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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 two, 21. We are in Jeremiah chapter 30. And we're gonna go all the way to chapter 33 today. And what you may not know is that this section of Jeremiah is a scroll in and of itself. It's actually called the Book of Comfort or the Book of consolation, Jeremiah 30, 31, 32 and 33. So we're keeping this entire story scroll. Jeremiah is a collection of multiple scrolls. We'll actually probably get into that tomorrow or the next day. And we're keeping this scroll all together as one segment, as one chunk. And so if you've done the reading for the day, you'll probably realize that today's reading was insanely cohesive. If you haven't done the reading for the day, then you're probably gonna be confused by what I'm saying and what I have to say. Cause you don't have context for it. So let's dive in like always. We're always going to start off with context clues to get us oriented to the historical or cultural or linguistic or theological context that's going on. And then I'll try to give you at least a nerdy nugget for each chapter. And then we'll leave off with a Thomas truth. Because we are not studying history. We are studying the character and the nature of God. Okay? We use history, we use in order to learn theology. And these episodes are designed to learn who God is. So we'll always leave off with the timeless truth. So let's dive in context. The dates given are actually in chapter 32, verse one. Okay? And the text tells us that this entire book of consolation is written in the 10th year of Zedekiah. Remember, Zedekiah is the very last king of Judah. You know, I'm gonna do this probably almost every day that we study Jeremiah. The last five kings are Josiah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and finally Zedekiah. So very, very, very last king. So the 10th year of Zedekiah and the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar, that tells us exactly what year Zedekiah became king in 597 B.C. which would give us a date of around 588 for these narratives. Also, Nebuchadnezzar became king in 605 B.C. which would also give us a date of around 588 B.C. so the 10th year of Zedekiah's reign and the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign get us to 588 B.C. and obviously we know from history when they started reigning. So that's actually. That was really, really easy, really to figure out the context. So this entire chunk here, Jeremiah 30, 33, would have been written. These events would have taken place during the siege which ended in 586. So this is actually the second siege, the final siege that leads to the destruction, the fall of Jerusalem, possibly near the completion of that siege. Which means these prophecies and these acts of hope and a secured future are being given when the armies of Babylon are surrounding the city and hope looks lost. So I want you to like, imagine in your mind the Babylonian army is literally on the outside of the walls of the city. We are weeks away from the army breaking in, leveling Jerusalem, totally destroying the temple, setting Jerusalem on fire, burning it to the ground and taking capt off. Okay, so that is the context. Nebuchadnezzar is right outside the gates. The Babylonian army is right outside the gates of Jerusalem and they have completely besieged the city. So that is the context for all this stuff. All right, now that we got the context for what we've read, let's actually jump into some nerdy nuggets and gonna try to give you at least one nugget per chapter. We'll See how it goes. We don't want these episodes to be too, too long. So first nerdy nugget I've already mentioned this is that this entire section is known as the Book of Comfort or the Book of Consolation. So if you were to Google Jeremiah's Book of Comfort or Jeremiah's Book of Consolation, these chapters are going to come up. Jeremiah, chapter 31, 31, 32 and 33. Tomorrow. Actually, I'm pretty sure it's somewhere around chapter 35 or 36. We're going to get into the construction of the Book of Jeremiah, okay? Because Jeremiah is going to tell us that he used a scribe by the name of Baruch or Baruch, and he's going to tell us how the Book of Jeremiah actually came into existence. So we're going to talk about that tomorrow because the Book of Jeremiah is a collection of multiple scrolls, okay? So Jeremiah 30, 33 is one singular scroll. This is one cohesive unit or one cohesive body of work. All right, let's move to chapter 31. Chapter 31 is low key, famous, or very well known because it outlines the new covenant. We'll go to Jeremiah, chapter 31, and I'll just go to verse 31 says this. The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and led them out of Egypt. So already Yahweh is communicating that, the Mosaic covenant, that there's something that is incomplete and there's something that is lacking with the Mosaic covenant, okay? That's not just a New Testament, or no pun intended, new covenant idea in the Old Covenant, right here in the Old Testament, the words testament and covenant, by the way, are interchangeable, okay? They mean the exact same thing. So the Old Testament of your Bible is just the old covenant, which is the Mosaic covenant, and the New Testament is simply the new covenant. And Jeremiah, who's prophesying from the Old Covenant, is telling us that this Mosaic covenant, there's something about it that is actually pointing to its fulfillment in another covenant and a new covenant. Because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them, declares the Lord. This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord, I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people. All right? It goes on and on. However, Jesus, Paul, the rest of the New Testament authors are really going to pick up on this theme and believe that they are walking in the fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy. Okay, so Jesus and the disciples and the rest of the gang are all believing that they are walking in the fulfillment of Jeremiah's word. So Christianity is not just like some contrived, made up idea or like a religion that came out of thin air. There's a lot of people who would believe, oh no, Jesus followers just turned him into a religious figure after his death. No, no, no, no, no. The Old Testament Judaism is pointing to Christianity. Christianity is the fulfillment of the Jewish religion. And Jeremiah right here is pointing out, actually, this Mosaic covenant is cool, this is awesome. But Jeremiah is saying the same thing that the author of Hebrews is going to say in the New Testament, which is, although this is amazing, it was pointing to something else. And that something else is not just something that we come up with in the New Testament, it's actually found on the pages of the Old Testament. Let me give you a nerdy nugget about this New Covenant. Yahweh says through the prophet Jeremiah that I will put my law in their minds and I will write it on their hearts. Now you. We probably don't realize that there was this ancient practice of predicting the future, soothsaying, prophesying that involved emptying out the intestines or the entrails or the organs of an animal and seeing what message from the gods were in the organs of that animal. This is actually a very well known ancient practice. And so when we say, oh yeah, remember that prophet named Balaam? Remember Balak employs Balaam to prophesy against Israel when he has to go up on a hill and he makes sacrifices. Well, he's not just making sacrifices like a burnt offering, he's splitting open a cow or different animals and he's seeing how their, how their organs spill out on the ground. And based on how their organs spill out, that communicates a message. Okay, this is a very well known ancient practice. This is actually how pagan prophets prophesied or pagan oracles or pagan soothsayers try to tell the future. Okay, so when God says, I'm going to put my Torah on their hearts, this is actually a pretty graphic image taken from the ancient practice of soothsaying. Okay? This is how people would cut open animals and read their organs in order to learn the truth or the future. This image is saying that if someone were to do the same thing to a New Covenant believer, that they, if they would be opened up and read the same way that a cow or a horse or a pig would be slit open so their organs could give us a message. If someone were to do that to a New Testament believer, what is it that the world. Or what is it that. That they would read? Well, they would read that the Torah, that God's word has been written on our hearts. When you cut me open, it's almost like I worked at a church one time, and the dominant color for our branding was blue. And so we came up with this phrase called bleed blue. Like, if I cut you open, you should be bleeding blue. Like, you should be loyal to the organization. You should bleed blue. God is essentially saying, hey, you should bleed Bible. That is what you. If I cut you open, you should bleed Torah, you should bleed Bible, you should bleed wisdom. That that's the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. That in the Old Covenant, the Torah was in their mind, or the Torah was memorized, or the Torah was studied. But God is saying in this New Covenant, I don't want the Torah to just be. Be studied or to just be memorized. I want it to be something you're in love with. I want it to be something that encapsulates your being. I want it to be something that gets branded on your heart. And this is obviously only fulfilled in Jesus's act on the cross. That there's something that happens to the human that allows us to be the kinds of people for who. You cut us open. Man, I bleed Bible. I heard this phrase, not this phrase or this story that people tell about Billy Graham. You know, it's famous. Billy Graham didn't get on elevators with women, right? So if he's in a hotel or he's in a building and he's by himself on an elevator and a woman got on, he would just get off because he couldn't afford any scandals he can't afford, you know, And. And Billy Graham made it to the finish line of his death with no moral scandals, zero sketchy stories about Billy Graham. So you could debate whether or not that's too extreme or not. I'd rather be on the side of extreme than be caught in any kind of ridiculousness or moral scandal. And there's this story, this anecdote that says, well, if I am on an elevator with a woman, this is Billy Graham. The first thing that comes to my mind is, not man, I love my wife so much. Or the moment I'm in, like, temptation. It doesn't have to be an elevator, but just a moment of temptation. The first thing that comes to my mind is not man. I love my wife so much. The first thing that comes to my mind is not man. I'm going to lose my salary from this church or from the ministry if I get fired. The first thing that comes to my mind is not man. We're going to lose book sales. The first thing that comes to my mind is not man. My children are going to be so ashamed if I fall into a moral scandal. The first thing that comes to my mind is the word of God, the word of the Lord. The first thing that comes to my mind when I'm in the middle of temptation is Scripture. That's what it means to be a New Covenant believer. That the things that come to your mind are not the consequences or not what you stand to lose or what profession you're no longer gonna be able to have. But hey, I've put my word in your heart. That is the message of the New Testament. That we go from studying the Word, memorizing the Word, and being slaves to the Word to now. No, no, no. It's changed my desires. It's transformed me from the inside out. And man, when you put beets in hot water, what's in comes out. And I want to be the kind of person where when you put me in hot water, what's in me comes out. And the thing that's in me is the word of the Lord. The word of God's in me. That's actually the reason that we would spend an entire year reading the Bible together, offering our minds and our hearts to the scriptures, because we want this stuff to get in us. So that when we are in hot situations, whether that be trial, tribulation, suffering, temptation, that we believe Bible, that the word comes out Sambly. 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. 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 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 e n.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. That's our nerdy nugget for chapter 31. I talked about that for way too long. Okay, chapter 32. Jeremiah goes to buy a field in Anatoth. So you can probably remember Anatoth from the first couple of chapters of the book of Jeremiah. It's his hometown. Remember, there are people from Anatoth who came to persecute him. Antoth is his hometown. The story is a prophetic act. Remember, it's not just the words of the prophets that are prophetic, but their actions are also prophetic. Jeremiah purchases this field in the middle of a siege, which means the Babylonians have already taken control of all the land of Judah. Jeremiah buys it anyway to show that the Babylonians would not have the land forever. Okay, so the Babylonians have taken control of the land, but Jeremiah buys the field to show as a prophetic act that although the Babylonians control the land at the present moment, they don't own the land. Yahweh owns the land. And if Yahweh owns the land, he will restore it or return it to the people of Israel. One day it would return to the ownership of the Jews. This land would still be in his family, in Jeremiah's family. The Babylonians may claim it, but it belonged to Jeremiah. The Babylonians may claim ownership of Judah, but it belonged to Yahweh. And in time he would give it back to his people. So that's what chapter 32 is all about, okay, Jeremiah slipping behind enemy lines, going out to Antoth in the middle of a siege, and buying a field is a prophetic act, almost in defiance against the Babylonians saying, no, you may be in control of this land right now, but God owns this land. And Jeremiah buying it is a symbol, a sign of hope and hope of restoration. All right, chapter 33, this is the whole chapter really is concerned with David, David who's gonna be a righteous branch. Now here is where Jeremiah is borrowing language from Isaiah. So this entire chapter is about David's eternal covenant connected to all this future hope. So these chapters are insanely hopeful, by the way, I hope you've picked that up. Chapter 30, 31, 32, 33, insanely hopeful. So the tone has switched from the Babylonians are coming to kill us to, well, there's a hope God's gonna restore us. At some point there's gonna be a new covenant. The theme of this scroll of comfort or scroll of consolation is future oriented. Jeremiah took Isaiah's old Image from Isaiah 11, one of a branch of David's family that would grow back. Now Jeremiah uses that image again. He actually used it back in chapter 23. So Jeremiah 23 and Jeremiah 33 are both using Isaiah's image of a righteous branch. The righteous branch will spring up, fulfilling all the promises that Yahweh made to David. There would always be a son of David enthroned. Even if for a time the sons of David would languish in Babylonian prisons, the future would be different. So don't doubt the future based on what's happening in the present. The Son of David would rule forever. Also, it was a son of David, AKA Zerubbabel, that would lead the people home from Babylonian exile in 70 years time, salvation, both in the near future, aka 70 years, and in the distant future, aka Jesus, would come from the Son of David. So Jeremiah 33:Pro David and an adoption of an image that really has its foundation in the book of Isaiah. So this is proof that the prophets are actually reading each other's content. Especially latter prophets are reading former prophets content. All right, what's our Thomas truth for the day? Our Thomas truth for the day, man, is that we want to be New Covenant people. Which means we want God's law, we want his instruction, we want his wisdom, we want his truth, we want his revelation to be written on our hearts. We want to be people of the new covenant. We don't just want His Word to be in our mind. No, we want His Word to actually be on the inside of us, so much so that we bleed Bible. That's our timeless truth. That was true as a promise that God gave to Jeremiah. That was true as Jesus began to read these words and see his own ministry. And that definitely needs to be true for you and I, which is why you need to be on a streak, which is why you would dedicate yourself to discipline in the area of reading God's Word and studying His Word. And it's why you'll meet me right back here tomorrow as we continue our trek through the book of Jeremiah. If you're on a streak, I'm proud of you. And even if you're not on a streak, can I challenge you? You're a New Covenant person, which means when we cut you open, you bleed Bible. And so I wanna challenge you not just in terms of your behavior, but in terms of your identity. You're a New Covenant person, which means you are a Bible nerd. You're a New Covenant person, which means you have a hunger and a thirst for God's Word. You're a New Covenant person, which means the same way that when Jesus is tempted, Bible came out of him when you're tempted. We want the Scriptures to come out of you. When you're placed in hot water, we want what's in you to come out. And if bitterness and resentment and unforgiveness or, I don't know, lyrics to Drake or Ariana Grande or whoever else you listen to, if that stuff is what's in you, that's what's gonna come out of you. But that didn't have the power to actually save you or deliver you or sanctify you. So you'd be wise to get the word of God on the inside of you. And the thing that gives you the ability to do that is that you're a New Covenant Christian. You're a New Covenant believer. That's our timeless truth for the day. I hope that helps you, challenges you, blesses your life, and. And again, we wanna focus on identity rather than behavior. The reason that I behave in this way is because I identify as a part of the New Covenant that Jeremiah prophesied about. I'll see you right here tomorrow. We're gonna go through Jeremiah chapter 34 to 37. So we got 34, 35, 36, 37, four chapters of the book of Jeremiah to cover tomorrow. I'll see you right here. Here. I love you so much. So proud of you. 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. 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 at the Bible Depart. We'll see you back here tomorrow.