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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.
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And join the Journey.
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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.
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Seriously.
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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.
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More new faces on Sunday.
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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.
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Welcome to day 136. Today we are in Joshua chapter four through six. We get to get some action today. Okay? We gonna invade the land. It's gonna be great. Joshua, chapter six is gonna be fun. All right, so let me give you some context for what's happening. If you've done the reading, then we're gonna jump into some context clues. I'm gonna give you nerdy nuggets, like always. Gonna give you a timeless truth so we don't just get wrapped up in the history of it, but that the Holy Spirit is still speaking through these books of the Bible. The word of the Lord isn't just a topic that we study. It. It's a voice that we want to hear. So if you haven't done the reading, go ahead, stop the video. Stop the audio. Go do the reading. It's just three quick chapters. Joshua, chapter four, five, and six. Let me give you context, okay? Context. Because I want us to appreciate this moment in its fullness we may spend a lot of our time today in context, but it'll be all right. So in the Bible, there's a massive theme called a chaos cycle. Okay? Chaos cycle. It actually has six parts to it. Chaos to home, which is the Hebrew word for the deep. And then wind. The Hebrew word is ruach. And then we get. We always get a word from the Lord and then order and then a test. So creation follows this pattern. The Bible says that the earth is formless and void. Those Hebrew words are tohu vavohu. Okay? That's chaos. That's chaos. Language, tanin are created. That's chaos. Okay? This darkness is hovering over the surface of the abyss. That's chaos. This is all chaos language happening in Genesis, chapter one. God doesn't bring something out of nothing. He brings order to chaos. Okay? So we get chaos in the beginning of the creation. And then we get God's t home. This is Genesis chapter one. God, the darkness, his spirit is hovering over the waters. The darkness is over the surface of the deep. That word is tahome. So we get chaos. And then those. That chaos is symbolized by chaos waters, okay? The abyss, the. The tahome, the flood. And then we get the wind of God, okay? The. The ruach of God. So the darkness is hovering over the surface of the deep. And then the spirit of God. Spirit, wind and breath are the same word in Hebrew. So the wind of God, the spirit of God is hovering over the surface of. Of is hovering over the waters. And then we're going to get a word from God. So let there be light is the word that we get. And then throughout the next several days, God brings order to the creation. And then, of course, we get to Genesis chapter three, and we're going to get a test, and man's going to fail that test. So our cycle is chaos to home, wind, word, order test. Okay? Chaos to home, wind, word, order test. I don't have a ton of time to go into all the details, but when we get to the flood, Genesis chapter six, nine, we are going to get all six of those elements. As if the Bible is operating according to a template or a pattern. We're going to get these elements, okay? The world has fallen into chaos, moral chaos. Floodwaters. The fountains of the great deep are gonna burst forth. We're gonna get a wind, okay, from God. Now this is odd. Cause it's gonna be in the form of a dove, okay? And that dove is going to hover over the surface of what? Of the waters. So this is A call back to Genesis, chapter one. We're gonna get a word from the Lord, and then what's God gonna do? God's gonna begin to bring order again, even though chaos and flood has swept over the land. And then we're gonna get a test. So Noah is a new Adam. So whereas Adam and Eve were naked in a garden, Noah is gonna lay uncovered in a vineyard in his tent, in a vineyard where Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Noah is gonna drink from the fruit of the vine. That fruit altered Adam and Eve's state of consciousness. This wine is going to alter Noah's state of consciousness. It's a test. And everyone fails in this test, including Noah. We're going to get to the Red Sea. Same exact thing is going to happen. Egypt has descended into chaos. Therefore, God is going to bring the people of Israel to the Red Sea. His wind is going to blow back the sea. He's going to. A word from the Lord is going to come right in the middle of this scene. God is gonna bring them safely through the waters, and then God is gonna give them order in the form of the Ten Commandments. And then they're gonna go into a season of testing in the wilderness. The Bible is actually gonna say that the themes of testing in wilderness go hand in hand. And then we get to the Jordan river right here in Joshua 3, and it's going to tell us that the land of Canaan has descended into chaos, which is why the people of Israel are going to come in. Now, this is the craziest thing that this is supposed to be seen as a new flood. So remember what caused the original flood. The original flood was actually caused by giants being upon the earth. What we would call. As what we would call Anakin when we get instruction in Deuteronomy, chapter 7, verse 1, to defeat the Canaanites, the Israelites are going to go into defeat. That word is strike, which is straight out of the flood story. And so we'll see that there's this theme of giants in the land. So the people are actually a flood. They are supposed to flood the land to cleanse it of the Canaanites who have been doing wicked, indetestable things before God. Back to our. I'm sorry, I kind of interrupted us. Back to our cycle number one. We're going to get chaos, moral chaos in Canaan. So therefore we're going to get it to home. God is going to lead the people to the Jordan. And there's this nice little detail that when the people of Israel get led to the Jordan river, it's going to be at flood stage. Flood stage is the. That is the buzzword right there. Okay, flood stage, verse 15 of chapter three. Now, the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Okay? So this is immediately supposed to make you think of the flood. Okay, Noah, Noah's story. So third, we always get a wind. And so what is going to now happen? The wind is always supposed to be hovering over the waters. But this time it's going to be the ark of the covenant that represents the express presence of God that's hovering over the waters. And then what happens? A word from God is going to get released while they are in the middle of the water, they're going to pass through. And I love this detail. This is Joshua, chapter 6, verse 7. It says, and Joshua ordered the army, okay? He orders the army because order always follows the word from God. So chaos to home, wind, word, order. And now they're going to get a test. That test is going to be Jericho. And one man is going to fail. His name is Achan. And that means in the next battle of AI, they're going to lose. So that is the pattern. Chaos to home, wind, word, order test. Chaos to home, wind, word, order, test. Over and over and over and over and over. Now, when Jesus is baptized, you already know where this is going. Humanity had descended into chaos. So he's led to the Jordan river and a dove comes out of heaven and what is hovering over the surface of the waters and then a word from heaven says, this is my son, who I'm well pleased. And then what? Jesus says, hey, we need to do this to keep order. Hey, John, John, I know you think I should be baptizing you. I know you think that you're not worthy to untie my. But this needs to be done in keeping with order. And then what do the people see? They see that Jesus has now been driven out to the wilderness to be tested. And everyone would have been waiting with bated breath because they would have seen the cycle. They would have seen chaos has happened. T home has happened, wind has happened, word from the Lord has happened. Order has happened. And now this Jesus is getting tested. And for 40 days. First of all, the original audience, which is the people of Israel, would have seen it. They would have realized it. I mean, a dove is freaking coming out of nowhere. A voice from heaven. People would have marked this as this is special. There's something unique about this. But more than that, the audiences reading the gospels would have Immediately made connections and thought to themselves, what is going on? And when you read from this kind of perspective, the narratives in the wilderness, the test in the wilderness becomes so much more interesting. Because now you realize that there's tension that's been created, context creates tension, and context helps us to know where we should apply our attention. So the good news of Jesus is that he breaks the chaos cycle, the cycle that humanity had been in forever, which is chaos, to home, wind, order, sorry, windward order, and keep failing the test. So humanity kept taking 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 5 steps forward, 6 steps back, 5 steps forward, 6 steps Back, 5 steps forward, 6 steps BACK. In an endless cycle of chaos. Jesus finally comes and says, I'm the first person who went through the whole cycle, but actually completed the test, didn't fail the test, succeeded in the wilderness, succeeded in the testing. This is huge. The crossing of the Jordan is a part of this cycle. And I know I used, like so much time to do context clues. I gotta fly through a NER nuggets today. But I wanted you to see that. I wanted you to appreciate that. Okay, here's some nerdy nuggets. Number one, an entire generation now has to get circumcised, which is absolutely wild, because they need to go fight, which is good. This could be a timeless truth in and of itself. This is a nerdy nugget and a timeless truth. This is great. God wanted them at their weakest right before they needed to be at their strongest. Because it is in our weakness that he gives us grace. This is Paul asking for the thorn to be removed and God saying, my grace is sufficient for you because my power is made perfect in your weakness. We're seeing an Old Testament picture of that New Testament truth. They need to use a ram's horn in order to go around the walls of Jericho, which is a little odd because the ram's horn is actually used for religious purposes, which colors this whole moment. They don't do anything great. Militarily. This is a terrible strategy. Actually. They could have been harmed by walking around walls for seven days and doing it seven times. And especially putting the worship leaders in front. Like, this is wild. The inhabitants of Jericho, first of all, inhabitants of cities were known to, like, throw feces from the walls of cities. Like, you have the advantage cause you're on top of a wall. It's very difficult to siege or besiege a walled city. Walls provided tons of not just protection, but leverage. So anything could have been hurled at the people of Israel as they're just out there walking around. But miraculously, that's not what happens. It's almost as if the Canaanites are just in total paralyzing shock that the people of Israel are out there doing this. Then second, the detail here, the nerdy nugget here to the using a ram's horn, which would have been used for worship and sacrifices, not for battles. Okay, so typically you get trumpets blown for battles, and a ram's horn is reserved for sacrifices, ritual sacrifices and for worship. But God is actually communicating that the inhabitants of Jericho are about to get offered to God as an offering. They're going to get offered to the Lord as a sacrifice that. That Jericho is going to get burned to the ground and offered to God as a first fruits offering, which is what's going to make Achan Sin actually stand out, that he takes from what is already been dedicated to God. So this is not as much of a military battle as it is a religious ceremony that the inhabitants of Canaan, the people of Canaan, and the land in this city in particular, is getting dedicated to God, which is evidenced by the Levites that are leading this whole campaign. And the ram's horn. Small detail, but the ram's horn is used in religious settings, not in warfare settings, which should be a clue to you as to what's actually happening.
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Family, the wait is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos is out now and available everywhere.
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Books are sold.
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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.
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A physical Barnes and Noble or you can go to a Books A Million.
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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, ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life. I think this book is gonna be a New York Times bestseller.
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I really do.
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I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right, back to the episode.
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Last little nerdy nugget here is that if they are supposed to march around the walls once a day for a full week, and then on the seventh day, the last day, march around the walls seven times in that last day, then that means that that seventh day is a Sabbath. That is what that means. And that is not allowed. If we have a narrow view of The Sabbath. But if we believe that the Sabbath is participation with God, and if we believe that the Sabbath is for religious activity, then that again tells us that. That since this is happening on the Sabbath, and since the ram's horn indicates that this is a religious moment, not a military moment, this is actually not breaking the Sabbath, which leads us seamlessly into our timeless truth for the day. What is rest and what is work? Participating with Yahweh is rest. Participating with the miraculous power of God. That's rest. Maybe the lines are more blurred than we're totally comfortable with. Maybe this is a lot like Jesus doing miracles on the Sabbath and religious leaders being mad because they see that as work. But Jesus saying, no, restoring life is actually a part of God's rest. It's work, but it's rest. It's rest because I get to participate with him. It would be work if I did it apart from him, which means work is not about what I'm doing, but the spirit in which I'm doing it in. And maybe the way we work has to be challenged. Not what we do to work with God, but how we work with God. That when we work for God, it's work. But when we work with God, it can be rest. I'm not saying it always is, but it can be rest. So the walls of Jericho come down on a Sabbath. There's a ram's horn. I think I would contend that this is actually a religious moment more than a military moment, because the people of Israel don't actually do anything. They. They participate with God in the blowing of the horns, in the shouting, in the praise, in the preparatory worship, but they don't actually do. It's not like it's their military might that wins this battle. God fights the battle. God wins the victory. He allows the people to participate with him, and everyone gets a participation trophy, essentially. And so I gave you a lot of context. I focus more on the context clues today than on the nerdy nuggets today. But hopefully that added value to your reading and timeless truth is that God wants us at our weakest when we need to be at our strongest, and that we need to rethink work. Last nerdy nugget for you, as we kind of end our time together, is that manna now stops. The Bible says that the manna stops the moment they get into the land. So the way that God provides now is going to transition from manna to vineyards and fields. And I think there's a lot of us that get caught in that transition, that experience whiplash from a season where God gave manna to a season where now God says, you own property, grow some crops, grow some produce. We're moving from miraculous provision to miraculous produce. And that God gets to provide in different ways, but it's still his provision. All right, family, I hope that you enjoyed today's reading. Tomorrow we are in Joshua, chapter seven through ten. I cannot wait to continue conquering Canaan with y' all as we march through the book of Joshua. If you're on a streak, let's keep it going. If you're not on a streak, you.
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Ain'T got no excuse.
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We making reading the Bible as easy as it's ever been. You need the word of the Lord. You need to get manna for your soul, for your spirit every day. So I'll see you tomorrow right here as we dive in to Joshua, chapters seven through ten. Love you guys. So proud of you. Peace.
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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 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.