Dr. Manny Arango (0:00)

Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango, and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the journey. To all my fellow pastors, I've got a question for you. Does your city know that your church exists? Listen, I get it. You're preaching, you're leading, you're discipling, you're doing ministry. We are in the same boat. And let's be honest, social media and marketing, not your strong suit. Not mine either. And that's probably the last thing on your mind. And that's why we chose to partner with Church Candy Marketing for our church. Plant the garden. We out here, y'all. They help churches get more actual guests walking through the doors on Sunday without your eye having to stress over ads or algorithms or trying to crack the social media code. Right now, Church Candy is helping nearly 400 churches reach their communities with simple invite ads. And it works. It's super effective. I can tell you from firsthand experience. So if you're tired of being your city's best kept secret, how about you do this? Go to churchcandy.com Manny and book a free consultation. Book a discovery call. Their team will break it all down and show you how to start seeing new faces at your church this Sunday. I'm in the trenches with you, trying to grow the church. And how about we just start a whole campaign? No more empty churches. So let's partner with Church Candy and get our churches full. The glory of Jesus. Let's go. Welcome to day 100, yo. This is a huge milestone if you've made it this far on the journey. Yeah, you're 100 days in. I'm so, so, so proud of you. Hey, if you're on a streak, keep it going. If you're not on a streak, it's a good day to start a streak. Like just, you know, day 100, day 101, day 102. Let's keep it rocking and rolling. Hey, if you haven't done the reading for the day, this is the moment where I invite you to stop the recording, pause the audio, pause the video, go do the reading. We're in Exodus, chapters 12, 13, 14, and 15. Today. I'm actually really, really excited about what I get to, like, you know, help us understand today. This is the culmination of this section of the book of Exodus. And there is a lot to learn, a lot to learn. So I'm going to teach you this cycle of chaos. So chaos is a massive theme throughout the scriptures. In Genesis chapter one, verse two, the Bible says that God created the heavens and the earth. That's verse one. And the earth was formless and void. That's tohu va vohu, which means that the earth is chaotic and darkness hovered over the surface of the deep. The deep would be like a mythological way to talk about a massive body of water and that the spirit of God hovered over the waters. The spirit, wind and breath are all the same word. And then God speaks. Okay, God said, and let there be light. Once God says those words, the process of bringing creation into order begins. So in an ancient worldview, creation is not about bringing something out of nothing. It's actually about bringing order to chaos. So we have chaos, it's tohu va vohu. And we have a bunch of words associated with chaos. Words like darkness, the deep. These all these all describe the chaotic pre creation state. And then you start to get a pattern or a template for what starts to happen. So there's chaos to who va vahu. And then once there's chaos, you get the word to home. The deep means you get the waters and then you get ruach, like spirit, wind, presence, breath. And then you get the voice of God. Voice of God says, let there be light. And then for the next seven day period, you get order. God orders things, organizes, he brings function, he brings boundaries. And then once order's established, you get a test. The craftiest of the serpents goes into the garden and offers a test to humanity. Humanity fails that test. And because they fail that test, they get all the way back to the beginning. What happens? Their life becomes chaotic. And you get this cycle over and over and over and over again. That chaos descends till you get to the moment of Noah in the flood. Because you have chaos, you're going to have tahome. So you're going to have a flood. Now those deep waters from Genesis chapter one, verse two, those deep waters are going to overwhelm humanity. While Noah is on an ark in the middle of the tahom, a dove is going to descend. That's the spirit of God, Ruach, the spirit of the Lord God is going to be hovering over the surface of the deep. And then God's going to talk, going to tell Noah that he can get out of the ark. He's going to get out and then you're going to see order restored to humanity. And then you're going to get a test. Instead of being in a garden of Eden, he's in a vineyard. And because humanity fails this test, you get back to the beginning and humanity descends into chaos. This is actually the opening of Exodus is chaos, slavery, oppression, infanticide. This is moral chaos. And whenever there's chaos, you're gonna get plagues. Okay, plagues is the plagues function the exact same way the flood functions, whereas creation is just reverting back into Tohu, Vavohu, and the Tahome. If you get chaos, you're going to get to home. What's the t home? The Red Sea. And what happens when the children of Israel are at the Red Sea? I'll tell you exactly what happens when the children of Israel are at the Red Sea. It says Exodus 14, verse 21. Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. Of course we get wind because in this pattern, you always get chaos. Then to home, then Ruach. And I bet we're gonna get God. God's probably gonna talk soon. That's exactly what happens. God speaks. And once God speaks, the people of Israel go through the Red Sea, the army of Egypt drowns, and then God brings them through a journey to give them order. That's why you get laws immediately following the crossing out of the Red Sea. You're going to get order. And then they're going to get tested. And where do they get tested? They get tested in the wilderness. That's the place of testing. Do they succeed or fail? They fail. And because they fail, the cycle repeats. And the land of Canaan has descended into chaos because it's sent into chaos. We're going to get to home. And that to home is going to be in the form of the Jordan River. God is going to allow the people of Israel to judge the Canaanites because of their chaos. But they're going to be at the Jordan. And what are we going to see at the Jordan River? Oh, well, the Jordan river is going to tell us. Joshua, chapter 3, verse 15 to 17. The Jordan is at flood stage. Key word flood. All during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the Ark reached the Jordan, the water from upstream stopped flowing. And the priest who carried the Ark of the Covenant. Remember, the Ark of the Covenant is the presence of God. Okay? And if the priests are carrying it, that means it's what hovering over the t. Home. While all Israel passed, the Jordan was at flood stage. Ajar. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan, the water from upstream stopped flowing. And then once the entire nation crosses the Jordan, the Lord is going to speak to Joshua because a voice always follows Ruach. And then they're going to march around Jericho in an ordered fashion. Super ordered. And then they're going to get a test. What's that test? The battle of AI. The battle of AI. A man by the name of Achan is going to take some of the devoted things for himself. They're going to fail the test. And on and on and on and on and on. This is a pattern that's established in the entire Old Testament. And the crossing of the Red Sea fits that pattern. But without context, that there's even a pattern, it's hard to even see the elements of the pattern. Here's why this is really, really helpful, because it gives us context for Jesus's life, ministry and baptism. Humanity is ascended into chaos. Because of that chaos. Jesus becomes incarnate. He gets into the Jordan river because there's always going to be Tahome. Once there's chaos, the dove from the flood, okay, descends on Jesus in the same way that the Spirit hovered over the surface of the deep. In Genesis, chapter one, verse two, the the Spirit of God, the dove begins to hover over Jesus. And then what are we gonna get? A voice from heaven says, this is my son in who I'm well pleased. Jesus has given orders. He's ordered out into the wilderness. What is he ordered out into the wilderness to do? To be tested. Now, you could totally see how the audience of the. Of the Gospel, the Gospels, the original audience of the Gospels are like, not this part. This is where we always fail. And every time we fail, we get kicked back into chaos. Chaos to home. Ruach, voice, order, test, repeat. Chaos to home. Ruach, voice, order, test, repeat. Chaos to home. Ruach. Voice, order, test, repeat. Every single time we get the test, we get 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. We get six steps ahead, only to get knocked six steps back every single time. You can see how as Jesus disappears for 40 days, everyone's just kind of like, oh, man, they're on tiptoe. We knew there was chaos. We knew there was t home. We knew there was a ruach. We knew there was a voice. We know that he was ordered out into the wilderness. Is he gonna pass the test? He passes the test. He breaks the cycle. And so the same way that Yahweh breaks his people out of bondage, Jesus actually breaks us out of the bondage of the cycle of chaos that humanity gets trapped in and provides a model for how to stay out of that cycle of chaos. Bible department family, it's Dr. Manny Arango and first thing I want to say is that I'm proud of you for completing the New Testament. You did it. And now that we're in the Old Testament, I hope that looking at Genesis and Exodus from an ancient perspective and worldview has kind of like opened your eyes. Well, I got news for you. If you've enjoyed some of the interpretations that I've brought to the table from Genesis, then that's just the tip of the iceberg. This entire book, Crushing Chaos, was written from an ancient hermeneutic. I'm looking at stories like the Flood, Adam and Eve from the perspective of an ancient person. And we've got an event coming up on April 26th where I'll take a lot of the content from this book and I'll turn that content in a live lectures. You don't want to miss it. You can actually register for that event right now. The link is in the description and more than content. I think what you'll find as we gather together in Nashville are like minded believers and friends and a community of people that you don't just watch content with online, but you can get to know and personal person. I'd love to see you in Nashville. I'd love to hug you, high five you. And I'd love to nerd out together for one day as we come together in Nashville to learn about how to crush chaos. I'll see you in Nashville. Peace this moment at the Red Sea. It's interesting that we have in Exodus chapter 14 a telling of the story. But then In Exodus chapter 15 you have a poetic telling of the story. Exodus 14 and 15. It's not like it just flows sequentially. It's Almost like Exodus 15 goes back and Exodus 15 starts to fill in and give you the exact same story, but in song form. And in song form you start to see some of these chaos themes highlighted. Okay, chaos is a massive theme in the Bible. I actually did my entire dissertation on chaos and the combat myth. And that's for a whole nother day and a whole nother time. But if you thought to yourself, I didn't think the Bible's about chaos. All the Bible's about chaos. More than you could ever even realize. I wrote 130 pages about this, about how the Bible about chaos, combat myth is a part of chaos language. Combat myth that Yahweh is In combat with the sea and with the drag, the chaos monsters of the sea. So both horse and rider, he has hurled into the sea. This is chapter 15. The Lord is a warrior. The Lord is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his armies he has hurled into the sea the best of Pharaoh's offers. Drowned in the Red Sea, the deep waters have covered them. That's the Tahome. They sank to the depths, the Tahome, like a stone. In the greatness of your majesty, you threw down those who oppose you. You unleashed your burning anger. It consumed them like stubble. This. You can see how Yahweh is being depicted as a dragon by the blast of your nostrils. The water piled up, the surging waters stood up like a wall. The deep waters congealed in the hearts of the sea. This is dragon language. This is combat myth language. This is mythological language. This is chaos language. But you blew your breath and the sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters. Who among the gods is like you, Lord? Who is like you? Majestic in holiness, awesome glory, working wonders. We are actually going to get another retelling. This Red Sea moment is going to get retold mythologically over and over and over and over and over and over again. It says this in there we go. This is Ezekiel. Ezekiel gives us kind of Ezekiel. And Isaiah actually give us their take on what happened at the Red Sea with Pharaoh. Says this set your face against Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt. Speak and say, thus says the Lord God, I am against you. Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great dragon sprawling in the midst of its channel, saying, my Nile is my own. I made it for myself. You can hear the arrogance. You can hear the I am God. But you can also hear that, that Pharaoh believes or sorry, Ezekiel is painting Pharaoh as if he is a dragon. Here we go. Isaiah is is going to do the same thing. In Isaiah, chapter 51, it's going to say, was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, the Tahoe, who made the depths of the sea away for the redeemed to cross over? So he's talking about what? This moment, right here in Exodus, chapter 14. The moment that the people of Israel come out of of Egypt. Verse 9, chapter 51, verse 9. Awake. Awake. Put on strength, O arm of the Lord. Awake. As in the days of old, the generations of long ago, was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierce the dragon? So Rahab is this ancient chaos monster, a chaos dragon so instead of calling Pharaoh Pharaoh, Isaiah calls Pharaoh Rahab, calls him a dragon. He says, yeah, Pharaoh was a human, but he's also a symbol of Leviathan, the chaos monster, which means he's a symbol of Satan. That behind the human, behind the flesh and blood evil, there's a power and a principality that is at work in the human and through the human. The reason that I love looking at Exodus 15, Ezekiel, Isaiah is because you actually get to see these mythological themes come to life. That what you get in Exodus chapter 14 is just a telling of the story. This is what happened. The chaos language is there. But then once you switch over into poetry, it's almost like that mythological switch goes from, you know, a 2 on a scale from 1 to 10 to like an 8 on a scale from 1 to 10. And now you get words like dragon and you get words like Rahab. You actually get to see like, oh, the biblical writers have this deep well of chaos words that are from their worldview. And a lot of times we, we don't like the mythological language of the Bible because that's not our worldview. But reading the Bible is a cross cultural experience. So the crossing of the Red Sea is going to be a moment that the psalmists, the prophets, like are going to look back at over and over and over and over and over. And a lot of times as the prophets and psalmists look back and meditate on what God did, they are going to interpret it through a lens of Yahweh defeating the dragon of the sea, that they are going to see it through the lens of all of the other chaos stories in the ancient Near East. So they're going to see it through the lens of Marduk defeating Tiamat, they're going to see it through the lens of BAAL defeating Moat, they're going to see it through the lens of all of the creation accounts that are surrounding them. And the Bible is actually speaking the language of the people that it's trying to reach. Okay, number one, there's the. Our big context clue for today is that there's this six step cycle that is happening all throughout the Scriptures. Our nerdy nugget for the day is that Exodus 15 gives a mythological retelling of the events of Exodus chapter 14. In Exodus chapter 14, you can see the sixth step that I talked about. But then In Exodus chapter 15, you can start to pick up on the tenor and the texture of mythological language, which is also in Ezekiel, which is also in Isaiah. And then what's our timeless truth for the day? God always speaks the language of the people that he's trying to reach. If you want to know what language God speaks, it depends on whoever he's talking to. He will use whatever story, myth, narrative, whatever it is that is native to a culture, he'll use it, he'll redeem it, he will baptize it, and he'll use that to communicate the truth of his character and who he is. And I think that this is brilliant that he does that in that way. Christianity is unlike Islam. In Islam, a Quran's not the Quran. If it's not Arabic, there is no such thing as a translation of the Quran that is also the Quran. A translation of the Quran is a translation of the Quran. Islam doesn't infiltrate cultures, it is a culture. Whereas Christianity can infiltrate Japanese culture, can infiltrate Brazilian culture, can infiltrate African American culture, can infiltrate American culture, it can infiltrate any culture. And the reason that we have all these chaos myths all throughout the Bible, the reason that there's mythological language, the reason that the biblical authors are talking about dragons like Rahab and Leviathan is because that was the language of the Mesopotamian, Babylonian and Canaanite people that the Israelites were trying to reach with the glory and the goodness of their God, Yahweh. And so the Bible's full of this stuff. And if you can't tell, I love it. And I wrote a whole dang on dissertation about it. So day 100. I hope you learned a lot. Hey, if you're on a streak, keep it going. If you're not on a streak, it's a good day to start one. Just make sure that you come back tomorrow for day one. Oh one. I'll be right here. I'll see you as we go through a couple more chapters of the Book of Exodus. I love you guys. I'm so proud of you. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show@thebibledepartment.com and on Instagram at the Bible Department. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow.