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 family. We used church candy for our new church plant the Garden, and the response blew me and my team away. At our new church plant the Garden, we ran simple invite ads through none other than church candy, and hundreds of people responded. Seriously. People who had never even heard of us, who had never met me or heard me preach. They saw an ad on Facebook or Instagram. They showed up to a launch party or launch team training. Some of them have joined our team. Here's the best part. A good amount of them have started giving and tithing, which means the ads have paid for themselves. Our church plant is growing, and it's because we chose the right partner. We didn't have to figure out marketing strategies or spend hours tinkering with ad settings. Church candy handled it all, and it worked. You might not be planting a church, but if you're a pastor who wants to see more new faces on Sunday. And by the way, I've never met a pastor who doesn't want to see more new faces on Sunday. It's time to check them out. How about you go to churchcandy.com Manny and book a discovery call? Let their team show you what's possible when the right people hear about your church family. Hey, we are in Deuteronomy, chapter 1922. It is day 131. Hey, if you've done the reading, I'm super, super, super proud of you. Hopefully you are enjoying Deuteronomy as much as I am enjoying Deuteronomy. If you have not done the reading, then go. Get out of here. Stop the video. Stop the audio. Go do the reading. We are actually going to focus on one of the Ten Commandments today. If you've been following this journey with us, you've been kind of observing that as we get deeper and deeper into this section of Deuteronomy, these laws are the expansion of the Ten Commandments. Okay. And it's in order. All right. This is very, very intentional on the author's part. The author of Deuteronomy is framing Moses sermons in a suzerain vassal treaty, but also framing them to fit the Ten Commandments. Like this. It's just a really, really intricate, beautiful book. I think that Deuteronomy is like, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant content. So today, if you've done the reading, let's dive into our contextclue. Here's our biggest. Here's our big. And our only context clue for the day is Deuteronomy 5:17. Deuteronomy 5:17 says this. You shall not murder. That's it. That's the context. You shall not murder. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the sixth commandment, Sixth commandment of the Ten Commandments. And it is the commandment that prohibits murder. But when you read the New Testament, it's very clear that those four words. Jesus is going to interpret those four words, and he's gonna say, all right, but what good is it if you don't murder but you are angry with your brother? If you're angry with your brother, that's just as bad as murder. And so the laws are to be interpreted. The laws. These laws are not so calcified that they're not alive and active. They're designed to be malleable, okay? They're not immutable. They're mutable. We're not supposed to change the heart of the law, but we are supposed to continuously apply these laws so that we get to the heart of the law. And we're even seeing the way that Deuteronomy is structured is to give you the Ten Commandments, Thou shalt not murder. And before you leave to go, oh, that's simple. God goes, wait, wait, wait, hold up. Before you assume that it's simple, let me tell you what is involved, or let me tell you what's included in not murdering. Okay? So the sixth commandment is thou shalt not murder. That's the context. And hopefully you're starting to just see how the laws work. As we talk through these over the course of the last couple days. And in next couple of days, you're just seeing, like, how the laws actually work. All right, so you shall not murder. Let's go to Deuteronomy 19:1. Here we go. When the Lord your God has destroyed the nations whose land he has given you, and when you have driven them out and settled in their towns and houses, set aside for yourselves three cities in the land the Lord is giving you to possess, determine the distances involved and divide into three parts the land the Lord is giving you as an inheritance so that a person who kills someone may flee for refuge to one of these cities. So God says, you shall not murder. But God goes, I know murder's gonna happen, like, so. Now, the Ten Commandments is the ideal. You shall not murder. Now, let's deal with the reality. When murder happens, what are the judges gonna do? Because murder's inevitable. But it says this. This is the rule concerning anyone who kills a person and flees to one of these cities of refuge for safety. Anyone who kills a neighbor unintentionally, without malice aforethought. For instance, a man may go into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, swings the ax, the head may fall off and hit his neighbor and kill him. And we don't want that accidental death to then turn into. Into a purposeful death. So we don't want manslaughter to then snowball into murder. So let me give you a nerdy nugget. Deuteronomy is the first document in historical context to make a differentiation between manslaughter and murder, between unintentional taking of life and the intentional taking of life. Okay, this is revolutionary, that essentially, Yahweh is saying, all right, here's the law. The law says, thou shall not murder. All right? That applies now to avenging the blood of your relative who was accidentally murdered. So, hey, if someone killed your brother or cousin by accident, and we can prove that it was manslaughter, and you are not within your rights to go avenge their blood, this is God saying, ah, one accidental mistake cannot snowball into a culture of revenge. Okay? So the first way that the commandment about murder is gonna get teased out is gonna be manslaughter versus murder. All right? The next one, it's gonna kind of seem like a bit of a curveball, but it says this. Do not move your neighbor's boundary stones, set up by your predecessors in the inheritance you receive in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess. Do not move your neighbor's boundary stone. This seems like stealing, but no, it's not, because land equals life. So what am I doing? If I move my neighbor's boundary stone, I'm stealing from their land. Okay, so it is stealing. But that land is the land that their animals graze on, and their animals is how they live. It's how they feed themselves and their families. So by stealing from them, I'm stealing their life. This is a form of murder. Also, by stealing from them and stealing from their life, I'm stealing from their inheritance. Now, there's a really, really good story about this later on in the Bible, okay? It involves Ahab, King Ahab the wicked king and his wicked wife Jezebel, and a man by the name of Naboth. Ahab wants to Buy Naboth's land. But remember, in Israel, the land is supposed to always go back to the original allotments, okay, that Moses and Joshua are going to lay out for the people. So, uh, it's either every seven years or every 50 years that all land that's been purchased has to go back to whatever ancestral tribe is supposed to have possession of that land. This is Yahweh saying, the earth is the Lord's in the fullness thereof. I. I own the land. Hey, I let y' all stay on this land, but I own the land. So the land. If I am robbing my neighbor of land, I'm robbing them of the inheritance that their children should have. And by robbing them of the inheritance that their children should have, that's a form of murder. Because your lineage, your children are life. So I'm causing suffering for future generations by moving a boundary stone. Inheritance is life. Land is life. When Ahab takes Naboth's land, God sees this as a wicked thing, As a wicked thing. To steal land from someone is not a small thing in the Bible. It's about life. It's about inheritance. Remember, the land, like, soaks up the blood of a dead person. So there's this connection between Adam, who was taken out of the ground, out of the dirt of the land, out of the. Out of the dust of the earth. So this little Command in verse 14, chapter 19, verse 14, seems like it's about theft, but actually it is about murder. All right? If someone is going to bear witness against someone that they have killed someone, okay? So this falls under the umbrella of murder. Then they have to be good witnesses. Okay? Now war is going to be a part of murder. Okay? So God is going to give people who the Israelites can go to war with and can't go to war with. All killing isn't murder. Okay? So there's two categories in the Bible. There's killing, like the taking of life, and then there's murder. Okay? So just war theory, like when a soldier goes off to war and they kill someone, that doesn't mean that they're murdering that person. You could argue that the death penalty definitely based on Deuteronomy. I mean, they are commanded to stone people. They're not murdering the Canaanites who live in the land. They've been commanded by God to kill the Canaanites. So when you kill someone, you have been given divine authority to take life. Murder is when you have not been given divine authority to take life, and you assume that that authority as something that you can grant to yourself. Yahweh is going to give some parameters around war so that in the killing that happens in war, that that killing does not slip into murder. Because the commandment here is, thou shall not murder. This next one is fascinating. I would call this one Unsolved Crimes or Murder Mysteries. It starts in chapter 21. Okay? If someone is found slain, lying in a field in the land that the Lord God has given you to possess, it is not known who the killer was. Your elders and judges shall go out and measure the distance from the body to the neighboring towns. So this is to figure out who. Which town is closest to this dead body, because whatever town is close to the dead body is going to be responsible for the fact that somebody died. Now, maybe you're thinking to yourself, wait a second. How is the town that's closest responsible for this person who's died when they. They didn't do anything? And this, again, is where we get into collective identity, corporate identity versus individual identity. Okay? In a Western culture, it is, I didn't do anything. So I don't know why you bother me. I didn't do nothing. My attitude around this over the last probably two to three years has changed so much because I'm an American. I just been raised with, you know, personal responsibility, which influences the way that we even preach the gospel, right? We talk about personal sin as opposed to corporate sin. But recently, man, I've started, like, apologizing to people on behalf of pastors who, like, do shady stuff. Like, whenever I find out that a pastor's just done something shady, I say, man, I'm so sorry. Like, I'm so sorry. This actually started I was in Boston, Massachusetts, at a friend of mine's church, Impact. Church was preaching, and I just felt like the Holy Spirit was telling me, hey, if you're in the room right now and you're dealing with church hurt or church harm, and, like, a pastor has really done something, like, immoral and, like, hurtful on behalf of just God. As a. As someone who speaks for God and represents God, I'm sorry. I know I didn't personally do anything. I just want to tell you that I'm sorry and that God, God mourned while you were going through that pain. And I just seriously took, like, five to ten minutes and just, like, ministered like, it wasn't in my notes. I was in the middle of a sermon, felt like the Holy Spirit was telling me to kind of go down that direction. And the people that came up to me Afterwards, I mean, it blew me away how people were like, oh, my gosh, I served a pastor who embezzled money or who, you know, was trying to make sexual advances at my wife and this and that. And, man, I left that church. And it's just been so hard to forgive. But today, as soon as you apologized on behalf of the Capital C Church, I just felt that spirit of unforgiveness, like, break. And I've had that happen multiple times. Man, I'm so sorry. And I think sometimes as Christians, we're defensive. So we say things like, yeah, but my church. Like, when people at church hurt, instead of listening to their experience, we're quick to say, yeah, but my church isn't like that. My pastor's not like that. I'm not like that. Instead. And that doesn't minister to anybody. What did you just prove? You didn't prove anything. What would actually prove that you're not like that? What would actually prove that your church isn't like that and that your pastor's not like that? What would actually prove that would actually be to apologize on behalf of the churches who are like that. I was at ARC Conference recently, and Pastor Chris Hodges was giving this example. This woman. He sat next to this woman named Tanya on a plane. She asked him, what do you do? And he said, you know, I'm a pastor. And she was like, oh, gosh. Like, I hate church. I hate Christians. And he just went, yeah, me too. Like, I've been on the receiving end of Christians doing a whole bunch of foul things. And it immediately disarmed her. He was able to invite her to church, and she gave her life to Jesus. I think that having a posture of defending the faith or defending church and defending Christianity, there's a time and place for it. But I've really, honestly started to just go, man, I'm sorry for what churches have done. I'm sorry for what people do in the name of religion. I'm so sorry for what Pastor so and so did. Like, I'm sorry. And I've started to adopt just a sense of, like, even, like, sometimes with women, I'm like, man, I'm sorry for what that guy did, man. Am I that guy that hurt you? No, but I'm a man. And so when the city closest to the dead person takes on the guilt of the person who killed that person, what they're saying is, man, maybe that person was someone who grew up in our town, and maybe there's something we could have done. We believe in this butterfly effect. Maybe had there been something we unknowingly have contributed to the death of this person because this person is from our village or from our town. And there could have been something that we could have done to prevent this person from becoming the kind of person that would take a life. That is just a super, super, super healthy perspective. And sometimes I also think that we defend ourselves against like, some biblical ideas because we're scared that they're too close to some secular ideas. And I think there are secular ideas like Marxism and socialism and critical theory. Like, those ideas are not biblical at all. Like, those ideas are trash, garbage. Like, those ideas are, you know, socialist ideas are, you know, I'm to blame for something even. Like, like that's not what the Bible is saying. Like, so sometimes I think we're, we're scared to embrace what the Bible is actually saying because we don't want to get too close to what, you know, secular ideology has created or has said. And I just go, well, no, like, I don't have to be scared that what's real is ever going to create the same fruit as what counterfeit things create. But having a collective identity and a corporate identity and going, yeah, like, just because I would apologize on behalf of the church does not mean that I think I should be taxed like crazy to support, like, people who are on welfare. Like, those, those ideas do not live in the same basket together. Like, those are not in the same category. And I think anything that kind of looks like socialism, we just start to freak out about it. And I just go, hey, you gotta, you gotta remove that baggage. When you come to the scriptures and just read the scriptures. Like in. The scriptures are saying, hey, if you're the town that's right over here, you're actually responsible. And so what does the town have to do? They have to make a sacrifice so that the blood guilt is not on the town. Family, the wait is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos is out now and available everywhere. Books are sold. Literally. Today I walked into a Barnes and Noble and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location. So you can grab this book at a physical Barnes and Noble or you can go to a Books a Million or Amazon or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy. If you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book. And if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to crush the Chaos in your life. I think this book is going to be a New York Times best seller. I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right, back to the episode. Okay? Cross dressing is gonna get put in this section, okay? Why is cross dressing under the section of murder? Well, because if I, as a man, act like a woman, I am murdering the image of God that God has placed on me, okay? I'm saying God got it wrong, okay? I'm actually not a man. I'm actually a woman. And God made a mistake, so I'm committing a murder, okay? Also, the reason that God is kind of hardcore with homosexuality is because the genesis command is to be fruitful and multiply, okay? So homosexuality doesn't produce life. So since it doesn't produce life, it's a form of murder. Whereas heterosexuality produces life. And children are life, okay? And God loves children. So anything that's anti children, God's like, yep, nope, I don't do this. And so cross dressing is gonna find its way right in here. The next example, I can take eggs, okay? But I can't kill the mother. I think this is really, really cool. If you come across a bird's nest beside the road, either in a tree or on the ground, if the mother is sitting on the young or on the eggs, do not take the mother with the young. You may take the young, but be sure to let the mother go. Hey, the Bible says you shall not murder. But how does that apply to animal life, to creation? Okay, you get the gist. Okay, Everything. Hey, put. When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof so that you may not bring the guilt of bloodshed on your house. If someone falls from your roof, okay? That means make your house freaking safe, okay? For you, that may mean put a leash on your dog so that your dog doesn't bite kids in the neighborhood, okay? We're wise enough to apply that law even to today. So the law here is, you shall not murder. But how that actually gets lived out in reality? These chapters are gonna do that. All right, so what's the Thomas truth? The Thomas truth is pretty simple. On this one, Yahweh is pro life. He loves life, he loves children, and he loves life. And he wants to prevent anything that is gonna create a scenario of death. So I don't just get to say I've never killed anyone? Check. No, it's. But am I living a life that's actively helping life to flourish? So when we talk about life biblically, Even eternal life. We have to talk about the quality of life and the quantity of life. So God's life, the kind of life, the abundant life that God wants, is qualitative and quantitative. And that's a timeless truth. Okay, so when it comes to do not commit murder, I could put in there, hey, don't be a drug addict because you're killing yourself by doing that and you're an image bearer. Okay, Self harm could fall in there. So you see how God's giving the command, you shall not murder. But then he's going to give all these examples of how murder happens in our day to day life. And then we're supposed to meditate on this, become wise, and then we're not just supposed to avoid murder. We're supposed to avoid creating the kind of society where murder is commonplace. And that, that's a Thomas truth. That's how to read Deuteronomy. Okay, More than telling you what every line means in the book of Deuteronomy, I wanted to actually give you a blueprint on how to actually read the book in a way that creates life. All right, that's day 131. Tomorrow. I'll see you right here for day 132. We'll be in Deuteronomy, chapter 22, 26. If you're on a streak, yo, let's keep it going. Don't break that streak for nothing. If you're not on a streak, all you need is two days back to back reading the Bible with me in order to get on a streak. So let's do it. You got this. I'll see you right here tomorrow for day 132. I love you guys. 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 hebibledepartment. 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.