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Hey, Bible nerds.
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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.
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To all my fellow pastors, I've got a question for you. Does your city know that your church exists? Listen, I get it. You're preaching, you're leading, you're discipling, you're doing ministry. We are in the same boat. And let's be honest, social media and marketing, not your strong suit. Not mine either. And that's probably the last thing on your mind. And that's why we chose to partner with Church Candy Marketing for our church Plant the garden. We out here, y'all. They help churches get more actual guests walking through the doors on Sunday without.
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Your eye having to stress over ads.
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Or algorithms or trying to crack the social media code. Right now, Church Candy is helping nearly 400 churches reach their communities with simple invite ads. And it works.
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It's super effective. I can tell you from firsthand experience.
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So if you're tired of being your city's best kept secret, how about you do this? Go to churchcandy.com Manny and book a free consultation book a discovery call. Their team will break it all down and show you how to start seeing new faces at your church this Sunday. I'm in the trenches with you, trying.
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To grow the church.
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And how about we just start a whole campaign? No more empty churches. So let's partner with Church Candy and get our churches full for the glory of Jesus. Let's go, family.
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We got day 68. We are in John chapter four through seven. Oh, some rich content today, guys. I told you, I'm gonna tell you this every day. Cause I just love the Gospel of John. I'm gonna give you a context clue, gonna give you a nerdy nugget, gonna give you a timeless truth for our reading today. If you haven't done the reading, go ahead, pause this. Stop this. Don't watch this any further spoiler alerts. All right, go ahead and read John chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7, and then come on back. For those of you who have done the reading, let's dive in immediately. In John chapter four, we get Jesus at a well with a samaritan woman. Okay? This is actually contrasted with the story of Nicodemus. Okay? We get Nick Nicodemus coming at night, and we get The Samaritan woman in the middle of the day. Interestingly enough, although there's a contrast between night and day, the night and the day symbolize the exact same thing. Okay, Nicodemus is coming at night because that's when it would be the most private for him. The Samaritan woman is drawing water in the middle of the day because that's when it would have been the most private for her. So the daytime represents a time where nobody would be at the well with the woman. She wouldn't have to hear any murmuring, any gossiping. She wouldn't have to draw water with all of the other women who would have drawn water like before the sun came up. So Nicodemus is coming at night cause he doesn't want the Pharisees to know that he's talking to Jesus. The Samaritan woman is at the well in the middle of the day cause she's trying to escape the drama of her life. So they're both trying to escape drama, but coming to Jesus or the woman didn't even know she's coming to Jesus. She just thinks that Jesus is just a nice guy. Another thing that you can see between these two stories is that a literal understanding of Jesus is a misunderstanding of Jesus. So Jesus says to Nicodemus, you gotta be born again. And Nicodemus is like, how can I.
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Go back to my mother's womb?
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Like, I'm old. Okay? That's a literal understanding of Jesus and therefore a misunderstanding of Jesus. Same thing with the Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus says, yay. You know, if you knew who was asking you for a drink, you would have asked and you would have got living water. And she's like, you have a bucket.
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Like, what are you? Are you thirsty, sir?
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You know, a literal understanding of Jesus is a misunderstanding of Jesus. It's Jesus speaking on a higher plane. And so that's man. That could be a timeless truth right there, that Jesus can't just be heard, he can't just be understood. He needs to be interpreted. And there's a spiritual interpretation for what Jesus is saying. Okay, let's get into the big context clue. You can see when the disciples come back and they see Jesus talking to a woman, that they are appalled. And it's because the Greco Roman world and the Jewish world at this point in history, I mean, would were just terrible towards women. I'm sorry, I just have to be honest. Like, the view of women was insanely low. And the sad thing is that the Jewish story, the Old Testament, was actually supposed to provide the Jewish people with a narrative about gender that would actually set them up to be a contrast community in a world that really did oppress women. But the Jewish people kind of fell into the same trap of all of their surrounding neighbors. The stories that we have in Genesis of Adam and Eve are actually supposed to fuel a culture of equality, but that is just not what happens. The Greco Roman world was definitely oppressive towards women, and the Jewish world definitely saw women from a vantage point of a source of temptation. And I think sometimes in Christianity we can fall into that as well. There's never, you know, I don't. I can't tell you how many youth group trips I've been on where girls are made to feel like their bodies are a problem. You know, trips to the beach and stuff like that. But no boys are ever told that, like, you know, you need to cover up or don't have a shirt on. Like, we frame it as if men are the only people who are turned on by what they see. But I'm married, you know, and I've engaged with enough women to know, like, women are turned on by what they see. Like, you know, we definitely in the church world heap on a lot of shame when it comes to how women. And I'm all about being modest. Like, I don't disagree with modesty, but I think we draw unnecessary attention to the bodies of young girls and put way too much pressure on them to, I don't know, not cause their brothers in Christ to stumble. But we don't teach boys how to, like, I don't know, be self controlled, be disciplined. That's a whole nother. If you want more on that, you can watch our Purity Culture course. Okay. If you're a subscriber, watch the course on Purity Culture. If you're not a subscriber, become a subscriber so that you can watch the course on Purity Culture. Because these are the kind of ideas that I dive into contextually. The disciples are flabbergasted that Jesus is talking to a Samaritan, talking to a woman. I mean, they are just outright flabbergasted. Now we find out in Luke's Gospel that Jesus has female disciples. You would have been the only rabbi in history to elevate the status of women. And so you can understand why the only people who are present at the cross besides John are a bunch of women. Because these women are loyal. Because Jesus has been incredibly kind and good and a symbol of justice for them and to them. Okay, let's keep it moving. Let me give you a nerdy nugget. What we're going to see in John's gospel by the time we get to chapter. Let's actually go to chapter six, verse two. I'll read this to you. I'm stuck in chapter three, but we got a lot of chapters to get through. Chapter six, verse two, it says. And a large crowd was following him because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick. Signs. Okay? That's a key word for John's gospel. I don't know if you realize this, but one of the things that really makes John's gospel different than the synoptic tradition is that Jesus is healing everybody. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, everybody gets exorcisms. Everybody. There's miracles everywhere, okay? In one paragraph of Mark or Matthew, I mean, Jesus could heal thousands of people. That's not the case in John. For John, these are not just miracles. They're signs. And I live in Dallas, Texas, right. A sign for Fort Worth or a sign for Irving is not Irving. It's a sign. It's pointing me in a direction. The signs are not the thing that's important for John. It's the direction that the signs are pointing. And the signs are pointing to the identity of Jesus. And so there are seven signs in John's Gospel. The first one is the wedding at Cana where Jesus turns water into wine. The second is the healing of the nobleman's son in John chapter four. The third is the paralytic that's healed at the pool of Bethesda. That's John, chapter five. And then the feeding of the 5,000. John, chapter six. And then Jesus walks on water, also in John, chapter six. And then the man born blind is healed in John chapter nine. And then Lazarus is raised from the dead in John chapter 11. Only seven signs in John's gospel. And these seven signs correlate with seven I am statements. Now, one of the things I'll. This is a nerdy nugget. One of the things I'm going to tell you about these signs is that 7 is a very significant number for John. When else have we seen the number seven? Really, really important. Oh, yeah, in Genesis, right? So it makes sense that John is framing the whole book around the number seven, because John's Gospel is a new Genesis. So what is John saying? Let's interpret what he's saying. He's saying that these miracles of Jesus, the miraculous arm of Jesus's ministry, is accomplishing the very same thing that Yahweh was doing in the seven days of creation, that these seven signs are the signs of new creation, and the seven days of creation are the days of creation. So we're comparing creation with new creation. Okay, so the same way that Yahweh spoke creation into existence, John's second sign for Jesus is gonna be speaking in the nobleman's son being healed. And on and on and on and on and on. There's all these correlations between the miracles of Jesus and what's happening in the book of Genesis. But here's the big idea, that in the book of Genesis, God, Yahweh, the Creator is bringing order to chaos. And that's exactly what Jesus is doing in his miracles. He's bringing order to chaos. He's bringing the kingdom of God. He's bringing new creation as a dominion over the dominion of darkness and death and chaos.
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Bible nerds. I have an announcement. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos releases May of 2025 in pre orders are officially open. When I began to learn Genesis in its proper context, I learned that the creation account is not primarily about God creating something out of nothing, but rather God bringing divine order to the chaos of the cosmos. That one nugget was a game changer for me because I've been preaching to all the kids in my youth group that peace was a solution for their anxiety. But really, God's solution to chaos is never peace, but rather order. Peace isn't something that you stumble into. It's something that you intentionally step into and that starts with aligning your life with God's order. I think that this book is a game changer. It's nerdy, it's practical, it provides a very contextual understanding of the book of Genesis. And if you grab a copy, you'll learn why there's a huge dragon on the COVID Head to the link in the show notes to pre order or head to crushingchaos.com to see the really dope trailer that we made for this book. I think it's time for you to crush the chaos in your life. And that starts with grabbing a copy of this book.
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Now back to the podcast. Not only do we have signs, but if you read John chapter 6:35, we actually have our very first I am statement, John 6:35. Jesus is gonna say that he is the bread of life and we're gonna get I am statements all throughout John's gospel and how many we're gonna get. We're gonna get seven of them. First one is I am the bread of life. It's found in John 6 the next one is John 8, which is I am the light of the world. The next One is John 10, which says, I am the gate for the sheep. The fourth is I am the good shepherd, which is also John 10. And the next one is I am the resurrection and the life. The I am the true vine. I'm the way, the truth, and the life. And the last one is I am the true vine, which is John, chapter 15. So your nerdy nugget is that John's entire Gospel is centered around the number seven. And guess what? We are not done. Okay, John's Gospel also has seven feasts and seven discourses, blocks of teaching. Okay, so seven discourses and then seven feasts, and we'll talk about the discourse in the feast later. But again, the I am statements are revealing the identity of Jesus. And so you're gonna get a link between the I am statements and the signs. Okay, so for instance, right, John, chapter six. Let's deal with the first one that we have. John 6:35, Jesus reveals I am the bread of life. Well, guess What? In John 6, 1:15, we have the third feeding of the 5,000. So I am the bread of life and the feeding of the 5,000. The sign is to point to what? The identity of Jesus. So Jesus is not like a magician or miracle worker in John's Gospel. Nope. We only get seven signs. And the seven signs are all pointing to the identity of Jesus. And that identity is the bringer of new creation. Okay, he's the Son of the Father. In the same way that the Father brought creation and spoke creation into existence and conquered the chaos and brought order, Established order. That same God is here now in the New Testament. He's put on flesh. He's the person of Jesus, and he has the same authority, the same dominion, and the same status as God. He is to be worshiped as God. And the signs are simply signposts pointing to his revealed identity. Let's get to our timeless truth of the day, Chapter five. John, chapter five, verse six. These words are words that I feel like the Holy Spirit consistently uses to challenge me and to absolutely rid me of victim mentality. I think that we're living in a world that is gripped by a victim mentality. Okay? For whatever reason, the victim identity is something that we as a culture have, like, clung to. And I've decided, man, if I serve a God who wasn't even a victim to the crucifixion and death, then I can't be a victim. I can't identify with a victorious God, but I also identify as a victim. There's an incongruence there. Okay, so John, chapter 5, verse 6 says this. When Jesus saw the paralyzed man lying there and knew that he had been there for a long time, he said to the paralyzed man, do you want to be healed? Do you want to be healed? I think that's such a fascinating question, because at the surface, we could say, duh, Jesus, of course he wants to be healed. But I think Jesus would then say right back to us. That's not obvious. Just because he's at this pool doesn't mean that he actually wants to be healed. It means that he wants help. But help and healing are not the same thing. I think that there's a lot of us, we want to be helped, but we don't want to be healed. The reason that I know this is because then Jesus says to him, get up. He doesn't touch him, doesn't lay hands on him, doesn't say, okay, now you're healed. Doesn't pronounce him healed. He just says, all right, get up. Let's see how bad you actually want it. That word there. Want. Do you want to be healed? What context? What most of us don't know is that this man was actually perfectly situated. I've been to the pool of Bethesda on multiple trips to Israel, and the cool thing is that the pool of Bethesda is on this main kind of like road or highway where a massive amount of people would have been traveling to get to the temple every single day. And so the man has actually perfectly situated himself so that he could get pity from passersby. He would have been asking for money. He wouldn't have had a job in 38 years. And Jesus goes, do you want to get healed? Because the reality is that this scenario is quite comfortable for you. The reality is that there are some benefits that come with not being healed. And the big benefit is that you don't have to take responsibility for your own life or for your actions. But then he comes and asks a very relevant question. Do you want to be healed? Because the last thing that Jesus is going to do is to heal you. And that's actually not what you want, because healing is now gonna come with responsibility. There's a lot of us. If we got healed of our unforgiveness, if we got healed of our bitterness, if we actually got healed, then we would have no one to blame. We couldn't blame our aunt or our uncle or our parents or anybody who mistreated us. Or neglected us. You'd have to actually take responsibility for the person that you are, the person that you're becoming. I realized this. You know, my dad took me to a crack house for the first time when I was five years old. My dad was incarcerated for 18 years. I had a lot of people to blame. You know, I'm a black male that grew up in the inner city. There's a lot of people to blame, okay? And I could have become a statistic. But I remember reading this as a teenager and going, do I actually want to be healed or do I want to continue blaming my father for why I date dumb people and why I make mistakes and why I'm, you know, sexually active and why I have continued to act stupid? Or do I wanna take responsibility for my life and get out of the hood and stop being poor and break generational curses? And that process of going from I want help in a handout to actually going, no, I just wanna be healed. Actually, Lord, I'd like for you to just heal me. And don't just heal my body, but heal my thought process. I think that the reason that Jesus has such a long conversation with the man is. Cause Jesus is not trying to be a magician. He's not trying to bippity boppity boo the man's body into alignment, but wants to fix how the man thinks. And then the challenge really is get up. And I love this because it proves that the man then tried. He got up. He did it.
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He's like, I'm gonna go ahead and give this a shot.
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The man gets up. I'm proud that the man got up. Cause I think that's how you get supernatural power. You do what's in your natural power, and then God adds super to your natural. You get supernatural power. I love this story. I see myself as this man. And we're gonna get this massive theme in John, chapter five, which, honestly, we've been seeing all along. This is my extra nerdy nugget for the day. We've seen Jesus turn water into wine. We've seen Jesus at a well. And now we're seeing Jesus at a pool. Cause there's a theme of water in John's gospel that's gonna run all the way through the book. And so we'll probably highlight that theme later in a different day. But, guys, this has been awesome. Day 68. 68 days down. However many days to go. Tomorrow we got day 69. We're gonna dive into John chapter 8, 9, and 10. I'm so proud of you. If you're on a streak, keep it going. If anything that I said today has kind of prompted a lot of thought, dive into our John course. Dive into our Purity Culture course. I think those courses are world class. I think they're stellar and I think they could add value to your life. Thanks for spending time with me today as we go through the entire Bible together. I love you guys. I'll see you right here tomorrow. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department Podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show at thebibledepartment.com and on Instagram hebible 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.