Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:20 Hello and welcome back to unfeigned Christianity, where we are reconciling human experiences with God in his word, so that we can love from a pure heart, a good conscience and sincere faith. It's good to be back with you again this week, we have just completed the mini series on how to read the Bible, looking at how God gave us his message by telling us a story through the Bible and just how this, the Bible is a story. And it's tells one cohesive message from Genesis to revelation, and it all points to Jesus. I'm excited today to have on a prof of mine, Ernesto duke from eternity Bible college, he was my old Testament prof. He was the prophet helped us dive deep, help us dig into the old Testament. It was a, it was some of the most intense study that I've done so far in my college pursuits and definitely the most in-depth Bible study that I've ever done. But I really enjoyed the class, really enjoyed Ernesto as a prof. And I really enjoyed our conversation today, where we look at how to read the old Testament. All right, we are here, live with Ernesto duke. Ernesto is my, a prof of mine from eternity Bible college, which is where I have been pursuing my bachelor's of biblical studies. It's been slow in coming, but, uh, Ernesto is teaches several classes at the school, but you were specifically my old Testament modules prof that kind of the most in-depth classes, old Testament studies at eternity Bible college. So yeah, Ernesto, welcome to unfeigned Christianity. Thanks.
Speaker 0 00:02:20 I just learned right now what the
Speaker 1 00:02:22 Name of it? Unfeigned Christianity unfeigned, as in, um, I was trying, I was trying to get it's. My wife actually came up with the name I was trying to grasp, like you could do real Christianity, but that kind of sounds, you know, like whenever you put real in front of something, it's, it's like you're saying yours is the best or whatever. And then I'm like, one of my favorite podcasts is Preston sprinkles theology and the RA. Yeah. And so I was trying to grasp like that kind of just Christianity, like difficult conversations that, you know, in ways that you're not supposed to talk about them. Okay. Or whatever. And so I went with unfeigned without pretense and yeah,
Speaker 2 00:03:11 I got it. I got not,
Speaker 1 00:03:12 Not fake.
Speaker 2 00:03:13 Yeah. Yeah. You should just call it not fake podcast and that would have been perfect.
Speaker 1 00:03:18 And then it would work out. Yeah, no, it's, uh, it's, it's an honor to have you on here. Um, why don't you give a little intro, you, uh, you teach at attorney Bible college. You have a, we were just talking about it before hitting recording. You have a master's degree from Western seminary. Yup.
Speaker 2 00:03:40 Yeah. So, um, I was actually a student at attorney Bible college. Um, I graduated in 2015, um, and I've wanted to teach my whole life. Um, I know you didn't ask me this phone was to tell you anyways. Um, I wanted to teach since I was like in, uh, elementary school. Um, as I got older, the age group went up and then the, the subjects would change. Like what I was, I think I was like fourth, fifth grade. I thought I'd be like, great, fourth grade teacher. And then like sixth grade, I thought, well, I want to teach fifth grade. Like, I always thought I could teach like one level behind me or whatever. Um, yeah. And I wanted to teach at first I wanted to teach math, then I wanted to teach English and then I wanted, uh, I actually first started going well, okay.
Speaker 2 00:04:24 There's a gap in that. There was a time when I wanted to be a dolphin trainer, uh, like at SeaWorld, like that was my dream. Um, and that didn't work out. Uh, and then I started to go to school to teach Spanish at the time. That's what I thought I'd do. Like at the high school level is teach Spanish or Italian. I find if I had, you know, two language degrees and that like improve my employability at high schools or whatever. Um, and then, um, my dad encouraged me to move to Mexico, so I did. Um, and so I was living in Mexico and that's when I kind of found a passion for biblical studies. Um, I wasn't going to school there, but it was, it was actually a lack of, I was part of a Christian ministry there and kind of what a lack of what I would call now, biblical literacy and just realizing how important it is for, you know, obviously pastors and pastors and preachers and elders and stuff, but then also just like regular Christians to be literate in the Bible.
Speaker 2 00:05:21 Uh, so that's why I went to Aternity and, um, being that Aternity kind of the next logical step was I think I want to be a part of this biblical literacy thing, um, and helping people become biblically literate. Um, and so then, yeah, I went to Western seminary after that, and now I've been teaching I attorney for a while. Um, I'm trying to, since 2017, I think was my first, uh, year. So I don't know what that is. Four or five years. This is the longest job I've ever had in my life. Um, so yeah, I love it. Uh, I love, obviously I love like interacting with students like yourself and other people that I get to have in the module. But, um, what I think I really love about it is that I like that, that original idea that I said, uh, being a part of something that's helping people become literate in this thing that we all believe is like super important and shapes our entire lives and it's foundational for everything that we do. And yet, most people only know, like, I don't know, 20% of it, you know? So, um, and that was kinda my direction towards the old Testament too, was that here's two thirds of the Bible that are super important, according to Jesus and John and Paul and Peter and all these other people. But most of like our faith communities know very little about it. Um, so that's why I kind of lean that direction with my school. Step two.
Speaker 1 00:06:49 Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's interesting to hear. I, um, just for our listeners to get a little bit of context for the school, as far as the on-campus students tend to tends to be fairly young, I came in in 2018. It has, my boys are carrying on outside. I'm not sure if that's too loud or not, but it's
Speaker 2 00:07:10 Okay. Okay.
Speaker 1 00:07:12 Yeah, no, I, um, I was 20. How old was I? I think I was like 28 when I started my college. So I was like one of the older, older, uh, characters there at the, in the student body. Yeah. And so like for me, it was similar in that my wife and I had served in various whether even here in a church plant in Northeast LA, or we had spent some time overseas and I had had some casual, biblical training, but not, sorry, casuals may not, uh, what's a better word. It's unaccredited, whatever.
Speaker 2 00:07:50 Yeah. You add like some super passionate Bible studies for awhile.
Speaker 1 00:07:54 Yeah. Well, and I had even gone to a Bible, like there were formal Bible schools, they just necessarily accredited. And part of the reason why was because they weren't, um, like full semester programs. Right. But it was kind of the same thing, like feeling a need for more biblical literacy, both in my own life, but also in just kind of the, the church and ministry circles that I had circled it. It's not to say that it wasn't there, but that's definitely what, what led me to pursue PVC.
Speaker 2 00:08:32 Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. I, uh, I, one of my roles at eternity now is helping kind of with like marketing and recruiting and where do we get our students to step from? And that, what kind of, what you described right now is what we would say is like our ideal student. And that could be me projecting, like my experience on eternity. So maybe that's a bad, but, um, just this idea that like, there are a lot of colleges out there that provide like the typical college experience of the dorm life and the intermural sports and like the giant beautiful campus and all that kind of stuff. Um, but we're not necessarily trying to do that. We're trying to at a very affordable, you know, non debt way, allow people to know the story really, really well. Um, and, and if that's your goal, then, like, I think we're a great fit, you know, if your goal is like, you know, whatever they say, ring by spring, or like you're trying to find your future spouse or, or if you just try to like have a good time and like get out of your parents' house, like, we're just not, it's not gonna work.
Speaker 2 00:09:33 You know, we have different goals as an institution, so, um, but I really do enjoy it. Um, uh, it's interesting that you talked about the age thing. Our average student now is actually 29. And so I think that as we've kind of morphed into some more distance education and become more global as a school, it's really kind of honed in on those students that like this w what we offer is what they want. Like they're just trying to learn, and they're trying to do it at an accredited, like a legit, you know, undergraduate level, but they're not really into like the frills of like a campus or dorm life or whatever it is. Um, and those students tend to skew a little bit older, you know? Um,
Speaker 1 00:10:18 Yeah. Yeah. Just as a side note, the, the financial aspect of EBC was definitely a big, big thing. The bigger thing that drew me and we'll get into this in a little bit, was your biblical theology approach like that. I had seen that even several years before we chose to go to Bible college, and that was really attractive to me, but the, the affordability of ABC, we have actually paid off debt while going to college, going to Bible college and paying off debt at the same time. So it's, it's been really nice. That's cool. You, uh, you, it would be fun before we hit record here. We were talking about foster care foster care. You got you and your wife Renee have done foster care, and we can talk about that. We can talk about a lot of things with you, but, um, I asked, I asked specifically about old Testament studies. Is that, is that the primary class that you teach at ABC?
Speaker 2 00:11:22 Yeah, so, um, yeah, all of everything that I have formerly taught at eternity has to do with the old Testament. Um, the, the only exception to that is I think I was like a grater or a TA for, uh, for another class at one time. But, um, if you were to take our classes, all of our, our survey levels. So like our level one, you know, old Testament, 1 0 1, um, overview classes, those are all me, you know, in front of a camera. Um, I don't actually teach them online, but I did film all the lecture videos for them. And then the way that the curriculum works, the attorney is your second year. You kind of go back into the old Testament, but at a lot more depth. Um, it's actually, it's technically, it's a three times slower through the old Testament than what you did and survey.
Speaker 2 00:12:09 And that's where I spend actually, most of my teaching time is in that second level. Um, we call them our upper division old Testament courses, but it's, you've already been through the old Testament once at a very like brief overview survey level. And now we're going back through it, but very slowly, um, the irony of it is that once students get into it, they still feel like we're moving too fast through the old Testament. Uh, but it is three times slower than what you did then what somebody did in like an old Testament one-on-one course. And as far as we know, which we do know a lot about this, we're the only school that does that. We're the only undergraduate program that does that. Even a graduate like a master's or MBA programs. Won't, won't do that. Um, for the most part, your exposure to the old Testament and Bible college is a old Testament one-on-one style class, like an overview. And then, um, maybe there might be an elective that you could take, like on the Psalms or on the profits, or like, just, just on the book of Isaiah or something, but the way that we do it, where like you go through it and then you go back through it, like nobody else does that. Um, and so that's, that is kind of cool to be a part of that very unique part of eternity. Um, but yeah, that's where most of my teaching is, is in the module. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:13:24 And w so what you're saying is what we did in the module, the slower pace, the second time, and, and in that slower pace, we read like our, the, the assigned reading was usually to read the same passage, at least like four or five times.
Speaker 2 00:13:42 That's, that's somebody with some, uh, some PTSD speaking. It's definitely like, it's like two or three times, but every once in a while it was like, read this five times. So I think you might be projecting a little bit of your trauma, but, um, but yeah, I mean, it's not even going through it, like one more time. It's like going through it various, like, you know, like the first lesson of Genesis one and two or whatever. Like, I think we have you read through that multiple times in the lesson, and then you're kind of doing like a exit gen, you're doing X to Jesus through every single sentence. And almost every, you know, once we get into the narrative, it's maybe like more paragraphs that you're really working through. Um, but it, yeah, that's, that's not anywhere else, you know, like the, the max amount of credit hours attributed to the old Testament as required credits that I've ever seen at any other school is six credit hours of required. You might pick up electives to have more, um, but attorneys is, um, whatever 18 plus six is 24. So yeah, there's 24. So it's not even, like I said, it's like three times more. It is a lot more in depth, especially with the old Testament. Um, once you get a new Testament studies, a lot more schools will have a heavier emphasis on the new Testament. Um, but for ours to have 24 credit hours dedicated, strictly to old Testament studies is unique, um, amongst biblical studies programs or, uh, undergraduate Bible schools, for sure. To,
Speaker 1 00:15:16 Yeah. Is that like, I'm, I'm not super familiar with other ways, Bible colleges work and so forth, but the whole biblical theology approach to studying the Bible. Is that why you spend so much time in the old Testament or,
Speaker 2 00:15:32 Yeah. Yeah, that's it, that's a great question. Um, that's definitely part of it. Um, I think that, so a lot of schools, uh, this is not like a, a bash on anybody. This is, I'm just trying to explain it how it is, and then why, like we do it a little bit different. Um, in a lot of Bible schools or undergraduate education, there is a biblical education. There's a heavy emphasis on systematic theology. Um, and the idea of going through like doctrines, and this is what we believe, and this is why we believe it. Um, and Aternity actually early in an early iteration of the school, um, like 2004 through 2008 or so that's kinda what it was like, there was old Testament overview, you know, what we call it a Smith survey one and two, but then there was just like a lot of theology, like a lot of systematic theology, um, and kind of in the rewriting of the curriculum, the idea was that systematics are good.
Speaker 2 00:16:32 Uh, systematics are how we get like the doctrines of the holy spirit. And what is salvation? What does the Bible teach about, um, you know, about the gifts of the spirit for today, or whatever, whatever question that you want to insert in there, but the conviction is that good theology is built on a solid biblical theology, good systematics are built on like already tried and true biblical theology. Um, and so that was that's one of the pushes. The other push is to realize that a lot of, uh, systematic theology books, like, you know, like a Wayne Grudem systematics or something like that, um, it is a uniquely, uh, Western discipline to do systematic theology. And we have a conviction as a school that the Bible was written more in the style of narrative. And as a story that unfolds from Genesis to revelation and climaxes in the life, death, resurrection of Jesus, and then the continuing of his church or whatever, or however you want to say that, but a story is not like, uh, uh, a book of systems, right?
Speaker 2 00:17:37 A story is much different. It tell its tells differently. It talks differently, it communicates truth differently. It implies, and, um, you know, asks us to do things in a different way than a system of belief does. Right. Um, one of the common things you'd find in a systematic theology is actually what you won't find, which is what are you supposed to do with all this, right? There's like, you know, 300 pages, that's an exaggeration there's whatever, a hundred pages on this particular doctrine of what you're supposed to believe and why you're supposed to believe it. And all these logical connections for these different verses. Um, but there's nothing in there about like, so then what does that supposed to do with your life or whatever? And, um, and I think that I might not be speaking for the school and I say this, so personally, I just say if that's a huge pitfall of systematics, um, whereas biblical theology, when it's done through the idea of story and like worldview shaping, it implies that, um, that your life should look different and should be shaped different as you continue to like immerse yourself in this story over and over again.
Speaker 2 00:18:44 Um, I just made that last part. So, but it sounds that that is what I, that is what I think. I just, you know, somebody smarter than me, he hasn't said it yet for me to like, quote them on it.
Speaker 1 00:18:54 Yeah, no, that sounds good. That, um, I, as I said, as I mentioned earlier, like having gone through some Bible study and even just my mountain personal Bible study, I wasn't new. Like, I wasn't that like a new believer coming to Bible college and learning the Bible for the first time. But I would say, have discussed like in the last four years have discovered, have had, uh, a feeling of, of excitement about the book, about scripture that I never had in before that growing up, growing up in a Christian home, my dad was a pastor, very familiar with biblical stories, but to see, to discover the Bible as one continuous story has been a huge, uh, impact on me in that way. Growing kind of, uh, I dunno, I guess, biblical terms, a hunger and thirst for God's word or something like that. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 00:20:04 Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:20:06 How maybe just, just to, to clarify. So you come from like, what's your, what's your church tradition background, I guess I didn't ask.
Speaker 2 00:20:17 Um, I am, uh, I'm an Amish Mennonite, like you are, I'm just kidding. Uh, for people who actually know Asher, I didn't know anything about Anabaptist and Mennonites or anything like that. So I just always just projected on him like that he built that microphone with wood, you know, and like mallets or something, which is totally not,
Speaker 1 00:20:37 Yeah. Being the only Anabaptist in class, you would call me a Hutterite Amish Mennonite and not realize like there's drastic differences between. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:20:46 But then know what, I don't think, I don't know if I told you this for one, uh, for a year I worked and did some side work for, uh, Rosedale Bible college, which is like the flagship school for the Mennonite conservative conference or whatever. And they were working with the LMC to like do this thing together. So I learned a lot about your people, you know, and I realized that I was wrong. I was, I was dressed. It was like, when people talk about Africans, you know, but we don't talk about, you know, an entire other continent that way. So I'm sorry, I'm sorry for doing that. Um, yeah. I grew up in, uh, my, uh, my mom came to faith and like, um, what do you call that? Oh, Calvary chapel church. Um, so I went there for a little bit when I was a little little kid.
Speaker 2 00:21:31 Um, and then I, uh, we were part of a non-denominational church. It's now part of the UV free denomination in Northern California. Um, I would describe it as like very theologically conservative. Um, definitely like politically conservative, but unlike maybe some other evangelical, um, things like, I don't think that the politics was like onstage, you know, with everything else. It was very us centered around at least my, my memory, which is probably bad, but my memory around is that it's just very centered around like the 45 minute sermon that happened on a Sunday. Um, and then the Bible study stuff, uh, was, you know, like these great, uh, uh, these great Bible study leaders. Um, when I was a kid, when I was in high school, go ahead and teach her you gentlemen, who, um, what I didn't even realize they were doing is they were teaching me how to do what now I would say is like legit biblical discipleship, which is that this is so much more like this gathering of like a study in a Bible or going through a book is so much more about like building relationship and getting to know each other and eating together and playing together, laughing together.
Speaker 2 00:22:39 And then obviously like, you know, the studying part is a necessary aspect maybe, but it's not like the most important thing that's happening. Um, but that was like, uh, if I can be honest, like that was like an outlier of like the rest of the, what you might call the liturgy of our church, which was very centered around, um, yeah, just like a very theologically conservative understanding of scripture. Um, and I don't necessarily mean that in like a, uh, with a negative connotation, it's just like a very, like, you know, centered the Bible preaching is all that we really need for life. Um, and then, yeah, then I moved to Moscow where, um, I guess, yeah, just skip a little bit for, but being in Mexico, I just saw a very different version of church, you know, like, um, largely uneducated, um, by what we might call educated standards, um, of like the people in the congregation, um, pastor, you know, loved Jesus served him his entire life.
Speaker 2 00:23:42 Um, his dad planted the church. He was faithfully serving every Sunday, but no formal education. Um, and it was very different, you know, very different experience. Um, so yeah, I think by some of the stuff that, you know, I know we're going to eventually get to, like, it was a weird awakening for me too, in the sense of like, uh, oh, I guess I'm using awakening in a positive way, which I think maybe not everyone would say that that transformation or that process have gone through has been positive. But for me, I think it was a discovering of what scripture is, you know, and what it's trying to do. Um, and that really when we're importing, uh, other desires on scripture, um, and we want it to act and react and function in a way that wasn't designed to do. Like, it's just, it's, it's not gonna work out. You know, it's going to, it's going to cause problems. It's gonna fall short. It's going to, and in some ways this is going to be like kind of abusive and, um, irreverent of this thing that we think is so valuable to us, which is the Bible. Right. Um, so yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1 00:24:56 Yeah, yeah. Hey friends, I wanted to tell you about our online course, finding my place in God's story. We just launched it just this week. Enrollment is open for seven days. It's open from January 27 through February 2nd. And it's a five module course. It's structured in such a way where all you have to commit is about 30 to 50 minutes a week. There will be bonus content that you can peruse to enhance your experience of the course, but you don't need to, if you don't have the time in order to get the most out of this course, all you have to commit to is 30 to 50 minutes a week. It's a five module course that looks at how to read the Bible. How do we, what paradigm shifts do we need to make in order to understand the Bible, the way the biblical authors intended it to be understood?
Speaker 1 00:25:41 How do we find the meaning of scripture? What is the story of the Bible? And we walked through the main themes of the Bible to understand the overarching message that God is unveiling through his word. And then the final module looks at our place in God's story. And as a part of that, we do some introspection looking at our own story. What has happened thus far in life and how does it fit into the biblical narrative and what might God have for us moving forward? If this course sounds like something you'd be interested in, I invite you to sign up again, it's open until February 2nd, just visit finding my place in God's story.com. It's really simple www dot, finding my place in God's story.com to learn more about it. We, um, the reason I asked you some of your background is just so my audience can get a little more context, but also like, um, and I've, I've had conversations with other people, other, actually someone in our church I was talking to about this and I made the statement I'm about to make.
Speaker 1 00:26:42 And he was like, well, he doesn't think that's his experience. So maybe this isn't as true as, as I think, but I would say in our Ana in Anabaptist circles, the like Jesus is very much the center. And I think, um, sorry, I'm thinking ahead of myself, obviously, like one of, one of the things that I've discovered in, in my Bible college process is how central Jesus is to, to all of scripture, even in, even in the old Testament. Um, but it played out in churches by more focusing on Jesus's own teachings. You know, the gospel specifically the sermon on the Mount is kind of the pinnacle of, of his teaching and, and neglecting the old Testament to a large degree. Yeah. And so, yeah, that's, that's one of the reasons why I I'm looking forward to this conversation is just to, to dive into obviously, um, the old Testament is two thirds of the Bible, so we can't, we can't do it in 40 minutes or whatever, but, um, you, you mentioned importing our questions, our ideas onto scripture onto the text and what, um, yeah, I guess how, how should we read? So when I grew up growing up, my approach to any part of the Bible would have all been the same, whether it was Genesis, whether it was Leviticus, whether it was Isaiah, whether it was Matthew or Timothy revelation is all you read it. And you obviously knowing that you should read the whole book because it's like the same guy wrote it all usually.
Speaker 1 00:28:45 And so then you read it and you try to figure out what it's saying and what it might mean for your life, right?
Speaker 2 00:28:51 Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:28:53 Is that, um, is that how we should necessarily read the old Testament or how do we read the old Testament in a way so that we don't import our own assumptions and our own questions onto it?
Speaker 2 00:29:08 Yeah. Yeah. Well, um, I think, uh, well let me try and answer. I feel like there's like five questions, so let me try it, let me try it a couple of them, and then we'll see if we can get some other ones. So one of them is that I think that, um, and I don't think you're doing this on purpose or whatever, but there there's a, from my opinion, there's a faulty assumption that we can somehow come to the Bible without our questions and assumptions and cultural perspective and worldview and stuff like that. I do think that some of the more like the literal camp or whatever, like the group of this is kind of how I grew up. Right. But you know, when I read scripture, I read it literally and I take scripture to mean what it literally says, you know? And so if in Genesis one that God says that he created the earth in seven days, and there is no potential reading outside of that happening in seven exact days.
Speaker 2 00:30:10 You know, if, uh, that the numberings when you add up all the numbers in the book of numbers, if it says, you know, but that there's excellent, you know, 750,000 men or whatever it is. Therefore we know that with women and children, there's probably 2 million people or so wandering around the desert. And therefore, I just, I'm so confident that there has, and if you tell me that there's 1.5 million people, but I'm going to tell you that you're a liar and you should get out of my church and you're not allowed to be a part of my life or something like that. Nobody would say that obviously, but like, that's kind of the extremism of like the dedication to the literalism of reading scripture. And, but I think that even that assumption, that scripture ought to tell what we would consider a, like a literal black and white one-to-one truth is an assumption that we're bringing to scripture.
Speaker 2 00:30:58 And that assumption is likely, um, you know, based in our education and our background and our cultural, like how we grew up in our worldview and like what our culture has taught us about things that are true or whatever, or what culture has taught us, that history is supposed to be right. The history is supposed to be, um, like a close to, as accurate as possible accounting of the events in chronological order, the way that they happen without bias or subjectivity. Right. And I don't think that it's wrong for you to recognize that that's the culture you grew up in, and that's what you've been taught that history is supposed to be, you know, um, the big, you know, the big question, the big debate that people always talk about is like the first few chapters of Genesis and like a literal younger creation of like seven literal days, or like, uh, some sort of theistic evolution where, you know, God's in charge of this long evolutionary process or, you know, that God created, you know, that the days or one day is like a thousand years of lower.
Speaker 2 00:32:00 So maybe this is like 7,000 years of a process or something, or 10,000, whatever the math is from songs. Um, and I think that like, it's not wrong and we shouldn't discourage people from recognizing that they have questions about that. Um, but at some point we do have to say that maybe the Bible is not trying to answer the question that you have. It doesn't mean your question's invalid. It doesn't mean that we should dismiss your question as like, well, you're an idiot, or you're just like a Western American that only cares about this. It's like, well, that's not like we grew up, you know, you and I grew up, um, and probably most of your audience, like in the wake of Darwinism and like humanism and this idea of like this theory of evolution being presented and then accepted, and then obviously like put into curriculums and things like that.
Speaker 2 00:32:50 Like, you know, the, the Bible of Genesis one and two was written so many thousands of years before Darwin was even like a, a thought, right. And so it's not necessarily wrong that because of your cultural context, because of the water that you swim in, like you're concerned, like it's this Darwin guy, right. But when you, when then when then you say that I'm going to look to a, a document that tells a story that was written, you know, by whatever estimates, however, many thousand years of thousands of years ago into a different culture at different people at different time, a different place. And that it's going to answer my questions as an Angeleno in, you know, here living in the 21st century. That's um, yeah. I just think that's the unfair part, but having the questions is totally legit. And I think, especially as like, you know, I'm working with students or people in my church, and we're like thinking through this stuff, I never want to, I never want to tell somebody that, that their question or their, their, what they really want from scripture that like that it's illegitimate.
Speaker 2 00:33:57 But I think that it's at some point, um, personal opinion, at some point you have to adopt the perspective that the Bible is a cultural document. Um, I dunno how to say this the right way without getting somebody angry at me. So I don't mean every word that I'm saying perfectly exactly what I'm saying, but it is a document that was written to a people in a place over a period of time. And I am not any of those, right. I am not the one who wrote it. I'm not the original recipients of it, and I don't exist anywhere in the place or time that it was written to. And so it's a, I'm very much removed from the original intentions and writings of this document, um, or these multiple documents or these scrolls that are then put together and piece together and turned into this thing that we have that we call the Bible.
Speaker 2 00:34:48 Right. Um, and so, yeah, I think that, you know, the, the first thing that I usually say when people, you know, when I'm working, working with, when I'm, you know, talking with a new believer or somebody who's like trying to study scripture, especially the old Testament, maybe they've been a believer for 10 years and they never read the first part of their Bible. I think the asking that question, like, you know, what is this document? What is this section of scripture trying to do? And what is it, you know, what are some of the cultural assumptions of the original audience that maybe are trying to be that scriptures working with within, or are questions that the original audience would have had that it's trying to answer? And if that happens to line up with the question that I have, the bass scripture, that's great, but if it doesn't, I might need to go to the greater church family, to discernment, discipleship, church history, to try and figure out, you know, what the, what the answer to my questions are.
Speaker 2 00:35:46 Um, and I think that that's, uh, when we sell the Bible as like a, um, uh, fix all your problems, all the, uh, what is it? Uh, that's it, what's that acronym? Oh, Bible basic instructions before leaving earth. Right. If you heard that, I've definitely seen like a meme or 17,000 of those. And like, when we sell the Bible that way, especially to a new believer or to someone who's just starting to read scripture for the first time. I just so disingenuous in the sense of like, if you think that this is going to like, function, like an instruction manual that your vacuum comes with, but you're going to be really disappointed when the manual tells you one thing in this part, in a different thing in this part. And then it tells you like, Hey, that thing we were doing before, and now we're doing something different.
Speaker 2 00:36:36 You're like, oh, so I got to, you know, take apart this whole thing that I built before. Like, it just doesn't work that way. Right. But, and that's like a silly, probably a stupid analogy of the vacuum or whatever, but what do you do with people's lives? Like you're kind of messing people up, right. Because most people initially come to scripture, this is anecdotal, but I think it's true. But I think most people initially encounter scripture on their own for the first time in some sort of like crisis, at least in our culture. Right. And that might mean that you grew up in the church and you read the Bible and stuff like that. But the time that you like sit down on your own outside of your dad telling you, this is what we're doing for Sunday school, but you're like, I, I want to read scripture it's because you're trying to find something, right. You're trying to discover something you're searching for more meaning or something like that. And I do think the Bible offers that, but maybe in a way that's completely, it needs, it requires you to like alter your expectations of what you might get out of it, uh, when you approach it. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 00:37:41 Yeah. No, that makes perfect sense. Yeah. I think, um, as you were talking that like when we're approaching scripture as an instruction manual, or when, when we initially came to it because of a crisis, and if we continue coming back to it because of crisis, or we're looking for answers to questions, there's huge chunks of, especially the old Testament. Right. That does that. Isn't set out to answer specific questions. And so it gets really boring. And you wonder if, if like, what's the point of it, or even, is there something wrong with you? Cause you're not just like getting the magnificent truth out of it. Right. And for me it was kind of freeing to realize like, oh, you know, most of the Leviticus should be read through quickly probably. And in the context of all the other, what is going
Speaker 2 00:38:34 On in the toilet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like, to, uh, I love the Bible projects, like short one sentence summary is that Leviticus is a, like a thumb man. I'm gonna mess it up now, but it's like basically like a, a priest, a priestly user manual or something like that. Right. Like a lot of Leviticus is obviously super interesting to like why the priests are doing this and how that goes back to creation. And God's initial design for like his image bearers to be stewards of the earth and all the garden image imagery within the tabernacle and all that stuff. But another thing that's happening is that it's just trying to tell this specific group of people have to do their job. Right. You know? Um, so yeah, you could be super disappointed if you, uh, if you go to Leviticus expecting like this life-changing verse, which might happen.
Speaker 2 00:39:26 Um, and that's the hard thing though, you know, like some people, okay, this is a real story. Um, why would I lie and make up a story, but this is a real story. Um, cause I definitely used to approach scripture more like that style or whatever. Um, and when I was in, uh, junior high, I think it was maybe I was in high school, but I was like helping out with the junior high youth group or ministry. Um, I was asked to teach and the way that I chose, what bursts I was going to teach from is I literally closed my eyes and thumbed through the Bible and just found a verse and whatever it landed on, I preached fabrics. And I remember, but the first time that I'd preach at that church in that ministry was the flood story. And so it wasn't just one verse.
Speaker 2 00:40:10 It was like the whole story or whatever. And like, no joke, I couldn't have done better. Right. Like I literally there's somebody I know today, like I changed their life that day, you know, it's just like it's or I guess the spirit did, but like, it was like, I, you know, I had in my head that, well, this works like you just pray and you just open the Bible and you point to it. Um, and so then the next time I was asked to breech, I did the same exact thing and it was, I could not have failed any harder than I did that second time. And, you know, I think you could get like a cosmic level and say that God was trying to teach me something, which is probably true, but there's also just like this. I thought I found something that worked and, um, and I think it's like important to recognize it.
Speaker 2 00:40:56 Like this girl's life was changed from that moment for the like today, you know, 25 years, 20 years later, like that's what I did was not 12 years old, whatever. It was 15 years later, uh, like her life is different because of that day. And so it worked, but I guess that's another, um, kind of like paradigm too, or, uh, like a, uh, an angle to look at it from is that like the Bible is not to be approached like with utilitarian lenses, like just because it works to accomplish whatever you want it to do. Doesn't mean that that's what it was designed to do. And it doesn't mean that you're not like misusing scripture when it, when it does that thing. Even if that thing has what you might think is like a positive outcome to it. Um, it doesn't negate the positive outcome, but it does tell you something about the process that should probably be altered. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 00:41:52 Yeah. No, that makes sense. So what, um, like how do we, as someone, does everybody have to go to Bible college to read the old Testament? Like, should you not go to Bible class? Should you not read the old Testament? So you go to Bible college and take yeah. Old Testament backgrounds and, and old Testament module and or how, how do we, how, what are ways we can approach the old Testament and, or even resources that can help us? Um, yeah. What, what do you tell people when you're discipling them? And
Speaker 2 00:42:27 So I tell people two things, um, and one of them is a story and I'm trying to decide if I should tell her or not. I think I'm going to, and if it was a bad idea, you know, only the Anabaptist will get mad at me. So I think it's fine. Um, so let me, let me intro it this way. Um, you and I have actually talked about this in person in class before. I don't know if you remember this, but you asked me a question that, uh, you changed my life. Just getting, I mean, you kind of did, you've asked me a question that I have not figured out and I've been thinking about and read a lot. I've read a lot on since this one random question you asked me one day in class, it was that same question. And it was something along the lines of, you said like, well, why, why do I have to go to Bible college?
Speaker 2 00:43:19 And why do I have to be here, you know, nine hours a week. This is when we were meeting in person for nine hours a week and doing 18 plus hours of work in between those meetings. And like, how come it takes so much, you know, for me to know, for me to be able to understand, you know, what I'm reading in scripture. Right. Um, and so I learned that there's this whole field of study that's called the perspicuity of scripture. Um, and the, or I don't know. Yeah, it's a field of study. And the premise of it is basically the exact question you're asking is how much, or what, what is it that an individual can perceive, can understand in a raw, plain reading or understanding of scripture? Because obviously like a lot of what we talk about in an upper division, old Testament course, like we're talking at a level, um, not to like talking to like a demeaning way, but there's a reason that as a school, we make sure that students take hermeneutics tests, every one and two and old Testament backgrounds before you even touch the module class.
Speaker 2 00:44:29 And it's because, um, like I, I usually like liken it to like language learning. Um, you know, like I speak Spanish as well as a, as English and I can help somebody get better at their Spanish, but if somebody is like fairly fluent or they're like conversational, and they're just trying to improve their overall Spanish skills, we're going to have a very different conversation and it's probably going to be in Spanish. Right. That's how we're going to improve things. Um, whereas if you're like an absolute beginner, like we've just got to start with like Hola, you know, like that's, that's where we have to start. Right. But we're not going to be able to have the same conversation. And this idea of like the crispy curity of scripture is that there is, I don't know if it's a, if it is a Western Protestant, um, if it came along with like the priesthood of all believers and, you know, a printing press and all that kind of stuff, or if it's like a uniquely evangelical thing, I kinda think it's a uniquely non liturgical thing, um, where we have this idea that like anyone anywhere with very little effort can understand what the Bible says at any time, you know, you just got to pick it up and read it.
Speaker 2 00:45:39 And whenever the plain reading of scripture is like, that is what scripture means for whatever. Um, and I, I guess, like, there's a, so this is why I've struggled with this, right? Um, the folks on the neighborhood that I lived in and folks that are in our church, you know, some of them, dear brothers and sisters, like they only have maybe like a fourth grade level education. Right? Um, most, most folks here are literate, but it's going to be hard to like engage certain parts of scripture. And, and so, um, you know, I, I would never want to say that in order for you to know the heart of God, that you need a master's degree in biblical, you need six years of formal rigorous education or an, an order to understand the heart of God. Or some people might even go further. Like you need a PhD in biblical studies.
Speaker 2 00:46:32 And even then you need a PhD in new Testament, which means you can kind of understand whatever you wrote your dissertation on, but you don't really understand, like, you know, what's going on in Joshua or something like that. And I'm not going to articulate it the same way he did, but NT Wright gave the best answer that I've heard on this, which is basically a bit like it comes back to like the purpose of scripture. Um, and that if the purpose of scripture is to introduce you to a Messiah who has given his life for you, who has defeated the powers of evil, and who offers you an invitation to be a part of his kingdom, then any person who is literate in the language that they're reading the story of scripture and can get that right. It's very much, and he probably said it more eloquently than that.
Speaker 2 00:47:18 And maybe I said something heretical just now. So I wasn't trying to, but you can get that, but can you really understand, you know, one of my favorite books of the old Testament is judges and it's because, um, this idea that judges is definitive propaganda literature, like it's written in order for its readers to recognize that a descendant of Benjamin or someone from the tribe of Benjamin, who is tall and howdy, I don't ever use that word in real English, but, you know, saw is not a good leader. And that actually the Benjamin Knights have some corruption going on and that you always chosen the house of Judah to lead his people, to restore peace and Shalom amongst his, amongst his nation. Right. And that the whole purpose of judges is doing that. It's not like this weird story with Samson, or like, you know, killing somebody with a dope bone or something like that.
Speaker 2 00:48:08 Like, those are all stories that are really leading to this bigger thing of like being, yeah, Davidic propaganda literature. Like it's, it's trying to move the audience in a way to speed David supportive and not SAALT supportive. Um, and are you going to get that the first, second, third, fourth, 75th time that you read scripture all on your own? No way. Like, there's no way you're going to get there. Um, but is that necessary to like, be a part of a kingdom? Absolutely not. Right. But is it necessary to understand what's happening in judges and why the book of judges is written and how it fits in the bigger story and how it, um, how it teaches us about different ways that the Bible communicates truth? Like, I think that's all necessary for that, right. Is it necessary to like, um, in order for someone to be saved?
Speaker 2 00:49:02 Well, I mean, this is a controversial statement, but like, you have to define what that means, right? Like, cause the Bible, it doesn't seem like scripture is super concerned about like getting people to have like basic instructions before leaving earth. Like that idea. It seems like scripture super concerned with people giving their allegiance to Jesus and becoming part of the kingdom. Um, and, and not as heavily concerned on that edit thing. So, um, so yeah, that's the basic, uh, I could tell the story if you want, I guess I kind of took a long time to intro it, but we're good. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you want to tell the story, go for it. Well, yeah, I'll tell it. I'll try and tell it real short, because it's just a funny story. Um, and it has to do with this idea of like, oh, sorry, let me say this.
Speaker 2 00:49:47 Um, I'm kind of all over the place. That's um, one of the things that I say that my job is at eternity is, uh, I'm not necessarily like a professor of old Testament. I'm trying to convince people to listen to other people that have spent their entire lives studying this particular thing, whatever it is, and not just their individual lives. Like they've been in a community of people who have studied this for centuries and you should probably listen to them because your own like individual findings or interpretations, or even opinions about what something means. Like they might be valuable. They might be right on or whatever, but there's like a whole community of Jesus followers who have dedicated their collective, you know, decades, centuries of study to this. And we need to learn to listen to them as we contextualize those truths into our own life.
Speaker 2 00:50:41 Right. Um, so my story, my quick story is that one day I was driving with my in-laws with their family. Have I told you this story before about the snow now? I'm not sure I'm driving with my in-laws and, um, it starts to precipitate and what's hitting the window is like, you know, if you ever seen like where it's like kind of icy and rain and snow or something like that. So then this discussion arises in the minivan of eight people. Like, what is this called? And it becomes a pretty like heated discussion around what this is called. And some people want to call it sleep. Some people want to call it a wintry mix. Some people want to call it popcorn, snow. Some people are calling it hail or hail and snow. And we get through the whole discussion just to conclude that nobody knows whatsoever what we're talking about.
Speaker 2 00:51:34 Oh, I should preface. This is like pre iPhone days. Right? So no, w within just like solve it with a Google, right. We're just driving this used to happen by the way, for people who don't know this, you used to have questions and not answer them. Right. And so we were driving pretty far. Like, I think it was like a four hour trip. And so then about 20 minutes later, it was close enough to where I remember it being like almost immediately afterwards, 20, 30 minutes later, somebody in the car asks a question. That's kind of like a Bible question, but I don't remember what the question was, but it was something, it was something that like is very Bible 1 0 1 old Testament survey. It was an old Testament question. I do remember that. And so, um, somebody asked the question and then one of my in-laws kind of chimes in and says something that is like, you know, way over here or whatever.
Speaker 2 00:52:24 And then like, somebody else says something that's way over here. And there's kind of this discussion. But then my mother-in-law who knows that I've gone to school for six years about this thing, she just says, oh, well, what do you think are any? And so then I gave my explanation. I'm like, oh, actually, you know, everybody knows that this is the answer. So whatever we're talking about. And then my, at the time, like 13 year old brother-in-law says, yeah, I don't know about that. And he goes off like on his whole thing or whatever. And, uh, you know, to this day, I think he's, he was just being a kid. Right. But, but the thing was is that like in that car, his opinion was like a legitimate, acceptable opinion about what this particular Bible question was. Right. And my comparison is that let's say we were driving and it started to wintry mix, sleet, hail, snow, whatever.
Speaker 2 00:53:14 And I had a master's degree in meteorology. Right. And I even worked for a local news station where I would deliver the news regularly to thousands of people. And there was a discussion that arose about, well, we call this and I said, oh, actually this is called sleep because it has whatever properties sleep has. I can almost guarantee you that the conversation would have been over at that point. Right? Like somebody with a master's in meteorology, who's a weatherman told us what this precipitation is called, so we can be done with it. Right. But something about like American evangelicalism, that was like a microcosm here in this minivan, driving on the five in Oregon, it was just like this picture of like, oh, well, this is how, this is how we think scripture works. Right. You've got people who've spent a lot of time and money and dedicated to things.
Speaker 2 00:54:03 And they're telling you that this is not like a disputed thing or a longly disgusting. There's not like multiple sides within academia about it. But like, here's what the general consensus is about this issue, about whatever, you know, creation or numbers or judges, or like that, you know, the timing of the exile, the conquest or whatever you want it to be. And then people just go, no, not true. You know, it's, it's, it's a weird, like, uh, I don't know. It's just a weird, it's a weird world to be in. I think it relates to this idea of like the prosecuting of scripture in that while you're in the car. And you're looking at the precipitation, our tradition has told us that everyone in the car has an equally valid opinion about what we're going to call this. And I'm definitely not trying to go back to like the pre reformation days where only certain religious elite people have access to like the right answers.
Speaker 2 00:54:58 But there's just something to be said about the fact that a lot of people, a lot of Jesus loving Bible, believing Christians, who've given their legions to king Jesus who have taken decades to study and think about this stuff. This is what they think. And I don't know that we really have the right to just right away just say like, well, no, I think it's called wintery mix, you know? Um, but that's how it works. Like in most of our churches. And unfortunately it's because sometimes like when leadership, um, you know, pastors and preachers and elders and deacons, like when they present this particular view, um, that, you know, whatever, it might be in a confident way that this thing is called winter remix and anybody who calls it sleep is an outlier and should be ousted from our church. But when everyone else, like all the meteorologists in the country are calling it sleep.
Speaker 2 00:55:54 Um, it's, you know, it's either that they're all crazy or you're a little bit off, you know, and which, I don't know. I don't know. Sorry. We can, we can go onto something else, but, um, well, yeah, go ahead. I was just saying, I, this has happened like three or four times in the last few months that I, I don't realize how passionate I am about this particular subject. I think it's just because of, you know, working at the school and like, I don't claim to have answers on everything. Um, but you know, I did, you know, but I did go to school for a long time and this is my job. Right. You know, I dunno, like what do I think that should matter? Some, it doesn't need to be like the end, all like, well that whatever an Esther says or whatever to Mackie says auntie right. Or whoever like, okay, that's what we all have to believe. Um, but it should, it should matter for something, you know? Um, yeah.
Speaker 1 00:56:52 Yeah. Hey listeners, I wanted to take a moment and talk to you about the unfeigned Christianity membership program. If you've been enjoying this conversation, particularly this interview with Ernesto duke on how to read the old Testament, you may be interested in learning about the unfeigned Christianity membership program as a part of the membership program. You receive expanded versions of podcasts, interviews such as this. So for instance, with Ernesto in this episode, we're simply looking at how to read the old Testament, but we spent 40 minutes diving deeper in how to understand old Testament law and how to understand biblical prophecy and the members of unfeigned Christianity on Patrion will receive access to the whole episode. That includes that conversation as well. Another thing that members get is two deep dive essays a month that look at something Christians are wrestling through right now. So for instance, the construction has been something that many are talking about and processing.
Speaker 1 00:57:48 And so in a few days, I'm going to be releasing a deep dive essay that looks at is deconstruction destructive and kind of wrestling through what leads people to deconstruct and is it right or wrong to deconstruct? And how can we deconstruct in a way that actually leads to something better than just kind of negativity or, or even another posture towards it is just to avoid it. Like no, any deconstruction is bad. And, and so that's an example of a essay that's coming up. We have a lot of essays already published that you'll receive access to such as, is it wrong for Christians to masturbate thinking through the black lives matter movement? What Robbie's fall tells us about how we handle brokenness in the church and many more types of deep dive essays is this sounds like something you're interested in visit www.asherwhitmer.com forward slash member and become a member today it's as cheap as $10 a month.
Speaker 1 00:58:42 That gives you access again to expanded podcast episodes, as well as deep dive essays twice a month and everything that's in the archives. Again, the address is www.asherwhitmer.com forward slash member. And I don't know, I don't know what the, if you've changed the module as much since I, since I went through them a couple of years ago, but, um, one of the things that I really appreciated and you were, I think one of the first prompts that I had that really did this intentionally, I know the school kind of frames frames itself this way, but like the school frames themselves, ABC friends and sales is not telling you what to believe, but, um, I'm inviting you or trying to get you to ask the questions and have conversations about the texts that you're, but then you, um, different periods throughout. I can't, I know this was with Genesis one when we first got going, but different parts throughout the, I think even like some of the conquests and like did they've God command GeneSight and like some of those questions you had us watch other lectures, other yeah. Well preachers or scholars that gave competing viewpoints on it. And it was, it was all part of that process of what you're saying, like learning how to listen to others who have spent their life. Yeah. Life studying this. And, um, yeah. As well as the whole concept of at least the Torah or most of the Bible being like, um, Jewish meditation literature, where you're supposed to spend lots of time in it. Right.
Speaker 2 01:00:22 Yeah. The idea of like, I literally just told my students this yesterday in our discussion was like, when you approach a very intense time of learning scripture, which is what Bible college seminary, or even like your own personal, like I'm going to spend a certain amount of time every day studying Isaiah or whatever it is a, uh, I think it's an American, um, or maybe just a Western education concept to think that the end result of this is that we'll have complete mastery over whatever it is. Um, when re like, that's just, that's not how scripture is designed to work. Like really what you should be doing is teaching yourself how to better understand or better reread this section of scripture. Right. Um, but with the, with the intention, the ultimate intention that I am going to continue to reread and restudy and revisit this one section of scripture for my entire life.
Speaker 2 01:01:23 And every time I do it ought to, like, I ought to approach it with new found wisdom from other parts of scripture that I've been, or just like life, you know, like I, a lot has changed in how I read scripture now that I have kids, you know, that was totally different before I had kids. And I am sure that, you know, once I've have adult children, who've been through their teen years and then, you know, young adult years. And maybe if I have grandchildren, like, it'll change a kid where, you know, uh, yeah. Um, but even just seeing like that whole thing we were talking about with judges, um, I think it's, you'd have to be a genius to see that the first time you read judges, but you read it four or five times, and you have people who dedicate their life to reading and understand this book, kind of give you some keys and hints and we'll, do you see what's happening here?
Speaker 2 01:02:13 And we're solid from what happens in the last chapters. And where's the trial, that's really messing things up and what's going on with Levi in her concubine. She wants to stay at a pagan city, but he wants to stay in Gibeah and people just start asking these questions and you realize like, oh yeah, there's a lot more going on here that I, that I never got. Um, you know, and that kind of goes back to like that what you were saying the very beginning where the, he knew a lot of Bible stories, but you didn't necessarily understand the story of the Bible and how it all fits together. Um, so like, yeah. And this discussion of like how to read scripture, how do we approach the old Testament? Like, I think that if nothing else just start with the, with the conviction, then I'm going to read the whole thing, whatever it is, whatever you're reading, read the whole thing.
Speaker 2 01:03:02 Um, I do these Bible assessments where I'm like assessing biblical literacy for potential missionaries and 95% of the time when we talk about the book of judges, when I asked them, what is judges 17 through 21 about, you know, judges, the story of Samson ends in chapter 16. So what 17 through 21 about nothing. Like, they've never read it, right. They've only experienced judges through the individual stories of the judges and that little arcs, the story arcs of the judges, but never realized like, oh, this thing has an epilogue. And it's, you know, it's, um, it's through narrative tying, like the whole message of the judges together or whatever. Um, and that, and I, I truly do think it's because their, their experience with judges is like a Bible study where they read the story of Deborah and Barak or of a, or of Samson. And they've never sat and like just went judges one through 21 and let me like really digest the whole thing. Um, so yeah.
Speaker 1 01:04:05 Yeah. That's good. I believe you.
Speaker 2 01:04:11 Uh, all right. So here, uh, since we're ending up, this is my last, my last thing that I'll say about the old Testament. I often Jew, well, I mean, I could say more at another time, but often joke. And it is, it is like every other good joke, you know, there's some truth to it, but I often joke that I think it is hilarious and quite despicable that churches spend most of their time teaching from the appendix, right? Like if you've got this, not just the new Testament, so I might have, I might have revised my answers since last time I talked about this, but I feel like that Veep pinnacle the climax of the story and the, almost the end of the story, if you will, is, um, is the end of acts, right? But you've got this entire story that's leading and leading to the son of David, the descent, you know, the one who sit on the throne forever, the seed of Abraham, like that serpent crusher for Genesis 13 and all these different things.
Speaker 2 01:05:12 And that he's finally born in Matthew and Luke and Matthew and Luke make like a really, really big point to connect Jesus to those particular people. And John makes a really, really big point to connect Jesus, to like the eternal law as to like the one who's existed forever. Right? And then they tell the story of this guy, Jesus of his ministry and all these different things he does to live consistently within the story. And at the end of his life, he dies. He's resurrected, which is also like what we're looking for servant songs, uh, as a 53 type of type of thing, serpent crusher, just through 15 type of thing. And then Jesus even sits down with these people on the road, on the road to a mess. And he's like, Hey, let me tell you how this whole thing, like, it was all going into writing this point right here.
Speaker 2 01:05:56 Right. And then you've got like the last scenes of a movie scene of the climax of the movie is usually happening. I'm just using movie terms, right. It's usually happening maybe 10, 15 minutes before the end of the movie. And those 10, 15 minutes is the book of acts. Like, but it's, it's almost like begging for a sequel. Right? It'd be, all of us have seen movies like this, where you think that it's winding down and then some things start to happen. And you're like, oh, dang, like, Moore's going to go up right now. Then the, you know, close scene, right. That's the end of that. And then you've got the letters that are ranged in, uh, they're arranged and how long they are for the most part, I think. Right. And so, and what are all these letters doing? They're trying to explain to you how the climax of the movie, not just you, but they're trying to explain to their audience how the climax of the movie is, how it's actually the same movie as the AZ, or let's just use the button.
Speaker 2 01:06:53 The book like this book of the gospels is actually the same exact story of this giant trilogy for our profits writings that have shaped our people and shaped this particular people forever. And I know you think it's different and I know you think it's like some weird one-off, you know, star wars reboot or whatever, but it's not, it's the same exact story. And it's like, this is actually the climax of the whole thing. And that's what Paul's doing. That's what John's doing. That's what Peter's doing there. They're talking to different groups of people and trying to convince them that this trilogy is related to this, you know, climax right here of the gospels. Right. And then you have an epilogue it's called revolution revelation, right. And the epilogue kind of ties into all this different stuff. But let me just ask you and everyone who listened to this far, like what book would you ever open up and immediately flip to the appendix, the tendencies and read Romans Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, and all these different appendixes are really, what's the point of an appendix it's because there was something earlier that we didn't really understand.
Speaker 2 01:08:00 And so now I want to take like, you know, a few paragraphs or pages to try and help you understand it. Like Paul's, you know, Magnum Opus to the Romans is really just like, Hey, look at Jews and Rome and Gentiles, like, okay, there's something going on. And let me tell, you know, and so much old Testament imagery and anybody who's a Roman scholar is going to hate like all of this. And I'm saying, right. Cause obviously it's more complicated than that, but here's my, my dying plea for people is that we would, we would think it was so silly to treat any other story, the way that we treat the Bible, where you spend all your time in the dependencies, right. You're just, and they're, they're valuable. And unlike other appendices and different books, you should actually probably read them and try and understand this very unique contextualized thing that this person is trying to explain to a particular group of people.
Speaker 2 01:08:49 Like maybe you might find a case study at the end of a book about something like that. But all of that won't make any sense if you don't know the whole story, right. Why, why is this person talking about this? Why did they explain to that? Why is, why is the author, if he was trying to convince me that Jesus is better than Melchizedek the Moses at the Angeles? Like, why does that matter? You know? Well, it matters because at the entire story ahead of time, right. Um, so maybe that's not as big of a problem with the Anabaptist church. You said that folks usually send the thing in the gospels, but even then that's just like watching, uh, uh, let's like, let's like, if you're doing like the Lord of the rings trilogy, and all you do is rewatch the scene of the re the king returning and again, dolphin and whatever that King's name is.
Speaker 2 01:09:34 I can't remember all of it, like destroying all the orcs and the evil army. And then like the last few minutes of that movie. And next time you're like, yo, you guys want to watch Lord of the rings. Yes, let's do it. And so you just start the third movie at the last 20 minutes and they just replay that over and over again, like, obviously it's epic and it's cool, but it really doesn't make any sense if you haven't done, like all this stuff ahead of time. It's not, it's not that significant. The get off comes back glowing white, or that this king came back from the dead with the army of the undead to conquer the powers of evil. Like none of that means anything except for just like a cool story. If you don't know what came before in the, in the CS.
Speaker 1 01:10:17 No, that's really good. That's really helpful. I think. Is it you, or I can't remember if it's in the old Testament class or if it was in the, in the gospel class, but where somebody had us read the passage where Jesus talks about like what a true Jew is. And then I, and there's like eight or nine references, direct references to the old Testament. Maybe specifically the Torah that you would never get. If you're just reading the like, Jesus, Jesus, isn't just reciting something new. He's referring back to think his listeners would have been very familiar with. Right. We aren't missing.
Speaker 2 01:10:56 I think what's crazy is that, um, you have, we have to understand that what primarily shapes and I might get in trouble with like Uber funny people, but what primarily shapes the identity and the mission and the life and the ministry of Jesus and Paul and Peter and John is the old Testament. That's the primary shaper of what it means that Jesus is the Messiah. The son of David who has come to announce the year of Jubilee, you know, like all of this is language and character and boundaries that are shaped by the old Testament. And so why the worlds, we think that Paul needs all of that to shape his thinking. Peter needs all of that to shape and understand the life of Jesus. John needs that to understand all of that, but we don't like we wait, what's the spiel to get it right.
Speaker 2 01:11:47 We'll just build a, read the life of Jesus, Matthew, that, you know, connection to the different genealogies or like what it means to be a true Jew or even like the sermon on the Mount. Or you've heard it said this way, but I sit, but today I sat, like why do we think that we're going to be able to do that if Paul and Peter and John and Jesus himself, um, I want to be careful but needed to be shaped by the pages of the old Testament in order to understand truly what it is that it meant to be the Messiah, the son of man. Right. So I don't know. You're not better than Jesus. That's all I gotta say.
Speaker 1 01:12:21 Yeah, that's good. I like your revision of the whole appendix thing. I think the first time you said it, you, you referenced the new Testament as being the appendix. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 2 01:12:33 I definitely got did. No, not just the new, yeah. The whole new Testament. And I used to say something like, I think I used to say as like the gospels were like the epilogue, but I think I was just trying to like, get a reaction from people. I think I knew that, but the ax is a more re that's. That's the newer revision like Matthew through acts, um, is where I really think like, this is the pinnacle of the story and acts is like that last 15 to 20 minutes, that's begging for more to happen, but it just kinda ends, you know? Um, and then all these letters are, yeah, they're dependencies, it's appendix 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Um, and that's, that's not a way to think about, let me be super clear. That's not a way to think about how to approach those books. Like you shouldn't approach Galatians as an appendix.
Speaker 2 01:13:22 Like there's a whole other conversation you could have with somebody else for like how to approach the letters to the new Testament when you're reading them. It's a way to understand like where these letters fit in the meta-narrative of scripture and the, where they fit is right here at this very, very, very small part at the very end. Right. But there's so much that's happened up, you know, up until that point. And it's not just like filler or like interesting to Jewish people or messianic Jews, like it is necessary for all of us to be able to do this part. You gotta, you gotta have some of this in that.
Speaker 1 01:13:55 Yeah. Yeah. I like the appendix analogy in that. Yeah. It's crucial to knowing the rest of the story in order to get why this is even a question or why this is a part. Yeah. Right.
Speaker 2 01:14:08 For sure.
Speaker 1 01:14:10 Yeah. Well,
Speaker 2 01:14:10 Hey, thank you.
Speaker 1 01:14:12 It's like five 20. You were, you were going to go to the store at five
Speaker 2 01:14:15 O'clock. Yeah, I will. Yeah. Luckily the store closes at nine, so we've got plenty of time to go. Yeah.
Speaker 1 01:14:23 Yeah.
Speaker 2 01:14:24 Thank you. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 01:14:27 I will, uh, I highly recommend EBC. I, at this point I am not getting anything for recommending UBC, so yeah, like, uh, this is not a, uh, what's the term when you recommend something that paid sponsorship, but it's just, uh, my experience. I really, really appreciate it. The school really appreciate you Ernesto and your, your, um, effort and work put into walking us through the old Testament.
Speaker 2 01:14:56 No problem. And I love it, you know, kind of gave my life kind of gave my life to it. So an important thing to me.
Speaker 1 01:15:05 Yeah, exactly. All right. Well thank you. Ma'am
Speaker 0 01:15:10 Yeah.
Speaker 1 01:15:26 Um, faith Christianity is brought to you by our members at Patrion as a part of the membership program. You receive two deep dive essays a month and expanded versions of all our podcasts interviews. If you would like to become a member visit www.asherwhitmer.com forward slash member on fake Christianity podcast is also a part of the two networks, the restorative faith collective, where we have conversations about race perspectives and relationships, and it back this context to learn about more articles and podcasts visit www dot restorative faith, collective.org. The second network is the kingdom outpost, where we talk about what it looks like to live as Jesus nation in today's world for more podcasts and articles, visit kingdom outpost.org. Thanks for listening.
