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. It's day 132. We're still in the book of Deuteronomy. We got a couple days left in the book of Deuteronomy. I hope that you are enjoying Deuteronomy so far. We actually got a big chunk today. Okay, we got Deuteronomy, chapter 22, 23, 24, 25, 26. And so we got five full chapters in Deuteronomy. Today I'm gonna try to get all of this in the time that we have allotted for these episodes. So if you've done the reading, shout out to you. I hope that I can add value, help things make sense that you have read. And if you haven't done the reading, make sure you pause the video, stop the audio, go do the reading. We never, never, never want this kind of content to be a substitute for reading God's word for yourself. Before you hear my voice, I want you to hear God's voice. I want God to speak to you through the Reading, you may be thinking to yourselves, no, but I like, I need to know what it means. I hear you, I hear you. But I promise you that more important than what it means is what the Holy Spirit wants to say to you. And I promise that the Holy Spirit can talk to you about you and about whatever you're dealing with through His Word. And he wants to do that every day. So we obviously believe in studying God's Word. That's what we do here at Arma. But we also want to create room for the rhema word of God to speak to us. So don't skip out on reading. That's how we hear God's voice. With no further ado, let's get into some context clues. Then we'll hit our nerdy nuggets. We'll hit our timeless truth, like, every day. Okay, so context clues. I think that we are currently living in a society where the church really emphasizes, like, holiness, right? So that would be, right, Living, right, standing before God, holiness. And then we have a secular culture, especially the more like, liberal side of secular culture that really cares about justice in a subset of justice would be, like, social justice. So the church cares about what I would call morality, and it should. Church cares about morality, though. The secular society that we live in cares about justice. And to be honest, if we allow that very modern divide to kind of be the way that we think about life, then we will miss out on the God of the Scriptures who actually cares about righteousness and holiness. And so for the God of the Bible, righteousness and holiness encompass both morality, personal morality, and public justice or societal justice. And so we're gonna actually see that in the book of Deuteronomy. So let me kind of take you to deuteronomy, chapter, chapter 24, and we're gonna go to verse 14. This is in today's reading, smack dab in the middle of today's reading. So it says this. Do not take advantage of a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether that worker is a fellow Israelite or foreigner residing in one of your towns. Pay them their wages each day before sunset because they are poor and are counting on it. Otherwise, they may cry to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin. So I think that people who don't even care about the Bible or don't even care about God would say, yeah, that's a great. That's awesome. Like, this would fall under the category of justice. You know, this is justice for the poor. This is social justice. So That's Deuteronomy chapter 24, verse 14 to 15. Okay? The only problem is that by labeling this or tagging this as justice or social justice, what you do is you kind of start to treat the Bible or books like Deuteronomy like a salad bar. And you're like, ah, I want some lettuce. Nah, I don't want any bacon. Yeah, I want some broccoli. Nah, I don't want any edamame. Whatever. I want this. I don't want this. I want this. I don't want this. Because the same book of the Bible that says, do not take advantage of a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether that worker is a fellow Israelite or foreigner residing in one of your towns, pay them their wages each day before sunset because they are poor and are counting on it. Otherwise they may cry to the Lord against you and you'll be guilty of sin. The same Bible verse or the same Bible that says this is the same Bible that if we back up two chapters to Deuteronomy, chapter 22. Deuteronomy, chapter 22, verse 5. There we go. The same Bible that tells us to care about the poor and to pay a worker like what they deserve. The same Bible, Same Bible that tells us that also tells us this. Deuteronomy, chapter 22, verse 5. A woman must not wear men's clothing, nor a man wear women's clothing. For the Lord your God detests anyone who does this. Okay, so that in our current modern divide, okay, we would put this in the category of personal morality, and we will put the verse about the poor and justice for the poor and the category of social justice. And for God, those categories don't exist. Those are modern and postmodern categories. God says, don't cross dress and take care of those who are poor. God doesn't see one of these issues as conservative or liberal. God doesn't see one of these issues as Republican or Democrat. Like, God's law exists way before there's a political spectrum. God's law exists way before there are Republicans and Democrats. God's law exists way before there are these modern categories of social justice and personal piety. God's law says be holy and be righteous. And righteousness includes not cross dressing and not abusing the poor. So often it's almost like which Bible verses we choose to highlight kind of becomes a dog whistle as to what our political leanings are. And I think that there's enough content in here to offend everybody. Everybody, everyone should be challenged when they read the Bible. Any Everyone along the political spectrum should be challenged when they read the Bible. Everybody, Everybody. There's personal sin in all of us and there's communal sin in our societies. Both of those are right. And I don't need to take my cues from the secular world that we live in. The culture that we live in doesn't create categories. For me, the Bible creates categories. And conservative, liberal, these aren't categories that the Bible knows or respects. The Bible is. Is designed for laws for the people of Israel to live to love the Lord their God and to love their neighbor as themselves. That. That's the goal. That's what God calls righteousness and holiness. That the Ten Commandments are divided between those laws in which we honor God, okay, and the laws in which we are in relationship with other people, which is exactly what Jesus says. Hey, love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. And I can't put loving my neighbor as myself in the category of social justice. And I'm cool with all that stuff. But then the moment you say, well, cross dressing is actually insulting to the image of God that is uniquely on your life, and it's offensive to God. Now all of a sudden, I want all the social justice stuff, but I don't want all of the moral stuff, the morality stuff. And God says, I didn't create those categories. I never use those words to categorize this stuff. What I'm telling you is that I want you to be righteous. I want you to be holy. And that is gonna include how you treat one another and how you engage with me. And I think that's really, really, really, really good context, especially for anyone engaging in the modern world. I think that we can be really, really, really influenced as Christians by secular mindsets and secular categories. 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 bestseller. 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. All right, let's get into some dirty nuggets. From Deuteronomy 22, verse 8, to Deuteronomy 22, verse 9, you kind of feel a shift. Okay. Deuteronomy 22, verse 8 is the last verse that is kind of outlining the. The commandment for murder. We said this Yesterday that Deuteronomy 19, verse 1, to Deuteronomy 22, verse 8, was all kind of going into more detail on the sixth commandment, which is Thou shall not murder. So Deuteronomy 22, verse 8, it says, 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 the roof. So that's the last kind of detailed commandment that we get in terms of helping people to understand what Yahweh means by thou shalt not murder. And then we get to verse nine, which says, do not plant two kinds of seed in your vineyard. If you do, not only the crops you plant, but also the fruit of the vineyard will be defiled. So don't do two different kinds of seed in your vineyard. Next verse 10. Do not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together. So don't mix two kinds of seed and don't mix two kinds of animals. We're developing a theme, verse 11. Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together. So, hey, don't take two kinds of seed. Don't take two different kinds of animals. And definitely don't take two kinds of materials to blend them into one. They should not be one. They are separate. Okay, so what in the world is this getting into? Well, you. We just kind of talk through the sixth commandment, which is murder. And what's the seventh commandment? Adultery. And what's the seventh commandement? What's adultery? Adultery is me mixing my body parts. Okay. It's me mixing what what should belong to my wife. It's me mixing my body with another person's body who I shouldn't be mixing it with. It's an illicit union. So now God is saying, I don't just want you to think about not committing adultery. I want to give you everyday symbols for adultery so that as you go about your life, your daily life reminds you that your body parts and someone you're not married to's body parts shouldn't be mixed together. So you Guys are. This is an agrarian society. You're gonna do a lot of farming, a lot of sowing of seed. I don't want you to mix two different kinds of seed together, because two different kinds of seed is really a symbol for your body and someone's body who's not your spouse. I don't want you to mix an ox and a donkey together. And I don't want you to mix wool and linen together. I don't want you to mix these things because I want you to see all of these symbols throughout life where God keeps things in their separate categories. That God has boundaries and God doesn't mix in the same way that God doesn't mix seed or animals or clothing materials. God doesn't mix bodies. Your body doesn't belong in physical contact with someone who is not your spouse. So this is how this section is starting out. Now, make tassels on the four corners of your cloak. This is a sign of the covenant. Okay? Hey, let the covenant between you and Yahweh and be public. These are tassels that kind of would hang down beneath someone's. You can actually see it. You can probably Google it. Jewish tassels. A lot of people believe that it is these tassels that the woman with the issue of blood would have touched. Okay. When she touched Jesus's garment or the hem of his garment. A lot of theologians make a really, really good case that what she is touching there is actually the tassels. And the word for this is Zitzit. Zitzit. Say t z I t t z I t zeet zit. Okay, this is verse 13. If a man takes a wife and after sleeping with her, dislikes her and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, I married this woman, but when I approach her, I did not find proof of her virginity. So now we are going to get one of the first descriptions or laws about divorce. And then there's got to be a whole test for her virginity. Okay, now I want you to then skip down to Deuteronomy, chapter 24. Okay? Deuteronomy, chapter 24. And we're going to start reading the verse, the first four verses. If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he. He writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house. And if after she leaves his house, she becomes the wife of another man and her second husband dislikes her, writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house. Or if he dies, then her first husband who divorced her is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled. That would be detestable in the eyes of the Lord. Do not bring sin upon the hand of sorry upon the land. The Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance. Okay, this passage of scripture right now says 24. One, if a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her. Now, the Hebrew there is really kind of hard to translate. So there's a debate going on in Jesus time, in Jesus day, what reasons could a man leave a woman? Okay, is it for infidelity or is it for any reason? And so if you go to Matthew chapter 19 and go to verse 3, some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason? So they are actually quoting an interpretation of Deuteronomy, chapter 24. Now listen to Jesus response. Haven't you read? He replied that at the beginning, the Creator made them male and female. He's not even going to Deuteronomy. He's going all the way back to Genesis and said, for this reason, a man will leave his mother and father be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined, let no one separate. This is a great question. Why then they asked, did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away? Okay, so they're asking, okay, then. Then why does Deuteronomy 24 allow divorce? Then if you're saying that marriage should be permanent, Jesus, and he says, moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality and marries another woman, commits adultery. So obviously, this. This entire section is really gonna focus on adultery. So Jesus does something, says something really, really helpful. He says, moses permitted you to divorce your wives. Why? Because your hearts were hard. Which means the laws that we have in the Torah, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, these laws do point to timeless truth. Like, we're going to get to a timeless truth today. But the laws in and of themselves are also a concession based on human sin. So it's not as if the laws are just like perfect in and of themselves. Actually, these laws require that we hold the law up against God's ideal. And when we hold laws up against God's ideal, then actually God begins to reveal that sometimes laws are given, like laws regarding polygamy or laws regarding war. It's not God's desire for us to be in polygamous relationships or to go to war or to divorce, but he gives laws to almost contain human sin. And so the law isn't given to tell you the ultimate plan and will of Yahweh. The law is given as a concession because of hardness of heart. And I think we need to be reminded of that, because I think it's easy to forget that the law in and of itself is not flawless, blameless, complete in that way. This is why Jesus is going to reinterpret the law. This is why, although there's a law, AKA a testament, there's going to be a New Testament and a new covenant. So my timeless truth for the day, I think even today, there are certain things that God reveals as his will, and there's other things that God reveals. And his response or his revelation is not because it's really his will. It's because he's giving us a concession. And I think no and yes carry a tone. I think there's times when God says, yes, yes, I want that for you. And then there's times where God says, okay, and I think God concedes. And I never want to be in the concession, in the conceded will of God. I want to be in the perfect will of God for my life. I want to be in the will of God where God says, absolutely, absolutely. Of course. That's my timeless truth for the day. All right, we missed a lot of stuff because there's five whole chapters. Maybe tomorrow we'll kind of get to some stuff that we missed today. But if you're on a streak, don't stop. Don't break it. If you're not on a streak, today's a great day to start one. All you need is two days in a row and you'll have a streak going. All right, I'll see you right here tomorrow for day 133 as we dive into Deuteronomy, chapter 27 to chapter 30. All right, I love you guys. So proud of you for trekking through Deuteronomy with me. I'll see you tomorrow. 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.