Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Lessons From a Year in the Torah

Episode Date: November 23, 2022

Thanks for studying the Torah with us this year! In today's episode, Jensen reflects on the year and talks through the top three truths she's learned from the Torah. 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 Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. 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 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair. If you're on any form of social media, you know that towards the end of the year, people start getting reminiscent in their posts. Some people will post their top nine on Instagram, which shows the most liked photos they posted in the previous year. And you cannot escape Spotify's wrapped if you're on the internet in December. The music streaming service sends each person a personalized summary of all the music and podcasts they listen to over the past year. And everyone, like literally everyone, shares it to let other people know what they've been listening to. I guess as humans, we just like to reflect, to look back and remember where we've been over the past year before we head into the next one.

And that's why today, before we move on from the Torah to spend some of the time, time walking through the Advent season. We want to remember where we've been and what we've learned. Now, as I reflected on what I had learned over the past year going through the Torah, I kept coming back to three truths. So think of today as our Torah wrapped. As we remember three big truths, we can take away from our year in the Torah. So the first truth I learned from the Torah is that God is telling a bigger story. Hopefully, if you've been listening, you heard us talk about the fact that the whole Bible is telling one big story. We know how tempting it can be to ignore the Torah once creation is over and just skip to the New Testament for the quote unquote good stuff, the Jesus stuff. But that is

fundamentally wrong. The first mention of Jesus and the gospel is in the third chapter of the Bible. we learn that despite humans rebellion against God, someone is coming who will conquer the evil one. The same God Yahweh that we learn about throughout the Torah is the one who becomes a man, Jesus in the New Testament to redeem his people. When we see that bigger story, Jesus isn't just some random guy who somehow has the power to save me from my sins, but the same God who created me, who called his people. to dwell with him, who rescued his people out of slavery, who showed them a way to live that produces life, who delighted to bring them into a promised inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey,

and who made a covenant to be faithful even when they failed to keep their promises. Again and again in the Torah, we were reminded to look forward to Jesus. The Exodus showed us a picture of deliverance, not unlike. the deliverance we find in the death and resurrection of Jesus. The temple showed us a picture of what it would be like for God to dwell among his people in the person of Jesus. The promised land pointed us towards the hope we have for an eternal kingdom full of love, justice, and mercy. The laws revealed our sinful nature and need for a Savior. They forced us to put our hope in Jesus and not ourselves. So the Old Testament can be daunted.

and difficult at times. But I'm walking away from this year with a better understanding of how it fits into the larger narrative that God is telling throughout the entire Bible. And that understanding has given me an even greater appreciation for God, the author of this beautiful narrative. Now, the second truth that I learned is that humans are not the hero. See, growing up in church, I think I mostly thought of the Old Testament as a storybook. My children's Bible painted pictures of men and women who were heroes, who did big things for God. I was taught to look up to these people, to do what they did, to be like them, have faith like Noah, follow God's call like Abraham, forgive like Joseph, be brave like Moses.

But when I grew up and started actually reading the Bible for myself, I was more than a little shocked at the ugliness and sin and evil that was present in the hearts and lives of these men and women. See, this year we were no strangers to the shock of brokenness in the men and women found in scripture. Noah got drunk and had some sketchy moments. Abraham lied and put his wife in serious danger for his own protection multiple times. The stories go on and on, but the truth remains. We are not the heroes of the Bible. The Torah is clear that the hero of the Bible is Yahweh.

Who is faithful? Yahweh? Who is good? Yahweh. Who is just? Yahweh. Who protects? Yahweh.

Who conquers evil? Yahweh does. Yahweh provides. Who needs saving, protection, and provision? We do. Who fails again and again? We do. Who perpetrates evil and stands by while injustice happens?

We do. We could keep going, but you get the point. We aren't supposed to read the Bible and walk away thinking, man, I could be just like Moses if I worked hard enough. We're supposed to read the Bible and see just how broken and in need of a Savior we are. We're supposed to read the Bible and see just how good and loving and gracious and powerful God is. The Torah shines a big old spotlight on the depravity of the human heart and points us to the only one with the power to heal our brokenness. There is no getting through the Torah thinking that humans can figure it out on their own. There's no hope if we are in charge. And that's why the third truth I learned from the Torah is so important.

The third truth I learned is that God is always faithful. Now, with human depravity at the forefront of our minds, it could be easy to expect that the true hero of the Bible, God would want to abandon us, abandon us to our darkness and start over somewhere else. We wouldn't blame him after the rejection and rebellion we see coming from the heart of humanity. And yet, from the first moment that humans threw the gifts of God back into his face in rebellion and crowned themselves as king, from that moment God chose, to be faithful to his creation. Adam and Eve took the fruit,

and God promised to eradicate the evil they let into the world. The people of the world tried to build a tower to show they were more powerful than he was, and in his mercy he scattered them to keep them from their own folly. Mere moments after being rescued from slavery, the people of God grumbled and created for themselves an idol to worship rather than God. And still, still, he chose to dwell among them and bring them into the promised land.

Again and again, as God established a covenant with his people, he is clear that even when the people rebel and they will, he will rescue them and redeem them. God is always faithful to his broken people and to the bigger story he is writing for all of creation. So as we leave the Torah, we are left with a people on the cusp of the promised land. They know who their God is. They know that they are called to live distinctly from the nations around them. And they know that God is with them. The people of God are not unlike us today.

We have a bigger picture of the bigger story, but we are also waiting. We see the promised land, the kingdom of God. And until the day that Jesus returns and casts out Satan forever, we are partnering with Jesus through our obedience to bring his kingdom into this world. God is calling us to partner with him in this bigger story of restoring all of creation. Even when we see the brokenness of humanity, the darkness and injustice that seems to be winning, we can look to our God who has always been and will always be faithful to redeem. He will redeem our broken world, but he will also redeem the darkness within our own hearts.

We are not the heroes of our story, but that is good news. We have a greater hope. We have a good future that is promised. And after a year in the Torah, the truth and depth of the gospel is clearer to me than before. My prayer as we move on from the Torah is that this knowledge of God's bigger story, of our depravity, and of God's faithfulness would permeate all the scripture that we read. that as we study other parts of the Bible, we would see the connection to the bigger story, that we would be reminded of how crazy the love and grace of God is, and that we would never stop being amazed by the faithfulness of Yahweh. Before you forget, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talks newsletter.

Hit the link in the show notes, and you'll get an email every Wednesday that will help encourage you in the middle of the work week and bring you deeper in your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening. Thank you.