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Dr. Manny Arango
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. Let's be honest, a lot of us are still treating digital ministry like it's a backup plan from 2020. But discipleship isn't just happening on Sundays anymore. People need gospel centered connection every day of the week. And if you're stuck juggling five different platforms, one for giving, another for sermons, something else for events, it's no wonder engagement feels off. That's not ministry. That's a mess. Subsplash changes that one platform. Everything you need. Media, giving, events, messaging, your app, your website built specifically for churches. No hacks, no workarounds, just clarity and simplicity. Because every day you wait, families scroll past your sermons, new guests click away from clunky sites, and real people miss real moments with Jesus. Don't waste another summer stuck in digital survival mode. Use it to get ahead, simplify, upgrade, get back to what matters. Head to subsplash.combible-dept and schedule a free no pressure demo. And let this be the summer your church gets focused and fully equipped. Family. Welcome to Day 2 11. We are in the Book of Zephaniah today. And Zephaniah is so short, we can study Zephaniah in one day. So we're gonna tackle Zephaniah chapters one, two and three. Just three chapters in the entire Book of Zephaniah. If you've already done the reading, then you're probably maybe confused. Maybe Zephaniah isn't like the clearest, easiest book to understand in the world. But. But my job is to give you context, to give you nerdy nuggets. And I always leave you with a timeless truth. So if you have done the reading, I hope that the content that I share sheds some light on what you read. If you have not done the reading, pause the video, stop the audio, go do the reading. You want to make sure that you actually have context for the context clues in the nerdy nuggets in the timeless truth. So go read the Book of Zephaniah. It won't take You Longer than 10 or 15 minutes to read the entire book. And with that said, let's dive in. First thing I want to help us with is context. And unlike a lot of books, even unlike the book that we studied Yesterday. Unlike Nahum, there is actually a lot of context that Zephaniah actually provides for us. And so I actually want to go through that context because the context, surprise, surprise, really helps to bring the content to life. So there's a genealogy right up at the top of the book of Zephaniah. And knowing who Zephaniah is is actually something that really, really helps with context. So chapter one, verse one. Here's what it says. The word of the Lord that came to Zephaniah, son of Cushai, son of Gedaliah, son of Amariah, son of Hezekiah. That's the mic drop moment right there, Hezekiah. So that means that Zephaniah is a part of the royal family. He. It looks like he is the great, great grandson of one of the most famous kings in Judah. Okay? King Hezekiah. Hezekiah was a righteous king. He actually, on the scorecard that we get in Kings and Chronicles, okay, he doesn't just get good. He gets very good. Okay, so Hezekiah was a very, very good king. T tons of reform happened under Hezekiah's rule. And so this is Hezekiah's great, great grandson. And the king at this time is actually Hezekiah's grandson. Okay, so Hezekiah's grandson is the king, and the king is a man by the name of Josiah. Okay, so Josiah is the king, Zephaniah is the prophet. Zephaniah is prophesying, while Josiah is the king, which means they are related. They are cousins of some sort. And that means that Zephaniah has access to the royal court. So this was also true in the book of Isaiah. I don't know if you remember way back at the beginning of the book of Isaiah, I actually told you that Isaiah was a part of the royal family. So the reason he's just like walking into the palace talking to the king is because he is in the royal lineage. He's got royal blood running through his veins. Okay, so same is true with Zephaniah. Now here's what we need to know about the time period is that Josiah is actually leading a ton of reform. Now, all of this reform can be found if you go to 2 Kings 22:8 or 2 Chronicles, chapter 34, verse 14 to 15. The book of the Law or the book of the Torah had gone missing, had been lost. Okay? And they find it. We can go to 2 Kings, chapter 22. You can actually go there together. I'll go there as well. I'll just start Reading in verse one, Actually, Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem 31 years. Okay, here's another bit of nerdy context that you probably need. So Hezekiah is king. Hezekiah is a righteous king. Then he has a son. That son is wicked, only reigns for two years. And then Josiah is going to reign, and he's going to start his reign at the age of eight. And he's going to take. He's going to follow in his grandfather's footsteps, not his father's footsteps. His grandfather's righteous. His father is not. And so Hezekiah is going to actually create a pathway for his grandson to follow in his footsteps. His grandson is going to be righteous. All right, Verse two. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and followed completely the ways of his father David and not turning aside to the right of the left. The 18th year of his reign, King Josiah sent the secretary Shaphan. Shaphan, Shaphan, son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, to the temple of the Lord. He said, go up to Hilkiah. Okay, I'm actually going to skip down to verse 11. When the king heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his robes. He gave these orders to Hilkiah the priest. Go and inquire the Lord for me and for the people and for all of Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the Lord's anger that burns against us because those who have gone before us have not obeyed the words of this book. They have not acted in accordance with all that is written there concerning us. Now, most scholars believe that what is found here is the book of Deuteronomy. Okay? The book of Deuteronomy is actually the law in terms of the contractual agreement that makes Israel the nation, both Israel and Judah as a whole. That makes Israel as a whole the vassal, and that makes Yahweh the suzerain. Okay? Deuteronomy is literally in the format of a suzerain vassal treaty. And so they find Deuteronomy. It's been lost. They find it in the temple. And Josiah immediately starts reforming things. Now, let's give a little bit of history, okay? Because the reason that Josiah is able to start reform is because Assyria is losing power. So because Assyria is losing power, Josiah is able to actually get people to stop worshiping Assyrian gods. So when you're a vassal, you have to worship the gods of your suzerain. Okay? There's no Choice. So if Assyria shows up and finds out, oh, you've torn down all the images of our gods, you have removed all the temples of our gods, then Assyria has the right to invade Judah, capture Jerusalem, and go to war with Judah. So Josiah's act of reform is actually an act of rebellion against Assyria. What Josiah is saying is that we serve one God, and that God is Yahweh. And it's not just that he's our God, but that he's our suzerain and we're his vassal. Okay? So Josiah. And what makes it just, like, even cooler is that he's 8 years old when he starts to reign, all right? And so this is not like an old man who's just, like, going up against the Assyrian Empire. This is a young guy. He's not 8 when the reform starts to happen, but he's 8 years old when he starts to reign. And so, of course, like, he's on the younger side of things when reform begins to start. Now, that is the context for the book of Zephaniah. And that context is actually very, very, very helpful because Josiah's leading revival and reform. Religious revival, religious reform. That has political implications, okay? And the reason that Josiah's able to lead spiritual revival and spiritual reform is because politically, the Assyrian Empire has gotten weaker and weaker and weaker. It is in this context that Zephaniah begins to prophesy. Let's just start at zephaniah1. We're going to skip the genealogy. Verse 2. I will sweep away everything from the face of the earth, declares the Lord. I will sweep away both man and beast. I will sweep away the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea and the isles that cause the wicked to stumble. When I destroy all mankind, all on the face of the earth, declares the Lord, I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all who live in Jerusalem. I will destroy every remnant of BAAL worship in this place. The very names of the idolatrous priests, those who bow down on the roofs to worship the starry host, those who bow down and swear by the Lord, but also swear by Molech, those who turn back from following the Lord and neither seek the Lord nor inquire of Him. We. Wow. Here's what Zephaniah is saying. Josiah, I see your Reform. I'm so proud of you for the spiritual revival. But brother is not enough. Judah's still gonna get judged. Jerusalem is still gonna get destroyed. And once you realize that Zephaniah is actually prophesying during the reign of one of the most righteous kings that's ever sat on the throne of Jerusalem. You begin to realize, oh, God's already made up his mind that the southern kingdom of Judah is going into captivity. Now, one of the things that I'm going to reiterate for all of the books following Isaiah is that the prophets, we have placed the prophets in chronological order in this Bible reading plan. But Isaiah stretches so much of the timeline that every time we hit a book after Isaiah, we're. We're actually going back to, like, the beginning of the book of Isaiah. So it's the books on this Bible reading planner in chronological order, but not necessarily where the books end. So Isaiah is gonna end 200 years after it started. And so Zephaniah is in chronological order after Nahum and after Isaiah. But we gotta kind of go back in time a bit based on where we ended Isaiah. I hope that makes sense. Okay, so we're going back in time, and actually, I can give you exact dates for, like, how far back in time are we going? There are two big clues as to the date that the book of Zephaniah was written. We actually have an exact date for when Zephaniah is written. And it's 622 B.C. because that is the year that the book of the law is actually found. The book of the Torah is found. Now, let me make one slight correction. Okay? Remember how I said that Zephaniah is the great, great grandson of Hezekiah, but then I said that Josiah is the grandson. Actually, I missed a generation. My bad. They're both in the same exact generation. So after Hezekiah the king, we get a king by the name of Manasseh. And after Manasseh, we get Ammon or Amon. And then after Amon, we get Josiah. Okay, so on Zephaniah's side, we get Hezekiah, then Amariah, then Cushai, then Zephaniah. So they're both in the same generation. Okay, So I made it seem like one was four generations removed and one was three generations removed from Hezekiah, but they are actually both four generations removed from Hezekiah. And they are both. They are cousins. Okay, Zephaniah and Josiah are cousins. So Josiah is one of the best kings that ever sits on the throne. He leads tons of reform. He leads a spiritual revival. And you may be thinking to yourself, so what did it amount to? Well, it amounted to exile, being put off for one more generation. Okay, that's the best that Yahweh's gonna do okay, so they are not attacked and destroyed by the Babylonians. In Josiah's generation, it gets put off for one more generation. And just so that you have even more context, Josiah leads the entire nation of Judah to massive revival. Armed with the knowledge of what they had done wrong, Josiah attempts to bring Judah back in line with the Torah, the covenant. He destroyed the high places in both Judah and what used to be Israel, including the shrines that Jeroboam had set up in Bethel. He also reinstated all the festivals which hadn't been properly observed for centuries. This revival elevated Josiah to the greatest king Judah had had since David. And his reign effectively put off exile for an entire generation. So Zephaniah, as a prophet and a cousin to the king, it is thought that Zephaniah actively supported Josiah in his reforms. But you know, don't shoot the messenger. I'm so happy that we're doing all this revival and reform, but Zephaniah is gonna prophesy and it's gonna be really clear exile is still coming. So that's the context. Let me give you three quick nerdy nuggets. Okay, family, the wait is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos is out now and 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. Hey, are you looking for a really cool gift or just solid tools to support your faith and daily Life? Check out Mr. Pen. They've got no bleed Bible pens and highlighters that actually work on thin Bible pages, Journaling Bibles, Bible tabs and faith based journals. Even school supplies for parents, teachers and students. Mr. Penn was started by Christian teachers in Louisiana on a mission to serve the schools in their local community. And now They've got over 100,000 five star reviews on Amazon. I'm a huge fan of their Bible highlighters and pens. Super Smooth and gentle enough to write notes in the margin of your Bible. Whether you're digging into Scripture or stocking up for Back to school, Mr. Penn has you covered. Shop the best Bible journaling supplies on the market and fantastic gifts for the ladies in your life@mrpenn.com that's M R P dot com. And guess what? Our audience here at the Bible Department gets a special discount. Use code department10 at checkout to get 10% off your entire order. Number one, when Zephaniah opens. Zephaniah, chapter one. If you're familiar with Genesis, you know that God brings creation from chaos to order. That's what's happening in the book of Genesis. Well, the moment Zephaniah opens, Zephaniah is prophesying that creation is gonna go from order to chaos. Which means, okay, if you were around when we went through the flood, okay, the flood was not God actively destroying the earth, but removing himself from the earth and letting creation do what it naturally does, which is fall back into chaos. So unless God sustains order, order can't be sustained by itself. And so what we see in Zephaniah chapter one is a reversal of creation. Key words here, face of the earth, okay? That term is straight out of the book of Genesis, okay? Both man and beast. Beast, definitely a Genesis word. Birds in the sky, definitely a Genesis word. Fish in the sea, definitely a Genesis term. Next, all mankind, face of the earth again, okay? And then we're going to get starry hosts in verse five. So all of this language is not just, hey, I'm going to destroy Jerusalem, but I'm going to destroy all of creation. And that kind of hyperbole is what we would call apocalyptic language. So we're going to have a sprinkling of apocalyptic language right here in the book of Zephaniah. All right, let's. Let me give you one more nerdy nugget. We're going to have a theme that we explored a lot, okay? Especially as we went through the book of Isaiah, we explored this theme of the old Jerusalem and the new Jerusalem, okay? So as we get to the end of chapter one, it's gonna be very, very clear that God is gonna destroy Jerusalem, okay? That he's not just talking about the whole of creation, but that Jerusalem is a microcosm of God's creation. And so God is going to destroy the Jerusalem. It says this, verse 12. At that time, I will search Jerusalem with lamps and punish those who are complacent, who are like wine left on its dregs. Who think the Lord will do nothing, either good or bad. Their wealth will be plundered, their houses demolished. Though they build houses, they will not live in them. Though they plant vineyards, they will not drink from the wine. Okay, now here's another just interesting teacher tidbit about Zephaniah is that in this opening sequence, the Babylonians are not mentioned. Zephaniah is prophesying that the Babylonian army is going to come destroy Jerusalem, but the Babylonians are not mentioned because God wants to make it clear, although I'm using the Babylonian army, it is me. I am the one that is coming to judge you. And so we get verse 14, the great day of the Lord is near. Mirren coming quickly. The cry on the day of the Lord is bitter. The mighty warrior shouts his battle cry. So God wants to make it very clear. I'm the mighty warrior. Yes, I'm using the Babylonians, but we don't even need to mention them. They are not even an important detail here, okay? It is me. And the Babylonians are simply my instrument to discipline you. They are my correcting rod, okay? They're my rod of punishment, okay? So the Babylonians are gonna get referred to as my axe, my rod, okay? No different than my. My pencil. This apple pencil is just simply an instrument. God says we don't even need to name the Babylonians because I don't want you to be angry at the Babylonians. I actually want you to know it is me. I am the God of justice. I am gonna destroy you for all of your idolatry. And Josiah's reforms are only going to push this off for one more generation. I will relent. I'll give you one more generation. But disaster is coming. Judgment is coming. Okay, next nerdy nugget is that we're going to get the remnant talked about. The Remnant is an idea that honestly, we've seen all throughout the Prophet, that although God is going to bring judgment, there's always going to be a righteous remnant. Not the populace, not the. The masses, but there's always going to be a remnant. And what does God do with that remnant? He gathers that righteous remnant and he recreates the new Jerusalem with that righteous remnant. Okay, I was the youth group. The name of my youth group when I was a teenager was called the Remnant. And so whenever I see remnant in the Bible. And I mean, it was funny because prior to our youth pastor, the youth ministry was like seven, 800 kids. And then our youth pastor came in and prophesied like, yeah, we're Going to rename this youth group the Remnant. And nobody was excited that Sunday because everybody was like, remnants are small, bro. The youth group used to be like 7, 800 kids. And he prophesied it was right. I mean, There was about 40 of us, man. The youth group went from like 7, 800 kids to 40 kids. But, boy, we knew the Word and we were deep and we knew each other. And I'm not advocating for small church over big church or small youth groups over big youth groups, but God, just wanna wrap your mind around the Remnant. The Remnant is what's remaining. Okay? Think about punishment as almost like a streamer. So God is eliminating everything, everyone who's wicked and everyone who's an idol worshiper. And then everything that's kept behind, everything that the streamer takes or holds onto is actually the stuff that you want. That's the remnant. That's the thing that's remaining. So this theme of he's gonna rebuild a new Jerusalem with his Remnant, this is a theme that's all throughout the prophets. Last thing, I wanna, like, just draw your attention to chapter three, verse 17. I just personally love this, actually, two more things. Okay. Three, 17, it says. Well, let's start at 14, says, sing, daughter Zion, shout aloud, Israel, be glad and rejoice with all your heart, Daughter Jerusalem, the Lord has taken away your punishment. He has turned back your enemy. The Lord, the King of Israel is with you. Never again will you fear any harm on that day. They will say to Jerusalem, do not fear Zion, do not let your hands hang limp. So now verse 17 is the one I love. The Lord your God is with you, the mighty warrior. Okay? The same mighty warrior who had to punish you, that same mighty warrior is with you. And here's what I love. He will take great delight in you in his love. He will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing. This is one of the only passages in the Bible that talks about God singing. And I just love the picture of God singing, right? God, Yahweh, Our Father in Heaven, the first person of the Trinity. Singing is just not an image that I think a lot of us have in our minds, okay? And so Zephaniah, chapter 3, verse 17, talks about God still being a mighty warrior. He's still the same mighty warrior from chapter one. But now that punishment has done its job, he's going to sing, he's going to rejoice. All right, I know I said I was going to give you two things, but I'm just going to lead into our timeless truth. Here's our timeless truth for the day. And you can actually see this in Zephaniah, chapter three. You can go to verse eight and then verse nine. Verse eight says this. Therefore wait for me, declares the Lord, for the day I will stand up to testify. I've decided to assemble the nations, to gather the kingdoms, and to pour out my wrath on them. All my fierce anger, the whole world will be consumed by the fire of my jealous anger. So we get the fire of the Lord in verse eight, and then verse nine. Then I will purify the lips of the people and all of them that call on the name of the Lord and serve him shoulder to shoulder. So you see the transition from verse eight to verse nine. Okay, the fire of my jealous anger is what to purify the lips of my people. So God's fire is not there just to burn and consume and punish. His fire is there as a purifying fire. We're gonna get the same concept in a lot of the prophetic books that, like, when you put fire to gold or silver, it burns away the infirmities. The dross comes to the top. You can take it away. And what you have left and is pure gold and pure silver. Because God's fire is a refining fire. It's a refiner's fire. It burns up everything in us that should not be there. And that is a timeless truth that's not just true for these people in this context. That's true for us today. You can see the fire of suffering or persecution or hard seasons as something that God sent to hurt you or to harm you, or to rebuke you or to punish you. Or you could see it as God, you're burning up everything I don't need. And everything that remains is going to be the remnant. And I can rebuild everything in my life with the remnant that remains. Anything that can be burned will get burned. And everything that remains is actually the stuff that's been purified by you. Here's the thing that I love about the timeless truth for today, and here's what I've grown to love or I've grown to see about. Zephaniah says Zephaniah balances the justice of God and the love of God perfectly. I mean, he's the mighty warrior who punishes, and he's going to promise punishment in the form of the Babylonians. But he's also the God who sings over us. He's the mighty warrior who sings. So our job is not to create caricatures of God, but to learn the character of God. And when we learn the character of God, we're able to hold his justice and his love in tension with one another. And we're able to see that the fire that burns is actually the fire that purifies. And that's our timeless truth for the day. I hope that helps you to love God and understand God on a deeper level. Tomorrow we've got the Book of Habakkuk. Everybody loves Habakkuk. We'll spend one day in the Book of Habakkuk. It's going to be great if you're on a streak. I'm so proud of you. I love you. Thank you for spending time with me as we break down the Bible together. I'll see you right here tomorrow. Can't wait to go through Habakkuk with you. 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 and 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.