the animal kingdom. There's nothing new about this idea. It's an old trope that dates all the way back to the first chapters of Genesis when God makes humans in his own image. The idea is that humans really are embedded in this physical world. We are a part of this creation. We're made on the same day as animals. And so we have a lot in common with animals. But what sets us apart is this way in which we're made in God's image. He gives us a unique vocation. And he gives us all the internal tools that we need to carry out that vocation, but we've got a special calling and it's to rain on the earth. Now, this isn't some weird totalitarian anti-conservation.

Starting point is 00:02:58 vision where we're trying to destroy and subdue all things, humans are called to rule over creation the way that God rules over creation with his love and justice and sacrificial mercy. The first expression of this is when God tells Adam to name the animals. Hey, if you're going to rule in my name, why don't you do some things that I do? Because God, in the first chapter, he's naming everything. Now Adam gets to join the naming business. God parades all these animals before the human, and the human ends up naming them. But humanity doesn't spend long reigning like God. They decide to reign their own way with injustice, violence, and selfishness. Why does Adam do it?

Starting point is 00:03:34 Here's where things get interesting. It's because of an animal. It's because a serpent, and we know later on that there's some darker demonic powers behind this, but it's still an animal. There's a serpent that tells him to rebel against God. When humans choose to do evil, they end up becoming like animals. I mean, it's a horror movie because it turns out that what makes us most deeply human is being like God.

Starting point is 00:03:56 This theme continues. sin is personified like a lion in chapter four when Adam and Eve's son, Kane, is being tempted to kill his brother. Now, God warns Kane to master the lion, to master the sin lest he himself be mastered. In the end, Kane is mastered by the animal, though, and he acts like a violent lion. He kills his own brother. Evil makes you animalistic. Chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, chapter four, it's all over the place. If we fast forward to the book of Daniel, we see this theme continuum. The king of Babylon, his name is Nebuchadnezzar. He's warned not to choose the path of pride and idolatry. Don't take the path of evil. Of course, he chooses the path of evil in the end. And what's the

Starting point is 00:04:38 result? Daniel says that Nebuchadnezzar is driven mad and he's driven to live among the animals. You've got to check out this description because it sounds like a horror movie character. Daniel 433. He was driven away from people and ate grass like an ox. His body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like the claws of a bird. Choose evil, become the animal. We are most human when we are most like God. This leads to Daniel 7. And in Daniel 7, Daniel has this phantasmagoric dream of four different monsters, and they're coming up out of the sea to rule the world. And these monsters, they're all animals. There's a bear and a leopard and this serpent-like dragon. and they're devouring and they're trampling people until finally a fifth figure appears. And this one

Starting point is 00:05:31 isn't an animal. The fifth figure is described as, quote, one like a son of man. In fact, you could translate the Hebrew simply as the human one. And this son of man, human one, he's given authority by God to end the violent rampaging animals. He's going to end their animalistic reign on earth. The son of man, the human one, he's kind of like a new atom. He's subduing the creation. He's subduing the animalistic forces. And in the end, he establishes God's kingdom on earth. As the vision goes on, Daniel discovers that the four animals don't actually represent animals at all. They represent four violent, oppressive human empires. I mean, do you see the theme? When a society chooses evil, it doesn't just become an animal, it becomes this like super animal, super beast thing.

Starting point is 00:06:19 And what about the son of man, the human one? Well, it turns out that he's more than just one human. It's actually a different group of humans. And this group of humans somehow choose not to take the path of evil. The same path that Adam took, the same path that these empires took, they take a different path, and they choose to reflect God. Choose evil, become the animal. Choose to reflect God, and you become the human one, the truly human one. Now, you're probably wondering, what does all of this have to do with Jesus and a series called Who is Jesus? Do you know what Jesus' favorite self-designation was? He stole it from Daniel.

Starting point is 00:06:55 He called himself the son of man. Or again, we could translate it. He walked around calling himself the human one. It's time for a second brain explosion. Jesus presented himself as the truly human one, as a kind of second Adam, as a person who would choose to obey God and reflect him by reigning like him. And just like God called Adam to subdue creation, to subdue the animals, that's what Jesus is called to do. Jesus was coming to rescue humanity from the animal, from the animal that's outside of us, and those are societies which are opposed to God, but also the animal inside of us, the way that we internally choose evil, idolatry, selfishness, injustice, and impurity.

Starting point is 00:07:36 If you remember, in Daniel's vision, the Son of Man isn't just one person, though. the son of man, the human one, is actually a whole group of people who were becoming truly human by imaging God, by obeying God. And what did Jesus come to do? Well, he came to create that group of people to train us in a new way of being human. Or to be honest, it's kind of the old way of being human. It's the truest way of being human. It's the way of being human that God designed us to be in Genesis. Unlike the animals that choose violence and idolatry and selfishness, what does Jesus say? He says, for even the son of man, even the truly human one, did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. True humanity is found in being last, not first. It's found in serving, not being served.

Starting point is 00:08:25 True humanity is found in loving our neighbor, trusting God, hungry, and thirsting after righteousness, showing mercy, keeping your heart pure, making peace, showing gentleness, giving mercy, This is what Jesus wants to apprentice us in being truly human. He wants to teach us how to walk in God's ways. He wants to free us from the lies of the serpent. He wants to wash us clean of the lionistic sin that's mastered us. Jesus wants to apprentice us in the true way and a new way of being human. Evil makes us less human. Jesus makes us human again.

Starting point is 00:09:01 His death kills the animal and his resurrection, gives new life, new human life to his truly human ones, his followers. quick reminder we are starting mark in January so set a goal read your Bible more importantly find a friend to do this with who is that friend I want you to stop before you do anything else and text that person right now and say hey I've got a great idea let's read our Bibles together in January 2020 we're going to start in the gospel of Mark I've got a devotion that you can read a podcast you can listen to they're going to feel cared for and they're going to be excited to do this with you thanks for listening if you've enjoyed

Starting point is 00:09:37 this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps other people find this podcast more easily. Also, ask yourself, who could you share this podcast with? Texting an episode to a friend or a family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually. If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.

Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Jesus Teaches a New Way to Be Human | Who Is Jesus? | Daniel 7

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