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 for the glory of Jesus. Let's go family. We are in the book of Deuteronomy. Welcome to day 126. Today we've got Deuteronomy, chapters one, two and three. Hey, if you have not done the reading, don't be scared of Deuteronomy. Hey, if you can get through Leviticus, which you did, if you can get through Leviticus, you can definitely get through Deuteronomy. I think a lot of times Leviticus and Deuteronomy get lumped together as if they are the same thing. They are not. I like em both, but I like Deuteronomy a bit better. Okay, so if you haven't done the reading, go do the reading. If you have done the reading, let's dive in like always. I'm gonna give you some context clues. Then I'll give you nerdy nuggets and I'll always leave off with a timeless truth, love. I cannot state how much I love the book of Deuteronomy. And I'm in good company. Jesus also loved the book of Deuteronomy. Jesus quotes from the book of Deuteronomy more than he quotes from any other book of the Old Testament. So if Jesus is quoting from Deuteronomy, then Deuteronomy is probably a really, really, really important book. There's this moment in Kings where they lose the Book of the Law, and then they find the Book of the Law and they weep and they rejoice because they have found the Book of the Law. There's a lot of scholars who believe that that Book of the Law is actually the scroll of Deuteronomy. Okay. And so Deuteronomy is super, super, super important. And we'll talk through why. I'll give you tons of context. So when we left off in numbers, okay, God led Moses up to a mountain. He's able to see the land of Israel, but he's not able to go in. Okay, Comes down and he's gonna give three sermons or speeches to the people of Israel to a brand new generation as they go into the land. So the book of Deuteronomy tells takes place in one day. All right, so one calendar day. So in terms of, like, a narrative structure, there's nothing here in terms of like a plot where anything's long or drawn out. Nope. Moses is standing in front of the people of Israel, a new generation. Okay. Their parents have died in the wilderness, and Moses is giving them a deuteros. Nomos. Okay, what's deuteros? Deuteros is the Greek word for second. And what's nomos? Law. Second law. Why does he need to give them a second law? Well, cause their parents were the recipients of the first law. Okay. Their parents have all died in the wilderness. They are about to enter into the land. And so Moses needs to reiterate the stipulations of the Covenant Law. What does it mean to be in covenant relationship with Yahweh? Now, as we go through the Book of Deuteronomy, over the course of. I don't know, it's probably gonna take us maybe nine or 10 days. I actually don't know. I'm ballparking it. Let's say it's over the course of the next nine or 10 days that we're gonna spend together going through Deuteronomy, I am going to consistently point out that the law is not comprehensive, that the law doesn't tell you every single thing you should do in any given circumstance. The law was actually something that judges would use. So if they hear a case, they're supposed to go to the law. And the law is supposed to give wisdom, Hokmah wisdom, a spirit of wisdom. Okay? So reading these laws, even though these are not legally binding for the Christian, they reveal the mind of God. They reveal the heart of God. And so as a Christian, you should actually be excited to. To know, okay, why would God command this? Even if I can wear cotton and wool, right? Cause one of the laws in Deuteronomy is gonna be, hey, you can't mix two different fabrics in your clothing. Okay? Even if I, as a Christian, am able to eat shrimp and mixed fabrics, I should be curious, but why did God give that law to his people? Because the laws are not just about the laws. I don't want us to be distracted by the laws themselves. I want us to see that in the law. When we learn about the law, we actually get a glimpse into the mind of God, into the strategy of God, into the heart of God. Okay? So I'm constantly gonna help us to not get so lost in the weeds of the individual laws that we can't start to see man. The law of God is actually God's brilliance on display. So Deuteros nomos second law. So this is Moses giving three speeches to the next generation of Israel before they enter into the promised land. Last thing I'll say about context. If you want to compare Deuteronomy to something, there are two things that you can compare it to. We're gonna talk about these as we move along on these days. The first are going to be Hittite covenant treaties. So suzerain vassal Hittite treaties, Assyrian or Hittite suzerain vassal treaties. Suzerain was typically a big superpower, and a vassal was the person that served the suzerain. Okay, so you take like, a little clan or like a tiny little tribe of people. Maybe like the Amorites would be the vassal to, like, a superpower like Egypt or. Or Assyria or Persia. The book of Deuteronomy is actually modeled after a template, and that template is the suzerain vassal treaties that archeologists have found all over the ancient world. And we'll go into detail on that later. But essentially, Deuteronomy has one big point, is that Yahweh is suzerain and Israel is vassal. Yahweh is suzerain. Israel is vassal. Now those words suzerain and vassal will start to make more and more sense as we make our journey through the book of Deuteronomy. But if you're super curious, you can just Google Suzerain. S U Z E R A I N Suzerain vassal. V A S, S A L Suzerain vassal treaty or Hittite Suzerain vassal treaty or Syrian Suzerain vassal treaty. And you can see a format, a template. And Deuteronomy fits exactly onto that format or template. Here's the other thing. There's the other piece of context that we need. One of the pieces of ancient literature that we need to compare Deuteronomy to would be, like, Hammurabi's code. I don't know if anybody's ever heard of Hammurabi's code. I remember learning about Hammurabi's code maybe in middle school or high school. And in Hammurabi's code, man, men had to get a fine. Let's say they're fined if they, you know, have sex with a married woman. But the woman had to get put to death. Deuteronomy rolls around and says, nope, both people have to be put to death. So if you don't study Deuteronomy in context of some other ancient law codes, then you can maybe go, oh, man, this is legalistic. Deuteronomy is legalistic. People are stoned to death for committing adultery. But actually, when you read it in context of something like Hammurabi's code, you begin to go, oh, God is not giving partiality to men, but actually God is elevating the dignity of women by causing men and women to have to suffer the same consequence for sin. Okay? So Hammurabi's code is gonna be really, really important. So that's context. Let's get into some nerdy nuggets. Okay, I want you to go to Deuteronomy 1:26, 28. It says this. Remember? Now, Moses is not talking to the original generation that left Egypt. He's talking to their kids. Let's just listen to what he says. But you were unwilling to go up. You rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. You grumbled in your tents and said, the Lord hates us. So he brought us out of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us. Where can we go? Our brothers have made our hearts melt in fear. They say the people are stronger and taller than we are. The cities are large with walls up to the sky. We even saw the Anakites there. What? Wait a second. Who is Moses talking to? He's acting as if he's talking to the previous generation, okay? He's using words like you. Okay? The Lord hates us. He brought us out of Egypt. Our brothers have made our hearts. But this actually is not just something that happens in these verses. Actually, if you just look at Deuteronomy, chapter one, verse six. Okay? It says this. The Lord our God said to us at Horeb, AKA Mount Sinai. Wait a second. This generation was not at Mount Sinai. Why is Moses using us as an inclusive pronoun when this generation actually should actually be excluded from the US here in verse six. Well, this is going to happen again in verse 19. Chapter one, verse 19 says this. Then, as the Lord our God commanded us, we set out from Sinai, AKA Horeb, and went toward the hill country of the Amorites. And then it says, dreadful wilderness that you have seen. And so we reached Kadesh Barnea. Kadesh Barnea is the site where the spies are gonna go out from. Is Moses just too old? Does he not realize that he's talking to the wrong people? This is gonna happen one more time in verse 22. This is our nerdy nugget, by the way. I don't know if I announced that we were getting into our Nerdy Nugget, verse 22, then all of you came to me and said, let us send men ahead to spy out the land for us and bring back a report about the route we are to take and the towns we will come to. This is 100% what happened with their parents. This did not happen to them. But Moses does not see this new generation as individual Israelites. He sees this new generation as the generation that came out of Egypt. Why? Because in an Eastern world, we have what's called collective identity. Collective identity. One of my theology professors explained it this way. He said, imagine you're out at sea and you need to repair your ship. Like, while you're out at sea, you got a boat. You're repairing your ship. He said, let's say you start just replacing boards, right? You fix one board at a time. He says, over the course of years, by the time you are done replacing boards, every single board on your ship has been replaced. Said, is it a new ship, or is it the same ship? And now the Western person would say, oh, it's a different ship because the individual pieces have all been changed. But an Eastern person would say, no, it's the same ship, because the entirety of this ship has stayed the same. It's just like you and I. We get new cells every day. Cells replicate themselves. Cells multiply and cells die over the course of the next couple of years. You are not going to have any of the cells in your body that you have in your body today. But are you a different person? No, you are still the same person. And so the Eastern world is going to understand individual identity as part of a collective identity. And this is part of the magic of the festivals, like Passover. Every generation needs to see themself as the generation that made the covenant with Yahweh. When the death angel passed over the house and they got delivered out of Egypt and they got taken to Mount Sinai and they received the Ten Commandments and they entered into a covenant with Yahweh. So what? It was my parents? No, it was my great grandparents. No, it was my great, great. No, no, no, it was you. Just because it was a previous generation doesn't mean that you shouldn't have ownership over what God did for them, because God didn't do it for them. He did it for you. And. And you are part of this thing called Israel. Collective identity. This is gonna be huge for the entire book of Deuteronomy. Collective identity. Couple more nerdy nuggets. Okay, there's gonna be three sections of the book, okay? Deuteronomy 1 through 11. And the main theme of that first movement of the book is gonna be two things. Listen and love. Shema. Shema, Israel. Okay? Listen. And the word for listen or hear means obey. If you're. It's like my mom. Whenever I didn't obey my mom, my mom would go, did you not hear me? She assumed you must not have heard because there's no way you heard and didn't obey. Okay? Hearing and obeying go together. Listen and love. Now, the. The word love is going to appear in the book of Deuteronomy, the only book of the Bible that has the word love in it more than Deuteronomy is gonna be the Gospel of John. Anyone who sees the book of Deuteronomy as a book of laws, oh, they don't know there's actually a book of love. Okay, let me say one last thing about Hammurabi. The way that a king or a leader revealed his heart or his care or his love, his stewardship over the people that he had been set over to govern was in the wisdom of his laws. Okay? So a king is measured on how well they create just systems, systems that govern society. Okay? So when we see Deuteronomy, we should be in awe of the brilliance of not Hammurabi, but of the suzerain of Our suzerain, who is Yahweh, our chief leader. God has made laws to govern his people because he loves his people. A good king makes good laws and just laws so that the citizens of his kingdom live in in a just and righteous and holy society. Okay, the next section of the book is Deuteronomy 12 to 26. And these are gonna be laws, okay, from Deuteronomy 12 to 26 gonna be all laws. And then Deuteronomy 26 to the end of the book, we're gonna get a bunch of blessings and curses which fits the template of a suzerain vassal treaty. In order to understand collective identity, you have to understand that the blurring of the you and we and us is intentional. Moses is intentionally blurring who he's actually talking to and that this is not just Moses doing this. This is the. The final editors of the Torah are also doing this. They are saying that any Israelite who picks up the Torah, any Jew who picks up the Torah, should be seeing themself as the you that the author of Deuteronomy is talking to. So when I pick up the book of Deuteronomy as a Christian, I should hear Moses talking to me. I shouldn't just be reading this as history as yeah, Moses talking to these Israelites. No, through the Holy Spirit or through Moses, the Holy Spirit's talking to me. And clearly Jesus was interacting with the book of Deuteronomy in this way. What some people may not know is that when Jesus is in the wilderness, every single time that Satan attacked or Satan tempted him, he responded with the book of Deuteronomy. Cause Jesus didn't just see the laws of Deuteronomy as Yep, that was for those Israelites back there. No, I hear Moses talking to me and I am treasuring God's word in my heart so that I may not sin against him. Because when the enemy comes against us with temptation, then we should be armed with the words of God. But if I see the words of God as spoken to a prior generation long ago in its distant history, then I'm actually not going to hear these three sermons of Moses as being applied to me in and directed at me. So we have intentional blurring. Bible nerds, I have an announcement. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos releases May of 2025 in pre orders are officially open. When I began to learn Genesis in its proper context, I learned that the creation account is not primarily about God creating something out of nothing, but rather God bringing divine order to the chaos of the cosmos. That one nugget was a game changer for me because I've been preaching to all the kids in my youth group that peace was a solution for their anxiety. But really, God's solution to chaos is never peace, but rather order. Peace isn't something that you stumble into. It's something that you intentionally step into. And that starts with aligning your life with God's order. I think that this book is a game changer. It's nerdy, it's practical, it provides a very contextual understanding of the book of Genesis. And if you grab a copy, you'll learn why there's a huge dragon on the COVID Head to the link in the show Notes to pre order or head toCrushingchaos.com to see the really dope trailer that we made for this book. I think it's time for you to crush the chaos in your life. And that starts with grabbing a copy of this book. Now back to the podcast. Actually, we're gonna skip ahead of chapter three just a little bit, and we're gonna go to Deuteronomy, chapter 4. 5. Deuteronomy chapter 5 is going to have another case of just intentional blurring. So it says this Genesis, chapter 5, verse. I mean, Deuteronomy 5. 2. The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Mount Sinai. Was it with them, this second generation? No, it wasn't. It was with their parents, but they are grafted into the US it was not, get this verse 3. It was not with our ancestors that the Lord made this covenant, but with us, with all of us who are alive here today. And so there's an intentional blurring between the first generation and the second generation. But that intentional blurring is supposed to carry on into every successive generation that reads the book of Deuteronomy, which seamlessly leads me to our timeless truth, which is the way that we are supposed to see the entire Bible, that it wasn't just the disciples who walked with Jesus. No, through the fact that I've been grafted into a community called the Church Man. I was there when Jesus took the two fish and the five loaves. And this is what happens during the preaching of the Word. The stuff that is like history. It's like it comes alive. This is what happens when we teach and we preach the word of God. We say the same God who walked on water with the disciples is the same God who walks on water today. And I want the spirit of the living God to dwell with me and to dwell with fellow believers and to dwell with the church so that I'm not just reading history, but that this stuff starts to become animated in my life and I go, you know what? The same way that God, that Jesus looked at Peter and said, you don't have in mind the thoughts of God, but just human concerns, man, I want to hear God saying that to me through the pages of Scripture because there are times where I have human concerns and I don't have in mind the things of God. So the timeless truth is that there's an intentional blurring that has happened here in the text, but there should be an intentional blurring that happens when I read the text. Now, caveat. That doesn't mean that I get to take promises given to Israel and apply them to me. So there's a caveat. But what it does mean is that I should come to the text and I should see myself in the text. And like Moses says right here in Deuteronomy 5, 3, it was not our ancestors that the Lord made this covenant with, but with us. Now, factually, it was their ancestors. But Moses is saying, you don't need to see it that way and we need to see the same exact thing. You've been grafted in. We've been. We have a collective identity and we have to push back against the rampant extreme hyper individualization of our culture and step in to the pages of Scripture and actually see a holy God as talking to us, even through a book like Deuteronomy. All right, tomorrow we got day 127. We're gonna start reading Deuteronomy. We're going to read Deuteronomy chapter 4, 5 and 6. Hey, if you're not on a streak, all you got to do is get two days and you can have a streak. If you've done the reading today, make sure you show up again tomorrow. If you show up, you grow up. So keep showing up. And second, if you are on a streak, I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you. Especially if you got 126 day streak going. I'm insanely proud of you. I'll see you right here tomorrow as we continue our trek through Deuteronomy. I love you. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show at thebibledepartment.com and on Instagram. Hebible department. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses at the Bible Department. We'll see you back here tomorrow.