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Manny Arango
Hey, Bible nerds.
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Co-host
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.
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Manny Arango
We created to help you read the.
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Co-host
Entire Bible in a year.
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Manny Arango
You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan.
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Co-host
And join the journey.
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Manny Arango
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.
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Co-host
We are in the same boat.
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Manny Arango
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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Co-host
Your eye having to stress over ads.
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Manny Arango
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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Co-host
It's super effective. I can tell you from firsthand experience.
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Manny Arango
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 to grow the church. 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.
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Co-host
Let's go. We got revelation chapter 25 and 22. Hey, if you have stuck with me for 81 days, I'm insanely proud of you. Your mansion in the new Jerusalem bout to be popping. Okay, if you have not done the reading for today, pause the video, pause the audio. Go do the reading. It's really. It's actually pretty short and it's just beautiful. Like, if you're aware of where the entire story has been and has gone, man, Revelation chapter 21, 22 is a full circle moment. Everything started in a garden. Okay? Genesis chapter one, Genesis chapter two, Genesis chapter three. And when we get to Revelation chapter 21 and 22, everything is going to end back in a garden. We get Eden restored. Okay, so let's jump into the reading. Today. We're going to go to Revelation chapter 21. Hey, if you've got a streak going, man. 81 days down. Don't ask me how many days we got left to go. But this is going to be the year that you binge the gap. You're going to eat your way to the new you. This is. This is a spiritual discipline that honestly is going to add so much value to your life. So we're going to just dissect a tiny little piece. I'll give you some context for it. Then we'll get into a nerdy nugget. We'll get into a timeless truth. Revelation, chapter 21, verse 1. We're literally going to start with the very, very, very first verse. It says, then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and there was no longer any sea. Now that's an odd detail that John gets a vision of the new heaven and the new earth and there's no sea, no ocean. Like no lakes. There is no sea. You may think that that's really, really random, but if you go to day five of creation. So I'm going to pull this up in Logos. If you go to day five of creation, it says this in Genesis, chapter one, verse 20. And God said, let the water team with living creatures and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky. So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the waters team and that move about in it. So two different categories. Okay, great creatures of the sea is one category, and every living thing with which the water teams and that moves about in it. I'm actually going to read it in the NRSV because you can really see this in the NRSV, verse 21 of chapter one of Genesis. So God created the great sea monsters. Okay, one category. And every living creature that moves of every kind with which the waters swarm. Okay, so two distinct categories. So the second category is pretty easy to. To delineate. Like we're talking about whales, sharks, fish, tuna, walruses, sea lions, manatee. Okay, these are things that live in the ocean. Seahorses. Okay, that. That's second category. The first category are things like Leviathan, sea monsters, sea dragons, more mythological creatures. Which means that in the ancient world, the sea was the abode of chaos. It's where chaos monsters and chaos dragons lived. And so the sea was the realm of chaos, the untamed world. Wild place that was not inhabitable for humans. It's not a place where humans could thrive, dwell, flourish. And so John just drops this little throwaway one liner. Oh, yeah. And I got. I saw the new heaven and the new earth. There was no sea, which actually means. And there was no chaos, which actually means. Yeah, there was no force that was trying to pull God's created order back into chaos. That is the beauty of what John is saying. And it's just kind of like, subtle. Like, John assumes that we have all of this worldview and all of this theology. So we're going to get one more of those, actually. Revelation chapter 21, verse 22 to 23 says another thing that there's not. Okay, so in the original creation, there's a circle and there's. God tells us on day five, hey, that thing out there, those, those. Those sea monsters out there called the tannin. Yeah, I made those. Leviathan. Yeah, man, that's my little rubber ducky. Yeah, I made that. In the original creation, chaos is allowed to exist as a part of God's order. But in the new heaven and the new earth, the chaos is completely dealt with, like, utterly subdued to the point of annihilation. So here's what it says. Not only is there no sea, but here's what verse 22 tells us in chapter 21. I did not see a temple in the city. So there's no sea, and there's also no temple because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. If you think right, the temple is the dwelling place for the divine presence. And the reason that there needs to be a dwelling place for the divine presence is because the divine presence can't be everywhere. And the temple helps to create a boundary marker for the divine presence so that sinful humans don't come into contact with a holy God and die. But in this new creation, there is no need for a boundary marker between outside of God's presence or inside of God's presence. His entire presence permeates the new creation and the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb that is the temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. Okay, now I want again, like, John is bringing us back to Genesis. He's continuing continuously bring us back to Genesis. So why is there no sun or moon? Well, if you can remember this, in the original creation, light was created on day one, but the sun, the moon, and the stars aren't created until day four. Which then you want to ask, like, how was there light without any of the sources of light that we would identify in, in this creation? And it's Because God is, is self sufficient. So he says, let there be light. And his Son, which is also his word, becomes the light, which we learned in the book of John. He says, I'm the light of the world. And so what we have for the first three days of the first creation, the original creation, is actually divine light. That there's not a need for the sun or the moon or stars because the presence of God provides light. Jesus is light. And so what we're going to have when we get to the new creation is we're going back to the first three days. Back to the first. Not even back to the first creation, just the first three days before there was a sun, the moon and the stars and Jesus was the light. That is what we're going to have in the new creation. Says the city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it. So there's also, there's. It's not like we have a normal sleeping rhythm, okay? It doesn't get dark for the glory of God gives it light. And the lamb is its lamp. Okay? So that's just context that it's really imperative to understand Genesis if we're going to understand these last two chapters of Revelation. Let me give you some nerdy nuggets. The ESV and the NIV versions are going to say that, you know, there's a measuring that's happening in Revelation chapter 21, verse 15. The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls. The city was laid out like a square. Okay, so this is a massive cube, square as long as it is wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia in length. So let me kind of give you a nerdy nugget here. 12,000 stadia in length and as wide and high as it is long. Okay? So the ESV and the NIV version say that it's 12,000 stadia in length and width. A stadia is 607ft. This translates to 1400 miles. Now for anyone who's, you know, wants to be super NERDYDY, okay, the NLT and the King James version say that it's 12,000 furlongs, which is approximately 1500 miles. Okay, so we're talking about 1400 miles or 1500 miles. And that is a cube. 1500 miles. Like, can you fathom, like, how big that is? I don't think you can. Regardless of whether the city is 1400 miles or 1500 miles in length and width, it is shaped like a square at the base, this means the new Jerusalem is larger than India, with nearly 2 million square miles. These measurements are meant to describe something that is absolutely gargantuan, like larger than life. Which makes me. I mean, it could be literal, it could not be. I mean, numbers in Revelation are rarely literal literal. They're mostly symbolic. So get this. Even more astounding than the size at the base is the height that is also at least 1400 miles high. This goes well beyond Earth's atmosphere and into space. Okay, if a building in the city is this high and has a generous 12ft per story, the building would be over 600,000 stories. There's a cool book called the Revelation Record. Henry Morris wrote it. He did the mass, and he pointed out that if 20 billion people lived in this new Jerusalem, and their homes and property took up merely 25% of the space of the city, each individual would have a cubicle block of about 75 acres of space on each face. The rest of the colossal city would involve streets, parks, public buildings, and the like. So that the mere size of this. It's clear that it's not possible for a city this size to exist on the current Earth that we have. So hence why there's this massive theme of a new heaven and a new earth. One little other, like, nerdy nugget that I'll. That I'll point out is this. Revelation, chapter 21, verse 12. Then Revelation chapter 21, verse 14 says this, that on the gates were written the names of the 12 tribes of Israel. And then verse 14, the wall of the city had 12 foundations, and on them were the names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb. So we get the 12 tribes and 12 apostles. And this is a symbol for the fact that the complete picture of God involves Israel and the church or the new Israel, which includes the church. I know that's a slight nuanced difference in how I just communicated those two. And both, I think, are fair options for orthodox Christian theology. Let's get into last nerdy nugget. I guess I'll give you. Is that the new heaven, there's like three big images that we get. And I'll tell you, like, kind of where they're from. What we get In Revelation, chapter 21 and 22 is the new heaven and new Earth. This is based out of Isaiah, chapter 65, verse 17. We get a new Garden of Eden, which is based on Genesis chapter two, and Ezekiel, chapter 47. And then we get a new Jerusalem, which is based on Isaiah, chapter two, and Zephaniah chapter three. So what we see in Revelation chapter 21 and 22 is kind of a culmination of all three of those ideas and those images.
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Manny Arango
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. 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 crushing chaos.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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Co-host
Now back to the podcast. Timeless Truth is that when we think about a new heaven and a new earth, we are thinking about a reality that is both spiritual and physical. That the thing that we are awaiting as believers is for our spiritual senses to be just as strong as our physical senses. NT Wright does a really, really good job of communicating this, that a lot of what we've made Christian theology is to teach people to hope for life after death, that at some point you're gonna die, but then you're gonna live again. And NT Wright says no, the thing that we should actually be looking forward to is not life after death, but life after life after death. That you're living this life, you're going to die, but then you're going to be resurrected from that death and you will live in a resurrected body, a physical body. We've talked about Gnosticism a lot on the last 81 days, and we are not Gnostics. We do not believe that we are going to be disembodied spirits, disembodied souls floating around somewhere. No, we are going to live a physical existence with purpose, with work. There won't be a sea, there won't be darkness, there won't be a sun, moon and stars. There won't be a temple. But there's no point here in Revelation chapter 21 and 22 where John says there won't be work and there won't be purpose, or there won't be physical bodies. There are definitely going to be physical bodies and your physical body's not bad. Gnosticism has a low view of the body and we want to fight against that. Jesus will have a body once he incarnated. He's not going to unincarnate. Jesus is going to be an incarnated God for eternity. And you and I will have physical bodies who will live an embodied existence in the new heaven and the new Earth. It is not only a new heaven, it's not only a new earth. It's the combination of a new heaven and a new and a new earth. And what marriage here on, on this earth does is it points towards the marriage of Christ and his bride, which points to even a more ultimate marriage between heaven and earth. That heaven and earth are designed to actually be one in the same. That when I see this as a new heaven and a new earth, I don't think about these as separated realms, but I think about a heaven infused earth, a new Earth that has heaven infused with it. There's lots of different ways to read Genesis chapter one, but there's a lot of people who read Genesis chapter one, verse one that says in the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, that God created the heavens and the earth and they were one, that they were one in the same. He just created the heavens and the earth. And it is the fall in Genesis chapter three that begins to separate the realm of heaven from the realm of earth. And what we have in Revelation chapter 21 and 22 is not just a return back to Eden, but a return back to a state of being that does not have a duality between the spiritual and the physical. And I await that day. I'm excited for that day. I don't know that I would be excited if I were just going to heaven. But you know what? I am excited about new heaven and new earth and a heaven infused earth. To me, that sounds absolutely incredible because I like to work and I'm gonna have a job, so that's that. I remember being a young kid and my Sunday school teacher saying, yeah, we're just gonna have worship all day and all night every day for 24 hours, seven days a week. And I remember thinking to myself, am I wicked? Because I don't think that's, like, fun like that. I don't want to do that. You know? And if I get to heaven and I find out and that's what it is, I'll be very happy. Okay, calm down. But I don't think that's the. That's the picture that the older New Testaments paint. And so I don't think that we're conducted to hope in that, because that's not. That's just not the picture that we paint. Now we know in part we prophesy, in part, I could be totally wrong. It could be a 247 worship concert for the Lamb and for the glory of God. And I would. I would love it. But I have a stinky suspicion that it's different than that. And I think that that is okay. All right. That is the entire New Testament, man. We got through our context clues, our nerdy nuggets, and our timeless truth, not just for Revelation, chapter 21 to 22, but for the whole New Testament. I'm so, so, so proud of you. If you're on a streak, that's the end of the New Testament. And next up, Old Testament. I'll see you on day 82 of this plan as we dig into the book of Genesis. I can't wait. I love you. So proud of you.
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Manny Arango
Thanks so much for joining us on.
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Co-host
The Bible Department podcast.
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Manny Arango
You can find us online and learn more about the show at thebibledepartment.com and.
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Co-host
On Instagram hebible department.
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Manny Arango
If you enjoyed this episode and want.
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Co-host
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.