Dr. Manny Arango (0:00)

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, family. Welcome back. We are at day 98. We've got Exodus chapters 5, 6, 7 and 8 today. If you haven't done the reading, go do the reading. I promise everything that I've got to say will be way more helpful, add way more value if you've already done the reading. I'm so proud that you're on this journey with us and that you trust me to help you understand the Bible for. For yourself. Exodus chapters 5, 6, 7 and 8. Let's get into some context clues. First context clue. We always kind of like to start as far up as 30,000ft as possible. I kind of want to give you a breakdown of the whole book just so you can kind of orient yourself. I want you to just think threes. Okay? Exodus happens in a. In sequences of a sequence of three. And there's like this climax at each sequence that gives us our major theme. Okay, so Exodus actually literally has three themes with three sections and three culminating moments. Okay? So first one, Exodus moves from absence to presence. So one of the things that you'll notice in the first chapter is that God's name is not in the first chapter of Exodus. And it appears from the character's perspective that God's absent. We know that God is not absent. But on a literary level, the writers are trying to communicate God's absence. And then what you're gonna get at the very end of the book is God's presence comes down and he fills the tabernacle. Okay? That's the culminating moment of presence. That is really the focus of the last third of the book. Cause the last third of the book is all about the construction of the tabernacle. So the climax of the book is not getting freed from Egypt. Okay? Once they get free from Egypt in chapters 14 and 15, there's still 25 or so chapters of Exodus, okay? And a lot of people, like, if you ever watch, like, an Exodus movie, like, that's where the drama. That's where the movie stops, okay? As if the crossing of the Red Sea is the climax of the whole book, but it's not. It's actually just the climax of the first section of the book. So the third section is the building of the tabernacle, which the culminating moment is the presence of God actually dwelling amongst the people. And the big theme that. That highlights is that the book goes from absence to presence. Okay. Theme number two is actually what we're gonna get in the first third of the book is that God does not save us from slavery to freedom, but actually saves us from slavery to slavery. I know that's counterintuitive for a lot of people. And part of that is just because we conflate the words freedom with independence. So there's this really, really cool detail that the word in Hebrew for slave, serve, obey, and worship, that these are actually the exact same word. Obviously, they get translated differently based on the context. But if you actually know that as you're reading in an English translation, you can see that Pharaoh wants the people to serve him, and God wants the people to serve him. And who you serve is who you worship, and who you worship is who you are enslaved to. And so the goal is not for the people to be free from Pharaoh and then free to do whatever they want. No, it's to be free from Pharaoh and then free to enslave themselves to Yahweh, serve Yahweh worship Yahweh. So the book doesn't move from slavery to independence, but it moves from slavery to true freedom, which is what deciding, I'm going to be a bond slave. I'm going to be a bond servant to Yahweh. We'll deal with that more. So the culminating moment of that is the crossing of the Red Sea, where they don't just go from being slaves to just being free and doing whatever they want. That's how we define freedom. But to being. Going from slaves to Pharaoh to now being slaves of God and saying, I have not been set free to do whatever I want to do. I've been set free so that I can obey the one who has set me free. So third big theme, and it really, that theme finds its culmination in the center of the book, which is covenant. Covenant. If you think about Genesis, one of the big themes for Genesis, covenant, God makes a covenant with Noah. God makes a covenant with Abraham. And it is that covenant promise that keeps getting remembered and reiterated in every successive generation. But God's not made a covenant with. With the nation of Israel. In Exodus 19, we are going to get a covenant with the nation of Israel. It's actually gonna be a wedding ceremony out in the wilderness. So the beginning of the book, the big theme is that God is moving them from slavery to slavery. They're just switching slave masters. And honestly, that's a timeless truth. I know we haven't gotten into nerdy nuggets yet. I'll give you a timeless truth early, is that the Christian journey is a switching of slave masters. Then you go, I'm not going to be a slave to sin. Sin is not a good slave master. God, though, is a fantastic slave master. Okay? And I'm going to be a slave to the Lord. I'm. I'm actually going to be a servant of God. I'm going to worship God. I'm going to obey God. I'm not free to do whatever I want to do. I'm actually free not to. But I'm free from. I'm not free to smoke. I'm not free to drink. I'm not free to cheat. I'm free from drinking. I'm free from smoking. I'm free from cheating. The Christian celebrates what we are free from doing, not what we are free to do. And since sin is a terrible slave master, terrible leader, terrible owner, we've actually just swapped out the slave master. And we've said, God, I trust you with my life. I'll surrender My will to you. I'll be. I'll be a bond slave to, to, to you. Okay? Because you're trustworthy and you love me. Bible department family, it's Dr. Manny Arango. And first thing I want to say is that I'm proud of you for completing the New Testament. You did it. And now that we're in the Old Testament, I hope that looking at Genesis and Exodus from an ancient perspective and worldview has kind of like opened your eyes. Well, I got news for you. If you've enjoyed some of the interpretations that I've brought to the table from Genesis, then that's just the tip of the iceberg. This entire book, Crushing Chaos, was written from an ancient hermeneutic. I'm looking at stories like the Flood, Adam and Eve from the perspective of an ancient person. And we've got an event coming up on April 26th where I'll take a lot of the content from, from this book and I'll turn that content into live lectures. You don't wanna miss it. You can actually register for that event right now. The link is in the description. And more than content, I think what you'll find as we gather together in Nashville are like minded believers and friends in a community of people that you don't just watch content with online that you can get to know in person. I'd love to see you in Nashville. I love to hug you, high five you, and I'd love to nerd out together for one day as we come together in Nashville to learn about how to crush chaos. I'll see you in Nashville. Peace. All right, let's get into some nerdy nuggets in this section. We're going to finally see the the officially the plagues are going to start and we're going to kind of get. There's some stuff that kind of leads up to this moment where the plagues really do start. And part of what leads up to this is Pharaoh's ridiculous statement in Exodus 5:2. Here's the nerdy nugget that a lot of us may not know is that in the Egyptian pantheon of gods, Pharaoh would have been a God. So God does not engage Pharaoh as if he's a man. God does not engage Pharaoh as if he's a mere mortal. God actually engages Pharaoh as if he is a deity. Now here's the biggest clue to this is that the pharaoh that is actually going to get judged for drowning the babies in the Red Sea is not even the pharaoh that drowns the babies in the Red Sea. They're not even the same person. Because for God, he doesn't even want the Pharaoh to be named because he's not judging the individual human being. He's judging the office of the pharaoh. He's judging every Pharaoh that's ever existed. Because every single Pharaoh that's ever existed occupies an office that is in arrogant rebellion and idolatry. So the office of the pharaoh was an office that was considered to be a semi divine or quasi divine or semi divine. A demigod, okay? The pharaoh would have been considered to be a demigod, okay? And so God does not engage normal humans the way that he is going to engage Pharaoh. Okay? God engages political leaders who oppress entire ethnic groups and believe that they are gods this way. Which is none of us. That's none of us. Okay? So this is not how God engages the average Joe down the street. This is how God engages a political ruler whose nation upholds him to be a God and who receives worship as a divine being. Okay? So Exodus, chapter five, verse two. We're gonna figure out the motivation behind the plagues. A word that gets used a lot in geopolitical, you know, in our globalized world is, you know, is escalation. You know, the conflict is escalating. So what we see in these chapters is an escalation of conflict. Moses goes to Pharaoh. It's like, hey, man, time's up. Let's let the people go. And of course, Pharaoh is not. Not gonna rock with that. Okay, so here we go. Exodus, chapter 5, verse 2. It says, here's Pharaoh's response, okay, to Moses, who's speaking for Yahweh, is. Is this. Pharaoh said, who is the Lord? That I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and I will not let Israel go. So we've got a question followed by a statement. Who is the Lord? Who is this? Who is this Yahweh you speak of? I've never heard of him. Remember, in the ancient world, all gods have names, okay? So who is this Yahweh? Who is this? Who is this Lord that you. That you tell me about? I don't know. I don't. And who is he that I should obey him? Like, you see how knowledge and obedience are going together? Knowledge and submission are linked here. And then he goes from making a. Asking a question to making a statement. I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go. Okay? This is now how God is gonna respond. And it's gonna take me a while to kind of, like, read Read all these. Okay? So I want you to just bear with me. So this is Pharaoh says, I'm not gonna let Israel go. Cause I don't know Yahweh. God's about to give the most gangster response in the entire Bible. Okay? So this is God's version of mess around and find out. Okay? That's what God's about to do. Exodus 7, verse 17. Thus says the Lord, by this you shall know that I am the Lord. Behold, with a staff that is in my hand, I will strike the water that is in the Nile, and it shall turn the blood. So first, plague. Why does the plague happen? So that Pharaoh will know who is God next. Exodus 8:10. Be it as you say, so that you may know that there is no one like the Lord your God. And this is the removal or the stopping of the plague of frogs. Okay? Exodus 8:21. This is the swarm of flies. But on that day, I will set apart the land of Goshen where my people dwell, so that no swarm of flies shall be there, that you may know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth. Okay? Exodus 9:14. For this time, I will send all my plagues on you yourself, and on your servants, on your people, so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth. This is the plague of Hail, by the way. The plague of hail is God combating a polytheistic world. So few you think about Hail. Hail actually requires two elements to cooperate. And in a polytheistic world, right, the water God doesn't cooperate with the air God. It doesn't cooperate with the sun God. All the. These gods don't cooperate. And the description for hail that we get here is that there's, like, fire in the hail. It's a hail storm that's, like, full of fire. Which would have been insane for Egyptians because they live in a polytheistic world, which would have meant God is not. God doesn't operate in a polytheistic system where, like, he, you know, where, like, a chip is made in Taiwan. And like the. You know, if you think about your iPhone or your iPad or any of your Apple devices, you know, these things are made from all different factories all over the world. God is like, yeah, I control everything. Okay? There's no distribution chain. There's no supply chain with me. I make everything. So the hail or the plague of hail would have definitely communicated. Oh, got it. We're messing with a God that I don't. That I've never seen. Exodus 10, 2, Exodus 11:7, Exodus 14:4, Exodus 14:18. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen. Okay, so the theme over and over and over again is, oh, Pharaoh said he don't know who I am. Okay, cool. I can gladly introduce Pharaoh to who I am. And I will do that with plagues. Now, why plagues? The plagues are an act of de creation. So in all of the plagues, God Yahweh is unraveling the order of his creation. So creation in Genesis chapter one, verse two is originally chaotic. It's tohu wavohu. What happens in the flood is that creation just goes right back to its chaotic tohu vavohu. What happens here in the plagues is that every single thing that God established in creation gets unraveled, gets unestablished. And here's the. I wrote it down in my notebook so I could say it the exact right way. Here's what God is saying to Pharaoh. Pharaoh, since you are a God, go ahead and sustain your creation. Since you're a God, stop me. Stop me from unraveling the order of your nation. Go ahead. Since you're a God, you're the God of Egypt, which means I should only have power over in Goshen, because remember, in a polytheistic world, they believed in localized deities. Okay? So BAAL only has power in Canaan, and Ra only has power in Egypt, and Marduk only has power in Babylon. And all the gods only have their regional gods. And so what God is saying is. Wait, wait. You're a God, right? You're a God. Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool. We'll talk man to man. We'll talk God to God. You don't know me. Okay, cool. How about this? You're a God. I heard you're a God. So the job of the deity is to uphold the order of their worshipers. So everyone here in Egypt worships you because you sustain the order and the fabric of life. So, hey, I'm just going to go ahead and pull on this thread here and unravel the Nile. I'm going to. I'm just going to pull on the thread and just unravel this stuff. If you're a God, you should be able to stop me. It should be no big deal. And Pharaoh's clearly powerless to stop Yahweh, which proves to Pharaoh, you are not a God, sir. You are a mere mortal. You who receive worship, you who call yourself a God, you who prop yourself up like a deity, you who have allowed some demonic power to convince you that you are more powerful than you are. All power belongs to me. I am God. I am Yahweh. And I will unravel. It's more de creation than active plaguing. It's. It's. Okay, cool. I'm just gonna unravel the fabric of your creation. And then our timeless truth, as we kind of wind down is. Is back to full circle, is. We don't go. There's a battle of the. Of. Of Pharaoh in God. When we move from being slaves of sin or slaves of Pharaoh to actually being a slave of God, He. He is a God who is deserving of that servitude. Okay, so we're actually going to Compare Exodus chapter 2, verse 23 to 25 with Exodus chapter 3, verse 7 and 9. Exodus chapter 2, verse 23 to25 says this. During those many days, the king of Egypt died. And the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God, and God heard their groaning. And God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel, and God knew. Okay, go down to Exodus 3, verse 7 and 9. Then the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings keep dropping down. The cry of the people of Israel has come from to me. And I have also seen their oppression. So you hear God's compassion is love. I hear them. I hear their cry. I remember them. I see them. I know them. Let's compare that with Pharaoh. Exodus 5. 8 says this. But the number of bricks that you. That they made in the past, you shall impose on them. You shall by no means reduce it. For they are idle, they're lazy. Therefore they cry, let us go and offer sacrifices to our God. You see how Pharaoh hears their cry? He's annoyed by it. Chapter 5, verse 15. Then the foreman of the people of Israel came and cried to Pharaoh, why do you treat your servants like this? What does Pharaoh say in verse 18? Go now and work. No straw will be given you. You must still deliver the same number of bricks. See, their cry doesn't mean anything. And that's how you know that you have a terrible slave master. When your cry means nothing, God says, I've earned the right for you to serve me, submit to me, obey me. I've earned the right to own you. I've earned that right because I love you. Like, your cry moves me. I care deeply for you. Sin doesn't care about you. The devil doesn't care about you. Sin doesn't love you. This is point blank, period. This abusive boyfriend. And you're like, he doesn't love you. I love you. Why would you serve something that doesn't love you but then complain about serving the God who actually loves you? So the action's not different, the person's different. The action is still serve, submit, obey, be enslaved to. That's the action. We have a negative connotation based on that action because we've been enslaved to terrible people who don't care when we cry. But when we cry out to God, God says, oh, your cry moves me. Oh, I feel compassion when you cry out to me. And because that's how I feel, that's actually the thing that's earned me the right to be the Lord of your life. Okay, we went a little long today. Tomorrow we got day 99. We're gonna keep our trek through Exodus. We're gonna get into the plagues. I think it's gonna be really, really helpful. Um, if you're on a streak, keep it going. If you're not, today's a good day to start a streak. Just get two days in and then just keep it going. Keep it going, keep it going. I love you. I'm proud of you. Till tomorrow. I'll see you right here. Till 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 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.