Loading summary
Transcript28 lines
- [00:00]
Unknown Host
Hey, Bible nerds.
- [00:01]
Dr. Manny Arango
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.
- [00:18]
Unknown Host
And join the Journey.
- [00:26]
Dr. Manny Arango
Family. We used church candy for our new church plant the Garden, and the response blew me and my team away. At our new church plant the Garden, we ran simple invite ads through none other than church candy, and hundreds of people responded. Seriously. People who had never even heard of us, who had never met me or heard me preach. They saw an ad on Facebook or Instagram. They showed up to a launch party or launch team training. Some of them have joined our team. Here's the best part. A good amount of them have started giving and tithing, which means the ads have paid for themselves. Our church plant is growing, and it's because we chose the right partner. We didn't have to figure out marketing strategies or spend hours tinkering with ad settings. Church candy handled it all and it worked. You might not be planting a church, but if you're a pastor who wants to see more new faces on Sunday. And by the way, I've never met a pastor who doesn't want to see more faces on Sunday. It's time to check them out. How about you go to churchcandy.com Manny and book a discovery call, Let their team show you what's possible when the.
- [01:44]
Unknown Host
Right people hear about your church family. Welcome to the Neviim. I love saying that word. I love Neviim. It's like Mufasa. Say it again.
- [01:55]
Dr. Manny Arango
Muf.
- [01:55]
Unknown Host
Mufasa. Anyway, Nevi' Im. Welcome to the Nevi' Im. That's the prophets for anyone who's not aware, okay, the Tanakh is the three, the three step ordering of the Hebrew Scriptures or the Hebrew Bible. The T in Tanakh stands for Torah. And we have gone through the entire Torah. And it is now time to get.
- [02:16]
Dr. Manny Arango
Into the N of this acronym.
- [02:19]
Unknown Host
And the N is Neviim. This is the prophets, okay? The prophets, their role, their job is to hold Israel accountable to the Torah. So it's absolutely natural that the Nevi' im is the next section of the Tanakh after the Torah. So once there's a Torah, now there needs to be prophets to hold people accountable to that Torah. The third part of the Tanakh, it's going to be the writings.
- [02:46]
Dr. Manny Arango
And we'll get into the writings when.
- [02:48]
Unknown Host
We get into them. But for now, we've got the Neviim.
- [02:52]
Dr. Manny Arango
So first thing that I want to.
- [02:53]
Unknown Host
Tell you about the prophets is that the prophets are not about foretelling. They're not primarily designed for foretelling, but forth telling, okay? Foretelling is like predicting the future, telling the future, telling, predicting things about, you know, 100 years from now or who's going to win an election or, you know, what color eyes your next baby's going to have. Right? Just like predictions, fortune telling, okay? So when you think about foretelling, think about, like someone telling your fortune. And the prophets have some of that. Like when you read through the Old Testament prophets or the Hebrew Scripture, the prophets of the Hebrew scriptures. When you read through books like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Obadiah, Zephaniah, Haggai, Habakkuk, like Joel, Amos, when you read through books like that, there are gonna be elements of predictions about Jesus life. But that is the small, small, small percentage, the overwhelming percentage are gonna be telling the truth. So not foretelling, but forth telling, telling people the truth. And what is the truth? Well, God's revealed truth up until this point is the Torah. Okay, the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. And not just Torah, as in these are the books of the Bible, but this is the covenant. So when you think about the Torah, think about the book of Deuteronomy. This is the covenant, the legal covenant agreement that God has made with his people. And so now that there is a legally binding covenant agreement between Yahweh and his people, now there arises a group that's going to hold Israel accountable to that covenant. And there are nuances. So let's get into the nuances. One of the things that you're going to realize about the Nevi' im is.
- [04:53]
Dr. Manny Arango
The Nevi' im is split into two categories.
- [04:55]
Unknown Host
The former prophets and the latter prophets. The former prophets are probably books that you and I, or any modern person or someone who's been influenced by a westernized rendering of the Scriptures, would consider these to be like historical books. That's the category we will put these in. So the former prophets according to the Hebrew Scriptures, according to the Tanakh, according to Jesus. Like, when Jesus picked up a Bible, he would have seen Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, these four books as the former prophets. Then, same way, there are four former prophets, there are four latter prophets. The four latter prophets would be Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel. And then this is where it gets a little tricky. The scroll of the 12. What's the scroll of the 12? Well, that's the 12 minor prophets. Okay, 12 minor prophets. It's not that they're less important, it's that their books are considerably smaller. So Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, huge books. Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Shorter books. And all of those books can fit on one scroll. So the 12 would have been a collection of 12 scrolls. Okay, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and then the 12. So that's former prophets, latter prophets. One last kind of curveball about the Nevi' im is that for most American or modern or Western readers, the book of Daniel would be categorized as a prophetic book. However, in the Hebrew Bible, Daniel is a part of the Ketuvim. So if you were wondering, wait, when are we going to get to Daniel? Well, that's a part of the Ketuvim. Also, if you're wondering, isn't Ruth, like, doesn't Ruth come like, after Judges? You know, like Joshua Judges Ruth? In the English translations that you're probably used to. Yes, but for the Hebrew Scriptures, Ruth is a part of the Ketuvim. So Daniel and Ruth, both part of the Ketuvim. Also, you're probably wondering, wait a second, I'm used to 1, 2 Samuel, 12 Kings, 1, 2 Chronicles. Well, again, Chronicles is a part of the Ketuvim. Also. None of these books are split into one and two in the Hebrew Scriptures. They are simply Samuel as one book, Kings as one book, Chronicles as one book. These are some nerdy nuggets that'll help you to actually navigate the Bible reading plan. Now, let's get into, like, that's kind of minor details. Let's kind of get into a big, big, big not issue, but a big topic that I actually think is going to help a lot. Okay, Now I've mentioned that the role of the prophets are not to foretell but to forth tell, to hold God's people accountable to the Torah. And that's going to happen in two ways. The former prophets, that's Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, are going to do that with narrative. And then Isaiah, Jeremiah, ezekiel, and the 12 are going to do that through preaching and then transcribing that preaching into books. Okay, so the preaching prophets are the prophets that are actually speaking out against injustice, speaking out against idolatry. I want you to think about this as, like, imagine we're in a lawsuit and the people of Israel are being on trial. Okay, the people of Israel are on trial. The people of Israel essentially get to the exile and they're saying, we don't deserve to be exiled from the land. Yahweh has acted unjustly towards us. Well, there's two ways that a lawyer is going to make their case. The first is going to be evidence. Well, actually there's just evidence that you were unfaithful to Yahweh and he is just in exiling you. And the books of Judges, Joshua, Samuel and Kings are that evidence. So these stories, these narratives paint a historical picture that these people have not been faithful to the Torah. Literally, like Deuteronomy is the last of the laws. And as soon as the law is given, like as soon as it's done, and Moses dies and Joshua is now charged to bring the people into the land. It says, like, in the beginning of the Book of Judges, that generation that followed Joshua, they didn't even take the land that God told them to take, that they didn't even pass the baton of faith on to the next generation. And from Joshua on, they spiral into idolatry and spiral into injustice and spiral into sinfulness. They spiral, spiral into a pattern of being unfaithful to the covenant, unfaithful to the Torah. So Joshua judges Samuel and Kings tells the story of Israel's unfaithfulness, unfaithfulness to the Torah. So in a lawsuit, there's evidence, but then there's like the prosecuting attorney who's making a case against the guilty party. And the preaching prophets are actually the ones standing up and making that case. Now, the other reason that these former prophets are prophets, okay, Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings, is because first of all, the Bible says at the end of Moses life, someone like a prophet like Moses will arise. And that prophet is Joshua. Now, the fulfillment of that prophet, like Moses, is Jesus. But the immediate fulfillment of a prophet like Moses arising is Joshua. And so Joshua is seen as a prophet. Second, the Book of Judges is most likely written by Samuel and Samuel is a prophet. The Book of Samuel, obviously Samuel is a main character and Samuel's a prophet. And then in the Book of Kings, you are going to find a litany of prophets. Kings actually is going to function a lot like the Book of Acts in the New Testament. So remember when we looked at books like Philippians, Colossians, Corinthians, instead of just going and finding Corinthians, we saw that Paul was in Corinth in the Book of Acts. So the Book of Acts provides the historical backbone for all of Paul's letters. In the same way the book of Kings is going to provide the historical backbone to all of the prophets. So when we want to see when did Jonah prophesy, it's going to be in either one or two Kings. What about Isaiah? First or second Kings? What about Micah? First or second Kings. Okay, so first and second kings is going to have preaching prophets that have books attached to their name. Also first and second Kings, at least the figureheads for one second kings are going to be Elijah and Elisha, who are prophets. Last kind of bit of nuance is that there's a difference between the official office of the prophet and then the functional role of a prophet. So the office of a prophet is necessary once there's a king. Okay, so capital K king requires capital P, profit. So the reason that we get Samuel established as a prophet to the nation of Israel is because he has to anoint Israel's first king named Saul. So prophets and kings go together because the way that you hold the nation accountable to the Torah is by holding its leader accountable to the Torah. Now then David becomes the next king. The prophet Nathan is gonna hold him accountable. And I need you to see this, that Nathan doesn't predict David's future. He doesn't say, David, a hundred years from now, this is what's gonna happen. No, actually tells David something about his past. Says, you slept with Bathsheba, you killed Uriah. This is prophecy. Not telling something about not telling someone something about their future, but telling them the truth that they've tried to cover up, showing them the truth of their life, which is it? Not in alignment with God's Torah, with God's law, with the covenant that you've made with God. In that way, modern day preaching is a lot like ancient prophesying. It's holding up a mirror of God's word to someone's life and not necessarily telling them what's going to happen in the future, but revealing secret sin that's in their life, revealing that their life doesn't line up with the covenant that they've made with God. With the covenant that we as the church should be living out as our reality, as the bride of Christ, as followers of Christ family. The wait is over.
- [14:32]
Dr. Manny Arango
My brand new book, Crushing Chaos is out now and available everywhere. Books are sold.
- [14:40]
Unknown Host
Literally. Today I walked into a Barnes and.
- [14:43]
Dr. Manny Arango
Noble and I signed a bunch of.
- [14:45]
Unknown Host
Copies at a physical location. So you can grab this book at.
- [14:49]
Dr. Manny Arango
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.
- [15:18]
Unknown Host
I think this book is going to.
- [15:19]
Dr. Manny Arango
Be a New York Times bestseller.
- [15:21]
Unknown Host
I really do.
- [15:21]
Dr. Manny Arango
I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right, back to the episode.
- [15:29]
Unknown Host
So what we're going to see in Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings is not just the role of the capital P prophet like Isaiah or Jeremiah or Ezekiel, but we're going to see the functioning role of the prophet through these narratives, through the book of Joshua. Joshua is going to function to show us that the book of Joshua bears witness against the people of Israel, that they've broken covenant with God through their actions. That word right there, witness. That's another legal term. So there's evidence, there's the prosecuting argument, and then there's witness. Witnesses. Every law or every covenant had to have witnesses. At the end of the Torah, the very end of the book of Deuteronomy, God says in all these other secular pagan treaties, there's witnesses and the witnesses of the sun, the stars, the moon. But I'm not going to swear by the sun, the stars and the moon because these things don't have power over me and they don't have power over you. But my word will bear witness. The Torah itself is gonna be something that bears witness against you, against your unfaithfulness. And so Joshua is gonna write about the sins of the people to hold them accountable to the Torah, but also to bear witness of their unfaithfulness. Judges is not just an account of multiple leaders trying to hold God's people accountable to the Torah, but it bears witness against their unfaithfulness. So there's this three part legal proceeding happening. There's evidence that the people have been unfaithful. There's the preaching or the, the condemning of their lifestyles. That's happening. And then there's the evidence of the books themselves that bear witness that the people have been unfaithful. So Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings are the former prophets. We have to reorient our mind to that. And then Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the 12 are the latter prophets. Now here's what you are going to realize as you move through our Bible reading plan. I call this Tanakh with a twist. We're following the Tanakh ordering of scripture, but we're Doing it with a little bit of a twist. So instead of just giving you the former prophets, you'll see the former prophets are in order. But then once we get to the latter prophets, I thought it would actually be helpful to put them in chronological order. And so I'm veering away from the Tanakh ordering of Scripture to put the prophetic books, the latter prophets, into chronological order, because when we get through 12 Samuel and 12 kings, you're going to get a lot of chronology. Like, you're going to really understand the narrative arc from the people leaving Egypt to the people coming into the land and them dwelling in the land and then getting exiled. You're really going to start to see the entire story of God's people, and then the prophets fit into that story. So we're going to put the latter prophets in chronological order. I actually think it's going to be really, really, really helpful. But then when we get back to the Ketuvim, we're gonna get right back to the ordering that you would find in the Hebrew Scriptures. So welcome to the Nevi' im. It's the way that you would find it in a Hebrew Bible. But just one caveat. We put the latter prophets in chronological order, because I really feel like that would help. And I hope that you enjoy the books of the prophets, the former prophets and the latter prophets. What I love about the Nevi' Im, the former prophets and the latter prophets, is that you can feel God's heartbeat for his people. These books are not prose. God's not writing an essay about how much he loves his people.
- [19:41]
Dr. Manny Arango
He's writing poetry.
- [19:43]
Unknown Host
He's writing emotive and emotionally charged books. So Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea. These books are not theological essays about God's love and his faithfulness. No, this is like the kind of poetry that a husband would write for his bride. You can hear the heart of God, the heart of a father, the heart of a husband who's longing for covenant faithfulness from his people. And so anyone who would argue that, like, God is not an emotional being, actually the prophets place the emotions of God on full display. It's time for us to dive into the prophets. We're going to start with the Book of Joshua. Let's dive in.
- [20:31]
Dr. Manny Arango
Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show at the Bible Department 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.