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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. 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 your eye having to stress over ads 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. It's super effective. I can tell you from firsthand experience. 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. The glory of Jesus. Let's go. We're going to talk about Isaac, but then we're going to also get into Jacob and Esau. We got a lot of Abraham's descendants to actually start getting into. We are getting out of the portion of the story that centers around Abraham as the main character and we're really going to like transition into Isaac as the next patriarch and obviously then into Jacob. We don't get a lot about Isaac's life. Jacob. There's actually like a couple of chapters really, where, where he's prominently featured. And then we're into Jacob, into Jacob's life, and Jacob's going to get a lot of biblical real estate. But like I always say, hey, if you have not done the reading for today, if you have not read Genesis chapters 24, 25, 26, 27, then pause this video. Pause the audio. Go do the reading for day 89, then come on back. If you have done the reading, then let's dive in. I'll give you context clues, then I'll give you some nerdy nuggets, and then I'll give you a timeless truth. And that'll be day 89. Okay? First thing we gotta talk about, honestly, this. This may be a nerdy nugget. We may do this out of order today. I may give you the nerdy nugget first, just because it's right here. In Genesis, chapter 24, verse 2. It says that Abraham said to a senior servant in his household, the one in charge of all that he had, put your hand under my thigh. Remember that? Put your hand under my thigh. I want you to swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I am living, but you will go to my country and my own relatives and get a wife for my son, Isaac. Okay, so. So he's talking to his senior servant. The senior servant's got to put his hand under Abraham's thigh. Now, this is a classic biblical euphemism or Jewish euphemism, okay? This is a saying under my thigh that refers to the groin area and the organs related to the groin area. Okay? So comes some key words we need to decipher here. Put your hand under my thigh. I want you to swear, okay? Swear. When two people are swearing something, they're making an oath, they're making a covenant. And in order to make a covenant, you need to touch the other person's. The sign of their covenant. And where do they have the sign of their covenant? That's right. Their penises are circumcised. All right, so this whole under the thigh situation actually means that the. That the servant is. He's touching Abraham's testicles. All right? That is. That is. That is what is happening here. The root words for testicles, testimony, testify, and testament are all connected, okay? These are all connected ideas in the biblical world. What's the Old Testament? It's the Old Covenant. What's the New Testament? It's the New Covenant. Okay? How do you make a testament, whether it's old or new? Well, you have to bear testimony, you have to testify. Okay? If you swear on an oath in a courtroom to bear, like, true witness, you're testifying, you're giving testimony, you're in covenant with the court. You're saying, I swear to actually tell the truth. So In. In order to cut covenant, which is the Testament, in order to give a testimony or to testify that involves handling of the testicles. Okay, so my dirty nugget for today, okay, is that this whole moment here in Genesis, chapter 24, when the servant has to put his hand under Abraham's thigh. Thigh. Like, come on, guys. There's nothing under. There's no such thing as under the thigh. So that's what's going on there. Okay, so now you've got some historical and cultural context for what's happening. All right, what does he have to swear? He has to swear that he's actually going to find a wife for Isaac. Abraham is making the servant swear that he's going to find a wife for Isaac. And so the servant agrees. And then he says this, verse 10. The servant leaves, taking with him ten of his master's camels. Ten camels loaded with all kinds of good things from his master he set out, and here's what he prays. Verse 12. Make me successful today and show kindness to my master Abraham. See, I am standing beside this spring, and the daughters of the town's people are coming out to draw water. May it be that when I say to a young woman, please let down your jar, that I may have a drink, and she says, drink, and I'll water your camels too. Let her be the one you have chosen for your servant, Isaac. By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master. All right, now think about this. The servant could have said anything. He could have said the. The woman wearing a green, you know, a green head covering, let her be the one, you know? But he chooses this very specific thing. Now, what do we know about Abraham? From, like, a couple of days ago, Abraham pulls out three seals or 36 pounds of flour for these three strangers that show up on his doorstep. Abraham's life is marked by extreme generosity and hospitality. Okay? For someone to water 10 camels would be absolutely absurd. And what he's saying is, I don't even want to ask for them to water the camels. I just want to ask for a drink for myself. And I want them to agree to water these camels. I want this person to not be someone who's scared of some hard work, someone who's generous, someone who's hospitable, because only someone at this extravagant level of generosity and hospitality would be a. A wife who's fitting for my. For my master's son. So let's, like, break this down. Let me give you cultural context in order to to water one camel, just one. It would have required 10 to 20 trips into a cistern to get water and bring it back with the jar. Okay, Rebecca has a jar here in this story. I don't know if you've ever been to Israel or been to the Middle East. I have. And I mean, these cisterns. I remember one time we went to, I think it was like Hezekiah's cistern. And I mean, I, I, I wouldn't want to do that half a time, let alone 10 to 20 trips for one camel. And the story tells us, baby, we got 10 camels, which means anywhere from 100 to 200 trips into a cistern to get water all the way back out. And I did one trip into a cistern and was white. I mean, I was tired. And so the servant's not asking for, like, an arbitrary thing or random thing. He's asking for someone who is insanely gracious, patient, hardworking, kind, hospitable and generous. This is like, not a small thing. Okay, Now I actually want to get to chapter 25, verses 25 to 26, because, you know, this, this woman actually does become Isaac's wife. Okay? This is literally she passes with flying colors. It says this in chapter 25, Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife. Actually, we're going to start chapter 25, verse 21. Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife. And also notice. Let's go back for a second. This meeting takes place at a well. Okay? So this is going to start to establish a theme, okay? At women at the well. So women who get met by a marital opportunity at a well. So this is gonna, like. This is gonna start to establish a bit of a pattern. Okay? Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife because she was childless. The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebecca became pregnant. The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, why is this happening to me? And she went to a choir of the Lord. The Lord said to her, two nations are in your womb. Two people from within you will be separated. One people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger. When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. The first to come out was red. That's a fascinating description of a human being was red. And his whole body was like a hairy garment. So they named him Esau after this. His brother came out with his hand grasping Esau's heel. So they named him Jacob. Isaac was 60 years old when Rebecca gave birth to the boys. Now let's think about this. The Bible has been describing sets of brothers as either a descendant of the woman or an offspring of the beast. This is kind of the juxtaposition that's been happening all through the narrative. That first pairing is Cain and Abel. Cain, an offspring of the serpent, an offspring of the beast, actually kills his brother, who represents the son of Eve, the son of Adam, the son of humanity. The next time the Bible talks about this is going to talk about Ishmael and Isaac. Ishmael is a wild donkey of a man. The Bible is going to describe both Cain and Ishmael using animal like language, beast like descriptions. And then now we get to another set of brothers, twins. The first is red and his whole body is like a hairy garment. The Bible is describing that this boy is furry, furry like an animal. Later in the story, Isaac, the non hairy brother, is going to trick, sorry, Jacob, the non hairy brother is going to trick the father Isaac into blessing him with Esau's blessing. And he goes to get actual garments of actual animals to put on him. Because Esau is described in such animal like language, which means that we have another son of the serpent. We have a son of the beast. Esau is born and he is described with characteristics that would make him a son of the beast. But the second boy is born and you would, you would expect that the second boy who's born is going to be a son of the woman, a son of Eve, son of Adam, son of man. But we get a curveball because he comes out grabbing the heel of his brother. When's the last time we saw the word heal? Hmm? When's the last time we saw the word heal? I'm tempted to just like put it in logos and see when's the last time we saw the word heal? Oh, I know. When we saw the word heal in the plot, in the verse that actually sets the plot of Genesis in motion that says that there will be, that there will be a son of the woman who's born that will crush the head of the beast, of the serpent, of the dragon, but that the serpent, the dragon, the beast will strike his heel. So a heel striker, a heel grabber, is an animal. Wait a second. The text is saying that both boys are animals. And this is where the Bible gets really interesting, because over the course of the next couple of chapters, what's going to happen is that we are going to see God work with Jacob to turn him from an animal into a man, into a person. 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 thecrushingchaos.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. Now back to the podcast. I don't always like to do timeless truths that are gendered, I think, but today there's a gendered version and a non gendered version. I would say a that the number one thing that Satan is doing to humanity is robbing us of our humanity. So humanity is something that we have to contend for, something we have to fight for. In the garden, there's this interesting thing that's happening because the serpent doesn't really act like an animal. He's talking, he's intelligent. But the humans end up acting like an animal, which means that the serpent is really making an argument. What he's saying is that they're not that different than each other. And there's this really fascinating part where the serpent says, okay, God said you shouldn't eat of the true knowledge of good and evil. But so what? It's an interesting Hebrew phrasing. It's so what? And really what he's getting at is this, that God talks to you the same way he talks to me, through instincts. And Adam and Eve actually get tricked by this because they think that, yeah, God gave us this rule. God spoke authoritatively. But aren't our passions also a way that God speaks? Aren't our urges also a way that God speaks? Wait, if God didn't want us to do this, then he wouldn't have given us a desire for this. How can God judge us for being this way when he made us this way? God isn't just speaking to me from heaven, telling me, don't eat from the tree. He's also speaking to me from through my taste buds. Because guess what? Animals don't stop to think whether or not they should act on their impulses or their instincts. They just act. The way that God speaks to animals is by wiring and programming them according to their instincts. And then they just act on instincts and impulses. This is why animals don't sin, because they're just obeying their instincts. They're wiring. They're not going against the way that God commands them or speaks to them. He commands them based on the way that he programmed them to obey their instincts. However, God doesn't talk to humans this way. He doesn't talk to us based on our instincts or based on our impulses. No, humans have the unique ability to be disciplined, to have urges, to have instincts, to have impulses, but put those instincts, impulses and urges under the command or the submission of what God actually said of the commandment of the rule, of the word, of the instruction, of whatever it is that God said. And so now we've got two brothers who are both beast like. And actually not just the story of God's dealings with Jacob and Esau, but actually his dealings with you and I is a story whereby God takes humans that have become animals and teach them how to be human again. And that's exactly what we're going to get in the coming chapters. God teaching Jacob how to become human again. Since he's lost his humanity and since he's acting purely on instinct, I should deceive my brother. I don't trust God. I don't trust the process. I can get this my way. I can circumvent the process. I trust myself more than I trust God and others. This is classic beast like behavior. Now let me get into the gendered kind of part. Because that all of us can learn from that timeless truth. Let's get into the gendered part of that timeless truth. That God wants you gentlemen to act like a man. To act like a man. Well, if God wants you to act like a man, what does Satan want you to act like? He wants you to act like an animal. He wants you to act like a boy, or he wants you to act like a woman. All of those things are what he would rather have you act like than a Man, he wants you to act like a beast. Someone who can't control your anger. Someone who can't control your temper. Someone who can't control your appetites. Someone who can't control your urges. Someone who can't control your sexual urges. He doesn't want you to act like an animal. Do whatever you feel like doing. Or he wants you to act like a boy. Totally immature. Or he wants you to act like a woman, someone who's amazing and awesome, but just not what you've been called to be. These are the three options that the enemy places before all of us. You can act like a beast. You can act like a boy. You can act like a woman. And God says, ah, if they would just learn how to act like men. If you act like a man. Oh, man. If you could learn how to act like a man, then you. You don't obey urges. If you act like a man, you don't act like a child. You mature and you don't act like your counterpart. You act like the unique man that God's called you to be. This is our timeless truth. That although I have become a monster, a beast, an animal, although my life looks more like chaos than order, God is not done with me. I'm not doomed. That there's a process whereby God can actually take that which has become an animal and turn that animal back into a human. And that is what God is going to do with our friend Jacob. And it's one of the most inspiring stories in the entire Bible. All right, we did a good amount of context clues, we gave you some nerdy nuggets, and now I just gave you what I think is actually one of my favorite timeless truths. That I'm a human. That I'm a human. And more than that, I'm a man. And that's amazing. I don't need to apologize for being a man, my man. I'm a grown man. I'm not a beast, not an animal. I'm not a woman. I'm a man. There's a unique call on my life because of that truth. All right, if you're on a streak, don't break it. I'll see you right here Tomorrow for day 90, we're gonna jump into Genesis, chapters 28 to 30. I'm so proud of you. If you're on a streak. If you're not on a streak, get. Get on one. Like, like, for real. Dig in, lock in. Let's get on a street, guys. I love you so much. We're almost 90 days in. I'll see you right here tomorrow. I'm so proud. Love you guys. 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 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.