Dr. Manny Arango (8:48)

The wait is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos is out now and available everywhere.

Unknown Host (8:55)

Books are sold.

Dr. Manny Arango (8:57)

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.

Unknown Host (9:06)

A physical Barnes and Noble or you.

Dr. Manny Arango (9:08)

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.

Unknown Host (9:25)

And if there's any chaos in your.

Dr. Manny Arango (9:27)

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.

Unknown Host (9:43)

All right, back to the episode. I want you to. So there's now twice in this section, Saul is dangerously close to being killed by David. And David's men actually want him to. To kill Saul. Because that, that's it. All this is over if David kills Saul and twice David spare Saul's life. Now, one of those times, we can just go to chapter 24, verse 4. Verse 4 says, the men said, this is the day the Lord spoke of when he said to you, I will give your enemy into your hand. So David's men are quoting a prophecy given to David. Okay, this is the day the Lord spoke of when he said to you, I will give your enemy into your hands for you to deal with as you wish. Then David crept up unnoticed and cut off a corner of Saul's robe. Afterwards, David was conscious, stricken for having cut off a corner of his robe. He said to his men, the Lord forbid that I should do such a thing to my master. The Lord's anointed. Or lay my hand on him, for he is the anointed of the Lord. With these words, David sharply rebuked his men and did not allow them to attack Saul. And Saul left the cave and went his way. Then David went out of the cave and called out to Saul My lord, the king. When Saul looked behind him, David bowed down, prostrated himself, faced the ground. He said to Saul, why do you listen when men say David is bent on harming you? This day you have seen with your own eyes how the Lord delivered you into my hands. In the cave, some urged me to kill you, but I spared you. I said, I will not lay my hand on my lord because he is the Lord's anointed. See, my father, look at this piece of your robe in my hand. I cut off the corner of your robe, but did not kill you. See that? There is nothing in my hand to indicate that I am guilty of wrongdoing or rebellion. I've not wronged you, but you are hunting me down to take my life. May the Lord judge between you and me, and may the Lord avenge the wrongs you have done to me. But my hand will not touch you. As the old saying goes, from evildoers comes evil deeds, so my hand will not touch you. So here's the thing that you may not know. Robes in the ancient world are a symbol of authority. Okay? Robes signify authority. And so when David cuts the corner of Saul's robe, he's cutting his. Symbolically saying, I'm cutting off your authority. You no longer have authority. This is why, if you fast forward to the New Testament story of the Prodigal Son, the Father put sandals, a ring, and a robe on his son because he's giving his son authority. He's giving his son back the authority that he's lost because of sin, because of unwise decisions. So David is cutting off a corner of Saul's robe. He's cutting off the authority. If you go back, okay, remember, Saul tore a piece of Samuel's robe. And Samuel turned and said, the same way you've torn my robe, God's ripping the kingdom out of your hand. So robes, symbols of authority. And what's remarkable here is that David still sees Saul based on Saul's office. Now, this is where there's a difference between honor and respect. God has not called you to respect anybody. He's never demanded or. He cannot command that you respect anybody. But God can command that you honor people. Why? Because honor and respect aren't the same thing. Respect is re. So, I mean, again, spect look, okay, so, like spectacles. So I look again at who you've been. So I can only respect you based on the person you've been, the person you've shown me. But honor is not about how you've portrayed yourself or how you've acted around me. Honor is just simply about the office and the title that you have from the Lord. And so, you know, like my pastor, okay, I honor him as Pastor Robert. That's Pastor Robert. God has given him the title and the office of pastor. Now, before he was ever my pastor, he was a friend, a mentor, someone in my life that I know personally. Now I respect Robert Madue. I honor Pastor Robert. This has never happened. But in the event that there's something that he may do personally that would cause me to lose respect for him, I still have to honor. Honor the office and the title that the Lord's given him. Judges are people who we honor, police officers, people that we honor. We honor people with titles and offices. It's funny because, you know, I love engaging with Gen Z. And sometimes, you know, people. People that are a part of Gen Z will be quick to just call me by my first name, Manny. Now, I don't have an issue when people call me Manny if I have not been pastoring them. But if I'm pastoring someone, then I'm kind of like, yeah, I'm not Manny to you. Like, I'm Pastor Manny. And I love to hit them with this. You can start to see how secularly trained Gen Z is. I'll go. Would you ever call a rabbi by their first name? Oh, no, I would never call a rabbi by their first name. Okay, got it. Because our culture has trained you that you can disrespect Christianity, but you can respect Judaism. You would not call an imam by their first name, would you? No, because you respect Islam, you respect Judaism, but you disrespect Christianity. Why? Because we live in a culture that's okay with disrespecting Christianity for whatever reason. We don't disrespect Buddhism, we don't disrespect. We don't disrespect any other religion. But for whatever reason, we show tons of contempt and disrespect to Christianity. So honor versus respect. David has seen Saul act disrespectfully, so he doesn't deserve respect. But even when someone doesn't deserve respect, they should be given honor based on the title and the office that God's given them. Why? Because what's gonna happen at the end of the story? God's going to orchestrate a scenario that kills Saul. So God is the one that has the ability to remove leaders. God does that. So if somebody's acting in a way that's dishonorable, I don't need to Lift a hand. I don't really need to do anything. Like, life will catch up to that person. My job is to honor and let the Lord do what the Lord is going to do. So kind of went on a bit of a tangent, but I think that's good. Okay, I wanna look at David's theology, because David's theology is the opposite of Rebekah. Remember, Rebecca receives a word from the Lord. Okay, so David's men are quoting a promise from God back to David. Rebecca also had a promise from God that her younger son would be the leader over her older son. And based on that promise she got from God, she thought that she had liberty and license or an excuse to act in a deceptive way towards her husband. As if the promise that she got from God gave her license to not act godly. Whereas David says, since I have a promise from God, then I don't have to do anything. See, a promise from God can either make you anxious and make you try to force it to happen, or a promise from God can make you peaceful and make you rest and make you go, oh, I've got a promise from God. I don't need to act in ways that would cause God's me to lose God's favor. So Rebecca and David both receive promises from God. I know a lot of people in church who receive a promise from God and then they go about trying to make that promise happen. And then I know people in church who receive a promise from God and do absolutely nothing, which is the opposite extreme. And then I know people in church who receive a promise from God. They pray into it, they sow into it, they do things that are godly, but they never cross the line into doing anything ungodly. And they're not lazy, so they never would do absolutely nothing. They do the right corresponding actions for making sure that you cultivate the word that God has spoken into your life. Okay, so David had the prophetic word. His men remind him of the prophetic word. And even with his men reminding him of the prophetic word, he still has buzzword here, character. Now, this is a very, very hard concept for people that the thing that differentiates Saul and David is not morality, but character. Okay, if you just look at morality, Saul has more morality than David. Saul has a higher level of morality. However, God chooses David and says he's a man after his own heart because David actually has a higher level of character. And I know that may be very difficult for people, but that's the reality that morality is not the same thing as Character. And character's not the same thing as morality. And I would actually say, I know this may seem uncomfortable, that the Bible is doing a lot more character development than it's doing morality policing. But that's a whole nother soapbox for a whole nother day. All right, David now makes a covenant. He extends the covenant that he had made with Jonathan to cover Saul, which is absolutely unheard of in human history. This is actually faith. This is radical faith to say, I believe in the promise of God so much that I'm gonna make a covenant to not harm Saul. So, right back to our timeless truth. While Saul is listening to others, David hears what his men have to say about the promise of God on David's life and goes, yeah, I'm not gonna. I'm not a follower. The thing that makes me a leader is that I don't listen to. I don't listen to sheep. I don't listen to my followers. I don't. That doesn't mean I never listen to them. That just means I'm not listening to them right now. And I don't make a habit of just listening to the people that I'm following that while Saul is listening to his followers and continuing to make dumb decisions, David is listening to God. And that is wisdom. And I wish I could implore every leader to say, hey, you know, this is a great Henry Ford quote. Ain't got nothing to do with God, but it's a good quote. If Henry Ford said, if I'd asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. But people don't know what they want. That's what makes a leader a leader. A leader goes, you want faster horses? But I've got this thing called a vehicle. I've got this thing called an automobile. I've got this thing called a car. And if I listen to you about what you want, you'd tell me a faster horse. But I'm not going to give you a faster horse. I'm a leader, and I've got a vision, and I'm going to give you what. I'm going to innovate, and I'm going to. I'm going to. I'm going to move the ball down the field. And I think that's a massive, massive tool of leadership. Now, let me balance that out. There are. There are incredibly, incredibly wise times to listen to those who are working for you or working with you or on the team with you if you're a leader. There are some incredible ideas that have come from people that I lead. But there's a difference between ideas coming from them and counsel coming from them. And yeah, there's so much nuance there. I hope that you're hearing me with ears of wisdom and with ears of nuance. So, all right, that's day 154. Tomorrow we got day 155. We got one Samuel, chapter 25, 28, and I'm pretty sure that's going to. Oh, no. So we got two more days in 1 Samuel and then we switch over to 2 Samuel. So tomorrow, chapters 25 to 28. I'll see you right here. Get a streak going. If you don't have a streak going. If you got a streak going, don't break it. I'm so proud of you. I love you. You're doing a great job. Let's keep trekking through First Samuel. We'll pick up right here where we left off tomorrow. I'll see you here. Love you guys. Peace.

Dr. Manny Arango (22:16)

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 free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow.