Hey everybody, it's Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast. I won the lottery. Not the actual lottery. To win that, you have to play. And I don't know how you play the lottery. I think it's at gas stations. No, what I mean is I won the parenting lottery. My parents were awesome. Then I completely lucked out to have them as parents. I continue to luck out to have them as parents. They put together just a master class and how to do a family home growing up. They were just great at it. They mentored, they listened, they corrected, they made it super clear to us that we were the priority, but they also modeled to us that they cared about other people too. And we were going to see them extend that care to other people. And they expected us to follow suit and extend care to people outside our family. So it's this uh this great relationship where we always knew that there was something very unique and very special about our standing as children who were born into this family. But we also always knew that our family's love and our parents' love and their love for God and their generosity was also for everybody else. Likewise, as we were discussing yesterday, that is kind of the story arc of the relationship, the strategy behind God and his chosen people, the descendants of Abraham, the Hebrews, the Israelites, the Jewish people that we get throughout the Bible, that especially we see play out throughout the Old Testament. So we're here in John chapter one right now, coming across some verses that have sent us back into the Old Testament, trying to get a sense of what that relationship between God and his people looked like, so that we can better understand what this new epoch is that is being introduced to us here in John chapter one. Just from looking at the prologue of John one with no added context whatsoever, yeah, we're getting the sense that God is the God of everybody, the whole world, the whole planet, all humankind. But we're also getting the sense that he had or has some sort of initial family, but that things are maybe on the rocks. And by the way, that's where the analogy breaks down with me and my parents, because then things are good with my parents, they're super mom. I know you're listening. I'm not trying to hint in like some weird way that it's not good. It's great. I just think you're wonderful. I think you're great. Okay, so there that is. So in John chapter one, we get this particular passage that has sent us looking back into the Old Testament to try to understand this relationship better. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not receive him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, children born not of natural descent, nor of a human decision or husband's will, but born of God. So how does this relationship work? Well, as we discussed yesterday, God picked Abram, who later became known as Abraham, and made these promises to him in the fairly early going of Genesis. Promises of uh being a great nation and having this land, and also promises that the whole world would be blessed through this great nation, through this family. And then as you work through the rest of the Old Testament, you see that that covenant, the deal between God and the descendants of Abraham, gets specified a bit more as it goes along, particularly with Moses. Now, Moses is the guy credited with the first five books of the Old Testament. Sometimes, for those of you who are new to this stuff, it's called the Torah. Sometimes it's called the Pentateuch. You can hear the penta there, five books, penta, five. Sometimes it's called the law with a capital L. Sometimes it's called the first five books of the Bible. Sometimes it's called Genesis, the Soliticus numbers Deuteronomy. These books are all narrative. The story arc of these books is that you get the very early dawn of time at the beginning of Genesis. Then you get a whole lot about Abraham and his immediate descendants through the rest of Genesis. Then a bunch of time passes, and you start Exodus with the descendants of Abraham no longer being in an honored position in Egypt, but now being in a subservient position in Egypt. Time has passed. People have forgotten about the good things that family did in Egypt, and now they're slaves, building grain cities, but God miraculously delivers them from slavery through the leadership of Moses and through his miraculous power. And then they go out into the desert. And then the second half of Exodus, that's where you get your Ten Commandments scene. They're at the foot of Mount Sinai. The people are wobbling a little bit, but Moses, by the power of God, is kind of able to keep them on track. Then Leviticus, it's very short, it only covers a very brief amount of time, but it's a whole lot of revelation of law and character from God. Coming out of Leviticus, we have a sacrificial system. There's now a religious game plan for how the Jewish people will do the dance steps of the religious rite and ritual and the rhythms of the calendar year and the purification stuff that sets them apart and makes it possible for them to be ritually clean and to participate in this religious stuff. All of that's lined out. Now that's up and running, coming out of Leviticus, but they still don't have a temple for all of this religious life. So they're carrying around a portable temple with them out in the desert. They call it a tabernacle. Remember that word that's going to come into play here in John chapter one. But God, the idea is he lives in the tent, the portable temple, he's actually in there, and there's actually a physical manifestation of his presence. Now, all of this stuff being recorded in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and Genesis goes way back, but those next four books in the time of Moses, all of this is probably happening about 1500-ish years before the book of John was written, and uh maybe a little more than 1400 years before the stuff described in the book of John happened. So this is a long time ago, but these stories are still very, very present. I mean, heck, these stories are still playing out on headlines in the news as I'm recording this podcast right now, today. In numbers, we get the account of the people, the descendants of Abraham, led by Moses, wandering around in the wilderness on the Sinai Peninsula, more or less. They're unwilling to go in and take the land that God promised to them, which is Canaan, which is modern-day Israel. They don't want to go. They don't believe, they're not quite sure what to do. But then they get old and start to die off. And this new generation comes along in the final book of the Pentateuch, which is Deuteronomy. And here, Moses is very old and he gives a second giving of the law. He reiterates the law. And this next generation, they don't want to wander anymore. They're ready to trust God and act, and they reconfirm this covenant I keep referencing with God. Well, what is that covenant? I'm going to read you just a little bit of it from the original run here in Exodus 19. The covenant with Abraham is pretty tidy. It happens really in one place, and then it gets restated and expanded a little bit in the second place. The covenant articulated to Moses happens in a bunch of movements throughout the Torah or the Pentateuch. So it's not quite a smoking gun, but this passage right here does a good job of summing it up. Exodus 19, starting in verse 3. Then Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain and said, This is what you're to say to the descendants of Jacob, and what you are to tell the people of Israel. You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. Now, if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites. And they all said, We will do everything the Lord has said. So Moses brought the answer back to the Lord. And then the Lord said to Moses, I'm going to come to you in a dense cloud, so that the people will hear me speaking with you and will always put their trust in you. Now later on in Exodus chapter 20, you get the Ten Commandments. In chapters 21 through 23, you get more of the details of how that covenant that I just read you is actually going to play out. Later on in Exodus, the Hebrew people get distracted for a minute and they start worshiping idols and they re-ratify the covenant. So this cycle repeats quite a bit. And then once again, in Deuteronomy, the final of these five books, there's a re-ratification of that covenant where the next generation, the generation born in the wilderness, recommits to that original deal with God from back at Mount Sinai, back in Exodus. And then finally, they are ready to go in and take the land. And then the next book of the Old Testament is a book of Joshua, which is a book of conquest, wherein Moses' successor, Joshua, leads this new generation into the promised land. They root out and defeat all of these deeply wicked, evil little mini-kingdoms that are scattered around that area. And then after that, the rest of the narrative of the Old Testament focuses very closely on these people, but it isn't flattering. It isn't home teamerism. The Bible is very willing to criticize the descendants of Abraham. In fact, I think they probably get criticized more than they get praised. The prophets constantly criticize the Hebrew people, the Israelites, the Jews, depending on when you're talking about them. So the Bible isn't a real flattering look for the descendants of Abraham, but remember, the covenant promise to Abraham, and particularly as it was fleshed out to Moses, is not a promise to say everything will always work out for you perfectly, no matter what you do. The promise to the people is that God's character will be manifest and all the nations will know that he's the one true God. They're all going to know if you obey, because he's going to bless you in ways that just don't make any sense based on the normal laws of physics and politics. And they're all going to know if you disobey, because he's going to punish you in ways that are just shocking. Either way, this is all going to play out in front of everybody to be a blessing to the nations. All right, we're cruising along pretty well right now, but I'm going to make a programming decision. This is the first time I think I've done this in this season. In previous seasons, I've done this before. Sometimes we just get to roll in. I'm like, I just want to finish this out. I want to sit here and I want to finish it. But also, it doesn't feel right for this episode to be one of those double-length episodes. So we're going to split this one in half. And tomorrow we're just going to pick up right where we left off and keep rolling with this conversation. I think it'll be okay to spread it out over two days. Okay, we've got Finleeman stickers, they are just about here. Those are about to go out to everyone who's supporting at any level in any way. We printed up a little card as well. I don't think we quite have that in, but we should anytime. We've got our mailing list all ready to go. If you still want in, you can still be in on that. We mail a sticker at the end of each season to anybody who's supporting at all at any level in any way, just as a way to celebrate this little season in our lives, to commemorate what we accomplished by going through a book like that to Internet High Five. So those stickers are going out in celebration, honor, and commemoration of what we just achieved and as a way of saying thank you to supporting the program. All right, more on this Old Testament bridging into the New Testament through the covenants and God's relationship with his people next time around. I'm Matt. This is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.